Deaconesses in Europe and their Lessons for America Part 3

Deaconesses in Europe and their Lessons for America Part 3

It is not possible to give here in detail the occurrences by which loans were made, and the money that was needed obtained at the required time.

G.o.d gave friends for the cause, and through them provided the means. The house was furnished with a little second-hand furniture which had been given him, and October, 1836, was opened as a hospital and training school for Christian women. Services of praise and thanksgiving consecrated this deaconess home yet without deaconesses, this hospital without patients. Both, however, soon became inmates of the building.

The first deaconess was Gertrude Reichardt, the daughter of a physician.

She had a.s.sisted her father in the care of the sick, and had become experienced in looking after the welfare of the poor and the dest.i.tute.

She was an invaluable helper in the new enterprise, and shared with the doctor the duty of giving instruction in nursing and hospital duties.

Fliedner's wife was the superintendent. She had the oversight of the house, gave the deaconesses practical direction in housekeeping, and in their early visits to the sick and poor accompanied them from house to house. Fliedner was the director, and took upon himself the religious instruction of the sisters. Every effort was taken to make the house a home in which a cheerful, loving spirit should prevail. Nearly every evening Fliedner or his wife would go over to the home, and read to the sisters, or tell them interesting facts outside their lives. When he went away on his journeys he would write in full every thing pertaining to the interests of the common cause, and the letters would be read aloud. This was to be a home in every sense of the word, in which the members were to feel themselves belonging to one great family, bound together by the common tie of unselfish devotion to others "for Christ's sake." The spirit of the founder has permeated the inst.i.tution even to the present time. Those who know any thing of Kaiserswerth testify to the strong affection for the common home, the "mother-house," as they beautifully term it, felt by all its children. Every pains is taken to preserve it. There is correspondence, frequent and regular, from here to every sister. No matter in what distant land she may be, her birthday is remembered, and she is taught to look to this as a waiting refuge for the days of trouble, sickness, and old age.

There was soon arranged a series of house regulations and instructions for work which became the basis for after regulations in nearly all existing inst.i.tutions.

Almost contemporary with the mother-house arose the normal school for infant-school teachers. It had first started as a child's school, and afterward young women who had taste for the care of children were received to be taught their duties. Fliedner took great interest in the instruction of children. He devised little games for them, and arranged stories to be told. His simplicity and his child-like nature led him to disregard formalities, and to think solely of the end he had in view.

On one occasion, when picturing the combat of David and Goliath, reaching that point in the narrative when the young shepherd lad slings the stone that brings the giant to the ground, he cast himself headlong, to the great delight and amazement of his little audience, who enjoyed to the full this object-lesson that made the story so vivid to them.

Then he took special pains that his teachers should learn to tell the stories of the Bible so as to make them clear and interesting to the youngest child. Every day a story was told in school, and each evening the teacher whose turn it was to relate the story the following day came to Fliedner and rehea.r.s.ed it to him as though he were a child, afterward receiving his suggestions as to how the narrative could be improved. The work went along quietly, ever growing, ever advancing. "Among all others, and more than all others, was Fliedner's wife his best help. Her keen glance, made pure and holy by her Christian faith, preserved him from mistakes. With the household virtues of cleanliness, order, simplicity, and economy she united large-hearted compa.s.sion toward those needing help of any kind, yet knowing withal how, with virile sense and energy, to prevent the misuse of ministering love. She became a model for the deaconesses, as well as a mother to them, and her name deserves to be mentioned with honor, as one who had an important part in the Protestant renewal of the diaconate of women."[30]

In 1842 a new building was erected for the normal school for infant-school teachers. The publishing house of the inst.i.tution was also started, which issues religious books and tracts. The first work sent forth was a volume of sermons, presented to the new enterprise by the late Professor Lange, which went through several editions.

The same year the _Kaiserswerth Almanac_ appeared and a large picture Bible for schools was published. In 1848 the magazine _Der Armen und Kranken Freund_ was sent forth as an organ for the deaconess cause, not only for Kaiserswerth, but for all the inst.i.tutions that are represented at the triennial Conferences. The publishing house is an important source of income, as the inst.i.tution has little in the way of endowment beside the produce of the garden land attached to it. At present about three fourths of the expense are met by the sale of publications and the fees of patients; the remaining sum is given by friends.

The financial story of Fliedner's life could form a tale of thrilling interest, if it were separated from other facts and told by itself. He constantly went forward, purchased houses, added lands, and erected new homes when he had no money in reserve, but unfailingly when the time came for payments to be made the sum was obtained in some way or other to meet them. "We have no endowment," he once said, "but the Lord is our endowment."

The same year, 1842, the orphan asylum was opened. For a very moderate sum this receives children who are both fatherless and motherless, and who belong to the educated middle cla.s.s, having fathers who were pastors or professors, or the like. Fliedner hoped not only to provide a home for these girls befitting their station in life, but to develop among them those who should make a vocation of the care of children and the sick, and in this hope he was not disappointed.

In the midst of these successes the hand of G.o.d often lay heavily on Fliedner's family. Brethren and children pa.s.sed away, and, sorest affliction of all to him, his wife, who had so closely and sympathetically shared all his labors, died April 22, 1842. "She was the first of the deaconesses to die," writes Fliedner. "As she, their mother, had always led the way for her spiritual daughters in life, so she was their leader into the valley of the shadow of death."[31] Not long after this a normal school for female teachers in the public schools was started, for this practical believer in woman's work was one of the first to advocate the introduction of women teachers in the public schools of Germany, against which there then existed a strong prejudice. The Board of Education looked favorably on his project, and afterward sent a government commissioner to attend the examinations and award the certificates at Kaiserswerth. At a later period provision was made for teachers of girls' high schools, as also for those who desired to become teachers but were too young to enter the normal school. Over two thousand teachers have gone forth from these schools, carrying with them a love for the inst.i.tution which has brought back to it many returns in money and service. Fliedner well called them his "light skirmishing troops."

In 1849 he resigned his pastorate, and henceforth, with singleness of purpose, devoted himself to his one calling. From time to time new buildings were added to meet new needs. In 1852 an insane asylum for Protestant women was founded, as sisters were often called upon to nurse patients of this cla.s.s. The building set apart for the purpose was formerly used as military barracks and was given to Fliedner by King Frederick William IV. In 1881 this, as with so many others of the original buildings at Kaiserswerth, became too small for the increase in numbers, and a new building took its place. It stands on an eminence just outside of the village, and is provided with every modern appliance. Fliedner's practical good sense and administrative ability led him to care for all the minor details that were needed for the success of so great an undertaking. He added a dispensary to the hospital, where a sister who had pa.s.sed a regular examination before the government medical board made up the medicines required for the hospital. Many deaconesses have been trained to the same knowledge, which has been an especially valuable acquisition in the hospitals situated in Eastern countries. Little by little he secured land for farming operations, until there were one hundred and eighty acres in garden and meadow land, generally lying close about the various buildings, and affording means of recreation as well to the inmates.

Nearly all of the vegetable and dairy products that are needed are so provided. A bakery, bath-houses, homes for laborers and officials, were added, and bakers, shoemakers, carpenters, and blacksmiths formed part of the staff of the great establishment.

Gradually every variety of inst.i.tution that could furnish active practice to the deaconesses took its place here, and the whole might be denominated a great normal training-school for Christian women. The refuge for discharged female convicts, which was the starting-point of the movement, still continued its good work during all these years. The last report[32] states that nine hundred and nineteen women of different ages and different degrees of wrong-doing have been its inmates. Parents send insubordinate girls; societies forward those who profess penitence; magistrates sentence degraded creatures often too late for any reasonable hope to reform them. The old experience of the refuge is repeated in this last report: one third are saved, one third are irredeemable, and the judgment as to the remaining third, doubtful.

There were two buildings erected during the later years of Fliedner's life in which he took great interest. One of these was a cottage among the neighboring hills, where deaconesses who had become exhausted by long days in the sick-room, or whose health was suffering from over-toil, could retire for a few weeks of mountain air and quiet rest during the summer months. This pleasant retreat was well named Salem.

Soon afterward was laid the corner-stone of the second building, regarded with peculiar favor not only by the good pastor, but by all friends of the inst.i.tution. This was the "Feierabend Haus," the House of Evening Rest, where, somewhat apart from the busy activity of the great household, those deaconesses whose best strength had been given to faithful labor in the service could pa.s.s the evening hours of life in quiet waiting for the last great change, while using the experience they had gathered and the strength still remaining in behalf of the cause they had faithfully served.

Such are the main features of the great establishment that year by year grew up in this village on the Rhine. But from this as a center had gradually branched off manifold lines of service, and many daughter-houses both in Germany and foreign lands. It was only a year and a half after the home was opened that the first appointment of deaconesses to work outside of Kaiserswerth was made.

This was an important victory for the new inst.i.tution. It took place January 21, 1838, on Fliedner's birthday, when he and his wife escorted two of the sisters to Elberfeld, where they were to act as trained nurses in the city hospital. From that time to the present the hospital has continued under the management of the Kaiserswerth deaconesses.

Soon afterward sisters were sent out to nurse in private families, and in 1839 two more were sent to superintend the workhouse in Frankfort. As the inst.i.tution became known there was a constant demand for superintendents, and matrons for public reformatories, prisons, and charitable establishments. Between 1846 and 1850 more than sixty deaconesses were at work at twenty-five different stations outside of the mother-house. About the same time deaconesses began to work in connection with special churches which called for their services, having the duties which in England are a.s.signed to those called "parish deaconesses."

King Frederick William IV., from the beginning Fliedner's faithful friend and supporter, had long desired a deaconess home in Berlin. This was finally obtained, and set apart under the name "Bethanien Haus," or Bethany House, October 10, 1847, at a special dedicatory service, at which the king, with his court, was present. It was while seeking a superintendent for this home in Berlin that Fliedner learned to know Caroline Bertheau, of Hamburg, a descendant of an old Huguenot family that was driven from France by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. He led her home as his wife in May, 1843, and she became to him a true helpmeet for his children, his home, and his inst.i.tution. She is still living, having survived her husband over twenty-five years, and in an advanced age still retains a place on the Board of Direction at Kaiserswerth.

In one place after another deaconess homes arose, sometimes simply through Fliedner's advice, more often by his direct co-operation. From 1849 to 1851 he was chiefly engaged in traveling from one land to another, occupied in kindling the zeal of Christian women to devotion to the sick and sorrowing, and finding fields of service for their priceless ministrations. He visited the United States, England, France, and Switzerland, as well as various cities of the East, including Jerusalem and Constantinople.

The work in our own land was begun at Pittsburg, where Fliedner came with four sisters in the summer of 1849, at the invitation of Pastor Pa.s.savant, of the German Lutheran Church.

The deaconesses at once entered upon hospital work, and their care of the sick met with warm appreciation, but their numbers did not increase.

An orphanage was afterward started at Rochester, and hospitals under the same auspices exist at Milwaukee, Jacksonville, Ill., and Chicago. Still the work has not grown, and it has proved the least successful of any initiated by Fliedner. Upon his return he aided in opening mother-houses in Breslau, Konigsberg, Dantzic, Stettin, and Carlsruhe.

We have now come to the period when Kaiserswerth inst.i.tutions met with a notable extension. Fliedner had long been looking toward Jerusalem, hoping to found a deaconess home there. "Who would not gladly render service on the spot where the feet of the Saviour once brought help and healing to the sick?" he had said.

Now, through Dr. Gobat, the Bishop of Jerusalem, the opportunity was given. The king offered two small houses in Jerusalem that were his private property, and volunteered to pay the expenses of the journey.

a.s.sociations were formed in all parts of Germany to provide an outfit for the mission. Gifts flowed in rapidly, and March 17, 1851, Fliedner, accompanied by four deaconesses, two of them being teachers, set out on this new and peaceful crusade to the holy city. From that beginning has resulted a net-work of stations throughout the East.

There is at Jerusalem a hospital[33] where, during 1887, four hundred and ninety-three patients were given medical aid and nursing, and seven thousand seven hundred and two patients were treated in the dispensary.

No woman in the city is better known or more justly honored than Sister Charlotte, the head-deaconess.

The Mohammedans at first regarded the work of the sisters with fanatical distrust, but a glance at the statistics of the last report will show how completely they have cast aside their prejudices.

Of the 493 patients in 1887, there were 404 Arabians, 43 Armenians, 30 Germans, 5 Abyssinians, 4 Greeks, 3 Roumanians, 2 Russians, 1 Italian, and 1 Hollander. As to religion, there were 235 Mohammedans, 97 Protestants, 78 Greeks, 23 Roman Catholics, 45 Armenians, 6 Copts, 3 Syrian Christians, 4 Proselytes, 1 Jew, and 1 Maronite; so that in all nine nations and nine religious faiths were represented in the hospital.

There is also a girls' orphanage, called "Talitha c.u.mi," just outside the city walls at Jerusalem, where one hundred and fourteen native girls were last year taught by the Kaiserswerth deaconesses. Over a hundred more made application to enter, but there was no room to receive them.

In Constantinople, Alexandria, Cairo, Beirut, and Pesth there are also well-appointed hospitals, some of them of s.p.a.cious dimensions, and all having excellent medical service and nursing that cannot be surpa.s.sed.

The orphanage and school at Beirut had a sad foundation. In 1860 came the terrible news of the ma.s.sacre of the Maronite Christians by the Druses in the Lebanon mountains.

Kaiserswerth deaconesses were immediately sent out, and were among the first to arrive to join the resident Europeans and Americans in caring for the sufferers. Numbers of children were left fatherless and motherless, and the sisters started the orphanage at Beirut to shelter them. When its twenty-fifth anniversary was celebrated in 1885 over eight hundred girls had received a home and education here, and had gone forth to eastern homes, carrying with them the light and knowledge of Christian faith into the dark, degraded social life of the Orient.[34]

From the two orphanages at Beirut and Jerusalem over forty have gone out as teachers in girls' schools in Palestine and Syria. Twelve others have become deaconesses, and are ministering in this capacity to their own countrymen and to foreigners in eastern hospitals.[35]

In Smyrna there is also a girls' school, that was opened at the request of some wealthy Protestants residing there. The school is not so needed as formerly, since the government has started girls' high schools, but it is still maintained, and aids in bringing new life into the hopeless society of the East. There is also an orphanage at Smyrna, where some girls of the poorer cla.s.ses were gathered after the ravages of the cholera had left them without parents or homes.

The eastern deaconesses have also their Salem. Just above the little village of Areya, in the Lebanon, on the summit of a hill overlooking the Mediterranean, stands the house of retreat, where, during the summer months, the more than forty sisters stationed in Beirut, Alexandria, Cairo, and Jerusalem can take refuge in seasons of overpowering heat.

The deaconess who superintends the house has a school for the native children of the village, which is taught by one of the girls educated at the Beirut orphanage.

Prosperous girls' schools are also in existence at Bucharest, and at Florence, Italy. The Italian school was started in 1860 with four girls in the upper floor of a rented house. It now possesses a beautiful house and grounds of its own, and had one hundred and forty-five girls under its charge the past year. Most of these were Italians, but different foreign residents also availed themselves of the opportunity to send their children to an excellent Protestant school. There is also a mission at Rome maintained by deaconesses during the winter months.

The large majority of the undertakings outside of Kaiserswerth were initiated personally by Fliedner. When we recall the complex demands of the home field in Germany we marvel at the versatile executive ability of this man, who started life as the humble pastor of an obscure village church. But he loved work. He possessed "iron industry." He was ever hopeful, courageous, and indefatigable. Above all, he trusted completely in the leadings of Divine Providence, and constantly went forward with sure confidence. Then he was a true leader. He knew men. He put the right person in the right place, gave him full liberty of action, and held him to a strict responsibility for results. So, while Fliedner remained the soul of the great inst.i.tution, he knew how to make himself spared, which was not the least of his qualifications for his calling.

[30] _Der Diakonissenberuf_, Emil Wacker, Gutersloh, 1888, p. 116.

[31] _Life of Pastor Fliedner_, translated by C. Winckworth, London, 1867.

[32] _Ein und funfzigster Jahres-Bericht_, p. 30.

[33] _Achtzehnter Bericht uber die Diakonissen Stationen im Morgenlande_, 1888.

[34] _Vierzehnten Bericht uber die Diakonissen Stationen am Libanon._ [35] _Der Rheinisch Westfalische Diakonissen Verein_, p. 64, J. Disselhoff.

CHAPTER VI.

THE REGULATIONS AT KAISERSWERTH, AND THE DUTIES AND SERVICES OF THE DEACONESSES.

The regulations in daily use at Kaiserswerth are based on those that Fliedner drew up in the early days of the inst.i.tution. They have been adopted with few alterations by the larger number of deaconess inst.i.tutions that have since arisen, so that to understand the spirit and usages prevailing in them it is well to give these rules some study.

They are contained in a book numbering one hundred and seven pages,[36]

treating with great minuteness every question that affects the daily lives of the deaconesses. The qualities that the office demands are first dwelt upon as they are described in Acts vi, 3, and 1 Tim. iii, 8, 9. The sisters are reminded that their life is one of service; that they serve the Lord Jesus; that they serve the poor and the sick and helpless "for Jesus' sake;" and that they are servants one of another.

Special stress is given to the importance of cultivating unity, love, and forbearance in the relations of daily life, and the deaconesses are enjoined "to protect and further the honor of other sisters," "to form one family living unitedly as sisters, through the tie of a heartfelt love for the one great object that brings them to this place."

There are two cla.s.ses of deaconesses formally recognized, nurses and teachers; although there is another, deaconess whose work is year by year becoming more important, and that is the deaconess who is attached to a church in the capacity of a home missionary. She is designated by the term "commune-deaconess," or, as the English translate it, "parish-deaconess."