Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 1.djvu/691

Rh Thus he was led to found a mother-house for deaconesses at Düsseldorf, 1836. Women devoted themselves, without salary, to the service of the suffering, but the home gave them shelter and care in sickness and old age. These "sisters" were trained to be nurses, teachers of small children, matrons of women's prisons and Magdalen asylums, orphanages, rescue homes and educational institutions of a higher order. His idea of the woman diaconate was not merely the care of sick bodies, but the "participation of women in the works of love, out of a living faith."

Various other mother-houses grew out of that at Kaiserswerth, and these held conferences at intervals. Independent movements were the democratic and self-governing Strassburg institution, founded by Pastor Harter (1842), and the Bethany home in Berlin, patronized by Frederick William IV (1845–7), and conducted by women of the higher social classes. Only gradually did this movement, now regarded as indispensable, overcome the prejudices of pastors and parishes. "There was no adequate understanding of this part of the duties of the church." Fliedner had also founded the Prison Society of the Rhine and Westphalia (1826).

The Gustavus Adolphus Society, which grew rapidly in this period, resembles our Home Mission Societies, and aided poor churches with funds for houses and pastors.

All these movements arose about the same time, but independently. They moved on convergent lines toward the organization of a real church of and for the people, in which all forms of need should receive help and all gifts should be recognized and utilized.

Summary view.—Fortunately we possess in Wichern's classic "Denkschrift" a thorough presentation of the principles, purposes, scope and achievements of the Inner Mission up to the Revolution of 1848. Prepared by fifteen years of labor as editor, organizer, teacher and superintendent, no man in Germany was so well fitted for this task.

Definition of "Inner Mission."—The term was used to