She is no idol to us, but we worship her memory as the most saintly thing that was ever given us. Her name is immortalised, both by her own surpassing goodness, and by the love of a whole people for her--a love that will survive through generations, and give a magic and a music to those simple words, "Sister Dora," long after we shall have passed away. There was little we could ever do--there was nothing she would let us do--to relieve the self-imposed rigours of her life; but we love her in all sincerity, and now in our helplessness we find a serene joy in the knowledge that to her, as surely as to any human soul, will be spoken the divine words: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto Me." In Sister Dora, surely we have the highest type of the Christian life, the inner and hidden life of the soul, the life that is hid in God, combined with that outer life devoted to the doing of good to suffering and needy humanity. In the cloistered nun we see only the first, and that tends to become self-centred and morbid; it is redeemed from this vice by an active life of self-sacrifice. I cannot do better than, in conclusion, quote from the last letter ever penned by Sister Dora: "It is 2.30 A.M., and I cannot sleep, so I am going to write to you. I was anything but 'forbearing,' dear; I was overbearing, and I am truly sorry for it now. I look back on my life and see 'nothing but leaves.' Oh, my darling, let me speak to you from my deathbed, and say, watch in all you do that you have a single aim--_God's_ honour and glory. 'I came not to work my own work, but the works of Him that sent me.' Look upon working as a privilege. Do not look upon nursing in the way they do so much nowadays, as an art or science, but as work done for Christ. As you touch each patient, think it is Christ Himself, and then virtue will come out of the touch to yourself. I have felt that myself, when I have had a particularly loathsome patient. Be full of the Glad Tidings, and you will tell others. You cannot give what you have not got." FOOTNOTES: [A] A Yorkshire expression for heavy work. [B] This has been denied. Her old and devoted servant said: "Do you think I would let my darling die alone?" But it appears to me that Sister Dora's desire was one to be expected in such a spiritual nature; and in the statement above given it is not said that she was actually left in solitude. XIII FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE Day unto day her dainty hands Make Life's soiled temples clean; And there's a wake of glory where Her spirit pure hath been. At midnight through the shadow-land Her living face doth gleam; The dying kiss her shadow, and The dead smile in their dream. --_Gerald Massey._