The General Assembly provided that deaconesses should be solemnly inducted into their office at a religious service in church. It also provided “that along with the application for the admission of any person to the office of a deaconess there shall be submitted a certificate from a committee of the General Assembly intrusted with that duty stating that the candidate is qualified in respect of education, and that she has had seven years’ experience in Christian work, or two years’ training in the Deaconess Institution and Training Home.” Also, “Before granting the application, the kirk session shall intimate to the presbytery their intention of doing so, unless objection be offered by the presbytery at its first meeting thereafter.” On Sunday, December 9, 1888, the first deaconess was set apart to her duties. The kirk session was already in possession of the necessary certificates testifying to her “character, education, experience, devotedness, and power to serve and co-operate with others.” Due intimation had been made to the presbytery. The questions were put that were appointed by the General Assembly:
“Do you desire to be set apart as a deaconess,204/200 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 God 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 members205/201 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 class 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 assume 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 scheme206/202 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 indorsement 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 associated 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 indorsement of the207/203 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 assembly 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.”[3] 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 instituted the office of deaconess, and made it an inherent part of the Church economy, under the direction and control of the Annual Conferences.