The total disappearance of this disease—if such disappearance may be hoped for—will be due exclusively to the noble and untiring exertions of the sisters. Tracadie and its afflicted population would not alone owe a debt of eternal gratitude to these Hospital Nuns. America itself would share this feeling. With an example like this of charity and self-abnegation before us, we cannot cease to wonder at, and to deplore, the narrow minds of those persons who condemn the monastic institutions of the church. Let us compassionate all such; for to them light is lacking, and they have yet to learn the great truth that the duty most inculcated by the church, after the love of God, is the love of our neighbors. TESTIMONY OF THE CATACOMBS TO SOME OF THE SACRAMENTS. In a former article,[31] whilst following Mr. Withrow and other Protestant controversialists through their evasions and misinterpretations of the evidence to be found in the Catacombs on behalf of certain points of Catholic doctrine and practice, we pointed out that prayers either _for_ the dead or _to_ them were the only two articles on which it would be reasonable to look for information from the inscriptions on the gravestones. We said that these prayers were likely to find expression, if anywhere, by the side of the grave. As they took their last look on the loved remains of their deceased friend or relative, the affectionate devotion of the survivors would naturally give utterance either to a hearty prayer for the everlasting happiness of him they had lost, or to a piteous cry for help, an earnest petition that he would continue to exercise, in whatever way might be possible under the conditions of his new mode of existence, that same loving care and protection which had been their joy and support during his life; or sometimes both these prayers might be poured forth together, according as the strictness of God’s justice, or the Christian faith and virtues of the deceased, happened to occupy the foremost place in the petitioner’s thoughts. Footnote 31: THE CATHOLIC WORLD, Dec., 1876, p. 371 Jan., 1877, p. 523.