Part 3 (2/2)

Now, through Dr. Gobat, the Bishop of Jerusalem, the opportunity was given. The king offered two small houses in Jerusalem that were his private property, and volunteered to pay the expenses of the journey.

a.s.sociations were formed in all parts of Germany to provide an outfit for the mission. Gifts flowed in rapidly, and March 17, 1851, Fliedner, accompanied by four deaconesses, two of them being teachers, set out on this new and peaceful crusade to the holy city. From that beginning has resulted a net-work of stations throughout the East.

There is at Jerusalem a hospital[33] where, during 1887, four hundred and ninety-three patients were given medical aid and nursing, and seven thousand seven hundred and two patients were treated in the dispensary.

No woman in the city is better known or more justly honored than Sister Charlotte, the head-deaconess.

The Mohammedans at first regarded the work of the sisters with fanatical distrust, but a glance at the statistics of the last report will show how completely they have cast aside their prejudices.

Of the 493 patients in 1887, there were 404 Arabians, 43 Armenians, 30 Germans, 5 Abyssinians, 4 Greeks, 3 Roumanians, 2 Russians, 1 Italian, and 1 Hollander. As to religion, there were 235 Mohammedans, 97 Protestants, 78 Greeks, 23 Roman Catholics, 45 Armenians, 6 Copts, 3 Syrian Christians, 4 Proselytes, 1 Jew, and 1 Maronite; so that in all nine nations and nine religious faiths were represented in the hospital.

There is also a girls' orphanage, called ”Talitha c.u.mi,” just outside the city walls at Jerusalem, where one hundred and fourteen native girls were last year taught by the Kaiserswerth deaconesses. Over a hundred more made application to enter, but there was no room to receive them.

In Constantinople, Alexandria, Cairo, Beirut, and Pesth there are also well-appointed hospitals, some of them of s.p.a.cious dimensions, and all having excellent medical service and nursing that cannot be surpa.s.sed.

The orphanage and school at Beirut had a sad foundation. In 1860 came the terrible news of the ma.s.sacre of the Maronite Christians by the Druses in the Lebanon mountains.

Kaiserswerth deaconesses were immediately sent out, and were among the first to arrive to join the resident Europeans and Americans in caring for the sufferers. Numbers of children were left fatherless and motherless, and the sisters started the orphanage at Beirut to shelter them. When its twenty-fifth anniversary was celebrated in 1885 over eight hundred girls had received a home and education here, and had gone forth to eastern homes, carrying with them the light and knowledge of Christian faith into the dark, degraded social life of the Orient.[34]

From the two orphanages at Beirut and Jerusalem over forty have gone out as teachers in girls' schools in Palestine and Syria. Twelve others have become deaconesses, and are ministering in this capacity to their own countrymen and to foreigners in eastern hospitals.[35]

In Smyrna there is also a girls' school, that was opened at the request of some wealthy Protestants residing there. The school is not so needed as formerly, since the government has started girls' high schools, but it is still maintained, and aids in bringing new life into the hopeless society of the East. There is also an orphanage at Smyrna, where some girls of the poorer cla.s.ses were gathered after the ravages of the cholera had left them without parents or homes.

The eastern deaconesses have also their Salem. Just above the little village of Areya, in the Lebanon, on the summit of a hill overlooking the Mediterranean, stands the house of retreat, where, during the summer months, the more than forty sisters stationed in Beirut, Alexandria, Cairo, and Jerusalem can take refuge in seasons of overpowering heat.

The deaconess who superintends the house has a school for the native children of the village, which is taught by one of the girls educated at the Beirut orphanage.

Prosperous girls' schools are also in existence at Bucharest, and at Florence, Italy. The Italian school was started in 1860 with four girls in the upper floor of a rented house. It now possesses a beautiful house and grounds of its own, and had one hundred and forty-five girls under its charge the past year. Most of these were Italians, but different foreign residents also availed themselves of the opportunity to send their children to an excellent Protestant school. There is also a mission at Rome maintained by deaconesses during the winter months.

The large majority of the undertakings outside of Kaiserswerth were initiated personally by Fliedner. When we recall the complex demands of the home field in Germany we marvel at the versatile executive ability of this man, who started life as the humble pastor of an obscure village church. But he loved work. He possessed ”iron industry.” He was ever hopeful, courageous, and indefatigable. Above all, he trusted completely in the leadings of Divine Providence, and constantly went forward with sure confidence. Then he was a true leader. He knew men. He put the right person in the right place, gave him full liberty of action, and held him to a strict responsibility for results. So, while Fliedner remained the soul of the great inst.i.tution, he knew how to make himself spared, which was not the least of his qualifications for his calling.

[30] _Der Diakonissenberuf_, Emil Wacker, Gutersloh, 1888, p. 116.

[31] _Life of Pastor Fliedner_, translated by C. Winckworth, London, 1867.

[32] _Ein und funfzigster Jahres-Bericht_, p. 30.

[33] _Achtzehnter Bericht uber die Diakonissen Stationen im Morgenlande_, 1888.

[34] _Vierzehnten Bericht uber die Diakonissen Stationen am Libanon._ [35] _Der Rheinisch Westfalische Diakonissen Verein_, p. 64, J. Disselhoff.

CHAPTER VI.

THE REGULATIONS AT KAISERSWERTH, AND THE DUTIES AND SERVICES OF THE DEACONESSES.

The regulations in daily use at Kaiserswerth are based on those that Fliedner drew up in the early days of the inst.i.tution. They have been adopted with few alterations by the larger number of deaconess inst.i.tutions that have since arisen, so that to understand the spirit and usages prevailing in them it is well to give these rules some study.

They are contained in a book numbering one hundred and seven pages,[36]

treating with great minuteness every question that affects the daily lives of the deaconesses. The qualities that the office demands are first dwelt upon as they are described in Acts vi, 3, and 1 Tim. iii, 8, 9. The sisters are reminded that their life is one of service; that they serve the Lord Jesus; that they serve the poor and the sick and helpless ”for Jesus' sake;” and that they are servants one of another.

Special stress is given to the importance of cultivating unity, love, and forbearance in the relations of daily life, and the deaconesses are enjoined ”to protect and further the honor of other sisters,” ”to form one family living unitedly as sisters, through the tie of a heartfelt love for the one great object that brings them to this place.”

There are two cla.s.ses of deaconesses formally recognized, nurses and teachers; although there is another, deaconess whose work is year by year becoming more important, and that is the deaconess who is attached to a church in the capacity of a home missionary. She is designated by the term ”commune-deaconess,” or, as the English translate it, ”parish-deaconess.”

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