Part 5 (1/2)

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 a.s.sociations 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 inst.i.tution, 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 inst.i.tutions.[45]

There is also a large inst.i.tution at Riehen near Basel, which sends out two hundred deaconesses. The greater number are of the peasant cla.s.s, and are nearly all employed as nurses. The home at Zurich was at first a daughter-house of Riehen, but is now an independent inst.i.tution 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 cla.s.ses. 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 inst.i.tutions 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 a.s.sociation. 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 a.s.signment 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 distinguis.h.i.+ng 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 ma.s.sed together.

Deaconess inst.i.tutions 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 superst.i.tions 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 inst.i.tution, 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 a.s.signed them, but invariably the same answer must be returned: ”There are none to send.” Disselhoff closes by saying, ”How many open doors has G.o.d given! Whose fault is it that they remain closed?”

[42] Schafer, _Die Weibliche Diakonie_, vol. i, p. 21.

[43] The details of the deaconess work at Mulhausen are largely taken from Schafer'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.

CHAPTER VIII.

DEACONESSES IN GERMAN METHODISM.