It may be said that there can not be the same need in a Protestant country as in Roman Catholic countries of communities of single women, where they are doubtless called for, if only in opposition to the immense bodies of the higher and lower clergy; but, besides the fact of there always being a greater number of women in a country in proportion to the number of men, our commerce requires many sailors, not to mention our army and navy, which in years past have swallowed up so many.  Surely, ministering women would be a blessing to the widows and orphans of our gallant soldiers and sailors.  There are numbers of daughters in large families kept in conventual bondage by a father or brother or their own timidity.  Daughters, sisters, widows, we appeal to you!  Are there not some few among you with courage to lead where multitudes would follow—­some to whom a kind Providence has given liberty of action?  It is far from our intention to excite rebellion in families, or tempt away from the manifest calls of duty; but can not some one begin what others will continue?  And we must not be indefinite:  begin what? continue what?  A system which, in this Protestant land, would give to the poor outcast, the little criminal, the child of the State, a mother as well as a father; that would give to the wretched of all ages a sister as well as a brother.

Alluding to Florence Nightingale, Mrs. Jameson says:  “No doubt but it will be through the patience, faith, and wisdom of men and women working together.  In an undertaking so wholly new to our English customs, so much at variance with the usual education given to women in this country, we shall meet with perplexities, difficulties—­even failures.  All the ladies who have gone to Scutari may not turn out heroines.  There may be vain babblings and scribblings and indiscretions, such as may put weapons into adverse hands.  The inferior and paid nurses may, some of them, have carried to Scutari bad habits, arising from imperfect training.  Still, let us trust that a principle will be recognized in the country which will not be again lost sight of.  It will be the true, the lasting glory of Florence Nightingale and her band of devoted assistants that they have broken through what Goethe calls a Chinese wall of prejudices—­prejudices religious, social, professional—­and established a precedent which will, indeed, multiply the good to all time.  No doubt there are hundreds of women who would now gladly seize the privileges held out to them by such an example, and crowd to offer their services; but would they pay the price of such dear and high privileges?  Would they fit themselves duly for the performance of such services, and earn by distasteful, and even painful studies, the necessary certificates for skill and capacity?  Would they, like Miss Nightingale, go through a seven years’ probation, to try at once the steadiness of their motives and the steadiness of their nerves?  Such a trial is absolutely necessary; for hundreds of women will