A STRICT SISTERHOOD.

Waikato Times, Volume XXX, Issue 2447, 17 March 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

A STRICT SISTERHOOD.

The Convent of Irish Dominican Nuns is the only religions house which the Portugese Government has not disendowed. It is tolerated, out of compliment to Great Britain, because it is entirely Irish. The nuns are strictly cloistered. Tho young ladies whom they cducato are as close prisoners as thomsolves, from tho time they enter until they quit it altogether at the end of the educational course. Once they leave, they and their teachers are never again to set eyes on each other. Hard lines these. It's bad enough to have iu nature the mater t/oluro.ia, without piercing the hearts of poor old maids who have, at best, cold comfort in thoir lives. No woman that over lived could tiave laid down, this hard law of St. D. She would have known better. Imagine Ste. thus debarring an aged sister from the joy of receiving a visit from a favourite pupil ! It was she who wrote of Satan: Le m<ilhfitreit.c 111 ii'ajoinin.s trim,'. Siguora Nevada, the celebrated prima donna, went to see tho convent and to sing through tho bars which separato these ladies from profane visitors. The relative positions of the sisterhood and the diva wore that of tho public at the Zoo and the caged animals. The piano was on thoir side of tho iron grating, so that when they asked her, for the sake of the old country, to sing them some of Moore's melodies, she was at one end of a long vaultod chamber, and tho instrument was at another. The grating is a double one, with a wide intertal between. This renders kissing and shaking of hands through the bars impossible on ordinary occasions. But this being an ordinary one, the reverend mother allowed the second line of defence to be cleared aivay, and she and all the heavenly maids clustered around the outer grating. She also was kind enough to dispense them from the rule of silence. Their hearts seemed to gush out through their tongues. The singer was presented with a relic by the lady superior of the convent. It is a piece of the olive tree under which St. Dominic slept when an angel in a, dream commanded him to devote himself to pulpit eloquence. It is elegantly carved, and serves as a shrine for a minute image of the saint. All the other nuns thrust rosaries, sacred vignettes and other such trifling gifts through the bars for the singer to bear away. They were as jolly as they could be, notwithstanding the severity of their rule.—Truth.