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 LIBRARY 
 
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 Mother Marv Veronica, foundress of the S 
 
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Cornell University 
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 the Cornell University Library. 
 
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MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
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Mother Mary Veronica 
 
 Foundress of the Sisterhood 
 of the Divine Compassion 
 
 A Biography 
 
 by 
 
 Rev. Herman jf. Heuser, D.D. 
 
 New Tori 
 
 P. J. Kenedy &? Sons 
 MDCCCCXV 
 
/Sibil 3Dbstat: 
 
 REMIGIUS LAFORT, S.T.D. 
 
 Censor 
 
 Imprimatur: 
 
 ►£ JOHN CARDINAL FARLEY 
 
 Archbishop of New York 
 
 New York, November 10, 1915 
 
 
 • ^ J r 
 
 f O^ G*~ 
 
 X 
 
 COPYRIGHT, I9IS 
 BY P. J. KENEDY & SON! 
 
 C/W\_, 
 
Preface 
 
 WHOEVER had the grace of being 
 intimately acquainted with the sub- 
 ject of this biography is indebted 
 to God by another obligation of gratitude. 
 Nothing is more inspiring than the example of 
 great personalities, great, that is, in the King- 
 dom of Christ. 
 
 In the picture unrolled before us in this 
 biography Mother Veronica appears not indi- 
 vidually, but associated with another great 
 character, her spiritual guide, while both are 
 associated with a lasting work, a vigorous tree 
 planted by them in Christ's vineyard. To 
 those who were allowed to look into the depth 
 of her great soul this picture brings an added 
 inspiration. 
 
 The contact between two noble characters 
 like Father Thomas Scott Preston and Mrs. 
 Walter S. Starr could not but result in some 
 noble work for the glory of God and the 
 benefit of man. Father Preston had been 
 
6 PREFACE 
 
 guided by the Spirit of God from the ministry 
 of the Protestant Episcopal Church to the 
 Catholic Fold in 1849, when Mary Caroline 
 Dannet was yet a child of eleven. While he 
 was advancing in his spiritual career to the 
 priesthood, to the chancellorship of the Arch- 
 diocese of New York, and to the rectorship of 
 St. Ann's Church, she was wandering from the 
 Baptist Community to the Congregationalist, 
 thence to the Swedenborgian, until she landed 
 on the shores of Rationalism. Nor did she 
 find happiness in her marital union, although 
 her later life proved her to have a mother's 
 heart a thousandfold. At the age of thirty, 
 Providence disclosed to her what was to fill 
 her great soul and inspire her extraordinary 
 powers, the Kingdom of God with its mys- 
 teries, its precepts, and its sacraments. 
 
 Meeting Monsignor Preston, receiving con- 
 ditional baptism, and founding a Catholic set- 
 tlement were almost simultaneous, all in the 
 year 1868. How the first sewing school devel- 
 oped into the Association for Befriending Chil- 
 dren, how the House of the Holy Family had its 
 lowly beginning on the west side of New York, 
 then, passing to the East Side, finally grew 
 into a magnificent institution on Second 
 
PREFACE 7 
 
 Avenue; how the constitution of a new sister- 
 hood were composed by Monsignor Preston 
 and approved by Archbishop Corrigan, — all 
 this is narrated in the following pages. That 
 the work was not based upon human wisdom 
 and strength is evidenced by the fact that 
 Monsignor Preston did not live to see its best 
 fruits. He was, indeed, instrumental in the 
 foundation of the Mother House at Whtie 
 Plains in 1890, but he passed to his reward 
 the year after. From Heaven he saw his work 
 crowned by the splendid chapel and the 
 spacious convent at White Plains, and in New 
 York by that source of untold blessings to 
 the City, the Catholic Girls' Club. Well 
 could the Mother General of the new order 
 sing her "Nunc dimittis" and lay her weary 
 frame near the artistic shrine of her guide and 
 father. 
 
 Various and contradictory were the judg- 
 ments passed on Mother Veronica. The 
 outside world respected the woman of ex- 
 traordinary business foresight, the resourceful 
 manager of affairs, who knew how to deal with 
 lawyers and property owners, how to settle 
 debts and legacies, title deeds and purchases. 
 Some viewed in a spirit of criticism the facility 
 
8 PREFACE 
 
 with which Mother Veronica fathomed weak- 
 ness of character in the men and women with 
 whom she dealt and whom, when occasion 
 required, she ruled with equal facility. The 
 children under her care admired her self-poise 
 of character, the calm of her master mind, 
 her tact in household affairs, her practical 
 decisions, rarely at fault. But with all this 
 they experienced every sweet virtue of the 
 gentler sex, her sympathy, kindness, and 
 patience mingled with an extraordinary power 
 of persuasion. 
 
 Friends and associates, some of them less 
 endowed with original native force and less 
 prompted by the Holy Ghost, felt the power 
 of her initiative and even boldness of enter- 
 prise, her immense positiveness, her strikingly 
 fearless action and resistless will, her superior 
 purpose to stand her ground for God and for 
 souls. Some, overpowered perhaps, retreated 
 in half-heartedness and even coldness. 
 
 It was not given to many to look into the 
 depth of her great soul, that hidden sanctuary 
 where God alone reigned, where plans were 
 inspired and strength had its source. Only a 
 few spiritual guides saw in Mother Veronica 
 the humble child leaning on their counsel and 
 
PREFACE 9 
 
 adjusting herself to their obedience. They 
 alone witnessed the complete surrender of 
 her native faculties, of her rich inheritance, her 
 culture and her ambitions, — in short, of her 
 whole life to the cause of Christ's Kingdom. 
 
 There was a twofold life in Mother Veronica, 
 combining both orders, the earthly and the 
 heavenly, and either unintelligible without the 
 other. With Blessed Mother Barat, she too 
 had experienced that "nothing can resist a 
 soul united with Jesus." Herein lay the secret 
 of her prudence, of her undaunted energy, of 
 her steadfast perseverance amid fatigue, dis- 
 appointments, and opposition. 
 
 Mother Veronica is one more living lesson of 
 how much Holy Church, especially in America, 
 depends on sisterhoods for the care of the 
 poor and the fallen, and for the preservation 
 and education of her children. 
 
 J. G. HAGEN, S.J 
 
Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Sisterhood of the Divine Compassion . 15 
 
 Father Preston 23 
 
 Mother Mary Veronica 29 
 
 The Beginnings 43 
 
 Development of the Religious Sisterhood . 59 
 
 The Catholic Girls' Club 91 
 
 The Second Purpose of the Club .... 125 
 
 The Tired Heart Laid to Rest 133 
 
Illustrations 
 
 Mother Mary Veronica Frontispiece 
 
 Mary Caroline Dannat at the age of seven facing -page 18 
 
 Mary Caroline Dannat at the age of fourteen . . 26 
 
 Mary Caroline Dannat at the age of eighteen . . 38 
 House of the Holy Family and Convent of the 
 
 Sisters of the Divine Compassion .... 50 
 
 Good Counsel School 7° 
 
 First Novitiate at Good Counsel, 1892 ... 76 
 Crypt of the Chapel and Tomb of the Founder 
 
 Mgr. Preston 82 
 
 Chapel of the Divine Compassion 84 
 
 Rear of the Chapel showing Crypt .... 88 
 
 Interior Views of the Catholic Girls' Club. . . 96 
 
 Cottages at Good Counsel 114 
 
 Grotto of Our Lady of Good Counsel . . . 122 
 
 Interior of the Chapel 138 
 
THE SISTERHOOD OF THE DIVINE 
 COMPASSION 
 
Mother Mary Veronica 
 
 The Sisterhood of the Divine 
 Compassion 
 
 HAD supposed," writes Montalembert, 
 at the close of his most brilliant historical 
 study, "my task at an end; but I hear the 
 sound of a choir of sweet and pure voices 
 which seem to reproach me for having left in 
 darkness one side of the great edifice I have 
 undertaken to reconstruct in thought. These 
 voices have no plaintive sound, but they are 
 full of a soft and overpowering harmony which 
 has never been sufficiently celebrated before 
 men. The souls whose sentiments they utter 
 do not complain of being forgotten; it is their 
 chosen condition, it is their desire." From the 
 days when first the Church of Christ assumed 
 her gentle rule over the hearts of God's children 
 it became her beautiful task to draw into her 
 train following the Spouse the fairest souls; 
 and thus there came forth from the humble 
 
l8 MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 home of peasant and the palace of the king, 
 from all countries and conditions, a chaste and 
 radiant generation of virgin-daughters, who, 
 standing 
 
 Where the brook and river meet, 
 Womanhood and childhood fleet, 
 
 felt the impulse to turn away from the daz- 
 zling delights of life to breathe the purer life, 
 and look only upon the fairer glories of heaven. 
 And as the historian takes us back in spirit 
 to the times and customs of the religious com- 
 munities which he is describing, and pictures 
 in his exquisitely tender way the saintly 
 grandeur of the lives of these devoted women, 
 the holy sight arouses in our minds and hearts 
 a keen appreciation of their extraordinary cour- 
 age and energy, an intense admiration for 
 them in their lofty efforts and noble sacrifices, 
 and a deep, abiding reverence for the exalted 
 position they occupy in the history of the 
 Christian world. "They are the flower of 
 the human race," he tells us, "a flower still 
 sweet with the morning dew, which has re- 
 flected nothing but the rays of the rising sun, 
 and which no earthly dust has tarnished, — 
 an exquisite blossom which, scented from afar, 
 

SISTERHOOD OF THE DIVINE COMPASSION 19 
 
 fascinates with its pure fragrance even the most 
 vulgar souls. They are the flower, but they 
 present to us also the fruit, the purest sap, the 
 most generous blood of the stock of Adam; 
 for daily these heroines win the most wonderful 
 of victories by the manliest efforts which can 
 raise a human creature above and beyond all 
 earthly instincts and mortal ties." 
 
 It might appear at first sight that the Sister- 
 hood of the Divine Compassion, with scarce 
 a score of years' existence, could hardly hope 
 to enjoy the fulness of the halo of heavenly 
 light that surrounds the glorious bodies of 
 religious women who have graced the Church 
 from the days of the Apostles; but there are, 
 in its founding, and about those who were 
 instrumental in the fostering of its first growth, 
 too many unmistakable signs of Divine favor 
 to allow us on account merely of its youth to 
 underrate the work done by this zealous Com- 
 munity. The establishment of the Sisterhood 
 was, like so many other religious societies that 
 eventually assumed the canonical form of 
 religious communities, the result of patient 
 working on the part of a little band of single- 
 hearted women in the world, — Mrs. George V. 
 Hecker, Mrs. Addis Emmet, Mrs. M. E. Mac- 
 
20 MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 dowell and others. These set out under the 
 leadership of Mrs. Mary C. D. Starr — whom 
 we afterwards meet in religion as Mother 
 Veronica — to practise for the love of God and 
 their own sanctification a work of mercy and 
 benevolence which subsequently proved to be 
 one of the most self-sacrificing kind. The 
 ultimate form which this work assumed in 
 course of time was due to the initiative which a 
 zealous and holy priest took in furthering it, 
 and it is gratifying to know that the general 
 approbation which the Institute elicited from 
 all sides in its very beginning, together with 
 the eagerness and enthusiasm of those who 
 were to be the first members of the new 
 religious community, whose every undertaking 
 was abundantly blessed from the outset, amply 
 recompensed Father Preston for the days and 
 nights spent in prayer for light and guidance, 
 and made him realize some of the fruits of the 
 labor he had undergone in fashioning out of the 
 humble beginning at St. Bernard's Church a 
 permanent organization, which is to-day counted 
 among the most efficient religious charities of 
 New York City. The growth and develop- 
 ment of the Sisterhood of the Divine Compas- 
 sion is so interwoven with the last twenty-five 
 
SISTERHOOD OF THE DIVINE COMPASSION 21 
 
 years of Monsignor Preston's pastoral ac- 
 tivity that we need hardly apologize to the 
 reader if we digress for a moment to recall 
 here some of the many interesting events of 
 his life. 
 
FATHER PRESTON 
 
Father Preston 
 
 r^HOMAS SCOTT PRESTON was bom 
 at Hartford, Conn., in July of 1824. 
 Like his father, Zephaniah Preston, a 
 man of high moral and social standing among 
 his friends and neighbors, Father Preston was 
 reared in the Episcopal Church. As a boy in 
 the heart of Protestant New England, and as 
 a student at Trinity Church, Hartford, he felt 
 himself drawn to the service of God, and 
 resolved to lead a life of celibacy, in order to 
 devote himself entirely to the work for which 
 he felt himself called by God. He graduated 
 at Hartford in 1843, at the age of nineteen, 
 and three years later entered the Episcopal 
 ministry. During his student life at the 
 Episcopal Seminary he was the leader of the 
 High Church party, and was daily approaching 
 unconsciously nearer and nearer to the True 
 Church. Ordained in 1846, he became an 
 assistant curate to the Rev. Dr. Seabury, whose 
 grandfather had been the first Episcopal Bishop 
 in the United States. Subsequently he was 
 
26 MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 stationed at old St. Luke's Church on Hudson 
 Street, New York City. During this period he 
 became gradually convinced of the validity of 
 the claims of the Catholic position; and it was 
 not long before he resigned his charge and asked 
 to be received into the one true fold of the 
 Apostolic Church. This was in 1849, and, 
 like John Henry Newman, who had found 
 the heavenly light of restful faith some four 
 years before this time, he recognized as the 
 direct influence of his conversion only the 
 working of Divine grace in his own heart. In 
 a brief record of these days, which was written 
 shortly before his death, and which breathes 
 the spirit of the Apologia, he says: 
 
 "I was very young. Many whom I rev- 
 erenced pointed in another direction: but they 
 could not alter my conviction. If I gained 
 a step one day, I did not waver and change 
 my ground on the next day. But they had 
 the power to make me wait and watch at the 
 door when the goal of my life was in sight. 
 They bade me beware of the impetuosity of 
 youth, and charged me to weigh well the argu- 
 ments of those who had studied long the points 
 of controversy. I may say that I examined 
 those arguments well. I remained in the 
 
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 ^y^ar^&y^rt^ne^ ^/kwwuz^' 
 
 /O^/fi^^t^s^JiHts/s/e&n/ 
 
FATHER PRESTON 27 
 
 Protestant Episcopal Church. I passed through 
 the course of its principal Seminary. I read 
 many Catholic books. I tried to open my 
 intellect and heart to God's light; but much as 
 I wished to do so, I never entered a Catholic 
 church nor sought the counsel of a Catholic 
 priest, until the happy day when, upon my 
 knees, I begged admission to what I knew to 
 be the one fold of Christ. All human influence 
 around me would have kept me where all my 
 worldly ties were, but I felt that the voice of 
 my conscience was more to me than any earthly 
 attraction. If there was one church founded 
 by my Lord, I must seek and find it. And so 
 I sought that haven of rest, and placed my feet 
 upon the rock of Peter. There were some 
 worldly sacrifices, but although they sobered 
 my face a little, they did not drive the sunshine 
 from my heart. At last I was in my Father's 
 house; and never from that moment have I 
 had one doubt about the truth of the Catholic 
 Religion." 
 
 After his reception into the Church, in 
 November, 1849, he spent the whole of the 
 following year at St. Joseph's Seminary, Ford- 
 ham, N. Y., in preparation for the priesthood, 
 and in the autumn of the next year he received 
 
28 MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 sacred orders at the hands of the Right Rev. 
 John McCloskey, then Bishop of Albany. Father 
 Preston's first mission was that of curate of 
 the old Cathedral in Mott Street. Shortly 
 afterwards he was sent to Yonkers, but in 
 1853 Archbishop Hughes recalled him to New 
 York to take the position of Chancellor of the 
 Archdiocese. This office he discharged with 
 great credit and efficiency until 1862, when he 
 assumed pastoral charge of St. Ann's Church 
 in Eighth Street. 
 
 Meanwhile, the grace of God was manifesting 
 itself elsewhere in the conversion of the woman 
 who was destined to become the actual found- 
 ress and first Superior of the Sisterhood of the 
 Divine Compassion. 
 
MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
Mother Mary Veronica 
 
 'ARY CAROLINE DANNAT, daughter 
 of William Henry Dannat and Su- 
 sanna Jones, was born in the City of 
 New York on April 27, 1838. She was the 
 oldest of six children. There do not appear 
 to have been any particular religious influences 
 at work in the home of her earlier childhood; 
 for in a diary of later years, in which she 
 records impersonally some facts and impres- 
 sions of her life, she speaks of the death of a 
 younger brother, when she herself was about 
 eleven years old, in the following terms: "In 
 1849 her parents received a great blow in the 
 loss of a little son, born three years before. 
 They sought consolation in religion, and began 
 to attend the Baptist Church in Oliver Street." 
 Mary Caroline went, of course, with them, and 
 she seemed to have received much comfort 
 from the practice, which developed a natural 
 devotion and inclination toward what was 
 virtuous and religious. She tells us how keenly 
 she felt the loss of her little brother, which 
 
32 MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 came upon her as her first great sorrow, and 
 this feeling no doubt contributed much to 
 emphasize the views which caused her to see 
 things in the supernatural light of a future life, 
 where she would again meet the cherished 
 child. 
 
 In the spring of the same year the parents 
 set out for Europe. It was arranged that Mr. 
 David Jones, a brother of Mrs. Dannat, 
 together with his wife, should occupy the Dan- 
 nat residence during the absence of the family 
 abroad. Mary Caroline was to stay with her 
 uncle and aunt, as she was still at school, and 
 they were seemingly much attached to the 
 child. It appears, however, that subsequently 
 she was left a good deal to herself, and thus 
 found opportunity to indulge those inclinations 
 toward piety awakened by the death of her 
 child brother. These were fostered, moreover, 
 by occasional revivals and missions in the 
 neighboring church of the Baptist community, 
 and caused her to enlist for the time as an 
 ardent convert to the teachings of that sect. 
 The sincerity of the motives could not be 
 otherwise than pleasing to God, and she 
 became conscious, as she tells us, of a certain 
 satisfaction and sweetness in the reflection 
 
MOTHER MARY VERONICA 33 
 
 that she was serving Him. This feeling urged 
 her in turn to more assiduous prayer, and 
 awakened the sense of gratitude which devel- 
 oped in her soul a keen relish of the love of 
 our Lord and a desire to promote His glory by 
 all means in her power. 
 
 It must not be supposed, however, that 
 the young girl, in consequence of these no 
 doubt somewhat emotional experiences, took 
 on that sensitive and melancholy air which 
 might induce a withdrawal from the joys 
 of domestic or social life. Her whole subse- 
 quent life bears witness to a sweet and genial 
 disposition without any trace of that un- 
 healthy shyness which is the usual result of 
 pious self-concentration. Those who knew her 
 only as she conversed in the circle of her re- 
 ligious, might still without difficulty imagine 
 the bright figure of the young girl with her 
 quick, self-possessed step and decided move- 
 ments, looking merry sympathy out of those 
 dark eyes which had in them that something 
 of the flash and penetration commonly to 
 be noticed in heroic natures. She was ever 
 keenly attentive to all that might interest a 
 soul eager to benefit those around her; and the 
 gleam of cheerful kindness which so markedly 
 
34 MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 attracted the young people who came within 
 her circle during the periods of her cloistral 
 activity, later on, must have spontaneously 
 drawn to her the affection of kindred souls in 
 her early maidenhood, and influenced them 
 toward efforts of unselfish devotion. 
 
 She was happy in the conscious realization 
 that religion and its chief ministry, charity, 
 is a refining element that brings its immediate 
 satisfaction to the soul in a peace such as the 
 world cannot give. There was to be indeed a 
 reaction, as we shall directly see, but if God's 
 ways are mysterious, they are ways which we 
 may go unharmed under His leading. 
 
 In the midsummer of 1857, at the age of 
 nineteen, she was married to a Mr. Walter S. 
 Starr. Although the duties involved in the 
 care of a home, and the social obligations to- 
 ward the friends of their common circle which 
 her new position entailed, could not have 
 altered her religious convictions, she somehow 
 experienced a change of sentiment which for 
 a long time she was unable to explain to her- 
 self. She had moved with her husband to 
 Brooklyn; and, anxious to keep up the stimulus 
 of piety which her connection with the Baptist 
 church had furnished in the past, she applied 
 
MOTHER MARY VERONICA 35 
 
 to the Pilgrim Church, which was convenient 
 to her new home, for admission as a regular 
 member. This church belonged to the Con- 
 gregational sect, but the difference did not 
 much appeal to her, especially since the essen- 
 tial freedom of private interpretation of the 
 Bible as a doctrinal foundation was common 
 to both churches. Of the effect of this change 
 she writes in her journal again as though she 
 were speaking of some third person, as follows : 
 
 "Strange to say, the effect of this act of 
 becoming a church member was the reverse of 
 what might have been expected. The religious 
 fervor which had gone with her all these years 
 suddenly died out. She ceased to go to church, 
 and though infrequency of church attendance 
 is common enough among Protestants, those 
 who are church members have lapsed far 
 away when they cease to present themselves 
 on Communion Sunday. She went once, per- 
 haps, twice, to what they call 'communion.' " 
 
 She herself furnishes unconsciously the key 
 to the explanation of this apparent indifference 
 to an act which on former occasions she had 
 looked upon as an important event and one 
 fraught with the most serious consequences to 
 the individual Christian. Hitherto she had 
 
36 MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 confined her observations of religious influence 
 to the effects which the teaching of the Gospel 
 produced within her own soul. She had gone 
 to church and had there learned the precepts 
 which Christ had taught His followers. These 
 she applied to her own conduct, and if she 
 found it wanting in its correspondence to the 
 high standard of morality inculcated by the 
 Redeemer, it humiliated her without arousing 
 any suspicion that anyone but herself could be 
 at fault. But now she was being brought into 
 daily and social contact with people who had 
 listened to these same precepts on Sunday, 
 and demurely set their manners and faces to 
 the somber fashion of the hour whilst sitting 
 in the pew beneath the rhythmic intonations 
 of the ministerial precentor, and then these 
 same pious listeners would go and set up for 
 the other six days of the week another stand- 
 ard by which they might discredit the teaching 
 of the Gospel, not as the result of impulse or 
 weakness, but of set purpose, a rigorous law 
 of fashion to violate which was equivalent to 
 ostracizing oneself from the social life, and for- 
 feiting the right to be invited to the enter- 
 tainments which a charitable hospitality has in- 
 vented to cement the bonds of good fellowship. 
 
MOTHER MARY VERONICA 37 
 
 Mrs. Starr knew her Bible by heart; and 
 certain texts began to fix themselves in her 
 mind. The words "Blessed are the poor in 
 spirit" would, for instance, keep repeating 
 themselves to her at some evening assembly 
 where she would meet the learned, polished 
 gentleman who preached eloquent discourses, 
 with just a tinge of artificial make up, taking 
 for his text some passage from the Sermon on 
 the Mount. Yet this man, whatever he might 
 be at heart, did not seem to assimilate the 
 doctrine, and its influence upon his wife, whose 
 toilets were the envy of her less dowered 
 neighbors, appeared wholly lost. And when 
 she in some guileless way proposed the query 
 why its doctrine, if deemed true, was not put 
 forth in a more emphatic and straightforward 
 way, so as to produce its due effect, instead 
 of being hidden and smothered down to a mere 
 suggestion by the paraphernalia and hollow 
 phrases of modern culture, she learned that 
 "this would never do," and that it was quite 
 a question of propriety if in these days a 
 respectable minister might preach at all on the 
 subject of the "Sermon on the Mount," be- 
 cause such preaching has a tendency to make 
 the poor arrogant and the proletariat conceited, 
 
38 MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 and to foster socialism of the worst kind. Still 
 she went on pondering such things. "Every- 
 one that hath left house or brethren, or sisters, 
 or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or 
 land, for My Name's sake, shall receive a 
 hundredfold in this world and life everlasting!" 
 Why, who in all that rich, prosperous congre- 
 gation had forsaken anything or was disposed 
 to make any real sacrifice of comfort or enjoy- 
 ment for our Lord's sake? It was a serious 
 puzzle to a soul at once consistent and full of 
 charity for her fellows. 
 
 Meantime she appears to have been largely 
 influenced by the attitude of her father, whose 
 growing religious tendencies had led him to a 
 somewhat more independent examination of 
 religious claims. He had undertaken a series 
 of speculative studies on the subject, and 
 finally settled upon the Swedenborgian exposi- 
 tion of Christianity as the one which most 
 satisfied the demands of the human heart. 
 Herein his daughter had followed him. She 
 trusted his keen insight into religious as well as 
 practical matters, and had an abiding admira- 
 tion for his judgment, which she believed 
 equal only to his honesty of purpose. In 
 his case it could not but come to pass that the 
 
r 
 
 -erf fAt 
 
 etae ■ ef e/. e/yf fee m.' 
 
MOTHER MARY VERONICA 39 
 
 mind of the practical man should dissipate in 
 time the emotions which the doctrine of the 
 New Jerusalem calls forth and plays upon: 
 and accordingly he drifted into a rationalistic 
 view of Christianity. This process naturally 
 communicated itself and was shared by his 
 daughter, who read the books which her father 
 read, and who felt the doubts which his in- 
 tellect taught him to formulate regarding a 
 religion that builds upon feeling rather than 
 upon the credibility of motives. In the course 
 of the year 1866 a volume fell into her hands 
 which was then attracting some attention on 
 the part of the general reading public. It 
 was the story of the Schoenberg Cotta Family, 
 as its title indicated, and in defending the 
 course of Luther's and Catharine von Bora's 
 secession it wantonly attacked the Catholic 
 faith, much of which was explained in detail, 
 rather for the purpose of casting ridicule upon 
 the practices of the Church. To an inquisi- 
 tive nature and one disposed to be just, such 
 reading frequently presents food for reflection, 
 and thus produces the very contrary effect 
 from that which is ordinarily expected or 
 intended by the writer. She tells us that the 
 poison of misrepresentation contained in this 
 
4° MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 book did her no harm whatever, although she 
 had known nothing previously about the 
 Catholic Church, and did not for some time 
 afterwards pursue her inquiry regarding the 
 truth of the aspersions retailed in the book. 
 Something, however, told her that the old 
 Church must have claims which even the 
 abuses of them suggested, and that the de- 
 ductions which religious animosity prompted 
 were not always just or logical. With these 
 impressions strongly upon her she must have 
 found some occasion to act upon them, for 
 we find her one day, during the same year, 
 in serious conversation with her father on the 
 subject of which a record is preserved in her 
 notes. 
 
 "Ah, well," I said, "we stand on shifting 
 grounds. I cannot live in this way. We 
 must have something to rest upon. In reading 
 history I see no institution that has withstood 
 the shock of time and change but the Catholic 
 Church. I think I will go there." 
 
 And to a Catholic church she went that 
 same afternoon. The subsequent events of 
 her life to the time of her actual reception 
 into the Church are comparatively unimpor- 
 tant. Suffice it to say that after this she fre- 
 
MOTHER MARY VERONICA 41 
 
 quented no other church, but continued to 
 attend the Catholic service regularly. Step 
 by step she informed herself of the doctrine 
 here taught, until she gained the assurance of 
 its reasonableness and sincerity. Then she 
 applied to the priest for direction in order that 
 she might be received into the fold. 
 
 It was at the hands of Father Preston, then 
 parish priest of 'St. Ann's Church on the East 
 side of New York, that she received her first 
 instructions preparatory to being formally 
 admitted into the Church. On April n, 1868, 
 she was baptized, and shortly after made her 
 First Communion. Never had she been more 
 happy than after she had taken this step, and 
 the peace which she experienced was to last. 
 Father Preston remained her spiritual guide, 
 and under his prudent and prayerful direction 
 she quickly developed that marvelous capacity 
 for devising ingenious methods of charity which 
 was henceforth to absorb her entire activity, 
 and which was to associate with her in the same 
 work kindred souls to whom she became at 
 once a model of striving after religious per- 
 fection, and a leader in every kind of beneficent 
 action undertaken for the love of Christ. 
 
THE BEGINNINGS 
 
The Beginnings 
 
 ""^O no one could the ardent desire which 
 the gifted convert manifested toward 
 aiding the struggling poor of the city 
 be more welcome than to the devoted priest 
 who had aided her in finding true peace of 
 soul. He had for years been familiar with the 
 want and wretchedness of the people who 
 inhabited his own district, and whose misery, 
 temporal as well as spiritual, he had sought 
 to relieve in the daily visitations of his minis- 
 try. But he also knew that there were con- 
 ditions much worse in other parts of the city 
 where such help as was now offered him could 
 be employed to the best advantage. One such 
 district was that of St. Bernard's in the west 
 portion of the city, in the neighborhood of 
 which Mrs. Starr had lived before her reception 
 into the Church. Accordingly he directed her 
 attention to this quarter, and pointed out that 
 poverty and depravity were going hand in 
 hand, and that the remedy for the one must 
 be applied in such wise as to reach the other. 
 
46 MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 With that womanly instinct which at once 
 turns the heart toward sheltering the young, 
 Mrs. Starr suggested that they open a sewing 
 school, where the children, being brought to- 
 gether for the purpose of inculcating in them 
 habits of useful thrift, might at the same time 
 be instructed in the truths of religion. This 
 would likewise open a way to learn more of 
 the actual conditions, and to ascertain the 
 further needs of those who were suffering not 
 less from the mingled influences of evil habits 
 and vicious agencies than from positive helpless- 
 ness and ignorance how to better their con- 
 dition, even if the opportunity offered itself 
 to them to do so. The children in the sewing 
 school would not only be helped and be bet- 
 tered themselves, but they would furnish to 
 those who could observe the key to new 
 measures for a betterment of their surroundings 
 by pointing out the sources of evil in the 
 district. Mrs. Starr had already gained some 
 experience in similar work by having offered 
 her services to the mistress of a sewing school 
 in the parish of St. Paul, where she became 
 familiar with the ways of Catholic children 
 and the catechetical methods of the parochial 
 teachers. 
 
THE BEGINNINGS 47 
 
 The good pastor of St. Bernard's, who up to 
 the present had been struggling practically 
 single-handed to meet the difficulties that con- 
 fronted him in the attempt at moral and social 
 reformation of the people in his district, 
 approved of the plan, and placed the second 
 story of the building which had been used for 
 a church at the disposal of Mrs. Starr for the 
 new undertaking. She at once enlisted the 
 co-operation of a number of ladies as earnest 
 and fervent as herself: Mrs. L. B. Binsse, 
 Mrs. Gen. Badeau, Mrs. D. M. Bryant, Mrs. 
 S. N. Chalfin, Mrs. John Colvill, Mrs. L. L. 
 Coudert, Mrs. Thos. Addis Emmet, Mrs. C. 
 F. Elliot, Mrs. J. T. Gilbert, Mrs. Calixte 
 Harvier, Mrs. Geo. V. Hecker, Mrs. Adrian 
 Iselin, Mrs. E. L. Keyes, Mrs. T. F- Meagher, 
 Mrs. James Moore, Mrs. S. N. Salomon, Miss 
 A. M. Gilbert, Miss Kate M. Harris, and Miss 
 Annie C. Riley. In the autumn of that same 
 year, 1868, the school was opened. About 
 forty children came to them during the first 
 two weeks, and with these they organized the 
 work of reform on a permanent basis. It is 
 needless to say that they encountered that 
 passive indifference and ingratitude in their 
 charitable efforts which are so trying to 
 
48 MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 zealous souls, and also much unsuspected 
 depravity. Despite the almost hopeless out- 
 look for the replanting of virtue in the hearts 
 of the children, the courage and perseverance 
 of the good women never faltered; and once 
 begun they faced every obstacle as it arose, 
 until the little school had increased to two 
 hundred and fifty regular members, by Christ- 
 mas time. In the first report of the Associa- 
 tion for Befriending Children, which grew out 
 of this modest beginning, we are told that 
 they met at ten o'clock in the morning, when 
 the school was opened with a few simple 
 prayers. After this the work previously cut 
 and prepared was distributed and made into 
 garments, under the supervision of the ladies. 
 Prayers, catechism, and hymns were taught 
 them while the fingers were kept busy, and 
 at twelve o'clock a substantial dinner was 
 made ready in an upper room. A short 
 recreation followed, and the day's work was 
 again resumed until five o'clock in the evening, 
 when the school was dismissed. 
 
 "Before many months had passed," Mrs. 
 Starr writes, "it was evident that this work 
 would not rest here. Won by the care and 
 affection shown to them, the children would 
 
THE BEGINNINGS 49 
 
 tell their sad story of want and misery and sin. 
 Older girls, long ago lost to grace, would meet 
 us at the door of the sewing school and implore 
 us to help them also. But how was this to 
 be done? They were still too ignorant and 
 too weak in virtue to be recommended for 
 employment, and when, indeed, we attempted 
 to place them in institutions, we found that 
 in some they would not be received lest they 
 should exert a contaminating influence, whilst 
 in others the necessary formality of a com- 
 mittal repelled the applicant herself and chilled 
 her good resolutions." 
 
 Thus, the expressed unwillingness of the 
 older girls to enter institutions already in 
 existence, which might have received them 
 under somewhat humiliating conditions, sug- 
 gested the idea of founding a home in this 
 neighborhood, where these abject and for- 
 saken children of the street might find a wel- 
 come, and where the girl who was, although 
 a child in years, old in the knowledge of evil, 
 might hide her sorrow and shame, and be 
 taught to lead a life of virtue and godliness. 
 
 Father Preston prepared a written prospectus 
 of the project, which received the approbation 
 of the Archbishop of New York, and, assisted 
 
50 MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 by the generosity of many persons who be- 
 came interested in the work, a fund was col- 
 lected which enabled Mrs. Starr, as President 
 of the Association, to open, in March of 1870, 
 the House of the Holy Family at No. 316 West 
 Fourteenth Street. We may readily judge of 
 its success by the fact that every one of the 
 forty-five beds provided in the new home was 
 filled the first night, and many of the girls who 
 had hoped to find a place of refuge there could 
 not be received. A systematic course of re- 
 ligious, economic and industrial education was 
 instituted in the House, under the influence of 
 which these wild and wilful children of the 
 streets, touched by the kindness and sym- 
 pathetic care of the pious women devoted to 
 the work of training their hearts and minds, 
 so as to make them healthy and virtuous girls 
 and women, were gradually rendered docile 
 and tractable. 
 
 The reformation of the children confided to 
 their care at Holy Family was now fairly 
 begun. Money came in as it was needed, and 
 friends, also, with generous hands and sym- 
 pathetic hearts. The faith and confidence of 
 these friends in a work yet untried were not 
 the least of the gracious gifts brought to the 
 

THE BEGINNINGS 5 1 
 
 Association when it was laboring under many 
 disadvantages and difficulties inevitably con- 
 nected with such an undertaking. Often, we 
 are told by the devoted foundress, the ladies 
 were heavy-hearted and ready to give way to 
 the discouragements that beset them; it was 
 at such times that the aid of these loyal 
 friends came to the rescue and enabled the 
 Association to withstand the trial and struggle. 
 Each day added experiences and insight which 
 gave some new aspect to the work, and when 
 a year had passsed by Mrs. Starr was con- 
 vinced that the "House of the Holy Family," 
 in order to attain its object more fully, would 
 have to be located in a more central position, 
 where the work of the Association could be 
 carried out with more direct efficiency. Ac- 
 cordingly, in May, 1871, the House of the 
 Holy Family was transferred to No. 247 East 
 Thirteenth Street. This part of the city was 
 in St. Ann's parish, and thus offered the addi- 
 tional advantage of having the institution 
 placed under the immediate eye and pastoral 
 jurisdiction of Father Preston. Thus, increased 
 facilities were opened in every direction for 
 entering upon a part of the work which had 
 been hitherto untouched for lack of space, — 
 
52 MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 the reclaiming of young women who were 
 leading lives of sin. The name of the society 
 was also changed, to answer more definitely 
 the purpose of its agency. Henceforth it was 
 known as the Association for Befriending 
 Children and Young Girls. 
 
 "It has always been the purpose of the 
 Association (we read in one of Mrs. Starr's 
 letters) to give a large share of its attention 
 and care to that class upon whom society most 
 readily turns its back. From the beginning it 
 had confined itself to the care of depraved and 
 vagrant children, but many of the children 
 were women in the knowledge of evil, and when 
 the girl of fourteen had fallen as low as the girl 
 of twenty, it seemed unreasonable to draw the 
 line which marked the efforts at reclaiming 
 them by a fixed limit of age. Among the 
 children are many who have sought protection 
 from brutal parents; likewise children who, 
 from earliest years, have been taught to steal 
 and to lie as a trade; children who were fed 
 with liquor from their birth, and whose first 
 words were those of blasphemy which they 
 learned from their parents. The work of the 
 Association stands therefore clearly defined. 
 Its purpose is the reformation of young girls. 
 
THE BEGINNINGS 53 
 
 The means by which this end is attained are, 
 on our part: 
 
 i. Shielding from notoriety and publicity. 
 
 2. Careful religious instruction. 
 
 3. Thorough industrial training. 
 On the part of the subject: 
 
 1. A degree of willingness to enter. 
 
 2. To remain at least six months, prefer- 
 ably two years. 
 
 The peculiar circumstances of each history 
 need to become known to but one person, and 
 even to her only in outline. The subject is 
 cautioned to be equally reserved with others, 
 and this secrecy as to why one is there is an 
 essential safeguard and the prevailing spirit 
 of the House. As to moral training, the 
 preparation for and regular reception of the 
 Sacraments is of course the foundation and 
 strength in via of all we attempt to do. As to 
 industrial training, the best methods of doing 
 every kind of housework with neatness, order, 
 and regularity are taught, and this is not the 
 easiest of tasks. The main work is to render 
 the children skilful in the best-paid industries, 
 those the most advantageous in self-support." 
 
 The report from which this extract is taken, 
 and which defines the scope of the Association's 
 
54 MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 work in such well-defined language, in regard 
 to the second part of the means mentioned 
 above says: 
 
 "As to willingness to enter, it is manifest 
 that for any radical and enduring change 
 the subject must not only desire it, but she 
 must also co-operate in her restoration. Her 
 good purposes may not at all times be strong 
 and persistent, and it may sometimes be nec- 
 essary to protect her against her own impulses; 
 but our work is to reform and direct the will 
 and to train the mind until it is convinced 
 and voluntarily chooses good rather than evil. 
 It is a slow process, but it will succeed in 
 proportion to the length of probation and the 
 capacity of the individual. Therefore we ask 
 two years in each case in which to carry out 
 our methods. This time is not so much 
 needed for moral reform; but the mental 
 training that, with the aid of Divine grace, is 
 essential to her perseverance, and the indus- 
 trial training, equally essential, are not ac- 
 quired .in a day. Two years at least are 
 needed, were it only to teach the girls how to 
 support themselves honorably. The time, 
 therefore, spent in the House is not regarded 
 as a forced imprisonment, but a time of 
 
THE BEGINNINGS 55 
 
 preparation for a life under new and better 
 conditions." 
 
 In such language, simple and vigorous, does 
 the foundress set forth the work to be done by 
 the Association, and the spirit of sincerity as 
 well as common-sense charity which these 
 words breathe is an indication of the super- 
 natural motives which governed the efforts 
 of this worthy woman, and raised her work, 
 with its trials and struggles, above the ordinary 
 plane on which modern philanthropy rests its 
 benefactions, with its glamour and love of a 
 name and of show. A noble and blessed work, 
 it has been called, a work humble in its begin- 
 ning but marked by the Divine blessing in its 
 course, and truly admirable in its results. 
 These heaven-inspired efforts, with the innu- 
 merable daily sacrifices on the part of those 
 who had pledged their lives to meet needs 
 that could not for the time being otherwise 
 be met, extended their consoling influences 
 throughout the city. 
 
 The adjoining house was rented in 1872 in 
 order to meet the growing demands upon the 
 charity of the Association, and here the 
 Society maintained its labor of reforming and 
 educating the children. In 1874 an oppor- 
 
56 MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 tunity offered itself for the purchase of a 
 property at 136 Second Avenue, which prom- 
 ised excellent accommodations for the Insti- 
 tute. The house was purchased for thirty-four 
 thousand dollars, and the two buildings on 
 Fourteenth Street, which had become inade- 
 quate for the work, were sold. In May of the 
 same year the Association moved into the 
 new and permanent House of the Holy Family. 
 The house, when bought, was three stories 
 high; two stories were afterwards added, an 
 extension was made to the first floor, and 
 laundries were built, besides other necessary 
 repairs made at a total cost of eleven thousand 
 dollars. It was a large, commodious house 
 when completed, with cheerful, well-ventilated 
 rooms, equipped with every modern appliance 
 for health, comfort, and convenience, and 
 with suitable accommodations for one hundred 
 inmates. The lowest, or basement floor, is 
 occupied by the kitchen, dining-rooms, store- 
 rooms, and bathrooms. On the first floor are 
 the Chapel and the reception rooms. The 
 second floor is given to the sewing rooms 
 and wardrobes. Dormitories, infirmary, class- 
 rooms, and recreation rooms are on the third, 
 fourth, and fifth floors. A few years later, 
 
THE BEGINNINGS $7 
 
 the house adjoining, No. 134 Second Avenue, 
 was bought ; here the first floor is used for the 
 parlors and offices of the Association, while the 
 upper floors communicate with the House of 
 the Holy Family and are used in the same 
 manner as mentioned above. The house on 
 the other side, No. 132, was purchased at a 
 later date, to become, as we shall see, the first 
 Convent of the Sisterhood of the Divine Com- 
 passion. 
 
 It is interesting to read the reports for the 
 next four or five years of the work of the 
 Association and all the auxiliary societies 
 which grew up around it, such as branch 
 sewing schools, relief associations for the hos- 
 pitals and prisons of the city, sodalities, and 
 confraternities, at a time, when the country 
 was recovering from the awful panic of 1873. 
 It was a source of great rejoicing to the mem- 
 bers of the Association, when, in 1877, they 
 were able to report that during these years 
 of almost unprecedented financial embarrass- 
 ment throughout the country, they had suc- 
 ceeded in supporting the growing institution 
 and paying all its current expenses. 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF THE RELIGIOUS 
 SISTERHOOD 
 
Development of the Religious 
 Sisterhood 
 
 ^ROM the time when the Association was 
 ^ first established, Father Preston, whom 
 the Holy See honored subsequently by 
 the title of Domestic Prelate, became con- 
 scious that in course of time it would be 
 necessary to appeal to some Religious Com- 
 munity trained and prepared for such work 
 to take up its burden. The devoted women 
 who were giving time and means to it at 
 present would eventually be called to their 
 reward, and then the accumulated responsi- 
 bility might devolve upon the uncertain good 
 will of those who remained, without any 
 guarantee that the undertaking could be car- 
 ried on uninterruptedly. Some of the many 
 existing Religious Communities might of course 
 have been asked to take charge of the institu- 
 tion, but, apart from the necessity of a special 
 adaptation to make fixed religious rules and 
 customs suit the actual circumstances which 
 called upon the women to go out and seek the 
 
62 MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 lost sheep as well as shelter them, there were 
 those actually engaged in, and heart and soul 
 devoted to, the work for which they had 
 developed a singular capacity. Was no ac- 
 count to be taken of them, their ability, their 
 willingness to carry on the good work, and their 
 exceptional experience in what was best ? They 
 had seen the struggling growth, and had taken 
 part in the humble beginning, and because 
 they had spent so much energy to make the 
 work lasting, the fatigue and the labor and the 
 harassing trial had become dear to them, even 
 as the sufferings of a mother for the welfare 
 of her child are dear to her. It was quite 
 natural then to assume that they were reluc- 
 tant to leave the work in the hands of others, 
 less devotedly attached to it and its brief but 
 valuable traditions. Mrs. Starr, whose hus- 
 band had died, and who had from that time 
 on entirely consecrated her widowhood to this 
 work of charity, found many earnest and pious 
 young women who wished to devote them- 
 selves to the object of her society. They had 
 caught her own spirit, and promised to be 
 faithful to it. Thus, step by step, Father Pres- 
 ton, who had so far directed the destinies of 
 the Association, felt himself prompted to suggest 
 
THE RELIGIOUS SISTERHOOD 63 
 
 and inaugurate the foundation of a Religious 
 Sisterhood, which, strengthened by the graces 
 of a common bond of fidelity to the Divine 
 counsels, and blessed with the zeal that had 
 marked all the previous years of the work, 
 might perpetuate the name and purpose of 
 the Institute. Might not the faithful workers 
 of the Association enter upon such a course, 
 and thus seal the labors in behalf of their 
 neighbor by the vows to strive after personal 
 sanctification ? Monsignor Preston was a man 
 whose most characteristic trait was probably 
 the deliberateness and caution with which he 
 acted in all new undertakings of importance. 
 His quality of cautious initiative was asso- 
 ciated with a keen legislative wisdom, as is 
 testified by all the public acts for which in 
 his capacity of Chancellor and Vicar General 
 of the archdiocese he became responsible. It 
 was therefore to be expected that in establish- 
 ing a religious society, such as suggested itself 
 to him, he would proceed with great caution 
 and very slowly. To Mrs. Starr the inspira- 
 tion of such a step was most natural, and 
 would have called for little alteration or 
 resolution in her own life, which was already 
 to all intents that of a devoted active religious. 
 
64 MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 To her, therefore, the direction of Monsignor 
 Preston was simply the voice of God, which she 
 eagerly longed to obey. They sought further 
 counsel from the ecclesiastical head of the 
 diocese. "The advice and approbation of the 
 Archbishop" writes Monsignor, "encouraged 
 and blessed our purpose. He sympathized 
 with our work and saw in the establishment 
 of the proposed Religious Community not 
 only the completion of our desires, but also 
 the source and direction of zeal for the 
 salvation of souls and greater usefulness in 
 our labors." 
 
 The idea of founding a religious community 
 whose members were to bind themselves by 
 regular vows to continue the charitable works 
 inaugurated under the direction of Father 
 Preston, had, as we have said, nothing strange 
 in it in the mind of Mrs. Starr, whose actual 
 mode of living differed little from that of a nun 
 devoting her time to the service of the poor, 
 the ignorant, and the sick. The interior spirit 
 in which she made this service contribute to 
 her personal sanctification as well as that of 
 those who labored with her in the same field, 
 would have called for no change of purpose. 
 It is true she was still "in the world," as the 
 
THE RELIGIOUS SISTERHOOD 65 
 
 term is understood when we speak of com- 
 munity life in which the principle and exercise 
 of charity are not confined and accompanied 
 by fixed forms of devotion, and under the 
 canonical restraint of a discipline which con- 
 trols all the external acts of the individual. 
 But her heart was striving after perfection 
 with the same singleness of aim which charac- 
 terized the great saints in their early efforts 
 to please God by the practice of self-sacrifice 
 and the extension of the Kingdom of Heaven 
 through active charity. 
 
 There had hitherto been also certain ties 
 which bound her to guard the home of her 
 family, and which were of a nature not to be 
 set aside by what is understood to be the 
 higher law of perfection in the acceptance of 
 the evangelical counsels. At her husband's 
 death she was left with the care of two little 
 sons. Had God at that time placed before 
 her the alternative of devoting herself to the 
 training of these two children or of renouncing 
 all to follow Him, she would probably have 
 had no hesitation in making the greater sacri- 
 fice. But it was not simply a question of 
 sacrificing her affection for them, it was a 
 question also of preserving them from impres- 
 
66 MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 sions that might injure their future life, and 
 no one could feel and meet this responsibility 
 better than she. She owed them in the first 
 place that charity which she was ever prompted 
 and ready to give to the outcast child in the 
 streets of the large city; and with the good 
 sense that always distinguishes really holy 
 people she assumed this duty without lessening 
 her devotion to others who were in similar 
 need of care for soul and body. It was with 
 a view of facilitating this twofold obligation 
 of attending to the education of her children, 
 so far as this became a personal task, and of 
 directing the organization of the House of 
 the Holy Family, that she took a residence in 
 close proximity to the latter. 1 Thus her time 
 was closely divided in the service of her chil- 
 dren, and of those sadder orphans to whom 
 she sought to be mother in the higher sense of 
 the word. But when she had accomplished 
 the duty of a Christian mother in its truest 
 sense, and saw that her children were both in 
 the way of being established in a career where 
 it was possible for them to make right use of 
 the noble legacy of Christian principles which 
 
 1 This was in 1882. The House of the Holy Family 
 was No. 136 Second Avenue; her own was No. 134. 
 
THE RELIGIOUS SISTERHOOD 6j 
 
 she had bequeathed to them by her teaching 
 and example, she gave herself wholly to the 
 work of caring for and training young girls. 
 
 The fact that in 1881 Father Preston had, in 
 consideration of his services as Vicar General 
 of the New York Archdiocese, been tendered 
 the dignity of Domestic Prelate to Pope Leo 
 XIII, whilst it did not alter the canonical 
 status of the good priest or increase his eccle- 
 siastical powers, yet it served to strengthen the 
 confidence in his guidance, and brought with 
 it also a certain influence which was likely to 
 forestall many difficulties which ordinarily ac- 
 company the first foundation of a new Religious 
 Order. He undertook with infinite patience 
 and care to draw up the Rules and Consti- 
 tution by which the new society was to be 
 governed. It is not necessary here to re- 
 peat those grand and abiding maxims upon 
 which the strife after perfection by mutual 
 service of charity and forbearance, no less 
 than by prayer and mortification, is based 
 "in the religious life, as the masters of spiri- 
 tuality have taught us." The main outlines 
 of the spiritual organism to promote the 
 various forms of active charity are readily 
 sketched, inasmuch as they are determined 
 
68 MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 by the character of the principal works to 
 be undertaken on the part of the members, 
 either singly or in union, but always under 
 one directing spirit. And the means by which 
 this organism is kept in a healthy and per- 
 fect condition is "entire consecration to our 
 Lord," so that the members are continually 
 drawn to "follow Him and Him only, in 
 seeking and saving souls." 
 
 The keynote of the Rules, as well as the 
 inspiration of the entire Constitution, is "The 
 Divine Compassion." It is this beautiful image 
 of a supernatural sympathy which animates 
 all the enterprises of the Institute and operates 
 within and without the precincts of the con- 
 ventual life. The intimate study of the Sacred 
 Heart becomes thus the daily occupation of 
 each religious. In this sense, we read, "the 
 Sisters are taught to be the instruments of 
 His mercy, to breathe the spirit of His gentle- 
 ness, and to draw their religious life from the 
 tenderness of His Heart. If they can imitate 
 Him, if they can speak His words and convey 
 His pity to those who need it, they will be 
 following His dear footsteps. 
 
 The principal officers of the Sisterhood of 
 the Divine Compassion are: an Ecclesiastical 
 
THE RELIGIOUS SISTERHOOD 69 
 
 Superior General 1 a Mother Superior General, 2 
 an Assistant, a Mistress of Novices, and a 
 Treasurer. There are, as in all other religious 
 institutes, numerous minor offices. 
 
 The body of the Sisterhood is divided into 
 two grades. In the first are numbered those 
 whom the society finds most suitable for its 
 major labors of teaching and guiding the chil- 
 dren and from whose ranks the general officers 
 of the Sisterhood are chosen. These are called 
 the Choir Sisters. Next in order are those 
 whose duty it is to assist the Choir Sisters in 
 somewhat the same manner as the coadjutor 
 priests co-operate with the professed Fathers 
 of the Society of Jesus. This class is called 
 the "Little Sisters." Just as these two grades 
 differ in duty and responsibility, so the religious 
 habit which they wear distinguishes them exter- 
 nally, one from the other. The Choir Sisters, 
 in order that they might ever be mindful of 
 their special consecration to the Compassionate 
 Heart of Jesus, wear a habit of black woolen 
 material, with a narrow band of crimson — 
 
 1 This office was held by Monsignor Preston until his 
 death in 1891. 
 
 2 Mother Veronica held the office from 1886, the year 
 of the Sisterhood's foundation, until her death in August, 
 1904. 
 
70 MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 symbolic of Precious Blood — around the edge. 
 The head is covered with a black veil which 
 falls to the ground at the back. The coif and 
 bandeau are of white material. The cincture 
 is black, and from it depends a fifteen-decade 
 rosary, to which is attached a medal bearing on 
 one side an image of our Divine Savior, with 
 His hands bound, — emblematic of the virtue of 
 obedience; around the edge of the medal runs 
 the beautiful characteristic inscription: Com- 
 passio Divina Amantissimi Jesu. The reverse 
 of the medal shows a figure of Our Blessed Lady 
 of Sorrows, and the words: Mater Dolorosa, 
 dulcedo, spes nostra. The crucifix worn by the 
 nuns is of silver, and bears on the back the 
 inscription: Divina Compassio Domini Nostri 
 Jesu Cbristi sit in cordibus nostris. The second 
 band of workers who vow their service to the 
 divine work of Compassion is that of the 
 "Little Sisters." Their dress differs from that 
 of the choir nuns, in that, being consecrated 
 to the Compassionate Heart of Mary, the 
 band around the edge of the gown is blue 
 instead of red. 
 
 The new Rule had thus been carefully 
 prepared by Monsignor Preston. It required 
 only the approbation of the Ordinary in order 
 
:y^-€>f/ cjoti '//.> >.»?/ '. /rA-fff?/ 
 
THE RELIGIOUS SISTERHOOD 71 
 
 that arrangements for its immediate applica- 
 tion to community life might be made. On 
 May 28, 1886, the Most Reverend Michael 
 Augustine Corrigan, who had during the pre- 
 vious year become Archbishop as successor 
 cum jure of the deceased Cardinal McCloskey, 
 gave his blessing and solemn approbation to 
 the Rules and Constitution of the "Sisters of 
 the Divine Compassion." Although there 
 could be no doubt as to who should be the 
 first Superior of the new religious community, 
 Mrs. Starr was far from considering herself 
 in any other light than that of a simple co- 
 laborer in the work which she had indeed 
 begun; and while she had actually led the des- 
 tinies of the "Holy Family" work for so many 
 years, and felt that in yielding gladly to the 
 suggestion of her spiritual director to assume 
 the religious vow, she would only bind herself 
 more closely to the task that she really loved 
 for the sake of her Divine Master, yet she felt 
 that there was a difference in the responsibility 
 which should come to her were she to under- 
 take not only the direction of the work, but 
 also the government of a community whose 
 members she would be bound by a sacred 
 pledge to lead at the same time to their individ- 
 
72 MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 ual perfection. However, Monsignor Preston, 
 acting immediately under authority from the 
 Archbishop, prevailed upon her, simply and 
 submissively, to accept the evident designs of 
 Providence in assuming the general Superior- 
 ship of the new religious Institute. 
 
 Confident that the blessing of God had 
 come upon all the work she had done during the 
 twenty years of her conversion, and assured 
 by Monsignor Preston that our Heavenly 
 Father could not but assist her in so noble a 
 work, she promptly and humbly accepted 
 the trust placed in her, and remained as the 
 head of the society until she went to receive 
 her reward from the hand of God. Her name 
 in religion was Mother Mary Veronica. A 
 few words taken from a sketch of Mother 
 Veronica's life, written by herself in obedience 
 to Monsignor Preston, forcibly tell us how 
 eagerly she and the other happy souls awaited 
 the day when they were to receive the habit 
 of the newly instituted Order. "June came," 
 she said, "and still Monsignor Preston could 
 not appoint a day, — the great day. But 
 early in the month, he said: 'The second of 
 July is the Feast of the Sacred Heart this 
 year, and the feast of the Visitation, — that 
 
THE RELIGIOUS SISTERHOOD 73 
 
 shall be the day.' Then we both looked in the 
 calendar to see what day of the week it was 
 and we found it was the first Friday in July. 
 So, there was the Sacred Heart, the Precious 
 Blood, and our Blessed Mother all coming 
 together the same day for the birth of our 
 Sisterhood. Oh! what a day it was to our 
 souls, — to us who had watched and waited 
 and prayed for sixteen years! And when it 
 came, it was like the birth of the little Child 
 in Bethlehem." 
 
 What the new life meant for the young com- 
 munity only those can understand who have 
 made the sacrifice, irrevocably sealing the 
 compact between the soul and God, to serve 
 Him body and soul under whatever hardships, 
 with a firm trust in the Heavenly Bridegroom 
 to whom the heart is espoused. How grateful 
 Mother Veronica felt for the co-operation she 
 received on every side may be gleaned from a 
 letter which she writes the following year to 
 thank those faithful laborers one and all, whose 
 hearty co-operation and sympathy had sus- 
 tained her efforts and lightened the burdens of 
 the Institution. 
 
 "We must speak here of those who from the 
 beginning have never failed, and to whose 
 
74 MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 untiring zeal and generosity the Institution is 
 in a great degree indebted for its existence. 
 For eighteen years they have worked together 
 with the utmost devotion and unanimity of 
 purpose, and it is worthy of note that there 
 has never been a shadow of misunderstanding 
 or disunion to mar the harmony of their work. 
 May the tie that has bound them thus to- 
 gether, remain unbroken until the end! They 
 have aided in establishing a work whose 
 foundations have been laid in silent, patient, 
 unostentatious charity. We believe that the 
 work will stand and with it their names will be 
 held in grateful remembrance. Their reward, 
 too, will be great; for, directly or indirectly, 
 they have seen the means of "turning many to 
 justice." Of the souls that have been saved 
 during these eighteen years, who shall speak? 
 Of the thousands that have passed through 
 the Institution, receiving, according to their 
 capacity, the benefits conferred upon them, who 
 shall tell the history? Much of it is known to 
 God alone; but what is known to us would fill 
 volumes; and these volumes would tell of 
 children rescued from an atmosphere of crime 
 and depravity, who, saved and grown to 
 womanhood, are now good wives and mothers. 
 
THE RELIGIOUS SISTERHOOD 75 
 
 They would tell of young girls, who, led to 
 ruin by vanity or their own hearts, have been 
 restored to virtue, and, with a higher model 
 before them, have begun life over again. They 
 would tell of families reunited, whom sin had 
 separated. They would tell of souls conse- 
 crated to God, who think one life too little in 
 which to make reparation of the past; and, 
 finally they would tell of souls purified even 
 here by suffering and tears, and who are now, 
 we believe, in the enjoyment of a blessed 
 eternity. We have seen miracles far greater 
 than those in which the lame walk and the 
 blind see. We have beheld miracles of con- 
 version and miracles of perseverance, and 
 these so manifestly the work of God that we 
 could only adore His power and compassion, 
 while we acknowledged our own nothingness." 
 The Sisters had been living next to the 
 House of the Holy Family since the establish- 
 ment of their Order, but Mother Veronica saw 
 in the growth of her Community the necessity 
 of a separate and larger building, where the 
 daily religious life of the Sisters could be car- 
 ried on more thoroughly. About two years 
 before Monsignor Preston passed from their 
 midst he requested the Right Reverend Mon- 
 
76 MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 signor John Edwards, V. G., to locate some 
 place in the country. In the spring of 1890, 
 twelve acres of land situated on North Broad- 
 way, at White Plains, N. Y., valued at $50,000, 
 were, through the able efforts of Monsignor 
 Edwards purchased for $25,000. This property 
 consisted of well-cultivated farming land, a 
 fine old country mansion with beautiful lawns 
 and shade trees, and well-stocked orchards. 
 After the mansion had been renovated, and 
 most of its costly furniture sold in order to 
 meet expenses, the Sisters took possession of it 
 and gave to it the name of "Good Counsel," 
 which henceforth became the mother-house 
 and the novitiate of the Sisterhood, and it 
 was an abode which by its very name suggested 
 happy forecasts of the blessed work to be done 
 within its precincts. 
 
 Mother Veronica had formed a plan with 
 Monsignor Preston to develop the work already 
 begun in one of the houses, namely, the train- 
 ing and education of innocent young girls. The 
 care and training of delinquent children has 
 always remained the special work of the House 
 of the Holy Family. This necessitated the 
 erection of a new building near the mother- 
 house. The ever-helping hand of Providence 
 
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THE RELIGIOUS SISTERHOOD fj 
 
 again came to her aid in the form of a legacy 
 left to her in the estate of a friend, and with 
 this as a foundation she commenced the build- 
 ing of the "Good Counsel Training School" 
 for girls, which was completed in the autumn 
 of 1891. Success alone would not be the sign 
 of the Divine approval. Those who had 
 devoted themselves to following their Heavenly 
 Spouse were to know Him by the presence of 
 sorrow as well as by the power that protects 
 from real harm. The new edifice of the 
 Training School had been practically com- 
 pleted when God called to Him the one man 
 who had fostered the first germs and tenderly 
 watched and cared for the growing plant until 
 it began to yield its first fair fruits. Mon- 
 signor Preston died on November 4, 1891. He 
 was buried from St. Patrick's Cathedral, the 
 late Archbishop Corrigan celebrating Solemn 
 Pontifical Mass of Requiem. The scene itself 
 was an inspiring one, and the tender sympathy 
 of those who knew and loved the venerable 
 priest lying before them, received fitting expres- 
 sion in the words of Archbishop Ryan, of 
 Philadelphia, who preached the funeral ser- 
 mon. "It seems almost a pity," said the 
 preacher, "that a sermon in words should dis- 
 
78 MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 turb the still, impressive eloquence of the 
 scene-sermon before us. Everything whispers 
 to the intellect, heart, and imagination, and I 
 feel my voice but silences that whisper, and 
 that the deep, tender sounds of the Church's 
 ritual and the Church's funeral music should 
 alone be heard. This beautiful, widowed 
 church, which he built and adorned, mourns 
 over his coffin; the silent confessional, where 
 he breathed forth pardon, peace, and con- 
 solation, speaks of him; the glorious altar, the 
 throne of the Living God, has a voice from him 
 as Christ's ambassador to you. . . . Few, 
 during the century which has passed, have 
 left a greater impress upon the history of 
 Catholicism in America than the Founder of 
 the Sisterhood of the Divine Compassion. 
 Gifted by God with a keen and forcible mind, 
 remarkable for his abilities as a preacher and 
 controversial writer, he has left behind him, 
 in the fruits of his life-long labors and in the 
 character of his priestly and scholarly attain- 
 ments, monuments that mark the pathway of 
 his whole life, that will perpetuate his name 
 and his glory, and whose results will deepen 
 and broaden with the onward surge of time. 
 . . . He was above all loyal to truth wher- 
 
THE RELIGIOUS SISTERHOOD 79 
 
 ever he found it, and though stern and unre- 
 lenting toward those whom it was his duty to 
 reprimand and correct, he was withal gentle 
 and affectionate, and realized the qualities 
 which go to form the ideal gentleman — 
 manly in strength, gentle in feeling and word — 
 a man like Onias of old, modest in looks, 
 gentle in manner, and graceful in speech. 
 Dignified and courteous in all his actions, he 
 made one feel when in his presence that he 
 was a man, without forgetting that he was a 
 priest of God. He never desired nor sought 
 popularity. And the outside world, which ap- 
 preciates to some extent, at least, its own 
 weakness, honors the magnanimity of the 
 man who troubles not nor cares for its passing 
 approval, and admires him who seeks none." 
 Such were in substance the words of the 
 prelate who had known Monsignor Preston 
 and mourned in him a lost friend. 
 
 Monsignor Preston was a voluminous writer, 
 especially on religious subjects. Among his 
 best known works are: God and Reason, a 
 defence of natural religion from a Catholic 
 viewpoint; Reason and Revelation, an apology 
 for natural religion and revealed truth; The 
 Vicar of Christ, on the supremacy of the 
 
80 MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 Papacy; The Protestant Reformation; Protes- 
 tantism and the Bible; The Divine Paraclete; 
 The Divine Sanctuary , and many other writings 
 of a devotional character. 
 
 His last wish was to be buried among his 
 children of the Divine Compassion, but the 
 little chapel at White Plains was not suitable 
 for building a crypt, and his remains lay 
 under the high altar at the Cathedral until 
 1897, when they were transferred, as we shall 
 see, to the Church which Mother Veronica 
 erected near the mother-house. 
 
 The death of Monsignor Preston, on Novem- 
 ber 4th of 1 891, created a deep void in the 
 heart of Mother Veronica, who had looked 
 to him always as a wise and kindly director 
 in all that pertained to the management of 
 the charitable work which she had undertaken, 
 and which was growing beyond the propor- 
 tions originally contemplated; and he had 
 been too the true friend and father whom she 
 might approach with the reverent affection 
 of a dutiful child, and confide to him all the 
 secret sorrows and doubts that she would 
 naturally be bound to keep from those who 
 could not properly estimate the motives and 
 circumstances of her action. Although she 
 
THE RELIGIOUS SISTERHOOD 8l 
 
 had acquired the habit of living continually 
 in the presence of God, and therefore placed 
 all her confidence upon the firm foundation of 
 a supernatural faith, yet there were hours when 
 that presence was veiled with darker clouds 
 than usual, and when the gentle touch of a 
 human hand or the sound of a fatherly voice 
 meant so much for the steadying of the tried 
 soul. 
 
 For a time she was left to bear the burden 
 of responsibility alone, and if aught had been 
 wanting to prove her the "valiant woman" 
 of God, it was the unbroken and earnest 
 devotion to her daily duties in the community, 
 hiding the bitter grief in the sweet and silent 
 resignation that shone forth from her coun- 
 tenance and manner. It had been Monsignor 
 Preston's desire to be laid to rest among his 
 children, the daughters of the Divine Com- 
 passion, of whose prayers he might be sure, and 
 to whom his silent monument would continue 
 to preach the lessons of loyalty to the beautiful 
 standard of charity to which they had vowed 
 their lives under his inspiring direction. Mother 
 Veronica felt both the sacred obligation im- 
 posed upon her by this expression of his last 
 will, and the benefit which the community 
 
82 MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 would derive from cherishing the memory of 
 their founder and guide in religious perfection. 
 She therefore at once began arrangements for 
 the building of a suitable community chapel, 
 with a crypt where the remains of their 
 beloved father might be kept in prayerful, 
 venerated remembrance. Gratitude, as with 
 all noble souls, was a characteristic trait of her 
 nature; and hence she would make every sac- 
 rifice to give expression, in the beauty of the 
 work she contemplated as a memorial, to the 
 sentiment of filial recognition to the priest who 
 under God had been the benefactor not merely 
 of the nuns who first accepted his rule of life, 
 but also of all who in future would take up 
 the sweet yoke of Christ, or be benefited by 
 the labors of the Community of the Divine 
 Compassion. The works that are done for 
 God are the seeds of perennial and wondrous 
 growth, and such was the fruit tree planted 
 by Monsignor Preston and committed to the 
 care of Mother Veronica and those who were 
 to follow her in the task of watering the 
 heavenly plant. 
 
 It is necessary to recall here that in 1890, 
 the year before Monsignor Preston's death, a 
 purchase had been made of twelve acres of 
 

THE RELIGIOUS SISTERHOOD 83 
 
 property at White Plains, in the State of New 
 York, where the mother-house and novitiate 
 of the Order was to be henceforth. A legacy 
 received from the estate of George V. Hecker 
 started the building of the Good Counsel 
 Training School in 1891. Much larger funds 
 would, of course, be needed to accomplish the 
 building of a chapel. And here God's prov- 
 idential care which hovered over the work 
 manifested itself in the aid which came to the 
 community, without any recourse to those 
 appeals to public sympathy which are the 
 ordinary and legitimate expedients resorted to 
 by those who serve the cause of public bene- 
 faction. An uncle of Mother Veronica, already 
 mentioned in the earlier part of this sketch, 
 had left an estate worth something over #200,- 
 000, which had been settled upon the mother 
 of our foundress, and which on the death of 
 that lady, in November, 1893, became the 
 legitimate inheritance of her daughter, Mother 
 Veronica. In addition to this the mother had 
 left an estate of about #10,000, also bequeathed 
 to the daughter. Thus the means to begin 
 the chapel were supplied, and the plans which 
 Mother Veronica had been quietly maturing 
 in the confident hope of the needed assistance 
 
84 MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 could now be carried out without further 
 delay. Archbishop Corrigan approved of the 
 designs and expressed his appreciation of the 
 sagacity of Mother Veronica, who had left no 
 detail in the arrangement unconsidered. In- 
 deed, she had wonderful talent as an artist, 
 and the architectural designs, appointments 
 of the interior, and other arrangements sug- 
 gesting the combination of good taste with 
 utility, were minutely considered by her before 
 the work was begun. It was found advisable 
 to acquire the property adjoining the one 
 already purchased. The additional fifteen acres 
 were appraised at $55,000. 
 
 On June, 25, 1895, the corner-stone of the 
 chapel was laid by Archbishop Corrigan, whose 
 friendly interest in the concerns of the Com- 
 munity had steadily increased with the appre- 
 ciation of their noble work. In less than two 
 years the chapel was completed, and the last 
 day of May, 1897, marking a similar concur- 
 rence of celebration in honor of the glorious 
 Queen of Heaven with the eve of the month 
 of the Sacred Heart, saw its solemn opening. 
 Archbishop Corrigan consecrated the new home 
 of Our Blessed Lord in the Sacrament of His 
 Love. The foundress has left to her children 
 
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THE RELIGIOUS SISTERHOOD 85 
 
 a record of her impressions on the occasion, 
 although she was unconscious at the time she 
 gave it that it was meant for transmission to 
 others in writing. As in the case of Brother 
 Leo, who often took down in writing the words 
 of fervent gratitude uttered by St. Francis of 
 Assisi, so in this case the notes which give us 
 an insight into the feelings of Mother Veronica 
 at the time were penned down by one who 
 felt that those who in later times might cherish 
 her memory would be grateful for the thought. 
 The keynote of these expressions is an intense 
 spiritual gratitude: "What shall we give to 
 the Lord in return for all He has given unto 
 us in making us children of His Church, in 
 giving us His tabernacle ? Who can express the 
 thanksgiving offered here, the spiritual joys of 
 which we are to become partakers in this 
 place ? Is there anyone who with better reason 
 than we can say: Lord, I have loved Thy house 
 and the place where Thy glory dwelleth?" 
 
 We may not delay here to describe the 
 quaint architectural beauty of the chapel, the 
 exterior of which was suggested by a photo- 
 graphic sketch in the January issue of The 
 Dolphin. Suffice it to say that it is a work 
 which in its exterior structure calls forth all 
 
86 MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 the sentiments of a conventual church, — the 
 ancient simplicity that marks the monumental 
 shrine of the age of faith, when stone was made 
 to speak firmness and strength, and the forms 
 of circle and pointed roof declared the endless 
 round of eternal aims turning heavenward. 
 There is a suggestion in this sanctuary amid 
 the shading trees of solitude, the beata solitudo 
 which is the abode where God is best heard, 
 because it invites the soul to recollection and 
 to prayer, and which contains the secret of all 
 our joys and all our strength in very truth, as 
 St. Bernard used to say — Sola beatitudo. 
 
 It is perhaps of special significance at this 
 time, when our Holy Father insists upon the 
 reintroduction of that beautiful art in church 
 music which is the ancient inheritance of the 
 sanctuary, to call attention here to the fact 
 that Mother Veronica had an intense devotion 
 to the proper cultivation of church music. 
 It was with her, apart from any ecclesiastical 
 ordinance or law, an instinctive clinging to 
 what the Church loves and approves as the 
 truest expression of devotion in her service. 
 Hence she inculcated the proper chanting, not 
 only of the canonical office, but also the devout 
 and careful rendering of the music which was to 
 
THE RELIGIOUS SISTERHOOD 87 
 
 accompany the liturgical functions throughout 
 the year. She had the advantage of being 
 herself an accomplished musician, and had 
 left to the community a rare musical library 
 for services of the Chapel. It was her per- 
 sonal care to have organized a choir to render 
 the chant of the Church with proper dignity 
 and solemnity; and the repertory of the con- 
 vent included beautiful specimens of polyphonic 
 music, rendered in quartette and chorus. She 
 looked indeed to everything that was neces- 
 sary or calculated to make the offices of the 
 Church beautiful, and she added intelligent 
 instruction to these arrangements in order 
 that those who took part in the solemn service 
 of the liturgy might understand them and 
 render a truly reasonable sacrifice. Thus on the 
 eve of the first Mass celebrated in the new 
 chapel she gathered all her spiritual children 
 about her and spoke to them in tender and 
 serious words touching the importance of the 
 occasion. We have her very words taken 
 down by one present at the time: 
 
 "My dear children, to-morrow will be a 
 great day for us; the day on which for the 
 first time the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass will 
 be offered up in our church. I want you to 
 
88 MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 enter into the spirit of it, and try to realize 
 what the day is to us. This night can never 
 come to you again. It can never come to 
 anyone again. No doubt in years to come, 
 hundreds of years from now, those who come 
 after us will look back to this night and wonder 
 what were our thoughts and feelings with 
 regard to it. 
 
 "It is now seven years since our Father first 
 spoke to me of building a church. He always 
 looked forward to it; for the thought was a 
 great joy to him, and since God took him the 
 thought of the church has never been absent 
 from my mind. To us who have prayed and 
 worked and suffered for it, it has been the goal 
 at which we have aimed all these years, our 
 beacon star. And now, after two years of 
 building and three years of preparation, we 
 lay it at the feet of our Lord with all our 
 hearts. But to some of you who have re- 
 cently come it is a new toy, a little variety 
 in your life, something for a change. Some 
 of you, dear children, are a little too frivolous 
 about sacred things. I want you to be more 
 serious. Sisters of the Divine Compassion 
 must be earnest women, and I ask you, young 
 sisters, to make an effort to enter into our 
 
THE RELIGIOUS SISTERHOOD 89 
 
 spirit. Those who are called to remain in 
 union with the Passion of our Lord and the 
 Sorrows of His Blessed Mother must bear the 
 grave character befitting religious women. This 
 is the spirit of the Rule, and you will never 
 attain to it, until you have what the Scripture 
 calls a deep bean. Sisters of the Divine Com- 
 passion must be deep-hearted, true-souled, 
 strong, generous, earnest women, — not but- 
 terflies. To-morrow is not the great day, the 
 day of consecration which we expect later, 
 but it is a tremendous day, the day on which, 
 for the first time, the Lord of Majesty will be 
 lifted up in the House of God, which is an 
 image of the eternal Temple not made with 
 hands, where God dwells, when the bread will 
 become the Body of Christ and the wine will 
 become His Blood. It is an awful thought, 
 dear children. What ought to be your grati- 
 tude to God who has brought you here and 
 made you a part of it all; for it is truly a great 
 privilege to be part of such a work. Think of 
 the souls that will be drawn to God in this 
 church, who will be led to love Him! You 
 are to be instruments to bring this about. It 
 is worth while to have lived and labored and 
 suffered, if only to induce one soul to make an 
 
90 MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 act of love for God. And, dear children, the 
 building of this church adds to your responsi- 
 bilities. You have been singled out from so 
 many others for the use and cultivation of 
 special graces. To whom much is given much 
 will be required, and we shall be judged 
 according to the graces we have received. The 
 building of this church calls you to, and lays 
 you under, an obligation to aspire to a higher 
 spirituality, a deeper piety. To-morrow I desire 
 that we should be one heart and one soul in 
 offering this church to our Lord. All of you 
 can offer it to Him. I seem to hear Him say 
 to some of you: 'Yes, I accept it from you 
 because your heart goes with it.' What would 
 all that we do amount to, unless our hearts 
 went with it? Our Lord wants your hearts, 
 and to-morrow let each one make this offering 
 to Him, and with it let her offer her life, not 
 only for the present but all her future life, her 
 strength, every drop of her blood, her whole 
 being; and our Lord will be pleased to accept 
 it; and let her pray that she may be worthy." 
 
THE CATHOLIC GIRLS' CLUB 
 
The Catholic Girls' Club 
 
 !== ^HUS far we have traced the develop- 
 ment of the work of the Association 
 at the House of the Holy Family, the 
 purchase of the mother-house and novitiate, 
 and the building of the Good Counsel Training 
 School, together with the chapel at White 
 Plains, N. Y. We now come to speak of the 
 last two departments of Mother Veronica's 
 labors, — the establishment of a Catholic Girls' 
 Club in New York City, and the erection of a 
 new convent at White Plains. 
 
 As long as the girls were under the direct 
 care of the Sisters, Mother Veronica had every 
 hope for their ultimate reformation, but the 
 question naturally arose, — what would keep 
 them straight and firm in the path of virtue 
 after they had left the Sisters' control? Mon- 
 signor Preston had indeed organized a Sodality 
 and a Confraternity for this purpose, but the 
 girls began to lose heart; and so Mother 
 Veronica, with the approbation and encourage- 
 ment of the Archbishop, began preparing plans 
 
94 MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 for a home, or club-house, in New York City, 
 where the former children of the Association, 
 and in fact all the Catholic working girls, 
 might find a place having all the advantages 
 and inducement which drew many of them to 
 Protestant societies. With the Right Rev. 
 Monsignor Edwards, Monsignor Preston's suc- 
 cessor, as Spiritual Director, the Club began 
 under the name of "The Working Girls' Club 
 of the House of our Lady of the Wayside," at 
 37 Eighth Street, St. Mark's Place. The 
 scope and purpose of the Club, which now 
 boasts of one thousand or more members, were 
 outlined in detail at the first general meeting 
 in February, 1902. As they are the words of 
 Mother Veronica herself, we quote a portion 
 of them to show how admirable was the pur- 
 pose of founding the society : 
 
 "The main object of the Club is self- 
 improvement. It is to enable self-respecting 
 girls who wish to be self-supporting to improve 
 themselves and thus elevate themselves intel- 
 lectually, socially, and morally. What do I 
 mean by self-improvement? Let me give you 
 a few illustrations. 1. Perhaps you were 
 obliged to begin work before you had a fair 
 chance to get a good education. You feel as 
 
THE CATHOLIC GIRLS CLUB 95 
 
 you grow older that this is a disadvantage to 
 you. It is. To speak correctly, to write cor- 
 rectly, to read well, is a great benefit to you 
 even from a monetary point of view. There- 
 fore we give you the opportunity to come. 
 
 "2. Perhaps you have never learned any 
 trade or business thoroughly. When you began 
 to work you were glad to take whatever offered, 
 and now you find there is no possibility of 
 rising in it, or it is poorly paid, or it brings 
 you in contact with a class of girls you want to 
 avoid. You must keep working and cannot 
 afford to stop or look for other work or learn 
 to do it. Therefore we offer you the oppor- 
 tunity to come here and learn almost any- 
 thing you wish to learn thoroughly. We have 
 classes in all branches of woman's work. 
 
 "3. Perhaps you have had a good education; 
 perhaps you have a satisfactory occupation. 
 But you would like to advance yourself 
 by acquiring some accomplishment, some art. 
 These are always expensive and you have only 
 your evenings. Therefore, you may come here 
 and study music, the languages, and painting." 
 
 In the course of her address, after pointing 
 out the many privileges and obligations of the 
 Club-membership, Mother Veronica promised 
 
96 MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 the girls that at a later date they should have a 
 Club organization, with one of the Sisters of the 
 Divine Compassion as Directress, with the 
 power of appointing officers, promoters, and 
 representatives. On the first anniversary of 
 the founding of the Club, October 28, 1902, 
 the Sisters made a little change in its name; 
 there were many "Working Girls' Clubs" 
 under Protestant auspices, and therefore that 
 there might be no mistake about it, the name 
 was altered to "The Catholic Girls' Club of the 
 House of Our Lady." Some new features 
 were added, such as allowing self-supporting 
 girls to reside in the House, enjoining the 
 members to be on the lookout for positions for 
 the unemployed girls, and requesting the girls 
 to notify the Sisters of any illness or trouble 
 that might befall them, so that all help and 
 comfort could be rendered to them. The Club 
 kept continually increasing under the fostering 
 care of the Sisters, and as Mother Veronica 
 recognized that the house it was then occupying 
 had not all the advantages of a regular club- 
 house, she sold, in March, 1904, 37 Eighth 
 Street, St. Mark's Place, and 134 Second 
 Avenue, and bought the two properties situated 
 at Nos. 52 and 54 East 126th Street. These 
 
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THE CATHOLIC GIRLS CLUB 97 
 
 two commodious houses were thoroughly reno- 
 vated, an addition built for chapel and gym- 
 nasium, and newly furnished, so that to-day 
 the Catholic working girls of New York City 
 have a club-house equaled by none of its 
 kind in the city, and the membership is daily 
 growing greater. 
 
 Akin to the zeal which had animated Mother 
 Veronica for the erection of a becoming chapel, 
 where the Blessed Master to whom she had 
 vowed her undivided service might make His 
 earthly dwelling among His children, was her 
 anxiety to build a suitable convent in which the 
 religious could without hindrance follow the 
 exercises of prayer and work imposed by their 
 holy Rule. She had experienced the joy of 
 seeing the beautiful tabernacle completed where 
 the Divine Spouse would henceforth daily meet 
 His daughters in that intimate communion of 
 the Blessed Sacrament which was at once the 
 food of their souls and the cheering light on 
 their pathway to heaven. That chapel was 
 at the same time an enduring memorial of the 
 community's gratitude toward their priestly 
 founder, whose body rested among them after 
 his pilgrimage, and reminded them of the 
 journey's end whither all the faithful members 
 
98 MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 of the community would follow him to the 
 Home of the Heavenly Bridegroom. But the 
 lack of proper accommodation for the religious 
 and the distractions incident to inconveniently 
 located and ill-constructed buildings, crowded 
 rooms, and incomplete appointments gave her 
 motherly heart much concern, and she thought 
 earnestly and prayed fervently that she might 
 be enabled to raise the necessary funds for 
 an immediate beginning of a roomy religious 
 house in which the community could enjoy and 
 profit by the advantage of conventual life. 
 
 Accordingly she had plans drawn up in 
 which she carefully and with her wonted at- 
 tention to detail and practical utility em- 
 bodied the suggestions gained from experience 
 in her previous work. After waiting four years 
 she secured the immediate means which war- 
 ranted the undertaking of the actual work; 
 and with the blessing of the ecclesiastical 
 authorities she saw the first stone for the con- 
 struction of the ground floor laid. The thought 
 of having at length begun the work that seemed 
 to complete the needful accommodation for 
 her dear Sisters gave her intense joy. Only 
 for a brief month was this gladness of gratitude 
 over the accomplishment of a long-cherished 
 
THE CATHOLIC GIRLS CLUB 99 
 
 desire to lighten and animate her active super- 
 vision of the work. The foundation of the 
 new building had been barely laid when the 
 Divine Master knocked at the door of her cell 
 to announce that He was ready to take her 
 away with Him to the Mansion of religious 
 life not built with human hands. She was to 
 leave the completion of her task to other 
 hands animated by the same spirit, whilst 
 her own would now rest from toil, and the 
 care of her heart would be converted into per- 
 manent expressions of love and gratitude. 
 
 The new convent is planned to suffice for the 
 needs of the present and prospective com- 
 munity in every respect. It is a substantial 
 and commodious structure, the simplicity of 
 which constitutes at once its beauty and its 
 character as the home of a religious family. 
 But we are not here so much concerned with 
 the architectural features and appointments 
 of the new convent as with her who projected 
 and laid the first foundation of it, and whose 
 spirit pervades it as though she were still 
 its earthly guardian. 
 
 The reader of the meager sketch we have 
 been allowed to give thus far of Mother Veron- 
 ica's work, must have formed of her a picture 
 
IOO MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 which can hardly fail to be true. Yet no one 
 who did not come into more personal contact 
 with her, or was privileged to get those more 
 intimate glimpses into her domestic life which 
 reveal those natural intuitions which prompt 
 the habitual exercise of a provident and kindly 
 affection on the one hand and the deeper 
 recesses of supernatural motives on the other, 
 — no one, I say, who did not look into her 
 more intimate life could form any adequate 
 estimate of the fascination which Mother 
 Veronica all unconsciously wrought upon those 
 around her. That the Sisters, her special 
 children, should cherish an affectionate remem- 
 brance of the solicitude she showed for their 
 spiritual and temporal welfare during their 
 years of novitiate and professed religious life, 
 may be readily comprehended. They might, 
 indeed, easily magnify the virtues they saw in 
 her, and which became to them patterns for 
 imitation. But we have the spontaneous tes- 
 timony regarding the beauty of character and 
 person which distinguished Mother Veronica 
 also given by those who were not drawn to 
 admire her merely by the halo which common 
 interests, or what may be styled family attach- 
 ments, throw about the superiors who direct our 
 
THE CATHOLIC GIRLS' CLUB IOI 
 
 daily lives under their protecting influence, 
 and who make us continually feel the benefits 
 of association with them, so as to arouse in us 
 an abiding sense of gratitude and love. Among 
 the friends who signified their sympathy on 
 the occasion of the death of Mother Veronica, 
 there were many to whom her life had appealed 
 as a simple illustration of certain remarkable 
 gifts, — that is to say, of those qualities of 
 mind and heart which render a person beautiful 
 or great in our eyes, according to the value 
 and emphasis which we happen to place upon 
 such possessions, whether they are the result 
 of natural endowment or of acquired virtue. 
 Men of business, with whom her office as 
 directress of the many charitable interests 
 depending upon her guidance brought Mother 
 Veronica necessarily into communication, have 
 expressed their keen appreciation of the singu- 
 larly clear judgment in business affairs, and the 
 ready tact with which she forestalled difficulties 
 in matters that seemed wholly out of range 
 of her ordinary experience. There was in her 
 no trace of that hurried anxiety, that eager 
 pertinacity to carry out a preconceived wish, 
 which is so natural an accompaniment in the 
 character of the woman who possesses what 
 
102 MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 we call genius. Genius, undoubtedly, she pos- 
 sessed. Her fine tastes, her intelligence of the 
 advantages that a knowledge of art bestows, 
 her practical aptness for any work that required 
 esthetic sense and training were evident on all 
 occasions. Yet, whilst order and precision 
 might be judged to be a result of artistic appre- 
 ciation, they were found in her to an extent 
 which indicated a marvelous power of self- 
 control, of calm deliberation and method, which 
 made her subordinate her personal likings and 
 views to the claims of utility and the common 
 good. We have before us a number of the 
 letters mentioned above, from the trustees who 
 met her in counsel; from leading members of 
 the Vincent de Paul Society who co-operated 
 with her in meeting the multiform needs that 
 called her attention and relief in the city of 
 New York and elsewhere; from eminent and 
 wise priests to whom she could unburden her 
 soul at times of retreat, and when Monsignor 
 Preston, or those who were ordinarily in posi- 
 tion to advise her, could not be reached; and 
 from friends near and far who enjoyed and 
 profited by temporary or casual intercourse 
 with her, and to whom her cordial readiness 
 to help in every necessity, her sympathy in 
 
THE CATHOLIC GIRLS CLUB IO3 
 
 troubles of soul or body, and her prudent ways 
 were a beacon in dark hours and a consolation 
 amid the distractions that world interests 
 bring with them. Many such have found the 
 keenest joy even in the far-away memory of the 
 kindnesses received at her hand. It is need- 
 less to say that these qualities were the result 
 of a deep and abiding sense of God's presence, 
 which made her see all things in the light of 
 eternity, and thus attach to them that true 
 value which proves itself permanent and con- 
 sistent with the clearest insight of which pure 
 natural wisdom is capable. 
 
 That her actions and even her motives would 
 not escape criticism need not astonish us. 
 Devout persons who act from supernatural 
 motives are under a disadvantage in the mat- 
 ter of being rightly judged and treated by their 
 fellowmen, even assuming that the latter are 
 well disposed and wish to be just. There is, 
 first of all, the balance of the world which 
 weighs temporal interests according to their 
 monetary value, making no allowance for the 
 fact that the substance which men put in the 
 scale of their appraisements is of a volatile 
 nature and likely to evaporate under the 
 influence of natural heat. Spiritual-minded 
 
104 MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 people look not for size, weight, color; they 
 know that the things which man makes 
 shrink, dry up, or fade. With the things which 
 God makes, it is quite different. The small 
 seed — though it breaks and seemingly cor- 
 rupts and is hidden away out of sight under 
 the ground — grows; it seems very blight and 
 weak, yet it forces its way through the heavy 
 earth, without noise, without show; it seems 
 so delicately frail and white, even as it comes 
 forth shyly from the turf, like a sick child 
 looking out upon the world of noisy joys; and 
 yet in a little while the sun, which bleaches 
 and dries to shreds the pretty colored things 
 of our handiwork, gives it the fairest living 
 tints of rainbow joys. 
 
 So it happens that the world forms its cen- 
 sures upon such acts as seem to ignore present 
 results and which patiently wait, against 
 appearances, for a more permanent, though 
 ordinarily imperceptible, growth. Next there 
 is in the calm independence of spiritual- 
 minded people who follow seemingly unprofit- 
 able and unwise ways of their own a certain 
 semblance of mingled pride and criticism. We 
 can all bear the pride of the foolish, or of the 
 worldly powerful, because they make no pre- 
 
THE CATHOLIC GIRLS CLUB IO5 
 
 tense of humility; but when persons who have 
 put out a sign that they mean to follow the 
 counsels of perfection, calmly ignore our esti- 
 mates of things and smilingly wave their hands 
 and turn their eyes away from us, as if to say : 
 "We do not need your help nor mind your 
 interference," then their piety becomes irritat- 
 ing, all the more as there is a latent^ conscious- 
 ness in everybody that, after all, the saints — 
 though they may be wrong entirely — are in 
 harmony with the teaching of the Master, who 
 warns us against the friendship and good 
 esteem of the world. So we feel that these 
 holy people, whilst they seemingly go out of 
 our way, are really in our way; and they con- 
 stantly hold up a standard of right and good 
 which says to us: "You are wrong, or, what is 
 worse — you are bad." Thus we come some- 
 times to dislike holy people. 
 
 Finally, it must not be forgotten that the 
 persons who form their superficial judgments 
 adversely upon the doings and motives of 
 saintly persons, receive a ready and attentive 
 hearing in the world in which they announce 
 their judgments; whilst the religious, against 
 whom the foolish or malicious utter their 
 whispered suspicion, has no power to prevent 
 
106 MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 the free currency of a slander that is repeated 
 without contradiction and runs its way 
 smoothly through society, because the accused 
 or maligned is not in place to defend herself 
 or to explain, and the scandal-mongers may 
 safely calculate upon being listened to with 
 interest, even by those who do not actually 
 believe what they hear, and who may inwardly 
 form an adverse estimate of the chatterer who 
 makes mischief for persons who are without 
 the means to protect their characters from the 
 aspersions. 
 
 But to return to our subject. Mother 
 Veronica, as we have seen, possessed in a high 
 degree those gifts of prudence, tact, counsel, 
 and charity, which, if not an immediate result 
 of conscious union with God, are certainly per- 
 fected and refined by the divine intercourse 
 which the religious life affords those who rightly 
 approach it. It must not, however, be inferred 
 from this habitual union with God which she 
 experienced, that she was devoid of those 
 charming characteristics of wit and humor 
 which become the most powerful weapons of 
 both correction and defence when combined 
 with a charity that does not know how to 
 wound. Sarcasm is a dangerous gift; yet it is 
 
THE CATHOLIC GIRLS CLUB 107 
 
 so closely allied to the kindly satire that moves 
 in playful circles of well-aimed chastisement 
 as to cause the one often to be mistaken for 
 the other. Mother Veronica's wit was so 
 transparently good-natured that no one at 
 whom it was aimed would have called it even 
 irony; it was the brightness of benevolence, 
 big-hearted cleverness, or whatever else you 
 may call the inimitable originality that wins 
 admiration by the sudden flash of truth which, 
 whilst revealing another's weakness, both excuse 
 and cures it in the very act of making it 
 known. 
 
 A lady who had been on a somewhat intimate 
 footing with her, for a time being under her 
 spiritual guidance, dwells on this characteristic 
 of Mother Veronica, in a letter to one of the 
 nuns, written after the death of the venerated 
 Superior: 
 
 "As I write I have such a picture of her in 
 mind that I can hardly keep myself from 
 dwelling upon her external charm. I used to 
 think, as I took part in the nuns' recreation 
 and enjoyed her keen wit and the play of her 
 bright, rare personality, how she combined 
 every perfection in herself, wondering if it 
 were possible for the Order to sustain such a 
 
108 MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 loss as has now befallen you. Her beautiful 
 smile, her gentle look of quiet compassion 
 (when some one spoke of failure or mishap), 
 her very gestures, the movements of her per- 
 fect hands — how plainly I see it all ! . . . 
 As you well know, she was exceedingly kind 
 to me, and as long as I live I shall always feel 
 my indebtedness to her for the noble example 
 she has set, and for the living proof in her own 
 life that we can be entirely lost and swallowed 
 up in love of God and His holy ones. . . . 
 What a loss, dear Sisters, how irreparable! 
 I know God will sustain you and comfort you; 
 but for the rest of the way you must surely 
 go along as mourners, asking only for the 
 happy day of reunion. It seems to me that 
 my heart would never cease recalling some 
 fresh cause for grief when I think of her. 
 Already I find myself saying: 'Dear Mother, 
 pray for me!' " 
 
 Similar have been the tokens of recognition 
 of noble womanhood as we find it represented 
 in Mother Veronica, on the part of many 
 friends who knew her in the world and in 
 religion. Those traits on which it has been 
 the writer's privilege to dwell in these pages, 
 as of one who knew her only from the distance 
 
THE CATHOLIC GIRLS CLUB IO9 
 
 and through correspondence, are perhaps com- 
 mon enough, but they existed in her to a degree 
 which gave unmistakable signs that she was 
 what we have here attempted to indicate in 
 barest outline, — a valiant woman in the 
 Christian and heroic sense of the word. No 
 doubt some day her more intimate biography 
 will be brought forth to attest the historic 
 value of what has been merely suggested here 
 as pointing out the work of Mother Veronica. 
 Those who knew her best would on that very 
 account find it difficult to speak of her at 
 present, when the loss of her cheering presence 
 is still overcasting the light required to portray 
 her in her true colors. Besides, there is a 
 delicacy only known to the heart of a cloistered 
 nun which prevents the exhibition of an 
 image, however cherished, around which still 
 cling the associations of personal intimacy. 
 Not that these friends may not write their 
 impressions, as Brother Leo or Celano did of 
 St. Francis of Assisi; but a less subjective 
 account may be the true one, and for that we 
 must wait, to be given to the public by some 
 Bonaventure, who can utilize the records of 
 those whose love cherished and set down for 
 private use the remembrance of a beautiful soul. 
 
HO MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 We should wish to have dwelt more in 
 detail upon what we consider the central 
 activity of Mother Veronica's Institute, — an 
 activity which really shows her in her most 
 characteristic features as a foundress, — namely, 
 the fostering of the impulse to train young 
 girls to the habit of self-improvement. The 
 Catholic Girls' Club for Self-improvement is 
 indeed only one branch of the work on which 
 we have already dwelt, but its importance 
 goes very far as a sort of climax by which we 
 may measure its attitude; and for that reason 
 we should have liked to lay particular stress 
 upon it. 
 
 Any one who has watched the social and 
 economic current of these days in America, 
 must have become conscious of the fact that 
 the lines upon which moral elevation and civic 
 prosperity are being promoted, lie in the direc- 
 tion indicated by the Institute of the Divine 
 Compassion, whose labors in one sense termi- 
 nate in the establishment of the Catholic Girls' 
 Clubs, because a girl who has been brought 
 to the sense of the necessity of self-improve- 
 ment, and then finds open for her the very best 
 and most inviting opportunities for carrying 
 on such improvement, has practically found 
 
THE CATHOLIC GIRLS CLUB III 
 
 her place in society and is enabled to con- 
 tribute her full share to its proper elevation 
 and progress. What the Girls' Club has done 
 since its beginning, at the end of 1901, may 
 be learned from the Official Reports issued 
 by the Sisters at White Plains, the mother- 
 house of the Institute. We may here recall 
 only the results of the first year as within 
 the immediate scope of Mother Veronica's 
 personal superintendence. 
 
 In October, 1902, a brief statement was 
 issued of the standing of the Club which, 
 having begun with an empty house on October 
 28, 1901, had not one prospective candidate 
 apart from those to whom the opportunity to 
 join the Club had been declared open. After 
 one year's existence the Club had 400 members. 
 It was on the last Sunday of October, when a 
 mother who belonged to the Confraternity of 
 the Holy Face came to Mother Veronica to 
 ask how her daughter could learn to earn her 
 living. 
 
 "Then and there ;the young girl was enrolled, 
 began her lessons the following day, and soon 
 after was working. 
 
 "Day by day added to the numbers. 
 
 "We opened classes as they were asked for, 
 
112 MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 and by Christmas there were twelve and the 
 membership was fifty. 
 
 "In January, 1902, we held our first Sunday 
 meeting, and the Right Reverend Spiritual 
 Director addressed us, taking for his subject, 
 'What one woman can do.' Each month since, 
 we have met on the first Sunday, either in New 
 York or White Plains, and have been addressed 
 by the Rev. T. F. Myhan, the Rev. P. N. 
 Breslin, the Rev. Denis Lynch, S.J., and others 
 in turn. 
 
 "As the majority of the members are 
 Sunday-school teachers and Sodalists, we have 
 appointed half-past four as the hour for meet- 
 ing, that it may not interfere with any duty in 
 your parish church. 
 
 "Our first social evening was in January, 
 when Marion J. Brunowe spoke on Catholic 
 literature. In February the Rev. Bernard J. 
 Reilly gave a stereopticon lecture, and each 
 month the entertainment has varied. 
 
 "After Christmas the development of our 
 work was rapid, and when the season closed in 
 June the record was as follows: 
 
THE CATHOLIC GIRLS CLUB 113 
 
 Lessons since November 1, igoi 
 
 Membership, June 1 200 
 
 Dressmaking 680 
 
 Millinery 140 
 
 Hand Sewing 33 
 
 Sewing-machine 886 
 
 Embroidery 140 
 
 Stenography 419 
 
 Typewriting 390 
 
 Bookkeeping . . . .< 113 
 
 English Grammar 153 
 
 French 170 
 
 Spanish 30 
 
 German 20 
 
 Piano 191 
 
 Mandolin 10 
 
 Pipe Organ 10 
 
 Total lessons since November 1, 1901 . . . 3,385 
 
 At Good Counsel there was a building called 
 Saint Stanislaus Cottage which had been fitted 
 up for a Vacation House and was opened to 
 well-recommended, self-sustaining girls at all 
 times of the year. From June to October, in 
 its first season, it was full to overflowing, and 
 hundreds of girls testify to the pleasant summer 
 days spent there. The season in New York 
 reopened September 15, and since then great 
 progress has been made in the work. The 
 Report goes on to say: 
 
 "In accordance with our promise last year, 
 
114 MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 having become well acquainted with you, and 
 having tested your fidelity, we have given the 
 Club an organization. There are a President, 
 two Vice-Presidents, three Secretaries and Asso- 
 ciates. These officers, who are chosen for their 
 devotion to the work, are appointed for one 
 year from the first Sunday in November. 
 Their duty is to be present on certain even- 
 ings, to render such assistance in the work of 
 the Club as may be required of them, to 
 welcome new members and promote social 
 intercourse. . . . 
 
 "We have made a little change in our name. 
 At the start we were called the Working Girls' 
 Club of the House of Our Lady of the Wayside. 
 There are many Working Girls' Clubs under 
 Protestant auspices, and therefore that there 
 might be no mistake about it, we have called 
 ourselves by the dear name of 'Catholic' 
 
 "Then, as to the name of our Club House, 
 to our mind the title of 'Our Lady of the 
 Wayside' is especially appropriate, because 
 under that invocation our Mother guides you 
 through the great highways of the world. Our 
 Lady of the Way! The Madonna della Strada! 
 She is with you on your way to your work and 
 to your pleasures, and unless the way is one 
 
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THE CATHOLIC GIRLS CLUB 115 
 
 that she can walk in, you are on the wrong 
 road. 
 
 "Our Lady's titles express the need of the 
 hour. In doubt or difficulty she is our dear 
 Lady of Good Counsel. In trial she is our 
 compassionate Lady of Sorrows, Queen of 
 Martyrs. And so with 'all the names by 
 which her children call her.' To us here she 
 must ever be our Lady of the Way, our 
 Blessed Mother of the whole journey of life. 
 But the name was not understood, and when 
 applied to the Club House was easily cor- 
 rupted. Therefore, we stand now and ever, 
 please God, as the Catholic Girls' of the House 
 of our Lady." 
 
 The methods of the Club, as thus far indi- 
 cated, are a sufficiently clear demonstration 
 of Mother Veronica's original purpose to create 
 a medium of praiseworthy independence for 
 young girls, especially in our large cities, such 
 as the advocates of social settlement and kin- 
 dred methods put before us on grounds of 
 commonwealth expediency or from motives 
 of natural virtue. Mother Veronica's aim 
 went further and deeper. Her Girls' Club is a 
 Catholic Club, and that differentiates it from 
 others. Her ideas are explained in an address 
 
Il6 MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 to the young girls on the first anniversary of 
 their founding. To the question, "What is 
 the purpose of the Catholic Girls' Club?" 
 she makes answer: 
 
 "The first impression is that it is simply to 
 offer certain facilities for gaining a better 
 knowledge of some trade or art. It is all 
 that, but that is not all. It has a deeper 
 purpose. Our main reason for existence as a 
 Club is to offer to Catholic girls all that which 
 up to this time they have sought from those 
 who are strangers to their faith. We aim to 
 organize an army of girls that shall be ani- 
 mated with zeal for their religion and a spirit 
 of watchfulness and resistance to attacks and 
 inroads upon it. 
 
 "Among all our girls I have not met twenty 
 who have not at some time or other been mem- 
 bers of a Protestant society. I do not depre- 
 ciate the good works of Protestants. Why 
 should I? They are all borrowed from the 
 Church, and there are few forms of charity 
 in existence to-day that were not set in motion 
 by St. Vincent de Paul three hundred years 
 ago. In the hands of Protestants at the pres- 
 ent time almost all charities are conducted 
 with intelligence and zeal. But, to apply the 
 
THE CATHOLIC GIRLS CLUB 117 
 
 words of St. Francis de Sales, 'However good 
 they may be in themselves and for others, 
 they are not good for you? They attack your 
 faith, either directly or indirectly, and if you 
 have preserved it intact, you all know of those 
 in whom it is dying or dead. 
 
 "The attacks on your faith are direct when 
 you are invited to religious services, such as 
 Bible readings, where, if you go to them, you 
 hear the Holy Scriptures explained in contra- 
 diction to the teachings of the Catholic Church. 
 And why do you go to these meetings? Are 
 there not religious services enough for you in 
 your own Church? Do you hear High Mass 
 on Sundays? Do you go to Vespers and Bene- 
 diction? Do you hear daily Mass? How few, 
 alas, do this ! Oh, no, you go for a very sordid 
 reason. You want to stand well with them 
 that you may go to a Protestant vacation 
 house, or, you want to obtain a position from 
 a certain Association. However ready they 
 are to open their classes to you, you know well 
 that no one obtains employment at their hands 
 who does not place herself within their 
 moral influence, and they are quite right in 
 that. And so you go and sell your soul. 
 
 " 'But,' a girl will say, 'it does me no harm. 
 
Il8 MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 Nothing could ever turn me!' True, it may 
 not make you a Protestant, but it will make 
 you an unfaithful Catholic, and that is worse. 
 Go study your Catechism, my dear, and read 
 what it says of places of worship other than 
 your own. To make your way in the world, 
 you risk your soul, for you disobey your Church. 
 
 "And besides it is not only presumption and 
 placing yourself in a dangerous occasion, but 
 it is mean and dishonorable, for you are taking 
 benefits, if benefits they are, under false pre- 
 tenses. 
 
 "Another will say, 'Yes, I have belonged 
 to a Protestant society, but I have never 
 heard anything against the faith there.' Did 
 you ever hear anything in praise of it? Did 
 you ever hear the Blessed Virgin's name 
 uttered with love and veneration? Was your 
 heart ever made to burn with those sweet 
 words, the 'Sacred Heart'? Have you not felt 
 instinctively that it was wiser to keep still 
 about your religion? Few of you are suffi- 
 ciently versed in controversy to detect the 
 subtle poison that lies concealed in much that 
 you hear. There are pretty hymns breathing 
 sentimental piety that contain a heresy in 
 every line. 
 
THE CATHOLIC GIRLS' CLUB 119 
 
 "And why do you go to Protestants? They 
 would not come to you. They draw the line 
 sharply enough. Many of them have entered 
 into a league never to employ a Catholic. 
 They draw you only that they may win you 
 from your faith. Believe me, they do not 
 respect you the more for going to them. 
 
 "And if your faith is not directly attacked, 
 you form acquaintances whose tastes and sym- 
 pathies are all different from what yours 
 ought to be. Even in ordinary intercourse 
 you are in an atmosphere that is chilling to 
 your soul. It is like the influence of the 
 Godless public schools. There may be no 
 religious teaching, but you are away from the 
 light and warmth that flow from the Taber- 
 nacle. 
 
 "And others of you say, 'But these Protes- 
 tant ladies are so nice and refined and gentle!' 
 Indeed they are! But refinement alone will 
 not take you to heaven. If you have not met 
 with equal refinement and gentleness among 
 your own people, it is your own fault. Believe 
 me, it is to be found. Do you be refined and 
 gentle, and you will find yourself in a circle 
 of refinement and gentleness within your own 
 Church. 
 
120 MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 "There is no such potent influence to refine 
 as that which comes from the practical faith 
 of a Catholic. Moreover, it is no outward 
 gloss, no veneer. It is sincere, from the heart. 
 Those good ladies, no matter how pleasing they 
 may be, do not love the Church in which you 
 were born; and no matter how much they veil 
 the fact, they are against it. 
 
 "And so, my dear girls, from every motive, 
 not the least of which is proper dignity of 
 character and self-respect, cease to accept 
 benefits from those who have no interest in 
 you, other than to make a proselyte, and who 
 will drop you very quickly unless you lend 
 yourself to their purposes. 
 
 "And your aims must not be all selfish. 
 You are bound in conscience to exert an 
 influence on all other Catholic girls within 
 your reach. You must be apostles in your 
 sphere. The Church is attacked on all sides, 
 openly and covertly. The children of the very 
 poor are being taken from the care of the Sis- 
 ters. Enemies of the Church who are in power 
 have set out in their own words 'to withdraw 
 every child from every institution however 
 good.' Poor families, even as in Ireland, are 
 bought, body and soul, with a little food or 
 
THE CATHOLIC GIRLS CLUB 121 
 
 fuel, or a month's rent. Libraries are mul- 
 tiplied where a Catholic girl, by indiscriminate 
 reading, can lose not only her faith, but her 
 morals. Not the poor and dependent only, but 
 you, the intelligent, self-reliant girls, are beset 
 with snares and dangers on all sides. When 
 faith goes, virtue soon follows. 
 
 "And so, dear girls, in our humble sphere, 
 quietly and modestly we preach a crusade! 
 Not as in days of old, when all Europe wished 
 to rescue the holy places from the hands of 
 the Turks and infidels, but, in the words of a 
 Jesuit martyr, to 'save Jesus in the hearts 
 of the children,' the dear children of the 
 Church! 
 
 "May I say it? I find in many of you 
 a want of fervor, an indifference to Catholic 
 practices, a coldness, a worldliness, which are 
 the result, in part, sad to say, of your struggle 
 for life in your business or profession or trade, 
 or whatever it may be. But more than that, 
 it is the mental and moral influences you have 
 been subjected to. To one who knows, there 
 is a vast difference between the gentle, mod- 
 est bearing of the unspoiled Catholic girl and 
 that of the self-sufficient, self-asserting girl who 
 has learned her lessons from those who are 
 
122 MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 strangers to the standard set for her by her 
 Church. 
 
 "Do not say, 'Oh, Mother wants to make 
 nuns of us all !' Far from it. While the re- 
 ligious life is the pearl of great price, and happy 
 are those who find it, true supernatural voca- 
 tions are very rare, and God forbid that you 
 should enter the cloister unbidden. 
 
 "But Piety is one of the gifts of the Holy 
 Ghost, not alone for the favored few, but for 
 the whole Church. The majority of our work- 
 ing girls come of a race that has suffered and 
 still suffers every privation of their Faith, and 
 whose tenacity to it is the wonder of the world. 
 But their descendants, because they have a 
 little more book learning, because they are 
 American-born, often treat their religion con- 
 descendingly, if they are not sometimes even 
 ashamed of it. 
 
 "But, please God, we shall see a better day. 
 We are working for betterment in the intellec- 
 tual, moral, and social scale. If we do not 
 need it, others do. Let us draw close the bonds 
 that bind us ; let us work together, and if each 
 one betters not only herself, but one other, it 
 will become in time and eternity an 'endless 
 chain.' 
 
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THE CATHOLIC GIRLS CLUB 1 23 
 
 "I think 1 have made clear the moral pur- 
 pose of the Catholic Girls' Club, and that you 
 will cheerfully make the promise asked of you, 
 when you, again, like a Crusader, take the 
 Cross which is your badge." 
 
THE SECOND PURPOSE OF THE CLUB 
 
The Second Purpose of the Club 
 
 ™^HE second aim is self-improvement, 
 and this is not only praiseworthy in 
 itself, but it is a means to an end. 
 The more you know the more you can do. The 
 more you can do, the more you can earn. The 
 more you can earn, the more self-reliant you 
 can be; for money is indeed power, to you as 
 much as to the millionaire. The want of money 
 may be the most deadly snare for an unpro- 
 tected girl, and a good salary with the help of 
 God her great safeguard. Come to the Catho- 
 lic Girls' Club and acquire that which will 
 increase your salary or put you in the way of 
 earning one." 
 This year the classes are as follows: 
 
 Five Cents an Hour 
 
 Dressmaking. McDowell System. Wednesday even- 
 ing. 
 
 White Goods, Sewing-machine Manufacture. From 
 8.30 a.m. to 9.30 p.m. Five days per week. 
 
 Hand Sewing. From 8.30 a.m. to 9.30 p.m. Five 
 days per week. 
 
128 MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 Embroidery and all kinds of fancy work. Wednesday 
 and Friday evenings. 
 
 Millinery. Tuesday evening. 
 
 Stenography. Root work and Speed class. Tuesday 
 and Thursday evenings. 
 
 Typewriting. From 8.30 a.m. to 9.30 p.m. Five 
 days per week. 
 
 Grammar. Tuesday and Thursday. 
 
 Pennmanship. From 8.30 A.M. to 9.30 p.m. Five 
 days per week. 
 
 Arithmetic. Wednesday evening. 
 
 Bookkeeping. Wednesday evening. 
 
 Cooking. Friday evening. 
 
 Physical Culture. Monday evening. 
 
 Ten Cents an Hour 
 
 French. Tuesday and Thursday evenings. 
 German. Tuesday and Thursday evenings. 
 Spanish. Tuesday and Thursday evenings. 
 
 Twenty Cents a Half-hour 
 
 Piano. From 8.30 a.m. to 9.30 p.m. Five days 
 per week. 
 
 Mandolin. From 8.30 a.m. to 9.30 p.m. Five 
 days per week. 
 
 Violin. From 8.30 a.m. to 9.30 p.m. Five days 
 per week. 
 
 Five Cents an Hour 
 
 Industrial School, for girls from nine to fifteen, on 
 Saturdays from 10 to 12. 
 
 Gratuitous 
 
 Choir Practice. Friday evening. 
 Instruction in Catechism. Sunday. 
 
THE SECOND PURPOSE 129 
 
 "Tickets for ten lessons are purchased in 
 advance. 
 
 " Other classes were soon opened. There were 
 three sessions: from September 15th to De- 
 cember 19th; from January 5th to Passion 
 Sunday; from Easter Monday to June 14th. 
 
 "What are the conditions of membership? 
 
 "1. To be personally known to the Rector 
 or one of the clergy of your parish, and in such 
 a way that he can conscientiously sign our 
 applicant's card. 
 
 "2. To be of one mind with the spirit and 
 purpose of the Club, and to be willing to 
 promise that you will uphold its principles in 
 your own life and in your influence with 
 others. 
 
 "3. To wear the badge of the Club. 
 
 "4. To be regular in attendance on certain 
 
 occasions. 
 
 5. To pay the monthly dues. 
 "There are other features of the Club: 
 "1. Self-sustaining girls may reside in the 
 
 House. At present there are but few rooms, 
 
 but one of our hopes for the future is a larger 
 
 house. 
 "2. Members are on the lookout for vacancies 
 
 in their place of employment, and report them 
 
I30 MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 to the Sisters that unemployed members may 
 avail themselves of them. 
 
 3. "Should a member be ill or in trouble of 
 any kind, if she will make it known to the 
 Sisters, they will render every help and comfort 
 in their power. 
 
 "4. Should a member die, three Masses will 
 be offered for the repose of her soul. 
 
 "And now, dear girls, a last word. Each 
 one of you here is of unblemished character. 
 But, in your daily life, taking your part with 
 men in the pursuit of a living, what do you 
 not have to see and hear and know? With the 
 entrance of women into places once occupied 
 by men only, a laxity of morals has come about 
 unknown before. The passion for dress goes 
 hand in hand with freedom of manners. Veil 
 it as we may, you know it all too well. You 
 are safe so far. Help your weak sisters. Show 
 them how they can earn the things they covet. 
 If faith is not dead but only dying, the task 
 will not be hard. Don't pass them by on the 
 other side. Say the warning word. Tell us 
 about them. Bring them to us. It is our 
 vocation to help them as well as you. If we 
 have been the means of raising your standard, 
 give them something of what you have received. 
 
THE SECOND PURPOSE 131 
 
 "So shall the Catholic Girls' Club be a power 
 in its day and generation, and only eternity 
 will reveal 'what one woman can do.' 
 
 "The battle cry of the Crusader was, 
 God and Our Lady! 
 To this we add, 
 
 Labor and Honor!" 
 
 The Good Counsel School at White Plains, 
 N. Y., which to-day numbers over two hundred 
 children, is in a flourishing condition. Its 
 educational curriculum extends through the 
 High School and Commercial Courses. The 
 Regents examinations and the State Grade 
 examinations are conducted in the school, and 
 many pupils have earned certificates from these 
 Departments. 
 
 Education of the pupils is not limited to the 
 above branches of study. Religious training 
 holds the first place, while much stress is laid 
 upon Domestic Science and Domestic Art. 
 The girls also enjoy social activities in the form 
 of Clubs, Reading Circles, and Athletic Sports. 
 The work of the Sisters is supplemented by 
 lectures from specialists on various educational 
 subjects. 
 
 During the early development of the School, 
 Mother Veronica had been well pleased with 
 
132 MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 the results attending the return of these girls 
 to their homes or to whatever their calling 
 had been. How we can see her now, during 
 those last years, as with groups of them she 
 walked from one end of the grounds to the 
 other, listening to their merry chatter, sym- 
 pathizing in their youthful sorrows, imparting 
 unconsciously the grace, the love, which ra- 
 diates from a soul given entirely to the service 
 of its Creator. 
 
 During the month of June, in the year of her 
 death, after the commencement exercises, some 
 of the pupils about to leave for their vacations 
 asked where Mother would spend the summer 
 — in White Plains or in New York. "Oh," 
 she answered, "Mother will go to the Ocean 
 of Divine Love." Less than two months later 
 she had indeed gone to the Ocean of Divine 
 Love. 
 
THE TIRED HEART LAID TO REST 
 
The Tired Heart Laid to Rest 
 
 ND now we come to the end in our 
 sketch of this beautiful life. Mother 
 Veronica would have been an exception 
 in the virgin train of those who are called to 
 follow the Master had she been spared the 
 pangs of almost unbroken physical suffering. 
 Discomfort and pain are not subjects upon 
 which the saints dwell except in thought and 
 secret gratitude. Secretum mecum mihi and 
 Secretum regis absconditum suggest the identical 
 motive of that more exalted modesty which 
 shuns to reveal to the vulgar gaze both its 
 love and the conscious sacrifice made for it. 
 So it was here. 
 
 Mother Veronica had been a sufferer prac- 
 tically all through her life. During the twenty 
 years before her leaving the world she had 
 passed through many serious illnesses; never- 
 theless she had constantly overcome the frail 
 condition of her physical being by the energy 
 
I36 MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 which compelled her to labor like a mother 
 for her children in the interests of others who 
 seemed to suffer more. In the convent she 
 conducted every branch of the great work of 
 her Sisterhood in such a manner that from 
 her external conduct and expression one could 
 not tell that she was afflicted, as those who 
 observed her more closely knew or suspected, 
 at times, with most intense pain. During 
 the last three years of her life she took the 
 journey every week from the mother-house 
 to the house of the Holy Family and the Girls' 
 Club in New York City. She would always 
 return by train to White Plains in time for the 
 afternoon Benediction, and while often scarcely 
 able to speak, owing to the fatigue of the day's 
 incessant business, she would insist upon going 
 to the organ-loft and herself playing for Bene- 
 diction. During the past year her physical 
 strength deserted her so completely that she 
 was forced to leave the work of the Holy 
 Family House and the Club in other hands, 
 although she did not cease to direct all the 
 details by personal instruction or by letter, 
 Thus she kept alive her interest and remained 
 faithfully in the watch-tower to overlook the 
 business of the community until June 28, 
 
LAID TO REST I 37 
 
 when by the doctor's order she was obliged to 
 keep her bed. The Sisters who watched at her 
 bedside say that her energy was marvelous, and 
 that, vigorous to the last, without a sign of age 
 upon her clear brow, she dictated letters to the 
 different Houses, although she often found her- 
 self hardly able to speak above a whisper. By 
 reason of the anxiety which her friends felt, 
 and the wish of all that knew her to see pre- 
 served so precious a life, no less than eight 
 prominent physicians were consulted to pro- 
 nounce upon the symptoms of her last illness, 
 and to suggest remedies that might restore her 
 at least for a time. In the month of August 
 appeared unmistakable signs that the end was 
 approaching. About three o'clock in the after- 
 noon of the ninth, all her spiritual children 
 were called into the sick-room, and a few min- 
 utes before the final summons came, she said to 
 Father Fromentin, her confessor, who knelt 
 beside her bed, "I am going — my Father, 
 Thy will be done." One of the Sisters had 
 the presence of mind to ask her to bless her 
 children. It was a touching spectacle, not to 
 be forgotten by those who were present and 
 realized the fact. Although sight and speech 
 had already left her, she raised her feeble hand 
 
138 MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 and made the Sign of the Cross. It was the 
 last token of the Mother's affection and a 
 gesture of farewell. There was no mark of a 
 struggle. Her soul went from that scene so 
 peacefully and quietly that it was impossible 
 to say when the moment of death had come. 
 The expression on her face at the moment of 
 death and after was that of sweet tranquillity 
 and of a condition that knew no more pain, but 
 indicated the peaceful slumber of a child upon 
 the bosom of its parent. 
 
 Silently and sorrowfully the Sisters carried 
 their dead Mother, robed in the garb of her 
 espousals, into the chapel. There before the 
 altar she lay until the morning of the twelfth, 
 when they buried her, kissing the cold hands 
 that held the vows as though she could not 
 part from the sweet compact even now when 
 its terms had been fulfilled. Monsignor Ed- 
 wards, upon whom had devolved the duty of 
 directing the community after Monsignor Pres- 
 ton's death, celebrated the Solemn Requiem. 
 Monsignor Mooney, V. G., preached the ser- 
 mon. All the members of the Order were 
 present. Hundreds of young women, who 
 owed their start in a new and higher life to the 
 departed Mother, had come from the city of 
 
■ S'rife'»'ew.4>J' ///<? bn/*/w/ 
 
LAID TO REST 139 
 
 New York and distant places to honor her 
 memory. There was no mistaking the tribute 
 of love, of a reverent and affectionate gratitude 
 in return for numberless remembered acts of 
 charity to young and old, poor and rich, as 
 they had come within reach of her generous 
 benevolence. Archbishop Farley pronounced 
 the last words of Benediction according to the 
 Ritual of the Church, and she was taken away 
 amid sobs and tears of truest sympathy for a 
 departed mother. She had indeed been the 
 tenderest of mothers, as she was the strongest 
 of friends. No one ever appealed to her 
 without receiving a ready and helpful answer. 
 Nothing was impossible to her, for she trusted 
 in God, like a child; and no undertaking for 
 His honor or for the relief of His suffering 
 children seemed too arduous to her devoted 
 spirit of self-sacrifice. "Women like Mother 
 Veronica," said Monsignor Mooney in his eulogy 
 at her funeral, "are moral factors in the world 
 whose names live long after they are dead. 
 Not every woman is called for the special 
 work which it was this woman's lot to do, but 
 she is the great soul and noble who can relin- 
 quish the world and find pleasure in sacrificing 
 her entire life to doing good for others. What 
 
I40 MOTHER MARY VERONICA 
 
 Mother Veronica has done I need not relate 
 in detail. What charitable work she has done 
 before and after entering the religious state you 
 all know. This work will be her monument. 
 The rest is in God's hands."