New ventures in religious life are b'eing called forth by the Holy Spirit within the Church. Among these the religious communities for the sick which have come into being during the past few years in Prance are not the least interesting.

At a time when illness has become to a great extent a social phenomenon—and paradoxically this is bound up with the great progress of medicine in prolonging the life of the sick —in a country which counts at least five hundred thousand tubercular cases, a very great number of cardiac cases, and more than a hundred thousand cases of paralysis; at a time, too, when great national movements for their protection and help are being organised, it is fitting that those for whom suffering and illness have a significance in the Cross of Christ should be united and brought together.