RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Deaconess
don in 1846 which resulted in the foundation of the Evangelical Alliance, and he afterward visited Kaiserswerth. In his annual report of Jan. 1, 1847,
Fliedner said, " We have been urgently 1. The requested to send deaconesses from Lutherans, here to North America." In 1849 he
accompanied four deaconesses to Pittsburg, where they were stationed in a hospital already opened by Dr. Passavant and dedicated July 17, 1849, Fliedner being present. On May 28, 1850, the first American deaconess, Katherine Louisa Marthens, trained under Dr. Passavant, was consecrated (cf. Spath, p. 25). Dr. Passavant was not successful in building up a permanent deaconesses' home in Pittsburg, and the enterprise was given up because women did not come forward for the work and for other reasons. The Passavant hospital in Pittsburg still employs deaconesses, as do the affiliated institutions for epileptics in Rochester, N. Y., and for orphans at Zelienople, Pa. The hospital at Jacksonville, 111., formerly employed them. The Mary J. Drexel Home in Philadelphia, opened in 1888, is a Lutheran institution and occupies the finest building consecrated to deaconesses' work in America. It was founded by Dr. Lankenau as a memorial to his wife, and associated with the German Lutheran hospital of Philadelphia, of which Dr. Lankenau was treasurer. This deaconesses' home was started in 1884. In 1894 it was brought into organic relation with the Lutheran Church and joined the group of the Kaiserswerth institutions. The deaconesses labor in kindergartens and hospitals and in parish work. The Milwaukee Deaconesses' Home was established in 1891, Dr. Passavant having founded a hospital in that city in 1863, of which his son, the Rev. R. W. Passavant, was made director in 1900, but lived less than a year to administer the office. There are other Lutheran deaconesses' homes connected with the various branches of American Lutheranism: — in Baltimore (founded 1895), Omaha (Swedish, 1887), Brooklyn (founded by Mrs. Boers, wife of the Norwegian consul, 1883), Minneapolis (Norwegian, 1888), Chicago (1900), Buffalo, and St. Paul. In most eases, if not in all, these institutions were organized with the aid of one or more deaconesses from Germany or Scandinavia. In 1905 the Mary J. Drexel, Milwaukee, and Omaha houses had respectively 47, 19, and 22 deaconesses, and 25, 13, and 15 probationers. The sixth annual conference of the " Evangelical Lutheran Deaconesses' Motherhouses in the United States " was held in Milwaukee in 1905.
The Protestant Episcopal Church followed the Lutherans in the deaconesses' work in America. In 1843 Rev.W. A. Muhlenberg, then rector of the Church of the Holy Communion, New York city, organized a sisterhood, which, however, was not formally constituted till 1852, when a house was erected adjoining the church. A dispensary was started and developed into St. Luke's Hospital. The second organization was the Sisterhood of the Good Shepherd in Baltimore, formed into a community in 1863, but Its history dates back to 1855, when, with the approval of the bishop of the diocese, the Rev. Horace Stnngfellow of St. Andrew's Church inaugurated
the movement. A sister superior stands at the head of the community. The Sisterhood of St. Mary in New York was founded in 1865, five sisters being consecrated to their work Feb. 2. The 2, by the bishop of the diocese in St. Protestant Michael's Church. The sisters take Episcopal vows and none but members of the Church. Protestant Episcopal Church are admitted to these bodies. The Sisterhood of St. Mary is probably the most influential in the Episcopal Church. It carries on an extensive work in New York and beyond. The Sisterhood of St. John was established in Washington in 1867. The Sisterhood of St. John the Baptist (New York 1881) is a branch of the similar body in England. The Sisterhood of All Saints was transferred from London to Baltimore in 1891, and the Sisterhood of St. Margaret from East Grinstead, Eng., in 1873 to Boston. The Sisterhood of the Holy Childhood of Jesus was established by the Rev. C. C. Grafton in Providence, R. I., in 1882. The Protestant Episcopal Church has not officially approved the sisterhoods, but it has given approval to the deaconesses' organizations and the office of deaconess. In 1864 a diocesan deaconesses' institution was formed in Mobile, Ala. On Feb. 11, 1872, Bishop Littlejohn of Long Island consecrated six to the ofiice of deaconess in St. Mary's Church, Brooklyn. The General Convention of the Episcopal Church had before it for a number of years the subject of woman's work and the question of reviving the primitive order of deaconess. In 1889 action was taken by the Triennial Convention and a " Training School for Deaconesses " was opened by Bishop Potter in New York in 1890 and placed under the jurisdiction of the Rev. W. R. Huntington and Grace Church. It provides a course of training covering two years. Matriculants must be of the age of eighteen. After the course they are at liberty to labor under the direction of a bishop or to join an association of deaconesses or a sisterhood. Similar institutions have been begun in Philadelphia and in Toronto, Canada. The deaconess idea has also found incorporation in the English colonies under the charge of the Anglican episcopate (cf. Golder, pp. 464 sqq.).
The Methodists of the United States have done more than any other American denomination to utilize the movement started by Pastor Fliedner and to modify it according to their needs. By action of the General Conference in 1888, due especially to Rev. J. M. Thoburn, afterward bishop of India, the deaconess is recognized as an official of the Church (cf. Wheeler, pp. 269 sqq.). She takes no vows; " her duties are to minister to the poor, visit the sick, pray with the dying, care for the orphan, seek the wandering, comfort the sorrowing, save the sinning, and, relinquishing wholly other pursuits, to devote herself in a general way to such forms of Christian labor as may be suited to her abilities." Each annual conference through a board, composed partly of women, exercises oversight over the work and issues diaconal certificates to women properly accredited. In 1900 the General Conference perfected the law of the Church on this subject. The bishops are now a general dea-
DeaconeBs Death