eleventh and the twelfth centuries the former secular canons were in many localities replaced by regular canons, living under a stricter rule, especially that known as of Saint Augustine, though it is not his composition, but a collection of excerpts from mainly pseudo-Augustinian sermons. These Augustinian canons, in their turn, were not seldom replaced from the twelfth century on by Premonstratensians. But the ascetic tendency was not strong or enduring enough to reform all the chapters. The independence given by the possession of property prevented their reconstruction on the original model; and the worldliness of the higher clergy made such regulation oppressive, so that the institution once more fell into decay in the thirteenth century.

The functions of the presbyterium as the bishop's council were assumed, during the period of the prevalence of the vita canonica, not by the whole body of the clergy living in community, but by those of the higher orders; and, on the other hand, room was found for the cooperation (in important matters affecting the diocese) of the clergy of the other churches in the see city besides the cathedral, and for representatives of the lay population of the city. The actual current administration was indeed conducted by the cathedral chapter; but when the distribution of revenues above alluded to made a division between the interests of the bishop and those of the chapter, the former was very apt to neglect to consult the latter, or to rely, for support in his measures, on the other clergy and prominent laity. The Decretals of Gregory IX. enforced the right of the chapter to a consultative voice; and it was finally established as common law that the chapter was the only body with an independent right to advise the bishop in the conduct of diocesan affairs. From the beginning of the thirteenth century the chapters succeeded in excluding the other clergy and the lay nobility from any voice in the election of bishops.

A full or capitular canon was one who had a vote in the chapter, a stall in the choir, and commonly, though not necessarily, a prebend, i.e., a fixed income derived either from a share of the community revenues or from certain specially assigned property, tithes, etc. In contrast with the full rights of the canonici seniores, who were in major orders, was the position of the juniores—

clerks in minor orders or youths re3. Canons. ceiving education in the capitular school, who had no voice in the chapter. The number of both classes was limited only by the amount of the community property. Later, especially in Germany from the thirteenth century, the number of canonries and prebends was limited in many chapters, at first for various economic reasons and then for the purpose of assuring a richer livelihood to their members. The custom still, however, prevailed of receiving youths to be trained for canonries. A special fund was set aside for their support, and they were bound on their side to the vita communis. They were known as juniores canonici non capitulares, domicelli, domicellares. In chapters with fixed numbers canonici supranumerarii were those waiting for a prebend

to be vacated The Lateran Council of 1179 had indeed forbidden the conferring of Expectancies (q.v.); but under the lax papal interpretation of the application of this prohibition to capitular positions, and the definite concession of four expectancies to each chapter by Alexander IV. (1254), the practise continued, and admission among the domicellares was regularly the title to a full canonry in order of seniority.

Qualifications for admission had long been fixed by the chapters themselves before the common law took cognizance of the question. The Clementina required the possession of holy orders, and the Council of Trent decreed that half the canonries should be given to doctors, masters, or licentiates in theology or canon law, and that in cathedral chapters half should be held by priests. The older statutes of the chapters themselves required (besides the possession of a "title") that the candidate should have received at least the tonsure, and be free from notable bodily defects, and of unblemished honor, of legitimate, and sometimes of noble, birth; fourteen years commonly, sometimes less, was the minimum of age. While all canons were theoretically equal, there were offices among them to which special functions were attached. Such were the præbendæ doctorales for those holding doctor's degrees, others destined to provide support for university professors, præbendæ parochiales connected with a parochial cure, præbendæ presbyterales for those in priest's orders who performed the requisite sacerdotal functions when the majority of the canons were deacons or subdeacons, præbendæ exemptæ or libera to which the obligation of residence was not attached, and præbendæ regiæ, either those to which sovereigns had the right of presentation from having founded them, or which were held by the sovereigns themselves as honorary canons. Besides the canons, who were frequently hindered by political position or disinclination from performing their spiritual functions, there were often a number of vicarii, mansionarii, or capellani, who had charge of the services and represented the canons in them.

The organization of chapters in modern times is usually a simpler one, especially owing to their loss of political importance in modern states. They usually consist of a number of capitulares or numerarii, who enter upon their rights as soon as they are nominated; the canonici exspectantes, juniores, and domicellares have almost ceased to exist. The requirements are: priestly or (in some cases) any major orders; the age of thirty in some places, in

others that requisite for the sub

4. Modern diaconate or twenty-two, unless they Organ- must be priests, when it would be ization. twenty-four; practical experience in ecclesiastical service or in an educational position, or at least a notable degree of learning; and in some cases native birth, either within the country or the diocese. Besides the full canons, there are in some countries honorary canons; in Austria and France deserving clerics who hold merely an honorary title without effective membership in the chapter, while in Prussia, although the obligation of residence is not imposed, they have

a sort of membership, extending at least as far as participation in episcopal elections. The office of vicar still exists; but in the modern chapter its holders are assistants rather than, as formerly, representatives of the canons.

As to the officers of the chapter, after the redistribution of revenues to which allusion has been made and the acquisition of property, the provost generally retained only the right of presiding over the chapter and administering its property. The enforcement of discipline and the conduct of public worship was usually in charge of the dean, who had a certain disciplinary power, to be exercised with

the counsel and assent of the chapter; 5. Officers. in the Middle Ages his functions were frequently combined with those of the archpriest. Other officials were the primicerius, cantor, or præcentor, in charge of the services and music; the scholasticus, in charge of the chapter school, and often of other schools in the see city or the diocese; the sacrista or thesaurarius, in charge of the sacred vessels, vestments, and other things used in divine worship; the cellerarius, who in the days of the vita communis provided for the housekeeping, and the portarius, who in the same period regulated the intercourse of the members of the chapter with the outside world. In the nineteenth-century reorganization of capitular life this whole system of official administration has been much simplified in some countries, especially in Germany, while others, such as Italy and Spain, retain more of the medieval arrangements. In accordance with the provisions of the Council of Trent, a theologian and a penitentiary are appointed for each chapter.

In the early period of the vita communis the decision as to the reception of new members into the community rested with its head, either bishop or provost, though the seniores sometimes had a consultative voice. After the dissolution of the common life, the chapter had the right in some cases to confirm or reject a nomination made by the bishop, and in others to nominate independently to certain canonries, while others, again, especially those founded by a bishop, were wholly in his gift. Further modifications were introduced by the papal claim of reservation, and by the patronal rights of founders. The emperors from the thirteenth century, and later other sovereigns and secular and ecclesiastical princes in their own countries, claimed the jus primariarum precum, the right to appoint one person to each chapter after their coronation or consecration. Opposed to this diversity is the principle of the present common law that cathedral canonries are in the joint gift of the bishop and the chapter, while in collegiate churches they are filled by the chapter with subsequent institution at the hands of the bishop.

The chapter is now, since the dissolution of the vita communis and the distribution of what was originally common property, a corporation with a separate legal existence of its own apart from the bishop, competent to deal with both ecclesiastical matters and matters of property, and to ordain and manage its own internal affairs independently, as by altering its former statutes and making new

ones.

By common law the consent of the bishop is not necessary for this, though it is by special provision in some of the newer re6. Legal organized systems. The duties of the Provisions chapter as a whole include the daily and Duties. performance of divine service, both mass and choir offices. Cathedral chapters have the further duty of assisting the bishop in pontifical functions and in the administration of the diocese. The right corresponding to the last-named duty finds expression in various ways. The bishop is required to have the assent of the chapter for any alienation of the property of the cathedral or diocesan institutions, for any notable change in the system of benefices, for the appointment of a coadjutor, for any measures which are prejudicial to the rights or privileges of the chapter, and for the introduction into the diocese of a new feast of obligation. He is further required to seek their counsel in the appointment or deposition of ecclesiastical dignitaries, in the granting of dispensations or confirmations, in matters which touch the interests of the chapter, in the more important questions of diocesan administration, etc. For the rights of the chapter during the vacancy of a see or the incapacity of a bishop, see SEDES VACANS. According to the Roman Catholic theory, cathedral chapters are not essential and fundamental parts of the constitution of the Church, but the product of historic development. Accordingly, church law leaves a great deal to local usage in regard to the part to be played by them in the administration of a diocese; and they are lacking entirely in many dioceses, as in the " missionary" districts of North America, while in others (as in England, Ireland, and Canada) their organization is very loose.

Little need be said here about the survival of chapters in the Protestant churches. For the English system, see ENGLAND, CHURCH OF, III., § 3. A few scattered chapters, of either cathedral or collegiate type, still exist in evangelical Germany, such as those of Brandenburg, Naumburg, Merseburg, and Zeitz in Prussia, and Meissen and Wurzen in Saxony. After the Reformation the chapters which came over to the new doctrine 7. In Prot- with their bishops were usually disestant solved; but a few of them succeeded Churches. in maintaining their existence in spite of the local sovereign, especially those which did not become wholly Protestant and went on as mixed chapters (Osnabrück, Halberstadt, Minden), with a system of alternation as to the bishopric between the two religions, lasting even through the Peace of Westphalia. The connection of the others with the bishops who had become Protestants did not last long, and most of them were sooner or later incorporated with the territories of the sovereigns who had at first been their administrators; and only those named above survived the general secularization of 1803. Even these, however, are not properly church bodies, but corporations for the preservation and administration of certain property and revenues; and steps have been taken toward the abolition of the Prussian chapters. (A. HAUCK.)

Charismata

BIBLIOGRAPHY: D. Bouix, De capitulis, Paris, 1852; P. Schneider, Die bischöflichen Domkapitel, Mainz, 1855; idem, Die Entwickelung der bischöflichen Domkapitel bis zum vierzehnten Jahrhunderte, Würzburg, 1882; G. A. Huller, Die juristische Persönlichkeiten der Domkapitel in Deutschland, Bamberg, 1860; G. Finazzi, Dei capituli cathedrali, Lucca, 1863; P. Hinschius, Kirchenrecht der Katholiken und Protestanten, ii. 49-161, Berlin, 1871; A. L. Richter, Lehrbuch des katholischen und evangelischen Kirchenrechts, 8th ed. by W. Kahl, pp. 440 sqq., 528, Leipsic, 1877-86; W. F. Hook, Church Dictionary, s.vv. Chapter and Dean, London, 1887; E. Hatch, Growth of Church Institutions, ib. 1887; idem, Organisation of Early Christian Churches, ib. 1888; E. Friedberg, Lehrbuch des katholischen und protestantischen Kirchenrechts, p. 164, Leipsic, 1895; H. D. M. Spence, The White Robe of Churches, London, 1900; H. Schaefer, Pfarrkirche und Stift, Stuttgart, 1903; A. Werminghoff, Kirchenverfassung Deutschlands im Mittelalter, Hanover, 1905.

CHAPTER AND VERSE DIVISION IN THE BIBLE. See BIBLE TEXT, III.

CHAPTER-COURTS (Chorgerichte): The name applied, in the canton of Bern after the Reformation, to the tribunals having charge of matrimonial causes and the execution of church discipline. As early as 1470, the town council of Bern had seriously attempted to take in hand the moral condition of the inhabitants, neglected by the Church. In the same spirit, the Reformation here was rather one of practise than of doctrine. Thus, after the issue of the first reforming decree, it was naturally one of the concerns of the Bernese authorities to replace the suppressed episcopal courts by a new tribunal which should represent the civil government but regard questions coming before it from a religious standpoint. On May 29, 1528, the new court began its work. It was composed of six members-two from the greater and two from the lesser council, with two preachers. It met in the building belonging to the old chapter, whence it probably took its name. In September it set forth principles to govern matrimonial causes, and in November the other matters coming under its jurisdiction. These were offenses against the law of God which could not be punished as violations of express civil statutessuch things as drunkenness, incontinence, usury, atheism, superstition, witchcraft, blasphemy, and gambling, which latter was strictly forbidden as unworthy of Christian people. An appeal had been intended to lie to the council, but this was abrogated in Jan., 1529. In March of this year the first formal regulations were put forth, evidently based on those adopted at Zurich in 1525. The punishments prescribed consisted of deprivation of honors and offices, imprisonment, banishment-not often money fines, which became more usual later. The strictness of the judges caused no little murmuring at first, and the “Great Synod" of Jan., 1532, was obliged to promise that greater mildness should be shown. The attendance of the preachers was even for a time partially dispensed with, but in 1536 they were recalled, since so many questions came up in which their judgment, as expositors of God's word, was needed. In the same year Bern conquered Vaud and the other Savoyard lands to the southwest, and proceeded to introduce the Reformation on its own principles. The ministers of Vaud, especially Viret and Beza, wished to set up a system of strict

church discipline on the Geneva model; but this did not agree with the Bernese view of the unity of the State, including the Church within itself, so that ultimately chapter-courts were set up in each church district of the conquered territory. The ministers, under Calvin's influence, stood out obstinately for strictly ecclesiastical discipline, with excommunication for its principal weapon. Things finally came to an open breach, and the banishment of a number of the clergy. All this attracted greater attention to the system of chapter-courts; and greater severity than ever was shown against wanton dress, fortune-telling, gambling, and immoral dances and songs. The rules of the chaptercourts were enforced in the old local tribunals, which were gradually abolished (1561) in the interest of administrative unity; the same thing happened (1566) in certain cities, such as Brugg and Zofingen, where the magistrates had for a time dealt with matrimonial causes and general morality.

Viret and his friends had, however, been right in a way. The chapter-courts were, after all, of the nature of civil government and police. As such, they had done a good deal for external morality and order; but they could do little for the promotion of vital piety; their connection with the Church was loose and external. The duty of examining and licensing candidates for church offices, which had been originally given to them, fell to another body very soon; the clergy managed their own discipline in their own assemblies; and in the end the chapter-courts had nothing but questions of marriage and paternity and an external police des mœurs. After 1704 appeals were granted to the town council or the Two Hundred; and in 1708 the number was changed to eight secular judges with two clerical assessors. They had now a formal code of their own, with purely secular penalties, which was revised or enlarged at need. They continued to exist (except in the period of the Helvetic Republic, 1798-1803) until the revision of the constitution in 1831. By the law of 1874 most of the duties of the chapter-courts were given to the "church-councils," which now regulate questions of morality in so far as the modern State permits. (E. BLÖSCHT.)

BIBLIOGRAPHY: C. B. Hundeshagen, Die Konflikte in der Bern. Landeskirche, in C. Trechsel, Beiträge, Bern, 18411842; Frickert, Die Kirchengebräuche in Bern, Aarau, 1846; Von Stürler, in Archiv des historischen Vereins von Bern, 1862; E. Egli, Actensammlung zur Geschichte der Zürcher Reformation, Zurich, 1879.

CHARACTER: The composite of definite moral and personal traits which serves to distinguish an individual and to mark the type to which he belongs. Morality is essentially a matter of will, and thus of free agency. The will is, therefore, closely associated with character; but it exists, in the true sense of the word, only in so far as it is free and accepts the new modification voluntarily, instead of possessing it by nature, or being constrained to it by external influences. The criterion of character, in Kantian phrase, is "not what nature makes of man, but what man makes of himself." Character must, therefore, differ essentially from the original disposition of man. The different forces and im

pulses of the mental life form the basis, means, and material for will and character, but in themselves they are only anteethical. They may, furthermore, be devoted either to lofty or to low ethical ends. Such a naturalistic basis can not be allowed to condition the principle of decision for or against the will of God, nor can it be permitted to control the moral demand and aims. In terms of Christian ethics the fundamental requirements for a noble character are that, as divine revelation demands and renders possible, it should obtain a heart established with grace through faith (Heb. xiii. 9), that it be strengthened with might by the Spirit and become rooted and grounded in self-denying love (Eph. iii. 16 sqq.), that it come unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ (Eph. iv. 13; I Cor. xvi. 13), and that it be ready to perform faithfully every duty which its special ability and position in the world requires. The natural dispositions, however, retain their importance for the weal or wo of character, and influences of the temperament may facilitate or aggravate the change for good or bad. On this account the will must influence nature lest it should destroy the formation of character and check the fulfilment of certain individual duties, so that the natural man must accordingly become subject to righteous will. Even where it is impossible to overcome certain natural dispositions, character must at least oppose them, and assert its authority by discipline. On the other hand, the natural elements of psychic life should be allowed a certain influence on the will, in case their tendency is good. Additional influences and factors arise from external conditions and social positions, so that character may be defined, with Scharling, "as the impress of the will on the basis of natural individuality." Thus arises an endless variety and diversity of characters, owing partly to moral and immoral free will, partly to varying temperaments, and partly to the manifold relations between the will, natural disposition, and personal experience. True ethical goodness of the character, however, always lies in that will which resigns itself to the moral principles, subjects the natural man to them, and at the same time endeavors to become fit for the tasks assigned to it individually, ever striving to become better adapted to its endowment and position. Christian ethics must naturally be directed from the very first toward developing and strengthening the character. Success here implies not only a mature discretion and insight into the basal principles of morality, but also a thorough understanding of one's own temperament and of mankind and the world.

CHARIOT. See WAR.

(J. KÖSTLIN†.)

CHARISMATA, că-ris'mā-tā: The term used by theologians to designate the remarkable signs of the divine favor and power which accompanied the work of the primitive Church, beginning with the gift of tongues on the day of Pentecost. The belief in such signs exists to-day among large numbers of Protestants as well as in the Roman Catholic Church, with the differ

ence

Charismata

that the latter sees in the miracles of the saints the continuation of these miraculous powers, while on the evangelical side they are supposed to have ceased at the latest with the first three centuries, either through the fault of the Church or by God's design. The question of the continuance of the charismata is in many modern treatises connected with that of the continuance of miracles, the writers regarding the gift of supernatural power to effect supernatural operations as a fulfilment of Mark xvi. 17, 18. Baur, on the other hand, saw in the charismata only the gifts and dispositions which the individual converts brought to Christianity, transformed by the working of the Spirit into the various forms of Christian consciousness and life. This view, which excludes any giving of power to work miracles, as well as any new divine gift or divine reenforcement of natural gifts, is demonstrably not (as Baur claims) Pauline, but can not here be controverted at length. The word charisma itself does not tell anything as to the nature of the gifts. Except in one passage of Philo and in I Pet. iv. 10, it is only found in Paul's use of it, though probably not formed by him. In most of the places where he employs it, it denotes an extraordinary evidence of God's favor; in II Cor. i. 11, his own deliverance from death; in Rom. i. 11 a gift of the Holy Spirit, such as comfort or illumination. In other places it refers to special gifts bestowed upon the Christian (I Tim. iv. 14; II Tim. i. 6) as signs and tokens of the grace received by belief in the message of redemption (I Cor. i. 6, 7), which render him capable of a particular kind of action, in order to render some special service to the whole body (I Cor. xii. 4 sqq.). The place, therefore, that each member has in the community he has by virtue of a charisma, which he is to administer to his brethren (I Pet. iv. 10). Natural powers as such are useless to the life of the body of Christ; what it needs must, like itself, be spiritual. Charismata, then, may be defined as powers and capacities necessary for the edification of the Church, bestowed by the Holy Spirit upon its members, in virtue of which they are enabled to employ their natural faculties in the service of the Church, or are endowed with new abilities for this purpose. According to I Cor. xii. 18; Rom. xii. 5-8; Eph. iv. 11, the charismata form the basis of the offices in the Church. There can be no office without a charisma; but not all charismata are applicable to the exercise of an office. Those which correspond to permanent and invariable needs of the Church form the basis of offices, the others do not. To the latter class belong those of a miraculous or extraordinary character, like those which are peculiar to the apostles or to the apostolic period. Since the number of the charismata must correspond to the needs of the Church, it follows that the lists in I Cor. xii., Eph. iv., and Rom. xii. can not be taken as exhaustive. (H. CREMERT.) BIBLIOGRAPHY: W. J. Conybeare and J. S. Howson, Life and Epistles of St. Paul, chap. xiii., New York, 1869; Schaff, Christian Church, i. 230-242, 436-444 (reviews the opinions); Neander, Christian Church, i. 180-188 et passim; M. Lauterburg, Der Begriff des Charisma, in A. Schlatter and H. Cremer, Beiträge zur Forderung christlicher Theo

Charlemagne

logie, Gütersloh, 1898; KL, iii. 82-89; DCA, i. 349–350; commentaries on Acts, Romans, Corinthians, and Ephe

sians.

CHARITY, BROTHERS OF (Fratres caritatis): A name common to several benevolent orders of the Western Church during the Middle Ages. It is applied especially to the society founded about 1280 by a landowner Guido at Joinville, the Frères de la Charité de la bienheureuse Marie, to which Clement VI. gave an Augustinian rule and which took charge of the great Parisian hospital Les Billets from the fourteenth century until about 1640. In 1540, almost contemporaneous with the rise of the Jesuits, an order was founded in Grenada by the Portuguese Juan Ciudad, called John of God (b. 1495; d. Mar. 8, 1550), which was generally known under the name of Brothers of Charity. After a life of dissipation and wild adventures in the army of the Hungarian King Ferdinand I. in his campaigns against the Turks, John was converted by a sermon of the famous Juan d'Avila, and underwent the most excessive penances, on which account he was regarded as a madman. Learning by his own experience how the insane were treated in the hospitals of those days, he resolved to devote himself especially to the nursing of these unfortunates and others in special need. In the house which he rented at Grenada, and which became the first scene of his self-sacrificing work of love, he received only the sick from the poorest classes. Soon he gathered around himself and his first two associates, Martino and Velasco, a number of sympathetic laymen. After ten years' activity he died, and Martino took charge of the institution, which as yet had neither a written rule nor a monastic organization. The number of houses soon increased, especially after the establishment of the large hospital at Madrid, which was richly endowed by Philip II., to which others were soon added in different cities of Spain, Italy, and, after the seventeenth century, in France and Germany. The bull of authorization issued by Pius V. (Jan. 1, 1572) elevated the lay society to an order with the Augustinian rule, and placed their houses under episcopal jurisdiction, although the brethren were permitted to elect their directors (majores, not priores or abbates) and to present some of their number for the priesthood. A general chapter held at Rome by Sixtus V. prepared the outlines of the constitution of the order. These articles were first published in 1589, and were enlarged under Paul V., Alexander VII., and Clement XI. (cf. the final redaction dating from 1718, in Holstenius-Brockie, Codex regularum, vi. 293–362). The statutes included in their requirements a thorough medical knowledge on the part of the hospital staff. The secular head master and the chief tender of the sick had to be an experienced physician and surgeon, respectively. Of the eleven provinces in which the order is found, ten belong to the old world, one to America. The number of houses is at present about 120. (O. ZÖCKLER†.) BIBLIOGRAPHY: The early Vita of John of God are given in ASB, March, i. 814-858. Consult the more modern treatments: L. Saglier, Vie de S. Jean de Dieu, avec l'histoire de la fondation et du développement de son ordre, Paris, 1877; C. Wilmet, Lebensbeschreibung des . . . Johannes

von Gott, Regensburg, 1860. Further, on the order, consult: Helyot, Ordres monastiques, iv. 131-147; Heimbucher, Orden und Kongregationen, ii. 491–496.

CHARITY, CHRISTIAN: As distinguished from mere compassion, which may be but a transitory emotion or a desire without accomplishment, charity requires the cooperation of the will; it presupposes a permanent willingness to help one's neighbor in his need. If love comprehends the whole of Christian moral obligations (Rom. xiii. 9), charity is its manifestation toward our fellows, whether in temporal or in spiritual need. It is a permanent attribute of God (II Cor. i. 3), because human misery is always before his eyes, and has been operative in him from all eternity, in his plan of redemption. Under the old covenant, God, revealing himself as merciful and gracious, required his people to show mercy toward their needy brethren (Zech. vii. 9). It has, however, a deeper foundation in the New Testament. As the children of God by their brotherhood with Jesus Christ, the disciples could not but imitate the mercy of God (Luke vi. 36); he who failed in this regard showed that he was unworthy of membership in the new kingdom (Matt. xviii. 33; James i. 13). The ethical organization of men is founded upon charity, and destroyed by its absence (Luke x. 37; Heb. ii. 17, iv. 15). Thus the true Good Samaritan is not only the model, but the source of all real charity, and his disciples show their fellowship with him by it (Matt. ix. 13; Rom. xii. 4–5). It is the characteristic difference between the Christian and the non-Christian world, which knows little of it. Nothing in primitive Christianity so struck the outside observer; even the emperor Julian was obliged to admit its force, while he strove in vain to imitate it. Step by step it did away with heathen customs-infanticide, removal of the weak and sickly, brutality to slaves; it built hospitals and asylums everywhere.

In the Roman Catholic Church, according to the development of ethics since Ambrose in the form of a system of virtues and duties, charity is considered under both heads. Thomas Aquinas reckons it among the so-called "theological virtues," and says that it is the highest of the virtues which go out to our neighbor. He enumerates seven corporal works of mercy (feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, ransoming the captive, sheltering the homeless, visiting the sick, and burying the dead), and seven spiritual (admonishing sinners, instructing the ignorant, counseling the doubtful, comforting the sorrowful, bearing wrongs patiently, forgiving all injuries, praying for the living and the dead).

(L. LEMME.) BIBLIOGRAPHY: The standard work is G. Uhlhorn, Die christliche Liebesthätigkeit, 3 vols., Stuttgart, 1882-90, Eng. transl. of vol. i., New York, 1883.

CHARITY, SISTERS OF: A name applied loosely to various female communities in the Roman Catholic Church devoted especially to the care of the sick and the poor. Some associations of this kind will be treated in the article WOMEN, CONGREGATIONS OF. For the Irish Sisters of Charity see ENGLISH LADIES. It will be necessary here to