OTHER ESTABLISHMENTS ON THE CONTINENT.
In a book of these dimensions no exhaustive historical account can be
given of all the developments of the deaconess movement in the various
countries on the Continent. Only a few of the leading houses can be
spoken of, but through a knowledge of these we can gain an insight into
the life and characteristics of the movement as a whole.
The mother-house at Strasburg is one of the oldest ones, dating from
1842. It owes its origin to the holy enthusiasm and life experiences of
Pastor Härter, who exercised a deep religious influence in the city
where he lived. In 1817, when he was a young man of twenty, the great
Strasburg hospital was re-organized. The six to eight hundred patients
were divided according to their religious faith. To the Catholics were
assigned as nurses Sisters of Charity. For the Protestants there were
paid women nurses.
The magistrates appealed to the pastors to find at least two Protestant
women of experience and ability to oversee the nurses, but the most
persistent search in the various churches of Strasburg failed to procure
suitable candidates. Years afterward, when death entered Härter's family
circle, and his life became clouded and darkened, he was called as a
pastor to the largest church in Strasburg. He entered upon his new
pastorate with a heart heavy and sad, and not until after ten months of
struggle, in which the depths of his soul were stirred, did he come
forth strong, confident, and positive as never before that "Jesus Christ
came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief." Henceforth
there was force to his life, conviction in his words, and never-ceasing
energy in good works.
When he heard of Fliedner's new undertaking below him on the Rhine he
remembered the difficulty in finding Protestant nurses for the hospital,
and declared that Strasburg must have a similar institution. He won the
support of a number of Christian men and women, and the house was opened
in October, 1842. From its beginning many branches of charitable and
religious work were undertaken. Especial attention was at first given to
preparing Christian teachers, and the schools in connection with the
deaconess house were filled with pupils. The success in this particular
aroused apprehension lest the deaconesses should be diverted from their
legitimate duties in caring for outside interests, so for a time the
schools were discontinued. They have been resumed, however, and are
to-day prosperous as of old.[42] There are also a hospital, a home for
aged women, a servants' training-school and a foundling asylum under the
charge of the deaconesses. They are, as a class, of higher social rank
than these of Kaiserswerth, the preponderating number of whom are from
the lower grade of social life. They are also better educated. This is
partly a necessity, from the fact that the city is on the border-land
between two great nations and if the deaconesses are to be effective
they must be familiar with the spoken and written speech of both
peoples. Strasburg continues to be a great and powerful center of
deaconess activities, having a number of branch houses and various
fields of work.
The affiliated house at Mülhausen has obtained an especially good report
for its successful use of parish deaconesses. No other house has so
systematized their labors or developed their possibilities as has the
deaconess house at Mülhausen. All the authorities on deaconess work
agree that the office of the parish deaconess is the crown and glory of
the diaconate, and approaches most nearly the type of the deaconesses of
the early Church.
The parish deaconess has occasion to use every gift which she can
possibly acquire in the varied training of the deaconess school. She
must know how to care for the poor, the weak, the sick, and those
needing help for either body or soul, as she finds them in her visits
from house to house. She must be able to pray at the bedside of the rich
man, and to serve in the kitchen of the poor man; to be motherly to
children, sympathetic with the sorrowing, and silent with the
complaining. She must be an intelligent nurse, having some knowledge of
medicine, able to faithfully carry out the instructions of the
physician. She must be keen in detecting imposition, and wise in the
administration of charity, knowing that "to deny is often to help, and
to give is often to corrupt." Truly, there is no gift of Christian
womanhood which has not here its use.
For many reasons Mülhausen was well adapted for a field of labor for
parish deaconesses. It is an old city, dating back to mediæval times,
having a population of about sixty thousand inhabitants, half of whom
are workmen. It has long been known for its noble and successful
endeavors to promote the well-being of the working class. One of the
first building and loan associations was started here to enable the
operatives to earn their homes by gradual payments. Other organizations
whose object is the moral elevation of the employees have united the
different social circles by strong ties of sympathy. It was an easy
matter, therefore, to raise a subscription of two hundred thousand
francs to provide a home for the deaconesses who were invited here from
Strasburg in 1861. There are now fourteen sisters in the deaconess
house. Half of the number remain at the home to nurse the sick, and
perform house duties. The remainder are parish deaconesses, who go forth
early in the morning, each to her own quarter of the city, where she is
busy at her labors during the day. In the evening she returns to the
central home. In each of the seven districts into which the city is
divided is located a district house; a pleasant, well-kept place. This
contains a waiting-room for the deaconess and a consultation-room for
the district physician, who comes at stated hours during the week. The
poor who are recommended by the sister he treats gratuitously, and, so
far as the physician directs, she furnishes food gratuitously. She keeps
on hand a good stock of lint, bandages, and instruments. Each house has
a kitchen and cellar. Every morning a woman comes in and prepares a
large kettle of nourishing soup, and at 11 A. M. this is given out to
the sick and poor.
In the store-room are rice, sugar, coffee, meal, and similar articles of
food. From here she sends out at noon such portions as are needed for
the most destitute of the district. In winter she also sells from her
stores to the poor. Then there is a closet amply provided with sewing
materials, and when the deaconess obtains work for seamstresses she
furnishes them at a small price the necessary outfit to begin sewing. At
two o'clock the deaconess ends her duties at the district house, and
spends the remainder of the day in making visits in her quarter. To
provide means to support the constant expenditure, there is in each
quarter of the city a committee of fifteen ladies and three gentlemen,
being in all more than one hundred ladies and twenty gentlemen, who are
responsible for the administration of the charity. Each committee has a
yearly collection in its district, and in this way about forty thousand
francs are gathered annually. In each quarter nine hundred francs (one
hundred and eighty dollars) is set apart for the maintenance of the
sister and the rent of the district house. The remaining sum is expended
by the deaconesses in their several districts in caring for the sick and
destitute. Every month each one receives the sum allotted her from the
treasurer, and in return reports her expenditure. The ladies on the
committee often give personal assistance to the deaconess, and sometimes
assume responsibility for individual cases, or for an entire street. The
arrangements are constantly being improved upon as knowledge is gained
by practice. The experience that has been gathered at Mülhausen is very
practical, and therefore very valuable. Similar work could be undertaken
in any of our large American cities, with the anticipation of like
beneficent results. For that reason the above detailed description has
been ventured upon, with the hope that the Old World example will find
imitators in the New.[43] Similar institutions, although not so
carefully perfected, are found in Gorlitz and Magdeburg.
In Berlin are a good many deaconess institutions. Among them is the
Marthashof, a training-school for servants, and a home for those out of
employment.
The first impulse to care for the girls who come to large cities to
obtain work, and to provide them a home where they can have respectable
surroundings, came from Pastor Vermeil, the founder of the deaconess
house at Paris. When Fliedner visited the Paris house his heart was
touched by what he saw. He thought of the thousands of girls coming
annually to Berlin from the provinces, and of the exposures and
temptations to which they were subjected. He knew that many of them in
their ignorance and inexperience were ruined body and soul in the
lodging-houses to which they resorted, and drifted away on the streets
of the city, only to find a place eventually in the hopeless wards of
the great hospital, La Charité.
He determined to do what he could to provide a remedy, and, as was his
wont, "without money and without noise" he set to work. In the north of
Berlin, at quite a distance from the railroad stations, he hired a small
house on a street then called "The Lost Way"--a street well named, as it
was unlighted and unpaved, and so poorly kept that when the queen came
to visit the home, shortly after it was opened, her carriage, in spite
of the strong horses, got stuck in the mud.
By the aid of some ladies in the city the home was furnished with twelve
beds; three deaconesses were put in charge, and after perplexing
difficulties the authorization to open a registry for servants was
obtained. The idea at first met with derision. It was said that such an
institution was rightly located on "The Lost Way," for no one would ever
come to it. But they came. In two years the number of beds increased to
twenty, and the same year Fliedner purchased the entire court in which
the house stood, containing five houses and a fine garden. Queen
Elizabeth of Prussia became the patroness of the institution, and it
grew in favor with the people. A training-school was added in which the
girls were taught to wash, iron, cook, and sew, and also to work in the
garden and to care for cows, the last two branches of domestic service
being required of servant-girls in Germany. Later an infant school was
added in which nursery girls were practiced in taking charge of
children, a pleasant, helpful demeanor being made one of the requisites.
Over two hundred children, mostly coming from the poorest and gloomiest
homes, are in daily attendance. About three hundred and fifty more
attend the girls' school for children of the working classes. In the
home and training-school for servants about eight hundred girls are
received annually, and sixteen thousand have been sheltered and taught
during the years it has been open. They readily secure situations, over
two thousand applications being annually received for the servants of
the Marthashof. They remain in friendly relation to the home, receive
good counsel and advice, and are encouraged to spend their free Sundays
there.
The Marthashof has had a beneficent influence over the moral and
spiritual welfare of servants throughout Germany. In nearly all the
cities similar homes are now established, while in the larger cities
Sunday associations are formed to provide suitable places of meeting for
the entertainment and instruction of those who are free Sunday
afternoons and evenings. So far as I am aware, no similar work has been
attempted for servant-girls in the United States. It is true that
training-schools exist, but not with religious supervision, and with the
moral and religious instruction of the inmates made a prominent feature.
The Marthashof offers us a lesson well worth our learning.
The deaconess house, "Bethanien," in Berlin, was founded by King
Frederick William IV., who as the Crown Prince took a warm interest in
Fliedner's undertakings.[44] It still remains under the protection of
the emperor, and is one of the most important mother-houses. Over three
thousand patients are annually admitted to the hospital connected with
the house, and five hundred children are treated at a dispensary devoted
solely to cases of diphtheria. Outside of the city it has thirty-three
stations. There are also the Lazarus Hospital and Deaconess Home, the
Paul Gerhardt Deaconess Home, provided for parish deaconesses, and the
Elizabeth Hospital and Home, which started independently but is now
allied to Kaiserswerth.
The deaconess house in Neudettelsau stands in closest union with the
Lutheran Church. The sisters are mostly from the higher ranks of
society, and intellectual training is made prominent. Certain liturgical
forms are used, and in the main deaconesses are employed in preparing
ecclesiastical vestments and embroideries for church adornment.
In marked contrast to Dettelsau is the deaconess house at Berne. It is
almost a private institution, having only slight connection with the
State Church. It owes its origin to Sophie Wurdemberger, a member of one
of the old patrician families of Berne. A visit to England made her
acquainted with Elizabeth Fry, with the usual beneficent result of
increased interest and activity in good works. On her return to Berne
she gained the support of a society of women, and through their aid
secured a hospital and deaconess home. It is now fourth in number among
the largest mother-houses, has two hundred and ninety-seven deaconesses,
five affiliated houses, and forty-five different fields of work.
The oldest mother-house in Switzerland is at St. Loup, not far from
Lausanne, standing on one of the beautiful heights of that picturesque
region. It was founded by Pastor Germond in 1841, through the direct
influence of the work at Kaiserswerth. There are now seventy-three
deaconesses, mostly acting as nurses either in private homes or public
institutions.[45]
There is also a large institution at Riehen near Basel, which sends out
two hundred deaconesses. The greater number are of the peasant class,
and are nearly all employed as nurses. The home at Zürich was at first a
daughter-house of Riehen, but is now an independent institution with
twenty-seven stations. In Austria there is a mother-house at
Gallneukirchen from which sisters are sent forth, four of them working
in as many Vienna parishes. The story of deaconess work in Austria is an
interesting one, and is told by Miss Williams in a recent number of
_The Churchman_, from which the following extracts are taken:
"The Protestants of Gallneukirchen were first formed into an independent
parish in the year 1872, and it is the only one lying between the Danube
and the Bohemian frontier. It is very widely extended, but numbers only
three hundred and eighteen souls, and is so poor that with the greatest
effort it can raise only four hundred florins a year (about one hundred
and sixty dollars) for church and school. With the aid of those
interested in the work a parish-house has been secured, where the pastor
and his wife reside, and in which is the deaconess asylum for the aged,
infirm, and insane of all classes. It has not as yet been possible to
clear off the debt on the purchase. Still the sisters strive in every
way to enlarge their usefulness, so that they now possess extensive
buildings and farms--only partly paid for, it is true--wherein to house
the many afflicted who apply to them for aid. In one building, standing
alone on a hill, they purpose to collect the insane patients, and
suitable additions are now being made to insure their safety and
comfort. In another village, two hours' drive from here, is their
school, where more than sixty boys and girls are taught, fed, and
clothed, in most cases gratuitously, at worst at a nominal charge."
"The sisters are bright and cheerful, and keep their various dwellings
so exquisitely neat and clean, with their white-washed walls adorned
with Scripture texts and pictures. No work, however menial, is beneath
them. I have myself seen one scrubbing the stairs, and in turns they
sleep on a hard straw bed on the floor, ready to rise in the night as
often as a bell summons them to the aid of a suffering invalid or a
refractory lunatic."
There are a few institutions that exist independently of those
represented at the Kaiserswerth General Conference. They stand alone for
various reasons; perhaps they have not met the conditions required of
those which belong to the association. Any house whose administration
rests exclusively either in the hands of a man or a woman is excluded
from the Conference. In every mother-house there represented the
administrative head is twofold, consisting of a gentleman, who, with
rare exceptions, is a clergyman, and a lady who is a deaconess. The
Kaiserswerth authorities regard this joint management as an
indispensable condition.
The rector, as he is usually called, cares for the intellectual and
spiritual instruction of the probationers, conducts public services in
the chapel, and issues the publications and reports of the house.
The oberin, or house-mother, is the direct head of the sisters. She is
responsible for the interior management, regulates the duties of the
sisters, and gives practical instruction. The two are jointly
responsible for the acceptance and dismissal of probationers, for the
assignment of the sisters to different fields of labor, and the kind of
labor required. Every mother-house has its own peculiarities. The
personal characteristics of those who conduct it are naturally impressed
upon the house.
Then, too, the influence of environment is to be reckoned with. The
house may be located in a large city or in a small one; in the country
or in towns. It may be under the influence of a State Church, as in
Germany, or of Christians of all Churches, as at Mildmay. It will share
the characteristics of the race of people from which come its workers.
Doubtless in the Methodist Episcopal Church in America the deaconesses
that eventually become recognized as set apart to special Christian
service, through the training that is provided for them, will be women
who are peculiarly adapted to the needs of that Church, with all the
distinguishing American traits that will prepare them to understand the
people whom they are to serve, and that will give them access to the
hearts of this people.
If the deaconess cause should gain favor with us as it has in Europe,
and should the deaconesses become as established in the social life of
the people as they are there, the effective agencies will be largely
increased that are to deal with the questions that come to the front
whenever, as in great cities, large numbers of people are massed
together.
Deaconess institutions now exist in Switzerland, France, Holland,
Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Russia, Austria, England, and Germany, while
the countries in which these homes have stations are literally too
numerous to mention. Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey, the countries of
Northern Africa, and of Asia Minor, as well as isolated mission stations
throughout the entire world are now served by deaconesses.
If there were ten times the number of sisters, places could be at once
found for them. It is instructive on this point to read what Pastor
Disselhoff says[46] in the account he gives of the various demands made
upon him, which he has been unable to meet. One of the letters he quotes
was from an English missionary on the Cameron River. "Send us
deaconesses for our hospital," he says. "It was built for European
sailors, especially Germans. We hope and trust to overcome the
superstitions of the natives, and that they too, may come to be healed."
But there were no sisters to send.
A similar call came from Shanghai, but as it was impossible to return a
favorable answer, although the hospital was a Protestant institution,
the Sisters of Mercy were invited in, and given control. From 1870 up to
1886 over two hundred and twenty-seven places at widely remote
distances, such as Madras, New Orleans, Port Said, Rio de Janeiro, and
elsewhere, sent most urgent appeals for Kaiserswerth deaconesses to be
assigned them, but invariably the same answer must be returned: "There
are none to send." Disselhoff closes by saying, "How many open doors has
God given! Whose fault is it that they remain closed?"
[42] Schäfer, _Die Weibliche Diakonie_, vol. i, p. 21.
[43] The details of the deaconess work at Mülhausen are largely
taken from Schäfer's _Die Weibliche Diakonie_, vol. ii.
[44] _Life of Pastor Fliedner_, translated by C. Winckworth, London,
1867, p. 133. "The favor of the great, especially the
condescending kindness of our late Sovereign, he took as a gift
from the King of kings, who allowed his own work to be thus
promoted. He strenuously avoided all personal distinction, and
never wore the order which had been sent him; 'for a servant of
the Church,' he said, 'there should be but one order--the Cross
of the Lord.'"
[45] _Der Armen und Kranken Freund_, August, 1888.
[46] _Denkschrift zur Jubelfeier_, pp. 248, 249.