priceless. They unite in themselves the chief riches of the gospel of Christ. By them the gospel is preached to the poor, and the sorrows and sufferings of the poor are allayed. They are among the very chiefest of the ameliorating influences by which American society is rescued from the ruin of a sordid and godless materialism. By them Christ is represented in his fulness at once of grace and of mercy; by them many of the wounds of society are healed, and the gaping chasm between wealth and poverty at least partially bridged by the offices of Christian sympathy. They are our best missionaries. They are our most effective almoners. They are among the most powerful agencies we can summon for the maintenance of social order and content.

But do these agencies suffice? If we view them in connection with the work of nursing the sick poor the especial work of a deaconess-we find that they have great defects. In the first place, nursing is the work of an expert. Untrained volunteers, who serve from time to time, as convenience may prompt, are apt to produce a very unsatisfactory work. We do not take this course in any other form of social economy. The waterworks of a city, for instance, are not in any sense more complicated than the tissues and valves of the human frame; but we would never think of surrendering the oversight of the waterworks of a city to committees of benevolent gentlemen, to work them at such moments as they may be disengaged, and according to the particular notions in which they may from time to time. indulge. Nursing, to be effective, either morally or physically, is an important branch of social industry, to be carried on with fixed principles and with an even hand. We do not, of course, wish to fall back on the positions lately taken by Mr. Göschen, well-established as they seem to be as economical truths, as to the bad public effects of irregular, volunteer, sporadic benevolence; though these are positions which all closely settled communities will sooner or later accept. But we do say that this important Christian and social duty of nursing the destitute sick should

be performed, as far as may be, by skilful and systematic hands. Nor can we delegate this work to the ordinary hired nurse. Even supposing that Mr. Dickens's sketches of these functionaries are entire caricatures; even supposing that when attending in the houses of the poor they can be relied on as tender and vigilant, yet, after all, this is a costly remedy, which can only rarely be secured; while the service thus rendered is perfunctory, and is but a partial and inadequate representative of the great principle of Christian love. The hired nurse, even when she may be obtained, enters on her work as a mere inanimate mechanism. Through her thrills none of the power of Christian love. In this respect she is a non-conductor, both as to those who send her, and those to whom she is sent. It is a system of material charity alone that she represents, even viewing her in her best estate. It is a system hard, cold, and material; recognizing, it is true, a sympathy of the body, but suppressing all recognition of the sympathy of the soul. It is the charity of the almshouse, not of the sanctuary; it is the gospel of Malthus, but not of Christ.

It is here, indeed, that we notice the cardinal defects of the benevolent societies by which the charities of our large cities are conducted. In the country, indeed, it is different, for here in the country, where no such large benevolent societies exist, the work of charity is largely performed by parish committees, acting under the supervision of the pastor himself, and going forth in their work at once as the confessors and the ambassadors of Christ. But in our large cities there is a growing tendency to withdraw the church from this work, and to concentrate it in the hands of what are called "non-sectarian" boards. Thus exclusive of municipal poorhouses, we have established on this principle provident societies, union benevolent societies, soup societies, houses of refuge, Magdalen asylums, and asylums for the deaf, the dumb, the blind, and the deranged; in which it is a settled compact that no "denominational" religious teaching shall be given. But what is "denominational"? What

is it that is left untouched by this term? When everything that is "denominational" is removed, what remains? Does the atonement? Does even the Bible? Have we not recently had sad occasion to discover that when "denominationalism" is excluded then revelation is dismissed? Of course it is not denied that these societies do a noble work. It is not denied that in lack of a better system we would do much to. sustain them in their efforts; but there is a better system, to which this bears about the same proportion as does the body to the soul. Contrast for a moment that dumb charity which, when it has bound up the broken limb, or relieved. the feverish thirst, can only turn speechless eyes towards heaven, as if to say, "as to him who sent me, and whose grace sustains and charms me in this work, I am not permitted to speak"; contrast this with the charity whose whole life, when engaged in works of mercy, is radiant with the language of faith. It is hard for Christians, when in Christ's work, to be compelled to suppress Christ's name. It is hard that the "sympathy of humanity," which it was one of the first offices of the gospel to inaugurate, should now be detached from the gospel which inspired it, and sent forth into the world as the product, not of revealed, but of natural religion; as the preacher, not of Christ, who regenerates humanity, but of a humanitarianism which refuses to acknowledge Christ. Christians must and will aid such societies, as long as there are none other to do the mere mechanical work; but this aid must be given with heavy hearts. It is not the way that Christianity should speak and work. Christian charity, inspired as it is by love to Christ, should exult in Christ, and lead to Christ. And hence it is, that this office of nursing is one which the church should specifically assume. And if it cannot be done by mere voluntary and occasional benevolence, let it be done by bodies of Christian women, duly trained for and religiously devoted to the work. Let not the church distil unbelief by the side of the sick and dying, whom Christ has commanded her not merely to serve, but to save. And if the divisions of Protes

tant Christianity are such as to make any general union for this purpose impracticable, let it be remembered that there is no one of our great evangelical communions that has not in its ranks numbers of women, as well as of men, whom it has been able to devote to life-long missionary labor in foreign lands. And if abroad, why not at home?

For, indeed, the time is coming, if it has not already arrived, when the numbers of women who will be able and ready to devote themselves to such a mission will be by no means inadequate to the mission itself. We do not speak now of the question of an inner divine call to the way of mercy, though this is a call which, with the views that we entertain as to the solemnity of similar calls in other departments of the ministry, we cannot consistently ignore. We do not desire to insist upon the fact that the office of a "deaconess is one expressly recognized in the New Testament, nor to reiterate that Phoebe is there spoken of as a "deaconess," as much as is Stephen as a "deacon"; though it is well known that when the ministry of preaching and of the sacraments is concerned, thcologians have not hesitated to regard similar scriptural intimations as of permanent divine obligation. But we do say, that in the growth and increasing centralization of American society, there are many circumstances which utter an outer call to this form of ministry, even though, as an ecclesiastical institution, it was meant by our Master to be mutable and occasional. There are even now, in our Protestant communions, many religious women who have no natural homes. There are many whom God has stripped of domestic duties, and whom, by his ordination of sorrow as well as of grace, he has consecrated to the ministry of mercy There are many with noble and holy yearnings for such a ministry, and who desire to exercise it, not restlessly, not in mere self-will and self-responsibility, hindered with all the cares and anxieties of self-direction and of self-support, but in dependence on a settled system; on a settled system; in voluntary obedience to a chosen, settled head; and in the protection of a peaceful, settled home, in which, when in health, they can

to man.

find direction and sympathy, and in sickness and old age, a peaceful and secure refuge. It is absurd to call such a system Romish. It is no more Romish in its seclusion than are our asylums for widows and for the sick and old; no more Romish in its vows than are our vows of baptism and of ordination. And in its action it is essentially anti-Romish. There have been those, it is true, who abandoned Protestantism, and sought Rome, because in Protestantism, under circumstances of great desolation or agitation, they could find no harbor of peaceful obedience and rest. There have been those also, who have been won over to Romanism, by the mere spectacle of sisterhoods of mercy, in which, with so much that is corrupt, so much that is truly Christian is maintained. But it was a significant statement of one of the speakers at the Kaiserswerth Conference, that among the thousands of deaconesses whom German Protestantism has enrolled, not one had ever become a convert to the church of Rome. It is true that they sprang from various phases of Protestantism. It is true that they had been ready, when occasion called, to carry on their labors of mercy under the superintendence of Lutheran, of Calvinistic, and of Anglican divines. But to one trust they remained truc; that of justification solely by faith in the merits of Christ. Love to Christ for his finished work was the spring of their labors; quiet trust in this finished work their faith and peace. With this in their lives they labored, with this on their lips they have died, to this, by their ministry, they have led. So it has been with them. So it may be with us.