Deaconesses in Europe and their Lessons for America

The Author has aimed to present an accurate and concise statement of the deaconess cause as it exists at the present time.
In all cases where it was possible, original sources of information have been consulted.
Many friends, both in Europe and America, have given invaluable aid, for which words of thanks are an inadequate recognition.
The excellent Index at the close of the volume was kindly prepared by the Rev. J. C. Thomas.
Acknowledgments are also due to Mr. Gillett, Librarian of the Union Theological Seminary, and to Mr. C. H. A. Bjerregaard, of the Astor Library, for putting not only the facilities of the library, but their personal assistance, at the service of the writer.
Jane M. Bancroft.
New York city, June 5, 1889.
How far, and in what form, ought woman’s work in the Church to be organized? What was the deaconess of St. Paul’s epistles? What light on this subject do the primitive and the mediæval Churches yield us? Can “sisterhoods” be established without weakening the sense of personal responsibility in those Christian women who are not thus wholly set apart to charitable and spiritual work? Can they be multiplied without danger of introducing into Protestant communions the evils of the conventual life? Are there modern instances of safe and successful organizations? What good have they achieved, and what further good do they promise? In what relation should such organizations stand to the authority and fostering care of the Church? What should be their scope, spirit, methods? What regulations are fundamental 010/6 and indispensable? What perils are real and possibly imminent?
To answer these, and other questions associated with them, this book is written. Its authoress is a gifted daughter of the Church, well known in literary and educational circles. During a protracted sojourn in Europe she enjoyed unusual facilities for studying the deaconess work as carried on in many places, and particularly in the institutions founded by Pastor Fliedner at Kaiserswerth in Prussia, and in those at Mildmay in England. She has also made a thorough and discriminating study of the subject as developed in the early centuries of the Church and in the Middle Ages.