RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Litany Littlejohn
Park Church, Elizabeth, N. J. (1878-80), Centenary Church, Newark, N. J. (1881-83), Calvary Church, East Orange, N. J. (1884-86), Grace Church, Port Richmond, Staten Island (1887-91), Lafayette Church, Jersey City, N. J. (1892-96), West Side Avenue Church, Jersey City (1897-1901), Arlington, N. J. (1902-05), Hackensack, N. J. (1905), and Verona, N. J., since 1905. He has written: Biblical Lights and Side Lights (New York, 1883); Historical Lights (1886); and Cyclopedia of Classified Dates (1900).
LITTLE SISTERS OF THE POOR, THE: A religious order of women which had its origin in Saint Servan, near the coast town of St. Malo in Brittany. In 1840 the village priest, M. le Pailleur, first interested Jeanne Jugan, a humble servant girl, and a few other pious women in the care of some of the aged poor people of the locality, and in 1842 a house was bought to serve as a refuge for the same. The work, though undertaken without any definite or far-reaching plan, and utterly without resources, save the alms contributed by a far from opulent surrounding population, developed with an unlooked-for rapidity. The spirit of poverty and the unselfish devotedness which characterized the founders of the work soon made them very popular, and in the course of a few years they were organized on the lines of a religious congregation which in twenty years spread to most of the cities of France, and even to Belgium and England. The object of the organization is the establishment and maintenance of permanent homes for the destitute aged and infirm of both sexes without distinction of creed or nationality. To be admitted to these homes the applicants must be " respectable," i.e., of good moral character, and, as a rule, they must be over sixty years of age. They are supported and cared for personally by the sisters who depend entirely on charity for their maintenance. The rule of the community, which is based on that of St. Augustine, received the solemn approbation of the Holy See July 9, 1854. The order was legally recognized by the French government in 1856, and it finds place among the few congregations which survived the legislation enacted against the religious communities in France in 1905 and 1906.
The order was introduced into the United States in 1868 when their first home was opened in Brooklyn, and in 1907 the American membership numbered 800 sisters with two provincial headquarters, one in Brooklyn and the other in Chicago. They conduct fifty homes for the aged in the various cities of the Union, chiefly in those of the East and Middle West, the total number of inmates being over 9,000. James F Driscoll.
Bibliography: J. P. Migne, Encyclopedic theologique, vol. xxiii.; Dictionnaire des ordres religieux, vol. iv (under " Petites Soeurs des Pauvres ")■ Paris, 1859; L. Aubineau, Lebensbeschreibungen. Die kleinen Schwestern det Armen, Regensburg, 1871; Nouveau dictionnaire d'histoire et de geographie, ib. 1874; G. Ratzinger, Geschichte der lirchlichen Armenpflege, pp. 518 sqq., Freiburg, 1884; Official Catholic Directory for the United States, Milwaukee, 1909; Baunard, E. Lelievre et les fondations des Petites Scrnrs des pauvres, Paris, 1904; Heimbucher, Orden und Kongregationen, ii. 388-389.
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LITTLEDALE, RICHARD FREDERICK:
Church of England; b. in Dublin Sept. 14, 1833; d. in London Jan. 11, 1890. He studied at Trinity College, Dublin (B.A., 1854; M.A., 1858; LL.D., 1862; D.C.L., Oxford, 1862). He was curate of Thorpe Hamlet, Norfolk (1856-57), then of St. Mary the Virgin, Soho, London (1857-61); but, being compelled by ill-health to abandon parochial work, he devoted himself to religious literature, and became a voluminous writer. As an opponent of the Church of Rome, he attracted much attention. Among his works may be mentioned: Religious Communities of Women in the Early Church (London, 1862); Offices of the Holy Eastern Church (1863); The Mixed Chalice (1863); The North Side of the Altar (1864); Catholic Ritual in the Church of England (1865) ; The Elevation of the Host (1865) ; Early Christian Ritual (1867); Commentary on the Psalms (in continuation of Dr. Neale's, vols, ii.iv., 1868-74); Commentary on the Song of Songs (1869); Religious Education of Women (1872); Papers on Sisterhoods (1874-78); Last Attempt to reform the Church of Rome from within (1875); Ultramontane Popular Literature (1876); An Inner View of the Vatican Council (1877); Plain Reasons against joining the Church of Rome (1879); A Short History of the Council of Trent (1888); The Petrine Claims: a Critical Inquiry (1889). He contributed to the Encyclopaedia Britannica (9th ed.); edited Anselm's Cur Deus Homo? (1863); and shared in editing The Priests' Prayer-Book (1864); The People's Hymnal (1867); Liturgies of SS. Mark, James, Clement, Chrysostom,and Basil (1868-69); The Christian Passover (1873); and The Altar Manual (1877).
Bibliography: DNB, xxxiii. 364-365; O. C. H. King, The Character of Dr. Littledale as a Controversialist, London, 1888. Further literature is indicated in Richardson, Encyclopaedia, p. 634.
LITTLEJOHN, ABRAM NEWKIRK: Protestant Episcopal bishop of Long Island; b. at Florida, N. Y., Dec. 13, 1824; d. at Williamstown, Mass., Aug. 3, 1901. He was educated at Union College (B.A., 1845) and at Princeton Theological Seminary. He was ordained deacon in 1848 and priest the following year. While deacon he officiated at Amsterdam, N. Y., and at Meriden, Conn. He was rector of Christ Church, Springfield, Mass. (1850-51); St. Paul's Church, New Haven, Conn. (1851-60); and Church of the Holy Trinity, Brooklyn, N. Y. (1860-69). During his rectorate in New Haven he was professor of pastoral theology in the Berkeley Divinity School at 'Middletown, Conn. He was consecrated as the first bishop of the new diocese of Long Island (Jan. 27, 1869), having previously been elected bishop of Central New York, but declined the position. He had oversight of the American Protestant Episcopal churches on the Continent (1874-86). His principal works are: Condones ad Clerum (New York, 1881); Individualism: its Growth and Tendencies (1881; lectures before the University of Cambridge) and The Christian Ministry at the close of the 19th Century (1884; lectures on the Bishop Paddock foundation, General Theological Seminary, New York). Bibliography: W. S. Perry, The Episcopate in America,
p. 195, New York, 1895.
Liturgies