FORSAKING PALACES FOR MONKS' CELLS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 53, 11 June 1910, Page 9

FORSAKING PALACES FOR MONKS' CELLS.

SOME ROYAL NUNS.

The fact that the Kaiser's cousin, Prince Frederick Henry of Prussia, has ceded his entire fortune to the Roman Catholic Church and entered an Italian monastery as a moVik reminds one that it is only a. few months ago since the Grand Duke Constantinovitch, cousin 01 the Czar of Russia, abandoned his immense fortune and entered a monastery, where his earthly possessions consisted of a wooden bed without a mattress, a blanket of coarse*brown wool, a pillow of wood, a rush-bottomed chair, a wooden candlestick, one pair of wooden pattens, a hair-cloth shirt, one cassock of coarse wool, a cowl, and a rosary.

Two years ago the good fathers of St. Dominic's Priory, Chalk Farm, entertained Father Raymund, a member of their order from Germany, who, a year previously, was known to the world a* Prince Lowestein - Wertheim - Rochefort. For years the Prince had been a champion of his church, and at last abandoned all his wealth and worldly rank to becijme a Domincan monk. Nor is he the only member of his family who lias cheerfully given up a palace for the convent cell. Hi 9 sister, Adelaide, Duchess Dowager of Braganza, who died in December last, took the veil twelve years ago in a Benedictine Convent in France. When the order was expelled from that country, she came with the rest of the nuns to their new home at Ryde. At the present time Father Raymund's daughter is a nun in the Benedictine Convent at Ryde. Into this convent Princess Adelaide'of Parma was admitted a novice two years ago. while in 1908 also the Grand Duchess Elizabeth of Russia created a sensation by entering a nunnery in Moscow. She is a sister of the Czarina, and the widow of the Grand Duke Sergius, who was assassinated in Moscow. The convent where the Grand Duchess will spend the remainder of her life is situated on the outskirts of Moscow, and only memiibers of the highest Russian aristocracy I are accepted as nuns. The rules are very severe. The entire day is taken up with an elaborate ritual, and the night has four long services, which every nun is bound to attend. The nuns are'never allowed out, and from the moment the convent doors close behind them they are for ever cut off from the world and its interests. The Grand Duchess will receive precisely the same treatment as ither nun?. She will wear the ordinary Mack stuff habit, and her cell will be no lugger than the others. Several ladies belonging to the British aristocracy have taken the veil, the latest being Lady Maud Barret, second (laughter of the late Earl of Cavan. who in Ootoher last entered one of the strictest of Roman Catholic sisterhoods, in which, among other vows, is one which cuts ln>r off entirely from the outer world.