THERE is not one sentiment I join you more cordially in, than an utter detestation of all the heartless splendor and ceremony of fashionable life; and I trust that my wife will never suffer herself to be so seduced by the example of female acquaintances, and advisers, and managers, as to step down from the dignified simplicity of a minister's fireside, and mingle in all the extravagances of parties, and second courses, and splendid drawing-rooms, and the whole tribe of similar abominations.—THOMAS CHALMERS.
DEACONESSES.
THAT the peculiar gifts of the female sex might be made available for the outward service of the Church, in rendering the assistance of various kinds for which women are peculiarly fitted; the office of Deaconess was established, in addition to that of Deacon, at first in the churches of the Gentile Christians.—NEANDER, History of the Church.
IT is well known that in the primitive Church there were women particularly appointed for this work. Indeed, there was one or more such in every Christian congregation under heaven. They were then termed Deaconesses, that is, servants—servants of the Church and of its Great Master. Such was Phœbe, mentioned by St. Paul, Rom. xvi. 1, "A Deaconess of the Church at Cenchrea." It is true most of these were women in years, and well experienced in the work of God. But were the young wholly excluded from that service? No! neither need they be, provided they know in whom they have believed, and show that they are holy of heart, by being holy in all manner of conversation.—JOHN WESLEY, Sermons, vol. ii. p. 335, N. Y. ed.
IGNATIUS, in writing to the Church at Antioch—of which he himself was pastor—says: "Salute the Deaconesses in Christ Jesus." Tertullian speaks particularly of a Deaconess who was of a very tender age.[2] Their office was so respected, that a bishop was deposed for having received into it a woman who had been excommunicated;[3] and it often fell to their lot to share the glories of martyrdom with the most holy confessors of the faith.[4]
How long this order continued in the Christian Church is not absolutely certain. Up to the commencement of the fourth century it, however, preserved itself free from abuses, but became corrupted in the fifth and sixth, and ended by disappearing in the Latin Church in the eighth, when the Papacy became finally constituted. In the Greek Church this office continued several hundred years, and Deaconesses pursued their self-denying service in the Christian Churches of Constantinople to the close of the twelfth century.[5]—WM. A. PASSAVANT, Institution of Deaconesses.
[2] Tertull. vel. de virg.
[3] Sozam, lib. iv. c. 14.
[4] Plin. Ep. ad. Traj.