Deaconesses in Europe and their Lessons for America Part 11

The Methodist Episcopal Church of America, although occupying itself with the question of the diaconate of women later than any of the denominations previously mentioned, by its acceptance of the office and by making it an inherent part of its ecclesiastical organization has taken a higher ground than any Protestant body, with the exception of the Church of Scotland. The Methodist Episcopal Church has ever offered a freer scope for the activities of its women members than any other body of Christians save the Quakers, who are still the leaders in this respect; but it may be questioned if any furnishes a larger number who are actively engaged in promoting philanthropic and religious measures.

The honor of practically beginning the deaconess work in connection with the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States belongs to Mrs. Lucy Rider Meyer, of the Chicago Training-school, who, during the summer months of 1887, aided by eight earnest Christian women, worked among the poor, the sick, and the needy of that great city without any reward of man's giving. In the autumn the Home opened in a few hired rooms, and Miss Thoburn came to be its first superintendent. The story of the growth of the work, the securing of a permanent home, and the enlargement of its resources is a most interesting one.[88]

The Rock River Conference, within whose boundaries the Chicago Home is situated, had from the beginning an earnest sympathy and confidence in the work as it was developing in its midst. A memorial was prepared, and was presented to the General Conference in May, 1888, by the Rock River Conference, through its Conference delegates, asking for Church legislation with reference to deaconesses. At the same time the Bengal Annual Conference, through Dr. J. M. Thoburn, also presented a memorial asking for the inst.i.tution of an order of deaconesses who should have authority to administer the sacrament to the women of India. Our missionaries in India have long felt the need of some way of ministering to the converted women who are closely secluded in zenana life, and who, though sick and dying, are precluded by the customs of the country from any religious service of comfort or consolation that male missionaries can render. If it had been possible for our women missionaries to administer the sacrament many Indian women could have been received into the Church. All of the papers and memorials on this subject were put into the hands of a committee, of which Dr. J. M. Thoburn (afterward made missionary bishop to India and Malaysia) was chairman; and the report of the committee was as follows:

"THE NEW OFFICE OF DEACONESSES IN THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH.

"For some years past our people in Germany have employed this cla.s.s of workers with the most blessed results, and we rejoice to learn that a successful beginning has recently been made in the same direction in this country. A home for deaconesses has been established in Chicago, and others of a similar character are proposed in other cities. There are also a goodly number of similar workers in various places; women who are deaconesses in all but name, and whose number might be largely increased if a systematic effort were made to accomplish this result. Your committee believes that G.o.d is in this movement, and that the Church should recognize the fact and provide some simple plan for formally connecting the work of these excellent women with the Church and directing their labors to the best possible results. They therefore recommend the insertion of the following paragraphs in the Discipline, immediately after -- 198, relating to exhorters:

"DEACONESSES.

"1. The duties of the deaconesses are to minister to the poor, visit the sick, pray with the dying, care for the orphan, seek the wandering, comfort the sorrowing, save the sinning, and, relinquishing wholly all other pursuits, devote themselves in a general way to such forms of Christian labor as may be suited to their abilities.

"2. No vow shall be exacted from any deaconess, and any one of their number shall be at liberty to relinquish her position as a deaconess at any time.

"3. In every Annual Conference within which deaconesses may be employed, a Conference board of nine members, at least three of whom shall be women, shall be appointed by the Conference to exercise a general control of the interests of this form of work.

"4. This board shall be empowered to issue certificates to duly qualified persons, authorizing them to perform the duties of deaconesses in connection with the Church, provided that no person shall receive such certificate until she shall have served a probation of two years of continuous service, and shall be over twenty-five years of age.

"5. No person shall be licensed by the board of deaconesses except on the recommendation of a Quarterly Conference, and said board of deaconesses shall be appointed by the Annual Conference for such term of service as the Annual Conference shall decide, and said board shall report both the names and work of such deaconesses annually, and the approval of the Annual Conference shall be necessary for the continuance of any deaconess in her work.

"6. When working singly each deaconess shall be under the direction of the pastor of the church with which she is connected. When a.s.sociated together in a home all the members of the home shall be subordinate to and directed by the superintendent placed in charge.

"J. M. THOBURN, _Chairman_.

"A. B. LEONARD, _Secretary_."

The adoption of this report made its contents a portion of the organic law of the Church.

It is doubtful if there was any measure taken at the General Conference of 1888 that will be more far-reaching in its results than that which inst.i.tuted the office of deaconess. The full and complete recognition accorded by the highest authority of the Church commended it to the people, who showed a remarkable readiness to accept the provisions.

Nearly simultaneously, at important points distinct from each other, steps were taken to establish deaconess homes, and to provide lectures and practical training to educate deaconesses for their work.

The terms of the law in which the Conference action was expressed were not closely defined. It was felt that in establishing a new office for a great Church there must be room for a wide interpretation, to meet the various exigencies that will arise. It is true, also, that there can be no final interpretation until there shall be a basis of experience wide enough and varied enough to furnish facts that will justify us in forming conclusions from them. Still it was thought by those who were practically engaged in the work that there should be a common agreement on certain practical points: What was to be the training that the deaconesses were to receive during the two years of "continuous service?" What was to be their distinctive garb? What was to be the relation of the deaconess homes, that were arising, to the Conference board appointed by the Annual Conference? To discuss these and other questions a Conference was held in Chicago, December 20 and 21, 1888, of those who were actively engaged in the work. The outcome of the deliberations was the "Plan for Securing Uniformity in the Deaconess Movement." Regulations were suggested concerning homes and their connection with the Conference boards, conditions of admission were agreed upon, and a Course of Study and Plan for Training recommended.[89] Of course the recommendations set forth in the "Plan"

are not obligatory, but there has been remarkable unanimity so far in accepting them.

In addition to the Chicago Deaconess Home, and the branch in New Orleans, there is the Elizabeth Gamble House in Cincinnati, of which Miss Thoburn is superintendent; the Home in New York city, inst.i.tuted by the Board of the Church Extension and Missionary Society, under the superintendence of Miss Layton; the home in Detroit, under the auspices of the Home Missionary Society; and homes under way or projected in Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Minneapolis; while individually deaconesses are employed in Kansas City, Jersey City, Troy, and Albany. It is also well to add that since his return to India, Bishop Thoburn has opened a deaconess house in Calcutta, with four American ladies as deaconesses, while at Muttra a second home has been opened, of which Miss Sparkes, so long connected with our mission work in India, is superintendent.

Pastor Fliedner thought it strange that in the New World where there is such ceaseless activity in good works, the deaconess cause should make such slow progress; but the season of sowing had to precede that of reaping, and it seems now as though the fullness of time had arrived for the incorporation into the agencies of the churches of America of the priceless activities of Christian deaconesses.

[78] _Phobe die Diakonissen_, Dr. A. Spaeth, p. 31.

[79] For facts concerning the Philadelphia Mother-house of Deaconesses, and other important a.s.sistance rendered me, I desire to express acknowledgements to Dr. W. J. Mann, Dr. A. Spaeth, and Rev. A. Cordes, the rector of the house.

[80] McClintock and Strong's _Cyclopedia_, vol. ii, art.

"Deaconesses."

[81] _Sisterhoods and Deaconesses_, Rev. H. C. Potter, D.D.. 1873, p. 118.

[82] _Sisterhoods and Deaconesses_, p. 105.

[83] _Ibid._, p. 181.

[84] Const.i.tution and Rules for the Order of Deaconesses of Alabama, Art. vi.

[85] _Church Work_, May, 1888.

[86] For this and other suggestions regarding the deaconess question in the Presbyterian Church, I am greatly indebted to the kindness of Dr. Hastings, President of the Union Theological Seminary.

[87] _Presbyterian Review_, April, 1889, art. "Presbyterian Deaconesses."

[88] Mrs. Meyer's book on _Deaconesses_, containing also the story of the Chicago Training-school and Deaconess Home, gives the best description to be obtained of the rise of the work in Chicago.

[89] A more extended and elaborate course of study has been prepared by the Rev. Alfred A. Wright, D.D., Cambridge, Ma.s.s.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE MEANS OF TRAINING AND THE FIELD OF WORK FOR DEACONESSES IN AMERICA.

The deaconesses of the early Church differed from those of modern times, as we have seen, in being directly responsible to a church society, and in belonging to a church congregation in numbers of two or more. Modern life shows a strong tendency to organization. Wherever there are workers in a common cause they are banded together in societies and a.s.sociations. It was in accordance with the spirit of the age in which he lived that Fliedner united his workers in the Rhenish-Westphalian Deaconess Society, in 1836. It was a happy inspiration--shall we not say a _providential_ one?--that furnished a convenient organization for the office under present conditions. The mother-houses in Germany offered good working-models, and their practical advantages were so obvious that in whatever Protestant denomination the diaconate of women has revived, it has been in connection with these homes. There is no place where the training of a deaconess in all its aspects can be so well obtained as in the deaconess home and training-school, which is our synonym for the German mother-house.

Besides the advantages of a permanent home, under careful supervision, to which the probationers and deaconesses have access, in such a home care is taken to train the deaconesses in the doctrines of the Church, and there is an atmosphere favorable to the virtues of faith and devotion that the work demands. The deaconesses are never allowed to forget that they serve in a threefold capacity: "Servants of the Lord Jesus; servants of the sick and poor, 'for Jesus' sake;' servants one to another." The motto of the indomitable little republic of Switzerland, "All for each and each for all," might well be accepted as that characteristically belonging to them.

Then, too, there is a tradition of service in such a home. One deaconess learns from another. The physician is at hand to give his suggestions and medical instruction, and the lectures on Church history, on the history of missions, and on methods of evangelization make the home a center of information on all questions that affect the usefulness of the office. There is no other one place in which to obtain the practical and theoretical instruction that is needed for the education of a deaconess well equipped for her work.

Furthermore, the deaconess home offers a wide and varied field for those possessing different gifts. None can be so highly educated and cultivated that places cannot be found to utilize their talents to good advantage; while those who are sadly lacking in the education of the schools can, by talent, untiring industry, and energy make up for defects in early training.

The field of work of the deaconess in modern times is a large one. It would be easier to define what it is not than what it is. In orphanages, in asylums for fallen women, in women's prisons, in reform schools, in Sunday-schools, infant schools, and higher schools, in cla.s.ses among working-girls and servants, in industrial homes, in asylums for the blind and deaf and dumb, in hospitals of various kinds, and in churches, working under the direction of the pastor--in all of these relations and many others we find deaconesses in Germany, France, England, and other European countries.

The service in hospitals seems especially inc.u.mbent upon Christian women, and in the early history of these inst.i.tutions we find deaconesses mentioned in connection with them.

Before the birth of Christ hospitals were unknown. It is true that in Rome and Athens a certain provision was made for the poor, and largesses were given them from time to time. But this was done from motives of political expediency, and not from sympathy or commiseration with their ills. But as soon as the early Christians were free to practice their religion openly, hospitals arose in all the great cities. In the latter half of the fourth century the distinguished Christian teacher, Ephrem the Syrian, in Edessa, placed rows of beds for the sick and starving.

His contemporary, Basil, the great bishop of Caesarea, founded a number of inst.i.tutions for strangers, the poor, and the sick, caring especially for the lepers.[90] Little houses were built closely together, but so that the patients could be separated one from another, and cared for separately. Even at that early date the hospitals were arranged into divisions for either s.e.x, as they are at the present time. To use a modern phrase, the wards of the men patients were placed under the charge of a deacon while the deaconesses ministered to the sick of their own s.e.x, according as their services were required. "It was a rule for the deacons and deaconesses to seek for the unfortunate day by day, and to inform the bishops, who in turn, accompanied by a priest, visited the sick and needy of all cla.s.ses."[91]

In the Middle Ages there were orders of Hospitallers, consisting of laymen, monks, and knights, who devoted themselves entirely to the care of the sick. Under their influence great and splendid hospitals were built, of which the old Hotel Dieu in Paris was a conspicuous example.

The Hospital of the Holy Ghost in Rome, and the service of the same order, originated like hospitals all over Europe. In late years, with the development of medical and surgical art, hospital arrangements have arrived at a degree of perfection never before known; and the care of the sick, as it has been studied and practiced by Protestant deaconesses and Catholic Sisters of Mercy, has also greatly improved.

The state to which the hospitals had degenerated in Fliedner's time, and the need of experienced nurses who should be actuated by the highest Christian motives, were among the strong reasons he advanced for providing the Church with deaconesses as helpers. Here are his words:[92] "The poor sick people lay heavily on my mind. How often had I seen them neglected, their bodily wants miserably provided for, their spiritual needs quite forgotten, withering away in their often unhealthy rooms like leaves in autumn; for how many cities, even those having large populations, were without hospitals! And I have seen many on my travels in Holland, Brabant, England, and Scotland, as in our own Germany; I often found the portals of glittering marble, but the nursing and care were wretched. Physicians complained bitterly of the drunkenness and immorality of the attendants, and what shall I say of the spiritual care? In many hospitals preachers we're no longer found; hospital chaplains yet more seldom. In the pious olden time these men were always in such inst.i.tutions, especially in the Netherlands, where evangelical hospitals bore the beautiful name of "G.o.d's house," because it was recognized that G.o.d especially visits the inmates of such houses, to draw them to himself. Do not such wrongs cry to heaven? Is not our Lord's reproachful word addressed to us, 'I was sick and in prison and ye visited me not?' And shall not our Christian women be capable and willing to undertake the care of the sick for Christ's sake?" It was by such words, and similar ones, as in his famous appeal "Freiwillige vor"

(Volunteers to the front!) which he sent out from Wurtemberg to Basel in 1842, that he aroused the Christian women of Germany to give themselves to this service. By their aid he inst.i.tuted a system of nursing that has changed the aspect of every hospital ward in Germany; and, through the training that Florence Nightingale enjoyed at Kaiserswerth, the reform that was there inst.i.tuted pa.s.sed to England, and has effected a transformation in the entire hospital system of England.

In Germany deaconesses are often trained to special duties that are required in hospitals for certain diseases or certain cla.s.ses of patients, and they are becoming so skillful in their duties that the present system of hospital nursing could not be continued without their aid.

The nursing care of deaconesses in insane asylums is especially valuable. The large and well-ordered Insane Asylum for Female Patients in Kaiserswerth, with its long lists of cases soundly cured, shows how healthful and important is the quiet, constant influence of intelligent Christian attendance upon those who are mentally unsound.

The usefulness of deaconesses as care-takers in all kinds of hospitals and homes for the aged, and asylums of every description, is so apparent that it does not need to be dwelt upon. The _creche_, or day home, where infants and young children can be sheltered and watched during the day while their mothers are at work, is an inst.i.tution that started in Paris in 1834, through the efforts of M. Marbeau, one of the mayors of a district of the city. This is now incorporated into the government system of Paris, and the idea has spread to neighboring lands, so that such homes are found in many of the cities in South Germany and Switzerland. It is true that there are no nurses that can care for children as the true mother, but where mothers have to be absent from morning until night engaged at hard work, and the little ones are left neglected at home, or in the care of other children who are themselves young enough to need very nearly the same attention that is bestowed on the infants; or where the mothers are such in name, but in reality are failing in every quality which we attach to that sacred office; or where the foundling hospital is the only alternative to which the real mother, confronted by the necessity of earning bread for herself and child, can turn--in such cases the _creche_ is a real benefaction whose existence has enabled families to keep together, and children to be given a chance in life who otherwise would have had small prospect of keeping soul and body together.

There is another inst.i.tution, called the waiting-school, where children from two to four years of age are received, whose parents both go daily to work, and who would be left to wander about the streets unless this place of refuge were opened to them. The _creche_, or day home, seeks only to watch over the infants who are put in its care, or to amuse them and keep them contented; the waiting-school goes further, and tries to give the little ones some ideas of discipline and the elementary beginnings of instruction. Fliedner, who was a lover of children, took great interest in both these inst.i.tutions, and in his school for infant-school teachers prepared deaconesses especially for the duties that are required in teachers of this cla.s.s. The motherly heart, the gift of story-telling and singing, a pleasant and unruffled demeanor, the quiet but firm inculcation of order and obedience--these and other qualities Fliedner sought to develop in instructors for these schools.

The day homes have already been introduced into many places in the United States, and often cover the field of both the _creche_ and waiting-school, but there is a wide opportunity for the extension of their usefulness; and whether in the future, when the demands upon Christian deaconesses shall be much more multiplex than they are now, it may be necessary to provide special training for Christian teachers in America for such special work, time alone can decide. The question of Christian education is one that has not yet been determined in its full extent. In the year 1800 Mother Barat, of the Catholic Church, founded the order of Sisters of the Sacred Heart, which is especially devoted to the education of daughters belonging to the higher social ranks. At her death it numbered three thousand five hundred members, and had over seventy establishments, which are located in every civilized land. It cannot be maintained that the education given in these schools is either extensive or profound, but the influence of the order upon the women whom it has reached has been both. Fliedner, at Kaiserswerth, went as far as his age and environments would permit him to go. He provided schools where teachers were prepared as instructors for all grades of schools, from the most elementary up to the girls' high-schools; and no other inst.i.tution in Germany, with one or two exceptions, such as the Victoria Inst.i.tute at Berlin, yet offers positions to women teachers of a higher grade than is afforded by these schools. But in other lands, where the educational facilities for women are far beyond those that Germany can offer at the present time, positions of higher importance and wider influence are held by women; and it is an important question for the future what cla.s.s of women shall fill these places. If Fliedner had had to meet the problem we can imagine he would have done so with the boldness and energy that he showed in solving those that his times and circ.u.mstances afforded him. He would, doubtless, have enlisted among his deaconesses those whose talents gave him reason to provide them with the widest training the schools can offer; and then he would have endeavored to place them where they could do the most effective service for Christ and his Church. It may be that in the future which opens before the women of the Methodist Episcopal Church of America there will be just such questions seeking and finding solution.

Doubtless at the present time the deaconess who will answer to the greatest number of immediate wants is the "parish-deaconess," or the home mission deaconess, as we may call her. Her usefulness has been well tested in the great cities of Germany, France, and England, as we have seen. Perhaps nowhere is her work better appreciated than in London, the greatest city of modern times. The tendency of this age of manufactures and commerce is to attract laborers and workers from country homes, where work has become less open to them through the increased use of agricultural machines of all kinds, into cities, where factories, shops, counting-rooms, and offices constantly afford openings. London has felt the full force of this movement. In 1836 her population was about equal to that of New York, including Brooklyn and Jersey City. Now the great city contains 5,500,000 inhabitants. It is growing at the rate of over 100,000 a year, nor is there any influence at work to stop its growth. The same causes that produce it are constantly at work. The great ma.s.sing of the population together, with the unequaled increase in the wealth of the people, make the contrast of riches and poverty striking and obvious. The west of London, with its vast wealth, its homes of refinement and elegance, and its appliances for the enjoyment of art, science, and literature, is separated from the poverty, the degradation, the misery, and the sorrow of the East End by a gulf as great as that which separated Lazarus from Dives. It is difficult for those who are at ease, whose lives, to use Wordsworth's felicitous phrase, are made up "of cheerful yesterdays and confident to-morrows"--it is difficult for such even faintly to apprehend the dullness, the drudgery, and the hardships of those who, even at the best estate, are obliged to live in such surroundings. The vast metropolis a few years ago was for a short time shaken out of its lethargy by a voice that would be heard, when _The Bitter Cry of Outcast London_ was published. "Few who will read these pages have any conception of what these pestilential human rookeries are, where tens of thousands are crowded together amid horrors which call to mind what we have heard of the middle pa.s.sage of the slave-ship. To go into them you have to penetrate courts reeking with poisonous malodorous gases arising from acc.u.mulations of sewerage, refuse scattered in all directions, and often flowing beneath your feet; courts, many of them, which the sun never penetrates, which are never visited by a breath of fresh air. You have to ascend rotten stair-cases, grope your way along dark and filthy pa.s.sages swarming with vermin. Then, if you are not driven back by the intolerable stench, you may gain admittance into the dens in which these thousands of beings herd together. Eight feet square! That is about the average size of many of these rooms.... Where there are beds they are simply heaps of dirty rags, shavings, or straw, but for the most part the miserable beings find rest only upon the filthy boards.... There are men and women who lie and die day by day in their wretched single room, sharing all the family trouble, enduring the hunger and the cold, without hope, without a single ray of comfort, until G.o.d curtains their staring eyes with the merciful film of death."[93]

Such are the places where the deaconesses of East London go in and out from morn to eve, like angels of mercy, succoring the miserable and unhappy, often rebuking vice, and encouraging with friendly words those who are worn and discouraged in the battle of life. Here they nurse the sick, hold mothers' meetings, start evening cla.s.ses for working young men, and gather the children of all ages in every kind of cla.s.s that can interest and instruct them. They are always ready to provide for individual cases that they meet. If they find a friendless young servant-girl who is out of work, they send her to the servants' home, where, for very little payment, sometimes nothing at all, she can be taken care of long enough to give her fresh courage and strength. Then she is aided in seeking a situation, and so she is saved from the innumerable temptations to vice and misery that are sure to a.s.sail her if she stands alone.