336 BRITISH PHYSICIANS. of the chapel, before the organ ; the rest of the building was in deep gloom, having no other light than what it received from these few and dis- tant tapers. There were a few people of the town kneeling, on straw chairs, in the open space before the altar, but the rest of the chapel was filled on each side, from end to end, by the Beguine nuns, amounting to several hundreds, all in their dark russet gowns and white stiff hoods ; and all in twilight, and deep silence, and motionless, and the silence interrupted only by the occasional tinkling of a bell, or by a nun starting up with outstretched arms in the attitude of the Cruci- fixion, in which she remained fixed and silent for many minutes. It was the strangest and most unearthly scene I ever beheld." The Beguines, like the Soeurs de Cliarite, act as nurses to the sick poor in the hospitals ; and the best of nurses they make, combining more intelligence than can be found among the unedu- cated classes with a high sense of duty. It was a favourite scheme of Gooch's to direct the flow of religious enthusiasm towards the hos- pitals in this country. The superiority of the Parisian to the London hospitals in point of nurses must be obvious to the most superficial observer. An association of middle-aged females animated by religious feelings, for the purpose of relieving the extremes of human misery, not by pecuniary aid, but by personal attention to the sick poor, in imi- tation of the Sisters of Charity, or rather of the Be- guines (for the latter are bound by no vow except to be chaste and obedient while they remain in the order, and have the power of returning to the
