HOW SHALL THEN WE LOVE?
The Rev. Harold Shepherd, CD, M.A., S.T.M., LL.B., LL.M., Ph.D.
Sermon from May 9, 2004

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." Jn 13:34-35

When reading the Anglican Church Calendar for this week, I noticed that this Wednesday, May 12 commemorates “Florence Nightingale, Nurse, Social Reformer, 1910.” She is the only woman so honoured after Joan of Arc in 1431. Why? Florence Nightingale was born in Florence, Italy on May 12, 1820, while her parents were touring Europe for two years after their marriage. Although they were of Unitarian background, Florence was baptized in the Church of England on July 4, 1820 and she was raised an Anglican. Her father, William Nightingale, was a Cambridge-trained landowner who inherited considerable wealth from a relative in Derbyshire. Florence and her older sister Panthenope (named after her city of birth- Naples, in Greek) spent their summers at the family home in Derbyshire and the rest of the year another home in Embley. The girls were first educated by governesses, then by their father. Florence excelled in matters academic and was educated in Greek, Latin, French, German, Italian, history, philosophy and politics. After initial resistence from her parents, she was given permission to study mathematics instead housekeeping subjects, becoming proficient in arithmetic, geometry, algebra and statistics. She first began to study different nursing systems while on a trip to Europe and Egypt in 1849 to 1850. In early 1850 she began to train as nurse in Alexandria, Egypt. She then went to Kaiserwerth, Germany to study nursing for three months in 1851, then began work as a nurse in a hospital near Paris. She returned to London in 1853 at age thirty-three to accept the unpaid position of Superintendent at a women’s hospital. The Crimea War that pitted Russia against Great Britain, France and Turkey began in March of 1854. After criticism of the medical care provided the wounded by the British Army was published in The Times, the Secretary for War, Sidney Herbert, a friend of Florence, asked her to oversee the introduction of nurses into military hospitals in the Crimea. She agreed, and arrived in Constantinople (now Istanbul) on November 4, 1854 with 38 nurses. She found that conditions the wounded were kept in were appalling. Soldiers were left lying on bare floors crawling with rats, still clothed in their dirty uniforms from the field. Death due to infections, cholera and typhus were a frequent occurrence. When she arrived, the mortality rate in the military hospitals was about 60%. Seven times more soldiers died from hospital conditions than battlefield injuries. After improving sanitation and proper hygiene, the mortality rate dropped to 42.7% by February 1855, some three months after the arrival of Florence Nightingale and her team of nurses. She then acquired fresh water and purchased fruit, vegetables and hospital equipment at her own expense. Afterwards, the mortality rate plunged to a remarkable 2.2%. Her training in mathematics and statistics paid off well, as she was able to document by use of scientific method the relationship between these changes and mortality rates. For her work, she was the first woman to be elected as a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society. In 1860, Florence opened a training school for nurses in London. She combined both practical training with the requirement that nurses live in a home that could support a moral life and discipline. By so doing, she helped gain public respect for the moral integrity of nurses that had been lacking beforehand. Although she spent most of her later life bedridden as a result of an illness contracted in the Crimea, she wrote about 200 books and articles, some of which are still used today. She died on August 13, 1910 at age 90. Henri Dunant, the person who instigated the Geneva Conventions concerning the treatment of the wounded, paid homage to Florence Nightingale in 1864 as the one who had inspired him to go to Italy in 1859 to provide medical care for the wounded. This experience led to the creation of the Red Cross by Dunant. The debt we owe to her is enormous, especially with respect to principles of modern nursing. She undertook this out of a sense of divine calling and rooted her professional life in devotion to God. When she was seventeen, Florence felt called by God to service while walking in the garden at Embley. However, it was many years before she discovered what is was. She wrote: "For what is mysticism? Is it not an attempt to draw near to God, not by rites and ceremonies, but by inward disposition? Is it not merely a hard word for 'The Kingdom of Heaven is within?'. . . . Heaven is neither a place nor a time. . . Where shall I find God? In myself. That is the true mystical doctrine. But then I myself must be in a state for Him to come and dwell in me. This is the whole aim of the Mystical Life; and all the Mystical Rules in all time and countries have been laid down for putting the soul into such a state." She was able to integrate love of God with love of others in service that is an example to us all.