Deaconesses in Europe and their Lessons for America

by Jane M. Bancroft

[4] Life and Letters of the Rev. W. Pennefather, p. 471.

[5] Life and Letters of the Rev. W. Pennefather, p. 471.

[6] Mildmay Deaconesses and their Work, p. 7.

[7] Mildmay Deaconesses and their Work, p. 6.

[8] A Retrospect of Mildmay Work During the Year 1887.

[9] Mildmay Deaconesses and their Work, p. 13.

[10] A Light in a Dark Place, p. 21.

CHAPTER XII.

DEACONESSES IN SCOTLAND.

When Fliedner went on his second tour to England he extended his journey to Scotland, and ventured to Edinburgh at a time when the cholera was sweeping with fearful ravages through the city in order to become acquainted with Dr. Chalmers. The great Scotch divine and his good deeds, that were connected with all kinds of charitable endeavor, moved the German pastor to admiration and stirred him to holy emulation. On the other hand, that Chalmers was profoundly touched by the work that Fliedner had accomplished in Germany there can be no doubt; we have his own words to testify to the importance he attached to the diaconate of women. In his lectures on Romans, he says: “Here, too, we are presented with a most useful indication, the employment of female agency, under the eye and with the sanction of an apostle, in the business of the Church. It is well to have inspired authority for a practice too little known, and too little preached on in modern times. Phebe194/190 belonged to the order of deaconesses, in which capacity she had been the helper of many, including Paul himself. In what respect she served them is not particularly specified. Like the women in the gospels who waited on our Saviour, she may have ministered to them of her substance, though there can be little doubt that, as the holder of an official station in the Church, she ministered to them by her services also.” It is but recently, however, that deaconesses have become incorporated into the religious life of Scotland, and, so far, they do not exist in connection with the Free Church, of which Chalmers was the able and heroic leader, but only in connection with the national Church—the old historic Church of Scotland. Within this Church the question has assumed the form, not alone of the revival of the apostolic order of deaconesses, but also of the organization of all the manifold activities of women within the Church into one whole, which is put under the authority and direction of the officers of the Church.