FLIEDNER, THE RESTORER OF THE OFFICE OF
DEACONESS.
The first years of the present century were sad years for Germany. There
was a life-and-death struggle with an all-powerful conqueror to preserve
existence as a nation. The Germans still call this "the war for
freedom." Immediately thereafter followed a period of religious
awakening, and this proved to be the hour when the diaconate of woman
rose again to life and power. When the fullness of time arrives for a
cause or a movement to take its place among the forces of society, many
hearts become impressed with its importance. So, between the years 1820
and 1835, there were four several attempts to awaken the Christian
Church to an enlightened conscience in this matter, the last of which
obtained a wide and an enduring success. The first was made by Johann
Adolph Franz Klönne, pastor of the church at Bislich, near Wesel.
Stirred to admiration by the activity that the women's societies had
shown in the Napoleonic wars, he lamented the fact that the
associations had dissolved, and complained that they had not taken a
permanent form, in which the members might have performed the duties for
the Church that deaconesses had done in the early years of Christianity.
In 1820 he published a pamphlet entitled _The Revival of the Deaconesses
of the Primitive Church in our Women's Associations_. This he sent to
many persons of influence, trying to win their co-operation for the
cause. He received a great many answers in reply, among them one from
the Crown Princess Marianne. But while in a general way his project met
with approval, no one could suggest a practical method by which his
thought could be realized.
A distinguished woman, Amalie Sieveking, attempted the same task of
utilizing the labor of Christian women as deaconesses in the Church. She
belonged to a well-known patrician family in the old free city of
Hamburg, and was well known for her philanthropic views and her generous
deeds. "When I was eighteen years old," she relates, "I first learned
about the charitable sisterhoods in Catholic lands, and the knowledge
seized upon me with almost irresistible power. Like a lightning's flash
came the thought, What if you were appointed to found a similar
institution for our Protestant Church?"[25] The thought stayed by her,
and disposed her to receive willingly a similar suggestion coming from
the great Prussian minister Von Stein, the Bismarck of Germany during
the first quarter of this century. He had been favorably impressed by
what he had seen of the Sisters of Mercy in the camp and in hospitals.
He consulted with one of his councilors about increasing their number,
so that they could be employed in all the Hospitals, Insane Asylums, and
Penitentiaries which had women inmates. To another minister he
complained with warmth that the Protestant Church had no such
sisterhoods by which the beneficent stream of activities among women
could be directed into well-regulated channels. "The religious life of
Protestantism suffers from the want of them," he said. These words were
repeated to Amalie Sieveking and stirred her to make the endeavor to
fulfill her own long-cherished wishes, which were those of Stein. Just
at this time, in 1831, the cholera broke out in her native city. She
took this as a providential opening, by means of which deaconesses could
begin their work, and went at once to one of the cholera hospitals,
offered her services as a nurse, and at the same time issued an appeal
for sister-women to join her. But no one came. The only outcome of her
effort was a woman's society which she formed to care for the sick and
the poor of her native city, and to work for this she devoted the
remainder of her life. Stein and Amalie Sieveking had in mind an order
of women closely resembling the Sisters of Charity. That their efforts
were not crowned with success seemed to the evangelical Protestant
promoters of the deaconess cause in later times providential.[26]
Shortly after, in 1835, Count von der Recke, already well known as the
founder of two charitable institutions, issued the first number of a
magazine called _Deaconesses; or, The Life and Labors of Women Workers
of the Church in Instruction, Education, and the Care of the Sick_. Only
a single number appeared, but his earnest plea for deaconesses, and the
elaborate plan he devised for an institution and officers, aroused wide
attention, and brought him a letter of warm commendation from the crown
prince, afterward King Frederick William IV. Evidently the idea was
ripening, and a near fruition could be anticipated. But neither to
minister of state, count, nor prince--to no one among the distinguished
of the earth--was the honor given of reviving the female diaconate. It
was to a humble pastor of an obscure village church that this work was
committed.
The little village of Eppstein lies in a beautiful country, full of high
mountains and deep-lying valleys, about a dozen miles from Wiesbaden. At
the village parsonage of the little hamlet was born, January 21, 1800, a
son, the fourth of a family that numbered twelve children. The pastor,
whose father before him had filled a like office, was a favorite among
his people for his pleasant speech, sound advice about every-day
matters, and his faithfulness in instructing the children in the Bible
and the catechism, and caring for the sick and the afflicted.
The little boy proved to be a strong, healthy child, and as he grew
older developed a liking for books. His father taught a class composed
of his children and some boys in the neighborhood, and when Theodor
became old enough to join it he soon outstripped the rest, giving his
father no little pride by his fluent rendering of Homer. Theodor
Fliedner was not quite fourteen years old when the sudden death of the
father changed the whole life of the family, and left the mother with
eleven children to maintain and educate. Now began for Fliedner a
struggle to complete his education. The simple, kindly hospitality that
had been so generously exercised in the village parsonage met its
reward. Friends came forward to offer help, and at the beginning of the
New Year Fliedner and his brother went to the gymnasium at Idstein. Here
he was obliged to live sparingly, and earned his bread by teaching, but
he was happy and contented, and found in study his great delight. He was
fond of reading books of travel and the lives of great men, which
stirred him to emulation. In 1817 he went to the University of Giessen.
Here he kept aloof from the political agitations among the students.
Neither was he affected by the rationalistic teachings of the
professors. His shy, retired nature aided him in this course, and his
leisure hours were passed in reading the writings of the Reformers. The
jubilee festival of the Reformation occurred in 1817, and the lives of
the heroes of the faith were brought freshly home to him. Their strength
of faith shamed him, but he had not yet learned the secret of their
power. He was yet without a deep, spiritual life. From Giessen he went
to Göttingen, where he devoted himself to a year's study of history,
philosophy, and theology. During the holidays, as is the custom with
German students, he made repeated pedestrian tours. In this way he
visited the great free cities of the north, Bremen, Hamburg, and
Lubeck. From Göttingen he and his brother went to the theological
seminary at Herborn, where the following summer he passed with credit
his theological examination. He was now ready to enter God's great
school of practical life to be further fitted for the mission he was to
accomplish. In September he went to Cologne and was employed in the
house of a wealthy merchant as a private tutor. This was a great change
for the quiet youth of country habits. He took great pains to
accommodate himself to his surroundings, and to acquire the truly
Christian art of becoming all things to all men. In after life, when
speaking of this period and its usefulness to him, he wrote: "It is a
great hinderance to a man, even to his progress in the kingdom of God,
not to have been brought up in gentle and refined manners from his
childhood." Although a faithful and devoted teacher his life-work was
not forgotten. He constantly sought to widen his knowledge and
experience, was made assistant secretary of the local Bible society, and
formed friendships which led to his appointment to the pastorate at
Kaiserswerth. This was a Catholic town formerly of some importance. The
ruins of an imperial palatinate are still to be seen there, but in
Fliedner's time it had become a little village of workmen dependent on
a few manufacturers. On January 18, 1822, alone, and on foot, to save
his poor society the expense of his journey, Fliedner entered the town
where his life was henceforth to be centered. He was to share the
parsonage with the widow of a previous pastor, and his sister was to be
his housekeeper. His income was one hundred and thirty-five dollars a
year. Only a month after his arrival the great firm of velvet
manufacturers who provided the work-people with employment failed, and
the little church community seemed about to be dispersed. The government
offered him another and better appointment, but he felt that he must be
a true shepherd, and not a hireling, and would not leave his people. He
decided to make a journey to collect money to form a permanent endowment
for his church. A journey over sixty years ago, to a young German of
quiet habits, was a very different matter from a similar trip taken in
this day of railroads and steamboats. To Fliedner it seemed a very
important matter; and so it was in its results, which reached far beyond
the little congregation he served. With great hesitation he began at
Elberfeld, a town near at hand. A pastor of the city, to encourage him,
accompanied him to friends, and on parting gave him a friendly
suggestion that, in addition to trust in God, such work required
"patience, impudence, and a ready tongue." Before starting on the longer
journey to Holland and England he returned to his congregation and
encouraged them by the sum of nine hundred dollars that he had so far
secured. He was now absent for nine months, and during that time
obtained an amount sufficient to put the little church in a position
where a certain, if modest, annual allowance was assured. The pastor had
also, in serving others, greatly strengthened and broadened his own
faith. As he says, "In both these Protestant countries I became
acquainted with a multitude of charitable institutions for the benefit
both of body and soul. I saw schools and other educational
organizations, alms-houses, orphanages, hospitals, prisons, and
societies for the reformation of prisoners, Bible and missionary
societies, etc., and at the same time I observed that it was a living
faith in Christ which had called almost every one of these institutions
and societies into life, and still preserved them in activity. This
evidence of the practical power, and fertility of such a principle had a
most powerful influence in strengthening my own faith, as yet weak." It
was while in Holland that he wrote to Klönne concerning the deaconesses,
whose duties he had observed among the Mennonites. After his return he
applied himself with zeal and success to his pastoral duties. Work was a
delight to him, and his energy and force of character were constantly
seeking new ways by which to make his church services more attractive,
and to increase his influence over each member of his congregation. "He
never asked himself what he _must_ do, but always what he _might_
do."[27] But, work as industriously as he would, his small society left
him time for other activities. While in London he had been profoundly
impressed by the noble labors of Elizabeth Fry in the prisons of
England. It was this woman's hand that pointed out the way for Fliedner
in Germany. The prisons in his own land had remained untouched by any
spirit of reform. The convicts were crowded together in small, filthy
cells, and often in damp cellars without light or air; boys, who had
thoughtlessly committed some trifling misdemeanor, with gray-headed,
corrupt sinners; young girls with the most vicious old women. There was
no attempt at classification of prisoners. Some of them might be
innocent people waiting for trial. Neither was there oversight, save to
keep the prisoners from escaping. No work was provided, and as for
schools, where the larger number of convicts could neither read nor
write, no one thought of such a thing.[28] That such idleness, the
beginning of all vice, was here especially pernicious and corrupting can
be readily seen. But few knew of this state of things, and those few
left it for the government to provide a remedy.
Fliedner, however, could not rest in this indifference. He says: "The
smallness of my charge left me more leisure than most of my clerical
brethren, and the opportunities I had enjoyed on my travels of at once
collecting information and strengthening my faith imposed a more urgent
obligation on me to try to make up by the help of our God for our long
neglect." He tried to obtain permission to be imprisoned a few weeks in
the prison at Düsseldorf, that he might view prison life from within the
walls, but his request was refused. He then obtained leave to hold
services every other Sunday afternoon in the prison at Düsseldorf. The
efforts that he put forth succeeded in waking the interest of a great
many persons, and at last there was formed by his efforts the first
society in behalf of prisoners in Germany.
It was while engaged in this work that he met his wife, Frederika
Münster, who was occupied in bettering the condition of the prisoners in
the penitentiary at Düsselthal. He married her in 1828, and she became
a helpful, inspiring co-worker with him in all his undertakings.
In 1832 he was commissioned by the government to revisit England, to
furnish a report on the various charitable organizations, especially
those connected with prisons and alms-houses. This brought him into
closer relations with Elizabeth Fry, as well as with many other noble
men and women of all ranks who were caring for the poor and neglected of
England. He extended his journey to Scotland, met Dr. Chalmers, and
found his heart strangely touched by what he saw. His spiritual
experience had deepened with the years, and while here he wrote to some
friends, "The Lord greatly quickens me."
His heart became still more open to works of mercy and love, and he
gathered rich experiences which were afterward utilized in his work.
Fliedner had now attained a certain reputation of his own as a friend to
prisoners and outcasts. It was not surprising, therefore, that a poor
female convict, discharged from the prison at Werden, should have taken
the weary six miles' walk to Kaiserswerth September 17, 1833, to ask the
good pastor for help. There stood in the parsonage garden a little
summer-house twelve feet square, with an attic. This was offered to the
convict Minna as a temporary refuge, and she became the first inmate of
the Kaiserswerth institutions. She had arrived at an opportune moment.
In the previous spring Count Spee, the President of the Prison Society,
had urged the founding of two institutions, one Lutheran and one
Catholic, to receive discharged female convicts. Fliedner, who had seen
such refuges in England, declared himself ready for the plan, and tried
to induce the pastors of the larger and wealthier communities in the
neighborhood to locate the Protestant asylum in some one of these
cities. No one responded to his appeal. His wife, whose courage was
often greater than his own, urged him to make a beginning in the little
village where he lived, unpromising as the conditions seemed, and after
a little hesitation, seeing no one was ready to assume any
responsibility in a matter that he took so deeply to heart, the good
pastor decided to follow her advice. The old parsonage was for rent, and
he secured it on low terms.
Frau Fliedner had a friend of her school-days and early youth, now a
woman of experience and ability. She sent for her to come and visit them
to see if she would become the superintendent of the refuge, but shortly
after her arrival she was taken sick, and her friends sent letters of
expostulation urging her to return. Just now, when affairs were in
rather an untoward state, appeared the first inmate. Let Fliedner tell
the story:
"We at first gave her lodging in my summer-house, and the necessity of
attending to her did more good to the poor, distressed superintendent
than all her quinine and mixtures. Countess Spee, the wife of our
president, had prophesied that our inmates would never remain with us a
month, they would certainly run away. So when the first month was over I
marched over to Heltorf and triumphantly announced, 'Minna is yet
there.' Minna was followed by another, and the garden-house became too
small."
Finally Fliedner obtained possession of the house he had hired, after
some delay on the part of the former tenants, and the asylum was opened.
The number of inmates increased, and Fräulein Göbel soon had more than
she could manage. She must have an assistant. The need of trained
Christian workers, who could care for these poor women, grew daily more
apparent.
Fliedner's thoughts constantly dwelt on the subject; they gave him no
rest. He had discovered with joyful surprise in 1827 the traces of the
apostolic deaconesses among the Mennonites, and two years later he
wrote:
"Does not the experience of this our sister Church, do not the women
societies in our last war, does not the holy activity of an Elizabeth
Fry and her helpers in England, and the women's associations of Russia
and Prussia formed after their model to care for the bodies and souls of
women prisoners--do all these not show what great power God-fearing,
pious women possess for the up-building of Christ's kingdom as soon as
they have opportunity to develop it?"[29]
His practical experience with the work he had in hand brought him to the
same conclusion; namely, that there must be training-schools where
Christian women, especially set apart for such service, could have
instruction and practice in the duties they had undertaken. As a
consequence there were drawn up in May, 1836, and signed by Fliedner and
a few friends, the statutes of the Rhenish-Westphalian Deaconess
Society.
Fliedner had now reached the work that was henceforth to be his life
mission; that is, the restoration of deaconesses to the Christian Church
of the nineteenth century.
[25] _Denkschrift zur Jubelfeier_, J. Disselhoff, Kaiserswerth,
1886, p. 8.
[26] Schäfer, _Die Weibliche Diakonie_, vol. ii, p. 86; _Denkschrift
zur Jubelfeier_, p. 9.
[27] T. Fliedner, _Kurzer Abriss seines Lebens_, p. 43.
[28] T. Fliedner, _Kurzer Abriss seines Lebens_, p. 48.
[29] _Kurzer Abriss seines Lebens_, p. 60.