Part 10 (1/2)
”Do you desire to be set apart as a deaconess, and as such to serve the Lord Jesus Christ in the Church, which is his body?
”Do you promise, as a deaconess of the Church of Scotland, to work in connection with that Church, subject to its courts, and in particular to the kirk session of the parish in which you work?
”Do you humbly engage, in the strength and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, our Lord and Master, faithfully and prayerfully to discharge the duties of this office?”
The lady who, by answering the above questions, received the sanction of the Church as one of its appointed officers was Lady Grisell Baillie, of Dryburgh Abbey. She writes to the author of this book: ”I count it a great honor to be permitted to serve in the Church of my fathers, and I pray that I may be enabled faithfully and prayerfully to fulfill the duties to which I am called, and that it maybe for the glory of our G.o.d and Saviour that I am permitted to work in his vineyard.”
Miss Davidson, who was temporary superintendent of the home, but who is now engaged in organizing branches of the Women's Guild throughout Scotland, and Miss Alice Maud Maxwell, the present superintendent of the home, have also been set apart to the same office. As has been said, ”Each represents an old Scottish family, whose members have been distinguished for Christian and philanthropic labors;” and ”each represents a different type of deaconess work.” Lady Grisell Baillie is engaged in gentle ministrations among the people of her own home. Miss Davidson is at the service of every minister who desires aid in organizing women's work in his parish. And Miss Maxwell is at the training-home, leading a busy life in directing the cla.s.s labors and missionary activities that center around it and in impressing her life and spirit upon a band of workers who are to further Christ's cause both at home and in the mission field.
The mention of any facts that can bring before us the varied character that the deaconess work can a.s.sume is valuable. For to be truly useful, this cause needs to provide a place for women of very unlike qualities, and also to allow a certain degree of freedom which will insure the individuality of each worker.
The action of the Church of Scotland has had its influence upon the Reformed Churches throughout the world holding the presbyterial system.
At the session of the London Council of the Alliance of Reformed and Presbyterian Churches during the summer of 1888, Dr. Charteris presented a report embracing many of the features of the elaborate scheme which he had previously devised for the Church of Scotland. And the Council, in receiving the report, not only approved it, but ”commended the details of the scheme stated in the report to the consideration of the churches represented in the Alliance.” We may regard the Presbyterian churches of Great Britain, therefore, as committed, not only to the indors.e.m.e.nt of deaconesses as officers in the service of the Church, but to the organization of the whole work of women in the churches, under ecclesiastical authority and direction.
There is one feature of the deaconess cause as it has been developed in the Church of Scotland that is of especial interest to the Methodists of America. Most of the great deaconess houses of England have sprung from the personal faith and works of earnest-souled individuals. Mildmay, for example, is a living testimony to the faithfulness and energy of the Rev. Mr. Pennefather and those a.s.sociated with him. Within the Church of England the recognition accorded deaconesses is a partial one, resting on the principles and rules signed by the archbishops and eighteen bishops, and suggested for adoption in 1871. But as yet the English Church has not formally accepted this utterance, and made it authoritative. The German deaconess houses, while receiving the practical indors.e.m.e.nt of the State Church of Germany, are not in any way officially connected with it. Even Kaiserswerth itself is solely responsible to those who contribute to its support for a right use of the means placed at its command. The same fact applies to the Paris deaconess houses. They are all detached efforts, not parts of a general system. But the Scotch deaconesses are responsible to a church, and a church is responsible for their work. The Church of Scotland is, therefore, justified in its claim when it says that the adoption of the scheme of the organization of women's work by the a.s.sembly of 1888, ”is the first attempt since the Reformation to make the organization of women's work a branch of the general organization of the Church, under the control of her several judicatories.”[77] The second attempt was made, which was the first also for any Church in America, when, May 18, 1888, the Methodist Episcopal Church of the United States inst.i.tuted the office of deaconess, and made it an inherent part of the Church economy, under the direction and control of the Annual Conferences.
[75] _Organization of Women's Work in the Church of Scotland._ Notes by A. H. Charteris, D.D.; p. 4.
[76] _Report of Committee on Christian Life and Work_, 1888, p. 36.
[77] Nearly all of the facts, both printed and personal, concerning the deaconess cause in Scotland have been furnished the writer through the kindness of Lady Grisell Baillie, Dryburgh Abbey, Scotland.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE DEACONESS CAUSE IN AMERICA.
It was no part of the plan of this book, when first projected, to treat of the deaconess cause as it is developing within the United States of America, but gradually, through the kindness of many friends belonging to different denominations, a number of facts have been obtained which bear directly upon the question of how the example of European deaconess houses has influenced and is influencing the Protestant Churches of America; and it seems unwise to omit them from the consideration of the subject.
Naturally the German Lutherans, who were well acquainted with the deaconess work in their native land, were the first to try to introduce it among their churches. In the yearly report sent out from Kaiserswerth, January 1, 1847, Fliedner mentions that an urgent appeal had been made to him to send deaconesses to an important city in the United States, there to have the oversight of a hospital, and to found a mother-house for the training of deaconesses. In the report for the following year Fliedner again refers to the call from America, and states his intention to extend his travels to the New World, and to take with him sisters who shall aid in founding a mother-house. In the summer of 1849 he was enabled to carry out his intention, and July 14, 1849, accompanied by four deaconesses, he reached Pittsburg, Pa., where Rev.
Dr. W. A. Pa.s.savant, who had written so many urgent appeals for his aid, was awaiting him. The building had already been secured for a hospital and deaconess home, and, July 17, was solemnly dedicated at a service where Fliedner delivered the princ.i.p.al address, and a large audience testified to their interest.
Before his return to Europe Fliedner visited the New York Synod, and, in an English discourse, described the character and aims of Kaiserswerth, and commended the newly founded inst.i.tution at Pittsburg to the sympathy and aid of the German Lutheran Church in America. No further results were reached, as the synod contented itself with resolving that ”this Ministerium awaits with deep interest the result of the work made in behalf of the inst.i.tution of Protestant deaconesses at Pittsburg.”[78]
The inst.i.tution is occasionally heard of afterward in the proceedings of the Pittsburg Synod, and in the paper, _The Missionary_, published under the auspices of the same Church. Urgent appeals were also sent out for devoted Christian women to come to the aid of the sisters and to join their numbers; but although the hospital, commended by their skillful and able ministrations as nurses, had the full approval of the public, there were few, if any, who came to join them, and they were unduly burdened by a task too great for their small number.
In 1854 Dr. Pa.s.savant resigned his pastoral charge, and devoted his entire time to the furtherance of the cause, but, up to the present, it has not attained the complete organization and wide extension that its friends in the German Lutheran Church have desired.
The inst.i.tutions which owe their existence to Dr. Pa.s.savant's efforts are the infirmary at Pittsburg; the hospital and deaconess home in Milwaukee; the hospital in Jacksonville, Ill.; the orphanages for girls in Rochester and Mount Vernon, N. Y., and one for boys in Pennsylvania.
There is, at the present time, only one of the original Kaiserswerth sisters left, and that is Sister Elizabeth, the head deaconess at Rochester. Dr. Pa.s.savant still continues to labor at forming a complete organization on the basis of the Kaiserswerth system, and, to quote the words of Dr. A. Spaeth, ”As he succeeded forty years ago in bringing the first sisters over from Kaiserswerth to Pittsburg, I have no doubt that now, when the Church is at last awakening to the importance of this work, he will succeed in the completion of his undertaking.”
A more recent development of the deaconess work in the German Lutheran Church has arisen in connection with the German hospital in Philadelphia. The hospital was well equipped for its work, but there was much dissatisfaction with the nursing, which was inefficient and unskillful. In the fall of 1882 the hospital authorities turned for advice and co-operation to Dr. W. J. Mann, Dr. A. Spaeth, and other clergymen of the denomination in Philadelphia. It was determined to secure German deaconesses as nurses. Several attempts were made to induce Kaiserswerth, or some other large mother-house in Germany, to give up a few sisters to the hospital, but on all sides the applications were refused. The deaconesses were too greatly needed in the Old World to be spared for work in the New. At length, through the unremitting efforts of Consul Meyer, and of John D. Lankenau, president of the board of managers, a small independent community of sisters under the direction of Marie Krueger, who had herself been trained in Kaiserswerth, acceded to the proposal, and the head-deaconess, with six sisters, arrived in Philadelphia June 19, 1884. They left the field of their self-denying work in the hospital and poor-house at Iserlohn, in Westphalia, sadly to the regret of the authorities and citizens of the place, but to the hospital at Philadelphia they gave invaluable aid.
From the first their good services met with appreciation. The efficiency of the hospital service was greatly increased; and from physicians and hospital authorities there was only one testimony, and that a most favorable one, to the value of deaconesses as trained nurses. Mr.
Lankenau, who has ever been the wise and munificent patron of the inst.i.tution, determined to insure a succession of these admirable nurses for the service of the hospital, and, at an expense of over five hundred thousand dollars, he built an edifice of palace-like proportions, and made over this munificent gift to the hospital corporation. It was accepted by them January 10, 1887. The western wing of the building is used as a home for aged men and women; the eastern wing is a residence and training-school for the deaconesses, the chapel uniting the two, and the whole being known as the Mary J. Drexel Home and Philadelphia Mother-house of Deaconesses.
A visit to the Home convinced me that the regulations of the house, the work of the sisters, and the devotion to duty that characterize the mother-houses in Germany rule also in this home in the New World. The imposing entrance hall with the great stair-way, the floor and stairs of white marble, the wide halls and s.p.a.cious reception-rooms and offices seemed at first almost incongruous surroundings for the modest active deaconesses, some of whom were busy in the hospital wards, others hanging clothes on the line, and others occupied in duties within the building. But place and environments are only incidental matters; the spirit within is the determining quality; and a conversation with the _Oberin_ (head deaconess) and the rector left me with the persuasion that the spirit of earnest devotion to G.o.d and humanity is the main-spring of duty in this house.
The arrangement of the rooms for the sisters is similar to that at Kaiserswerth; each consecrated sister has a small apartment simply furnished for her own use. The older probationers are divided two and three in a room. Those who have recently entered are placed in two large rooms, but here every one has her own four walls--even if they are only made by linen curtains. When Elizabeth Fry first visited Kaiserswerth, among the arrangements that she at once recognized and commended was that by which each deaconess was given the privacy of her own apartment.