CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 163, 19 October 1910, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

"MOTHER MARY." A sports gatherin? to celebrate the golden jubilee of Mother Mary Joseph Aubert, probablv New Zealand's most notable woman, is to be held in Wellington on Saturday. Mother Mary Aubert, who belongs to a noble French family, has devoted practically the whole of her life to the service of the sick, the sad and the suffering, renouncing position and wealth for this purpose. When she came to New Zealand in the long ago she threw the wealth of her enthusiasm and love of work into helping the Maoris; and Wanganui blessed her for her gracious self-abnesation. She needed a larger sphere for her special activities, and for many years she and "The Little .Sisters of the Poor" have been rays of I sunshine in the lives of innumerable sufjferers. At Mother Mary's Home for Inr curables in Buckle-street, Wellington, every "case" is a real tragedy. There are the blind, the lame, the halt, and cases even more pitiable. Among the suffering the good Mother and the "Little Sisters" move and work ceaselessly. Instancing the self-abnegation of the "Little Sisters," we may be permitted to

relate a story. The Sisters' quarters in Buckle-street are not palatial. The better part of the row of poor buildings is •liven to the patients. Mother Mary's heart went out to the sisters one day, and .finding they had no chairs, bought some. Later she found them in tears. How could she suspect them of desiring the luxury of chairs when the poor people in the Home might need what the money would buy? So the Sister* sold the chairs and gave the proceeds to the Home again. These Sisters, attired in the plainest stuff gowns are to be seen any day on their charitable mission \vh'eelin« great conveyances that might tax a man. The aged Mother herself will frequently walk from Wellington to Island Bay and carry a load so that the children iit the Home of Compassion j may benefit. She concentrated all her efforts a few years ago on raising the j money for this Home, because there : were so many suffering little children to be looked after and no place in which to put them. The big place at Island Bay is a monument to this great woman, and it is to be remembered that any little child who suffers, no matter what the religion of its parents, and no matter if the parents are not known, finds a real mother there. Mother Mary is old, and she has said that she must not leave a world she has made more beautiful before completing; her life's work. She wants to make the Home of Compassion as large again. It is remarkable that she has never appealed to the public in vain, and so when she says in her broken English, "It is that the children may be happy," the grown-up children who are happy will give because Mother Mary asks.