When, in 1633, St. Vincent de Paul, seeing the misery and destitution of the poor in the streets of Paris, placed four young women, who volunteered to aid him in relieving present distress, in charge of a noble lady who had for several years devoted herself to the work under his direction, he scarcely expected to see in twenty years two hundred houses and hospitals of the order of Charity, spreading everywhere their sheltering arms for the suffering poor. Franciscans, Ursulines, Sisters of Charity, we have in our midst, showing, by their lives of self-abnegation in this hard, worldly age and country, that the evangelical counsel, to forsake all for Christ's sake, is not obsolete. But another branch of the great tree of charity that, like the banyan, plants itself and rises with new life and vigor wherever it takes root, is about to spread its benign shadow over our land. The Little Sisters of the Poor are coming among us, and it is well we should know whence they come and what is their work. Like the older orders in the church, _Les Petites Soeurs des Pauvres_ had a very small beginning. {111} In St. Servan, a small town on the north coast of France, washed by the waters of the English Channel, the male peasantry have, from time immemorial, obtained a scanty living for themselves and families by following the sea. This life of exposure and danger leaves always, wherever it is followed, many children fatherless and wives widows, and often deprives aged parents of their only support. It was the custom for these poor bereaved widows and parents of deceased fishermen to gather about the church-doors, asking alms of the congregation as they passed out; many abuses arose out of this way of distributing charity; the boldest fared the best, and the money thus obtained was often wasted in drink or self-indulgence, without providing for any real want. The good God touched the heart of the pious Curé of Servan by the sight of these poor persons, often blind, aged, and infirm, with none to care for them. In the quiet of his own humble home, Abbé le Pailleur thought over the condition of these miserable beings, commending them to his divine Master, and asking the guidance of him "who had not where to lay his head," in his efforts for their relief. The blessed Spirit guided to his direction a young orphan-girl from the laboring classes, who, for the love of God, desired to do something for those more destitute than herself. The curé recommended to her care an old blind woman, utterly without friends, and who, from the scanty alms bestowed at the church-door, was seldom able to obtain the smallest pittance, her blindness preventing her access to the charitably inclined.