CHAPTER XV.
OBJECTIONS MET AND SUGGESTIONS OFFERED.
“Success and glory are the children of hard work and God’s favor,” is the inscription upon the tablet erected in Christ’s Hospital, London, to the memory of Sir Henry Maine.
Upon these two elements depends the future of the deaconess cause in America. We are assured of the one; will the other be forthcoming? Will the individual members of the Church give this cause their hearty support? Surely the facts that have been stated must have convinced the judgment, but perhaps there are certain prejudices to be overcome. “I fear that deaconesses too closely resemble Catholic nuns for Protestants to accept them,” says one. No; these helpful Christian women are thoroughly Protestant. Deaconesses are no Catholic institution. Wherever they have appeared they have been met by open antagonism from the Catholic Church. Witness the calumnies with which the papers of that capital have constantly assailed the deaconess home of Paris.252/248
There is good in the Catholic sisterhoods, but mingled with much that we disapprove. The deaconess institutions have the good features, but have avoided the ill. Much of the success of the Catholic Church in winning the poor and in retaining its influence over the lowly is due to the power exerted by the sisters who go about from house to house among the poor, and are received as friends.
There is a great army of Catholic sisters. It is calculated that there are about 28,000 Sisters of Vincent de Paul, 22,000 Franciscan Sisters caring for the sick, 6,000 Sisters of the Holy Cross, 5,000 Sisters of Charles, making a total of about 60,000 sisters of various orders belonging to the Catholic Church[1] who are occupied with works of mercy. The sisters engaged in education are often well-trained and accomplished. The order of Charles will not accept widows, orphans without property, girls from asylums, or those that have served as maids. As a rule, those that join it must make some contribution of money to the order when they are received. This order is small, but one of the most active and aggressive of any. The great number of the sisters, however, are women of few advantages, taken from poor homes and lives of toil.253/249 There is wisdom in this course, for a great deal of the work to be done depends upon qualities that can be developed by training, while the exceptional education and talents are employed in the exceptional places.
A contemplation of these facts just recorded causes us better to understand the importance that the co-operation of women has for the Catholic Church. It causes us, too, to appreciate better the opening before the Protestant women of all evangelical churches, so wide, so all-embracing that every variety of talent can find a place.
Gifts of clothes or food or fuel are not so well appreciated as the respectful hearing which clothes the teller with self-respect, the kind word and loving sympathy that feed the heart, the inspiring consolations of religious faith that animate and warm the soul, and such gifts women of sympathetic Christian hearts can ever render. As has been well said, “Shall the advantages of such a system be monopolized by those who have so little else to offer?”[2]
You may say, “I do not object to the deaconess and her work, but I do object to her distinctive dress. I do not believe in a uniform of charity.”254/250 But let us consider the arguments that can be brought forward in favor of it. It is a distinctive garb because its wearer is a distinctive officer of the Church. Unless she were “set apart” by some uniform immediately and widely recognized how could she have the protection that is accorded her? Alike in every land where she is known, as we have seen, the deaconess can venture into any part of the great cities at any hour, and is invariably treated with respect. There is in the heart of the rudest and most lawless some trace of chivalry which recognizes the self-denying lives of these women. Then, in making her visits, the deaconess finds her dress an introduction that opens doors that would otherwise remain closed to her. It certainly is a convenient and economical garb, that saves a great deal of time and money to the wearer.
Are not these advantages more than an offset to an ill-defined objection to the dress because it has been associated with women who are alien to our Protestant faith? This is a minor matter, however, and one that can be adjusted at liking.
You may say, “I do not like to think of a woman who is dear to me cut off from the pleasures of home life, and devoted to a life-time of work among those who, in many respects, must be repugnant to her tastes. It does not seem so high and beautiful255/251 a life as that which makes home a center, and carries on its activities from there.”
But there are many women debarred from the pleasures of home life by God’s direct providence to whom other duties and responsibilities have been allotted. And then this work may not necessarily be for life. It is true that when a Christian woman occupies the position of a deaconess she must relinquish wholly all other pursuits so long as she holds this office. Neither without grave and weighty reasons should she seek to leave it. It is her calling. The period of probation has its uses, not only in making the probationer familiar with the duties and tasks demanded of her, but in giving her time to test the strength of her call to service, that she may not, through enthusiasm, lightly assume the duties of the office, nor as lightly throw them aside.
But if a deaconess is called away to perform her duties as a sister or daughter, or if she desires to marry, she is free to do so, after giving due information to those with whom she is connected in work. Freedom and liberty are in every phase of this office.
As to the highest life for a woman, an archbishop of England well said some years ago, “that whatever life God gives to any woman is the highest life for that woman,” and that “in256/252 becoming a deaconess a woman devoting herself to this life must believe that it is the highest life for her, and that in it she gives herself wholly to the Lord.”[3]
There should be no country like America for the favorable development of the deaconess cause, because in no other have women such large freedom of action, and, if we may believe our friends, they have improved it well. A distinguished English historian has just given us what we are fain to accept as words of just and discriminating praise. “In no other country have women borne so conspicuous a part in the promotion of moral and philanthropic causes…. Their services in dealing with charities and reformatory institutions have been inestimable…. The nation, as a whole, owes to the active benevolence of its women, and their zeal in promoting social reforms, benefits which the customs of continental Europe would scarcely have permitted women to confer…. Those who know the work they have done and are doing in many a noble cause will admire still more their energy, their courage, their devotion. No country seems to owe more to its women than America does, nor to owe to them so much of what is best in257/253 social institutions, and in the beliefs that govern conduct.”[4]
Nor in any denomination should we expect women to be more ready to adopt this work than in the Methodist Episcopal Church, because women members have been accustomed to exercise nearly all the obligations and duties, and many of the privileges, that are accorded the laity of the great connection, and they are prepared to accept new duties in new relations. This Church has over a million women enrolled as members, able to serve it in every capacity, from the lady in her home dispensing gracious Christian hospitality, to the one standing quite alone, who will welcome, as a brevet of rank, this new call to service. There are many such women ready to respond. Many, too, whose hearts have been left desolate by bereavement, who will be glad to fill the empty hands and vacant life by work for God and humanity. To such a woman the wide world is her home; the dear ones of her family are the poor and sick and needy who crave her aid.
The beautiful Mildmay motto is: “They dwell with the King for his work.” There are thousands of women all over the land who are ready to become “King’s Daughters” in this additional sense258/254 of the word. The possibility of what such women can accomplish in the furtherance of God’s kingdom upon earth has not begun to be fathomed.
Think of a great city church, with the manifold interests clustering around it, left to the care of a single pastor! He has not only the preparation of his weekly sermons, the care of the social meetings of the church, but a long line of other duties that are equally important to maintain. He must perform pastoral duties, push forward aggressive movements in behalf of the masses not touched by the church services, and fulfill public duties in connection with great charities, philanthropies, and moral reforms that he cannot neglect without injury. If the efforts of such a pastor could be furthered by one, two, or more deaconesses, as are many of the pastors of the London churches, how greatly would the working force of such a Church be increased!
It is true that we must develop the work in accordance with our American ideas and institutions. Through the study of the methods that have been adopted in European institutions, and the experience that has been there won through long years of patient toil, we are prepared in a measure to start where their work leaves off. But we shall find that our circumstances require new adjustments, and that we shall have our own problems to solve, so259/255 that eventually our work will assume a distinctively American form.
We have only to plant the seed and to give it favorable conditions for growth. The outcome is not ours: “In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thy hand.” The results are with Him who giveth the increase.
The practical question may occur to some one who reads these pages, “What shall I do to become a deaconess?” Write to the superintendent of the nearest deaconess home, and ask for directions. It is best not to multiply homes until we have a larger number of trained deaconesses that are ready to take charge of them, and until the number of applicants desiring to enter them is much greater than at present.
Many churches that need the services of a deaconess will doubtless select one of their number whose heart God has inclined to this service, and will provide the means by which she can secure the necessary training at a home and training-school. There are many devout Christian women in every community who have for years been deaconesses in labors, if not in title and prerogatives. It is very important for such women to give their sympathies and fostering care to this new institution. If not deaconesses by office, they can ally themselves as260/256 associates. The associate is a real officer in many of the deaconess establishments in London. Ladies who have great sympathy with the cause, and an earnest desire to do what they can to advance it, give some portion of their time, their labor, or their means to promote its interests. They will go to the home and reside there for some weeks or months, being under the direction of the superintendent and filling all the duties of a sister. Or, if such duties are not practicable, they will work in behalf of the home, often securing the aid of those whose assistance is most valuable. In some places it is arranged that a woman who earns her bread by daily toil shall be assigned to labor at her regular vocation, consecrating a certain portion of her wages (perhaps one twenty-fourth) to the cause with which she is allied.
The Church has been accused of being too abstract, too ideal, too far removed from the life of the people in its every-day aspects. It is well for Church members to examine themselves, and the Church communities to which they belong, to judge how much ground there is for such criticism. None are so sharp-sighted as hostile critics, and from none can such good lessons be learned. But this accusation is not a new one, and the only effectual way to meet it is to point to what the Church261/257 has accomplished. Over eighteen hundred years ago, when John the Baptist was in danger of mistaking our Lord, he sent to him, saying: “Art thou he that should come? or look we for another?” and the answer was: “Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard; how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached.”
Let us be prepared to make a similar answer to-day, and the Church need fear no accusation of holding aloof from the needs of the daily life of the people.
“Christianity, as it stands in the Bible and in our creeds, will neither be read nor understood by millions; Christianity as it is revealed in the loving service of deaconesses will be recognized by the dullest eyes.”[5]
We have reached a new departure in Methodism. The Church has added another to its aggressive forces. How is it to be received? What welcome will be given it? May pastors and people, one and all, be in that attitude of spirit where we shall respond readily to the command: “Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.”
[1] Die Diakonissenberuf nach seine Vergangenheit und gegenwart. Emil Wacker. Gütersloh, 1888, chap. vi.
[2] Modern Cities. S. L. Loomis, The Baker & Taylor Co., New York, 1887, p. 192.
[3] Deaconesses in the Church of England, Griffith & Farran, 1880, p. 31.
[4] The American Commonwealth, James Bryce. MacMillan & Co., 1889, vol. ii, pp. 586, 589.
[5] Phöbe die Diakonissen, p. 8.