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DEACONESSES IN EUROPE
AND
THEIR LESSONS FOR AMERICA
BY
JANE M. BANCROFT, Ph.D
WITH AN INTRODUCTION
BY
EDWARD G. ANDREWS, D.D., LL.D.
_Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church_
"No life
Can be pure in its purpose and strong in its strife,
And all life not be purer and stronger thereby."
_NEW YORK: HUNT & EATON_
_CINCINNATI: CRANSTON & STOWE_
1890
IN GRATEFUL RECOGNITION,
TO
THE EARNEST AND DEVOTED WOMEN WHO,
AS MEMBERS OF THE COMMITTEE ON DEACONESS WORK
OF
THE WOMAN'S HOME MISSIONARY SOCIETY,
HAVE AIDED IN EXTENDING THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE DIACONATE
OF WOMEN,
THIS BOOK IS RESPECTFULLY
Dedicated
BY THE AUTHOR.
AUTHOR'S NOTE.
The Author has aimed to present an accurate and concise statement of the
deaconess cause as it exists at the present time.
In all cases where it was possible, original sources of information have
been consulted.
Many friends, both in Europe and America, have given invaluable aid, for
which words of thanks are an inadequate recognition.
The excellent Index at the close of the volume was kindly prepared by
the Rev. J. C. Thomas.
Acknowledgments are also due to Mr. Gillett, Librarian of the Union
Theological Seminary, and to Mr. C. H. A. Bjerregaard, of the Astor
Library, for putting not only the facilities of the library, but their
personal assistance, at the service of the writer.
JANE M. BANCROFT.
NEW YORK CITY, _June 5, 1889_.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
THE DIACONATE.
Compassion a Christian virtue--Brotherhood of all men in
Christ--Foreign Missions--Home Missions--Service of
ministering compassion gives rise to the diaconate--Diaconate
of women--Its qualities--Field of labor Page 9
CHAPTER II.
DEACONESSES IN THE EARLY CHURCH.
Little knowledge of early Church--Pliny's letter--Apostolic
Constitutions--Deaconesses, widows, and virgins--Duties of the
deaconess--Chrysostom, Olympias--Deaconesses in Western
Church--Decline in importance--Extinction--Influences that led
to decay 18
CHAPTER III.
DEACONESSES FROM THE TWELFTH TO THE NINETEENTH CENTURIES.
Béguines--Characteristics--Duties--Gerhard Groot--Sisters of
the Common Life--Obligations--Duties--Waldenses--Bohemian
Brethren--Luther--Calvin--Reformed Church at Wesel--
Deaconesses in Amsterdam--Damsels of Charity--Mennonites and
Moravians 34
CHAPTER IV.
FLIEDNER, THE RESTORER OF THE OFFICE OF DEACONESS.
Efforts for the restoration of the office of deaconess made by
Klönne--Amalie Sieveking--Von Stein--Count von der Recke--
Fliedner--His childhood--Youth--Student life--Pastorate and
travels--Marriage--First prison society--Founding of refuge--
Need of training schools--Rhenish-Westphalian Deaconess
Society 46
CHAPTER V.
THE INSTITUTIONS AT KAISERSWERTH.
Opening of hospital training-school--Gertrude Reichardt--The
Home-life--Normal school--Fliedner's wife--Publishing house--
Orphan asylum--Insane asylum--Dispensary--Farm--"Salem"--House
of Evening Rest--Extension of work--Berlin--Foreign lands
Jerusalem--Beirut--Smyrna--Bucharest--Florence--Rome 61
CHAPTER VI.
THE REGULATIONS AT KAISERSWERTH AND THE DUTIES AND SERVICES
OF THE DEACONESSES.
Two classes of deaconesses--Nurses--Teachers--Qualifications--
Probationers--Duties--Service of consecration--Conferences--
Table of results--Instances of work--Duisburg--
Schleswig-Holstein war--Austrian war--Franco Prussian war 79
CHAPTER VII.
OTHER ESTABLISHMENTS ON THE CONTINENT.
House at Strasburg--Mülhausen--Marthashof at Berlin--
Neudettelsau--St. Loup--Riehen--Zürich--Gallneukirchen--
Characteristics of institutions--Countries where they exist 93
CHAPTER VIII.
DEACONESSES IN GERMAN METHODISM.
Origin of Bethany Society--House at Frankfort--Hamburg--
Berlin--St. Gall--Zürich--Sister Myrtha--House of Rest--"God's
Fidelity"--House regulations--Training--Results 110
CHAPTER IX.
DEACONESSES IN PARIS.
Deaconess Home on Rue de Reuilly--Situation--School--
Hospital--House of Correction--Preparatory school--
Instruction--Prison mission--Mademoiselle Dumas--Expenses of
house--Its founders--Deaconess house on Rue Bridaine--
Character of work--Duties of the Sisters--Their consecration--
Importance of parish deaconesses 120
CHAPTER X.
DEACONESSES IN ENGLAND.
Early beginnings--The Puritans--Cambridge Platform--Southey's
complaint--Mrs. Fry--Fliedner--Florence Nightingale--Agnes
Jones--Distinction between "sister" and "deaconess"--
Institutions in Church of England--Garb--Ceremonies--
Self-denying lives--Dr. Laseron's institutions and others--
Prison mission of Mrs. Meredith--The Sisters of the People 142
CHAPTER XI.
MILDMAY INSTITUTIONS.
Rev. W. Pennefather--Sketch of his life--Building of hall and
deaconess home at Mildmay--Conference hall--Nursing hall--
Mission and hospital at Bethnal Green--The deaconesses--Their
training--Expense--Expenses of institution 166
CHAPTER XII.
DEACONESSES IN SCOTLAND.
Church of Scotland--Organization of woman's work--Report of
committees--Scheme--Adoption--Women's Guild--Women-workers'
Guild--Deaconesses--Training--Syllabus of lectures--
Presbyterian Church of England and Ireland Page 189
CHAPTER XIII.
THE DEACONESS CAUSE IN AMERICA.
German Lutherans--Fliedner visits America--Philadelphia--
Mother-house of Deaconesses--Deaconesses in the Episcopal
Church--Among the Presbyterians--The Methodist Episcopal
Church--Deaconess-home in Chicago--Action of General
Conference--Fields of work 204
CHAPTER XIV.
THE MEANS OF TRAINING AND THE FIELD OF WORK FOR DEACONESSES
IN AMERICA.
Advantages of the Home and Training-school--Field of work--In
hospitals--Insane asylums--Infant-schools--Teachers--The
Home-mission deaconess--Her work in London--Similar work
needed in cities of the United States 228
CHAPTER XV.
OBJECTIONS MET AND SUGGESTIONS OFFERED.
Objection that deaconesses resemble Catholic nuns--Their
influence--Numbers in different orders--Order of Charles--
Objection to garb--Its advantages--Objection to the life
answered--Opinion of Bryce concerning American women--Women of
Methodism--Advice to candidates--Associates--The Church
commended by its deeds 247
INTRODUCTION.
How far, and in what form, ought woman's work in the Church to be
organized? What was the deaconess of St. Paul's epistles? What light on
this subject do the primitive and the mediæval Churches yield us? Can
"sisterhoods" be established without weakening the sense of personal
responsibility in those Christian women who are not thus wholly set
apart to charitable and spiritual work? Can they be multiplied without
danger of introducing into Protestant communions the evils of the
conventual life? Are there modern instances of safe and successful
organizations? What good have they achieved, and what further good do
they promise? In what relation should such organizations stand to the
authority and fostering care of the Church? What should be their scope,
spirit, methods? What regulations are fundamental and indispensable?
What perils are real and possibly imminent?
To answer these, and other questions associated with them, this book is
written. Its authoress is a gifted daughter of the Church, well known in
literary and educational circles. During a protracted sojourn in Europe
she enjoyed unusual facilities for studying the deaconess work as
carried on in many places, and particularly in the institutions founded
by Pastor Fliedner at Kaiserswerth in Prussia, and in those at Mildmay
in England. She has also made a thorough and discriminating study of the
subject as developed in the early centuries of the Church and in the
Middle Ages.
The book itself will amply reveal these facts, and cannot but contribute
largely to the guidance of the newly revived interest of the American
churches in the far-reaching question how Christian women may best serve
their Lord in serving the humanity which he has redeemed.
It appears at an opportune time. The General Conference of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, at its session in May, 1888, inserted in the law of
the Church a chapter on deaconesses, defining their duties and
providing for the appointment and oversight of them through the Annual
Conferences. This action was the natural outcome of a wide and
increasing appreciation of the service of Christian women in many
departments of Church work; and it was greatly furthered by the advocacy
of Dr. J. M. Thoburn, now the devoted and honored missionary bishop of
India and Malaysia. But it had not been the subject of any considerable
previous discussion in the periodicals of the Church, and there was not
in the Church a widely diffused or an accurate knowledge of the history,
scope, possibilities, or perils of such an organization. The promptness,
however, with which the provision thus made by the General Conference
has been seized upon by the Church in several of our large cities,
indicates that the time was ripe for the movement. But information is
still scanty; ideas concerning the aim and place of the deaconess work
are crude; methods have been very little digested; the foundations of
local homes evidently may come to be very imperfectly laid; and the
movement may easily come to naught.
This book, it is hoped, will do a twofold work. It will awaken a lively
interest in a movement already arrived at large proportions in some
parts of European Protestantism; and it will guide those among us who
are studying how best to organize, against the sin and suffering of the
world, the practically unlimited resources of Christian women. Whenever
any one shall in some good degree apprehend what helpfulness for the
lost as yet lies undeveloped in the hearts and hands of the daughters of
the Church, and what honor may yet come to Christianity by the rightly
directed use of this power, he will welcome a volume which, like the
present one, offers such guidance as history, observation, and earnest
reflection yield on the question at issue.
EDWARD G. ANDREWS.
NEW YORK, _May 10, 1889_.
DEACONESSES IN EUROPE.
CHAPTER I.
THE DIACONATE.
In the ruins of the old cities of Greece and Rome we find buildings that
were used for public purposes of all kinds--forums, theaters,
amphitheaters, circuses, and temples of worship. Every provision was
made for the entertainment of the people, and for their political and
intellectual needs. But nowhere do we find the ruins of structures,
belonging either to the public or to private individuals, indicating
that any attempt was ever made to care for the feeble-minded, the
insane, the deaf, the blind, the sick, or the aged; those that in every
nation of modern times are the wards of the State and the definite
objects of religious ministrations.
The ruins cannot be found because such buildings never existed. No
provision was made for those suffering from bodily infirmities, because
so far as the State could control circumstances they were not allowed
to exist. Children who were defective in any way were put to death. In
Sparta this measure was carried out under government supervision. Even
Plato in his model republic has all children of wicked men, the
misshapen, or the illegitimate put out of existence, that they may not
be a burden to the State.[1]
With the coming of Christ new elements were introduced into the
civilization of the world; elements of kindliness, of compassion, of
sympathy of man toward his fellow-man, that up to this time had not been
known. There was a new revelation of the brotherhood of all men in the
fatherhood of God: "We are all one in Christ Jesus."
This spirit of compassion and of sympathy has grown with every century
in the Christian era, and at no time has it been stronger in the history
of the world than it is to-day. Well has one American historian said:
"To a generation which knows but two crimes worthy of death, that
against the life of the individual and that against the life of the
State; which has expended fabulous sums in the erection of
reformatories, asylums, and penitentiaries, houses of correction,
houses of refuge, and houses of detention all over the land; which has
furnished every State prison with a library, with a hospital, with
workshops, and with schools, the brutal scenes on which our ancestors
looked with indifference seem scarcely a reality. Yet it is well to
recall them, for we cannot but turn from the contemplation of so much
misery and so much suffering with a deep sense of thankfulness that our
lot has fallen in a pitiful age, when more compassion is felt for a
galled horse or a dog run over at a street-crossing than our
great-grandfathers felt for a woman beaten for cursing, or a man
imprisoned for debt."[2]
The spirit of Christ has penetrated even where his rule is not
acknowledged, and the humanitarianism of the present day is simply the
leaven of Christian love working among the masses of men.
In the Christian world the effort to realize the brotherhood of all men
in Christ is producing large results. Treasures of money, and infinitely
more precious treasures of men, are every year devoted to this one
object. The cause of Protestant foreign missions is not yet a century
old, but the latest available statistics tell us that the following
sums are being contributed annually for this great work:[3]
32 American societies contribute $3,011,027
28 British " " 5,217,385
27 Continental " " 1,083,170
-- ----------
87 societies contribute $9,311,582
With this large sum American societies are employing 986 men, and 1,081
women; British societies, 1,811 men, and 745 women; Continental
societies, 777 men, and 447 women. Total, 3,574 men, 2,273 women.
Visible results of faithfulness in work:
Members in American societies 242,733
" British " 340,242
" Continental " 117,532
-------
Total membership in foreign lands 700,507
Children in the Sunday-schools 626,741
The subject of home missions is to-day attracting greater attention than
ever before. "Die Innere Mission" of Germany, the various forms the work
assumes in England, the many societies in the United States occupied by
the questions of city evangelization, work among the Mormons, the
treatment of the Indians, care for the colored race, and other phases
of home work show that Christians are fully understanding that it is
wise to build over against our own house.
Certainly the reproach cannot justly be made that the Church of Christ
is neglectful of the precept, "As we have therefore opportunity, let us
do good unto all men."
This is genuine service of man to man, and the motive of the service is
love to God. Every revelation of God is of ministering love and
compassion, and the efforts of his disciples to imitate the divine love
have indelibly stamped upon modern civilization the Christian impress.
The service of ministering compassion is so clearly one of the duties of
Christ's Church that of necessity there must be ordinances touching the
exercise of this duty. So in Acts vi, 3, we read of the appointment of
the deacons, "men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and of
wisdom," to see that the service of the tables was not neglected.
But Christian women have ever had special gifts in caring for the poor
and sick and helpless, and the women of apostolic times must necessarily
have had their part in these services of love. In addition to the
diaconate appointed by the apostles recorded in the sixth chapter of
Acts, we must look for a female diaconate as an office in the Church.
This we do not fail to find. In Rom. xvi, 1, we read: "I commend unto
you Phebe, a deacon of the church which is at Cenchrea." Such at least
would have been the form of the verse if our translators had rendered
the Greek word here translated servant as they rendered the like word in
the sixth chapter of Acts, the third of the First Epistle to Timothy,
and in other passages of the apostolic writings.
"That ye receive her in the Lord as becometh saints, and that ye assist
her in whatsoever business she hath need of you: for she hath been a
succorer of many, and of myself also." These words of St. Paul are
especially valuable as an apostolic witness for the existence of the
office of deaconess at the time when he wrote. They are even more than
that. They are an apostolic commendation of the office addressed to the
Christian Church of all times to accept the deaconess in the Lord, and
to assist her "in whatsoever business she hath need of you."
Whether Priscilla, spoken of with Aquila as "my helpers in Christ
Jesus," or Tryphena, Tryphosa, and the beloved Persis, who "labored
much," or Julia and Olympas, all mentioned in the same chapter, were or
were not deaconesses we have no means of knowing.
Outside of this chapter we do not find other references to the order in
the New Testament, unless it be in 1 Tim. iii, 11. In the midst of a
lengthy description of the qualifications of deacons is interjected the
exhortation: "Even so must their wives be grave, not slanderers, sober,
faithful in all things." Now the word _wives_ has no authority from the
Greek word, which is simply _women_. Bishop Lightfoot remarks, in his
book on the authorized version of the New Testament, "If the theory of
the definite article (in the Greek) had been understood our translators
would have seen that the reference is to deaconesses, not to wives of
the deacons."
Many eminent scholars are of the same opinion, among whom are
Chrysostom, Grotius, Bishop Wordsworth, and Dean Alvord. Dean Howson
adds: "It should be particularly noticed in connection with this that in
the early part of the chapter no such directions are given concerning
the wives of the bishops, though they are certainly as important as the
wives of the deacons; so that it can scarcely be thought otherwise than
that the apostle's directions were for the deaconesses, an order which
we find in ecclesiastical records for some centuries side by side with
that of deacons."[4]
Those mentioned in Tit. ii, 3, and in 1 Tim. v, 9, cannot be considered
as holding the office of a deaconess. They belong distinctively to the
class of widows, who held a position of honor in the Church. St. Paul
had clear conceptions of the administrative needs of the Church, and it
is not probable that he would set apart to the service of deaconesses,
which had many difficult duties, those who were already sixty years old.
The many names of faithful women mentioned in his letters as helpers in
the Church are important witnesses for the great apostle's appreciation
of woman's co-operation in the work of the Church, although his judgment
was necessarily limited in some directions by the influence of the times
in which he lived.
Let us examine the requirements for the diaconate of the early Church.
The word diaconate means service; helpful service. We use the word to
designate service for the Church of Christ; service that more
particularly concerns itself with administering the charities of the
Church and performing its duties of compassion and mercy. The men who
were selected for this office were to be men of "honest report." They
must have led a blameless life. Those who had repented of wrong-doing
and reformed their lives were excluded from the office, because they
had lost a good report "of them which are without." Pre-eminently they
must be men of spiritual experience, proven Christians, "full of the
Holy Ghost and of wisdom." They were also to have practical gifts that
would make them efficient and capable in the duties of every-day life.
1 Tim. iii, 8.
These are some of the qualifications spoken of as belonging to the
diaconate, and are the same in application to either sex. The woman
deacon must, however, besides possessing the above qualities, be
unmarried or a widow. The married woman has her calling at home, and
cannot combine with that an official calling in the Church, although she
may be a valuable lay helper.
The field of labor of the women deacons of apostolic times and of the
present is essentially the same. The conditions of society and of the
Church, however, are totally dissimilar. We must, therefore, look to see
new adaptations of the same useful qualities. In other words, we shall
not expect to take the female diaconate of the days of the apostles and
transport it unchanged, into nineteenth century environments. We shall
rather expect to see the invariably useful qualities of the diaconate of
women adapted to the needs of the sinful, sorrowing, ignorant, and
helpless of the age in which we live.
[1] _Heidenthum und Judenthum_, von Döllinger, p. 692. Regensburg,
1857.
[2] MacMaster's _History of the United States_, vol. i, p. 102.
[3] Statistics from _North American Review_, February, 1889, "Why am
I a Missionary?"
[4] _Deaconesses_, Rev. J. D. Howson, D.D., p. 236.