WOMEN'S WORK IN THE CHURCH. II. In the Middle Ages. I. In the Early Church.

In the Apostolic Period (§ 1).

In the Sub-Apostolic Age (§ 2).

Widows (§ 3).

Other Offices (§ 4).

Influence of Women (§ 5).

I. In the Early Church: By the greetings in the epistles of the New Testament it i$ seen that women were in some way in the apostolic age serving the Christian community. Many followed

I. In the the example of those women who min- Apostolic istered to Christ and shared their Period. wealth with him. Others, like Mary and Martha, Mary the mother of Mark, Lydia, Priscilla, Nymphs, probably Damaris, and some of the "honorable women" of Berea, made their homes the center of the little community in each city and the place where the love-feast could take place. In such homes the messengers of the Gospel found safe entertainment. Paul experienced this hospitality, which contributed much to the ex- tension of Christianity. From the earliest times certain women seem to have been singled out for

Vienna in 1868 by Franziaka Lechner to obtain positions for working girls, to train orphans for housework, and to provide homes for aged women. The sisters number more than 400 and possess some thirty institutions. The Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Missions of Africa (or White Sisters) were founded in 1868 by Cardinal Lavigerie (q.v.) of Algiers as the female branch of his Soci6td des Missionaires de Notre-Dame des Missions d'Afrique. Originally restricted to the care of orphans and hospitals and other works of charity in Algiers, they have engaged since 1894 in missionary activity in central Africa, although in small numbers. The Indian Sisters of Our Lady of the Seven Dolors were founded in 1876 for giving Roman Catholic instruction in the missionary schools of India. The Indian Sisters of St. Anne were established in Trichinopoli in 1877 for the care of orphans, the control of hospitals, the providing of homes for widows, and similar objects. The Sisters of St. Anne in Canada are in charge of hospitals in Montreal, Vancouver, Three Rivers, and other Canadian districts. See also Ambrosians; Angelicals; Bridget, Saint, of Sweden; Charity, Sisters of; English Ladies; Mercy, Sisters of; Sacred Heart of Jesus; Ursulines; Visitantines; etc.

(O. Zöckler†.)

Bibliography: Helyot. Ordres monastiques; Heimbucher, Orden und Kongregationen; Currier, Religious Orders; T. D. Fosbroke. British Monasticism, 2 vols., London, 1802, 3d ed., 1843; M. R. A. Henrion, Hist. pl;n&ale des missions catholiques, 2 vols., Paris, 1846-47; L. Badiche, Dictionnaire des ordres reliDieux, 4 vols., ib. 1858; O'D. T. Hill, English Monasticism, London, 1887; C. E. Stephen, The Service of the Poor, ib. 1871; E. Keller, Les Congregations religieuses en France, Leurs tenures et leura services, Paris, 1880; M. du Camp, La Charity prdv& d Paris, ib. 1886; G. Uhlhorn, Die christliche Liebesthtltlgkeit, iii. 414-448, Stuttgart, 1890; F. C. Woodhouse, Monasticism, Ancient and Modern, London, 1898; Lina Eckenstein, Woman under Monasticism, Cambridge, 1896 (a valuable contribution; deals mainly with English and German nunneries); Theodosia Benson, in RDM, Apr., 1898; the Official Catholic Directory, pp. 805-$35 Milwaukee, 1911; the literature under Monasticism.

As Rulers of Monastic Institutions 0 U. In Philanthropy and Literature

Decline in Culture (§ 3).

Women is Reform (§ 4).

III. Under Protestantism.

Early Examples of Service (§ 1).

Later Philanthropic Work (§ 2).

Sisterhoods, Education, Missions

special duties by special fitness. Phoebe (see Deaconess) appears to have been one of these. Legend (Acts of Paul and Thekla) gives to Paul a woman missionary assistant, and it is certain that there were women teachers to the end of the second century, and women missionaries much later. In the apostolic period women instructed new converts (Acts xviii. 26), they also spoke in meetings. The daughters of Philip (Acts xxi. 8-9) were not the only prophetesses. Christianity was in the outset charismatic, and women shared in these gifts. Paul regulated the public speaking of women (I Cor. xi. 5). Early Christian art gives examples of women speaking, with their veils fastened back from their faces by the ornament usually worn for the purpose. The context shows the prohibition of I Cor. xiv. 34 to refer not to prophesying but to interrupting a

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discourse by questions. "In the gospel" (Phil. iv. 3) can mean nothing else than "In the preaching of the Gospel." Toward the end of the first century (I Tim. ii. 12) women were, on the score of seemliness, forbidden to speak in public. What had been proper in the small, familiar meetings of the early days ceased to be so when religious services took on a more public character, especially in the East, where reputable women lived in comparative seclusion. This rule did not extend to newly evangelized districts, as is proved by the fact that the Acts of Paul and Thekla were considered authentic through the second century.

Throughout the East women continued to teach those of their own sex as a matter of necessity, apostles and men missionaries being ex-

i. In the eluded from women's apartments. The Sub-Apos- spread of Christianity in the East is tolic Age. unthinkable without this service. The method of administering baptism made the assistance of women in this rite indispensable. As numbers grew and special buildings were pro vided for religious services, where women sat apart from men, the service of women in the administra tion of the communion was equally indispensable. The whole question of woman's work was one not of doctrine nor of office, but of good manners and actual need. In general, woman's service was nat urally along womanly lines, hospitality, care of the poor, the sick, prisoners and orphans, the oversight and instruction of women and children, and the last offices to the dead. In this period of first love there was need neither of organization nor of institutions. Every Christian was a worker, and every Christian home an asylum for travelers and the poor. Perse cution, when it arose, created new duties in which, as well as in martyrdom, women had their full share. Their share in service and suffering is a stronger tes timony to the position of women in the early Church than any special office.

Special offices, however, came into existence at a very early time. Official widows (see Deaconess, II., § 1) appear at the close of the apostolic age. Later sources shed light upon the directions in I Tim. v. 3-10. In the early days, when families were divided religiously, believing 3. Widows. widows must often have been thrown upon the community for support. These, being presumably free from family cares, were by years and experience peculiarly competent for womanly service. Official widows were to be at least sixty years old, and must have borne children (I Tim. v. 9, 10) that they might have experience and sympathy. Their especial duties were prayer and fasting (the widow was the " intercessor of the church "; cf. Apostolic Constitutions, iii. 5); but it was her part also to care for other widows and for the poor in general, especially for orphans and for those who were imprisoned for conscience' sake, to have oversight of the female part of the community, being virtually the presbyter of the women, and to be "keeper of the door" in service time. Widows spoke at marriages, instructed the women, and prepared them for baptism, in which service they as sisted, and held a position of such honor that they were designated the "altar of God." Widows are

named in the second century with bishops, presbyters, and deacons as church functionaries. Married women and even young girls came to be included in this order. Ignatius (Ad Smyrnceos, xiii.) speaks of "virgins who were also called widows." The Testament of our Lord (end of fourth century) mentions in the following order the viduate, deaconeesea, female presbyters, virgins, putting widows before deaconeases. The Apostolic Constitutions (q.v.) says, on the contrary, that widows must always obey the deaconesses, and prescribes the duties of each. The probably still earlier Didascalia, in the appendix of which is given the ritual for the consecration of widows and deaconesses, shows that by the third century many official duties were taken from the widow and conferred upon the deaconess, precisely in order that the former might keep to her original duty of prayer and fasting (I Tim. v. 5). Yet even in this century she still claimed the right to baptize, and a fifth-century synod at Carthage says that since widows assist in the baptism of women they must, therefore, be qualified to teach. The Testament of Our Lord names among the widow's duties to pray at certain hours in the church and at home, to discipline the women, punish the refractory, warn the backward, teach the unlearned, visit the sick, and help in the baptism of women "because she is herself anointed." She is also to take the communion to nick women.

Among the functions sooner or later withdrawn from woman was that of presbyteresa, which was for a time a distinct office. There was also a canonesa, whose duty was chiefly to serve in the choir at funerals and other ceremonies. The

4. Other heretical sects, especially the Monta- Offices. vista, had also female bishops and prophetesses, and it was in part because of the excesses of the latter that the orders above named were comparatively short-lived in the Ortho dox church. The growing concern for purity of doctrine doubtless counted for something in the in creasing distrust of women as teachers; to this con tributed the development of clericalism which be gan early in the third century, and the exaltation of the sacerdotal function of the clergy; the rise of monasticism completed the work. By the end of the fourth century the teaching office in the Church had ceased to be vested in women. While it may be disputed that Christianity emancipated woman, it certainly opened for the first time an honorable career to respectable unmarried women, for whom until that time there had been neither place nor dignity. Before the close of the first century ap pears the institution of the popular order of virgins, women who dedicated themselves to a single life and took a special place of honor as the Brides of Christ. They seem to have put themselves at the call of the bishop for any helpful service, were not cloistered, but lived at home and thence exercised their official functions. At first they claimed the right to teach. At a later day Tertullian forbade it, and this prohibition contributed much to the popularity of the monastic life. If the "consecrated virgin" might not be a leader in the Christian com munity, she had no part in it. The result was that virgins formed themselves into communities, first

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in the East and afterward in the West. The communities of virgins were naturally preceded by the female anchorite. It was only after the peace of the Church under Constantine that monastic orders became possible, and one of his daughters founded the first woman's cloister. All that had preceded led to the merging of the institution of virgins, and to some extent of that of widows, in the orders of the nun. "Heresy, hierarchy, monasticism" were the three factors which checked the development of woman's service in the community in the fourth and fifth centuries.

In the fourth century, which marks the zenith of female activity in the early Church, the importance of services performed by women not of any order is emphasized by Chrysostom and others. At this time the development of hospitals and hospices appears to have displaced those earlier activities from which women had been gradually shut out. Helena (q.v.), the mother of the Emperor Constantine, built the first hospices for strangers and pilgrims. A group of noble Roman matrons did much to promote Christianity by founding hospitals and convents and forwarding education. Jerome in his various writings especially mentions fifteen, among others Paula, a distinguished Hebrew scholar who assisted him in the translation of the Bible. The first hospital in Rome was founded by Fabiola, whom Jerome calls "the praise of Christians, the wonder of the Gentiles, the mourning of the poor, and the consolation of the monks."

The influence of Christian women upon husbands, sons, and grandsons was very marked. Nearly all the distinguished names of the ancient Church are

accompanied by that of mother or g. Influence sister. Macrina (q.v., 2) helped to

of Women. rear in the love of God her three brothers, " the eloquent the judicious Gregory of Nyssa, and the charitable Peter of Sebaste " (qq.v.). Noma, the mother of Gregory Nazianzen, converted her heathen husband and brought her distinguished son under Christian influences. Arethusa, mother of Chrysostom, devoted her life to the education of her children, and kept her son from becoming a her mit. The influence of Monnica (q.v.) upon Augustine (q.v.) is well known. Ambrose (q.v.) was brought up and educated by his sister Marcellina. Pulcheria (q.v.), the granddaughter of Theodosius the Great, superintended the education of her brother Theodosius II., with whom she reigned as Augusta. Benedict (see Benedict of Nursia) owed much to his sister Scholastica. The part of women in the adoption of Christianity by pagan nations was large. It was due to the Christian teach ings of Chlotildis that her husband Clovis was ready to accept Christianity after a victory in battle won by prayer. Her granddaughter Bertha prepared her husband, Ethelbert, king of Kent (see Augustine, Saint, of Canterbury), to embrace the Christian faith when it was preached in Britain by Augustine. Ludmilla of Bohemia trained her grand son Wenceslas in such piety that, after making Chris tianity the religion of Bohemia, he became a martyr and saint. Dambrowka of Bohemia persuaded her husband Micislaus of Poland to embrace Christian-

ity. The office of missionary was never forbidden to women, and with the right of the woman missionary to teach went of necessity her right to baptize. Gradually, however, this right was withdrawn. But the missionary service of women continued through the entire period of the conversion of Europe, where women rendered large service. Bridget (see Bridget, Saint, of Kildare) worked with Patrick in the evangelization of Ireland. Anglo-Saxon nuns were especially active in this service. The monastery at Whitby was a school of missionaries, female and male. In the eighth century Boniface (see Boniface, Saint) called his cousin Lioba from her convent in Dorset to help him evangelize the heathen ofinorthern Europe. Walburga and Barthgytha, Anglo-Saxons nuns, assisted in evangelizing Germany.

II. In the Middle Ages: The rise of Monasticism (q.v.) in the fifth century changed in a large degree, though for a long time it did not diminish, the activities of women in the Church. i. As Rulers Nursing the sick and ministering to of Monastic the poor were their special duties, and Institutions. also teaching, especially in the foundations of Benedictines (see Benedict of Nursia). The monastery as originally conceived was not a place of limited opportunity, but rather a religious settlement extending its influence over a wide area. During the turbulent centuries after the break-up of the empire, it offered to women the only place where they could work fruitfully, and develop and cultivate intellectual tastes. It afforded them also the only opportunity for social life. The monotony of castle and burg life for women was great. The men went to camp and court, the women were at home alone. Convent life was varied and interesting, including as it did the presence of a large number of royal princesses. Up to the tenth century a large number of "double" Monasteries (of men and women) were ruled by women. The need of physical protection in those troubled times made this arrangement nearly imperative. Bede speaks of a double monastery in Rome in the seventh century; there were many in Gaul and Britain, and later in Belgium and Germany, but they were most popular in Ireland. The custom was not unknown in the East, but in the nature of things was not favored there. The custom died out in the ninth century (though revived at Port Royal in the seventeenth). The Benedictine settlement at Fontevrault, including monks and nuns to the number of 3,000 souls, was ruled for 600 years by a line of thirty-two abbesses of remarkable administrative ability. In the sixth century the Princess Radegonde, in her double monastery of the Holy Cross at Poitiers, nursed lepers, fostered literature and the arts, and often made peace in the quarrels of rulers of her time. In the same century Florentine of Spain became the superior of forty monasteries and " by her knowledge, her virtues, and even by her sacred songs " ranks high among nuns. Bertile of Chelles in this century drew large audiences of men and women to her lectures on the Scriptures. The abbey of Whitby in Yorkshire, a double institution, founded by Hilda (q.v.), a woman of " rare capacity for the government of souls and for the consolidation of monastic institutions," was re-

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sorted to for education by kings and princes as well as by the "old cowherd Caedmon" (q.v.), who under Hilda's tuition became the father of English poetry. Her successor Elfleda, like all cloistered Anglo-Saxon princesses, took a passionate interest in the affairs of her race and country, and did much to mitigate the jealousies of kings and bishops. Abbesses administered the communion in their convents up to the ninth century, and in England in the tenth century four abbesses sat in Parliament as peers. The authority of such persons was enormous. As feudal lords they had the right of ban, sent their contingents of armed knights to the field, gave judgment in courts, and in Germany (as in England) were summoned to the imperial diet. Certain German abbesses had even the right to mint coin.

During all these centuries when the business of men was war, and princes were not disgraced by total illiteracy, women-ruled institutions became centers not only of philanthropy but of intellectual life, training the sons and daughters of kings and nobles for public life, and contributing much to the progress of learning. In the tenth century the Saxon monastery at Gandersheim was especially distinguished for the brilliant learning and the dramatic productions of the nun Roswitha (q.v.). In the eleventh century women of exalted position, whether cloistered or otherwise, felt the stirrings of that national consciousness which was marked by the struggle between pope and emperor. In this struggle more than one woman took an active part, notably Matilda, Countess of Tuscany (q.v.), who, at her castle at Canossa, more than indirectly contributed to that "peace of the Church" during which letters were revived and the progress of science fostered.

During this and the following centuries religious houses had fallen into great disorder, especially through luxury. Not until the twelfth century did nuns become entirely cloistered; up z. In to this time they had enjoyed great

Philan- freedom of action, and only by degrees thropy and had a conventual costume become ob-

Literature. ligatory. Both these changes were in the direction of reform. The sister hood of the Poor Clares (see Clare, Saint, and the Poor Clares) had great influence in correcting the evils of monastic life. The sisters also nursed the sick, especially lepers. A contemporary of the founder of the order was Saint Elizabeth of Thuringia (q.v.), whose service to the Church was far larger than the charities for which she is famous in legend. The hospitals which she founded were of lasting social importance, and her friendship for the Franciscans was hardly less so. The work of founding hospitals took a new impulse during this period, chiefly as a result of the changes in monastic life. Many notable women left the convent to create voluntary associations.for charity and philan thropy, forming the " active " or " secular orders," within the Church but bound by no vows, devoted to prayer, the service of the poor, the sick, orphans, widows, and weaker brethren and sisters. Con spieuovs among these were the Tertiaries of St. Francis (see Francis, Saint,of ASSISI) and St.

Dominic (see Dominic, Saint), the Sisters of the Common Life (see Common Life, Brethren of the, § 5), and the Beguines of Flanders (see Beghards, Beguines). This last order was a protest against formalism and useless repression, and an assertion of the right of spontaneous self-expression in work. In the thirteenth century a wave of mysticism swept over the Church, in which women had a large part. Much mystic literature, some of it held to be divinely inspired, was contributed by nuns. The convent of Helfta near Eisleben was a center of this activity, and in this convent four women, the Abbess Gertrude' her sister Saint Matilda of Hackeborn, the beguine Matilda of Magdeburg, and Gertrud the Great (qq.v.) were conspicuous. Their writings were characterized by great elevation, impassioned fervor, intense realism, and high inspiration. The beguine Matilda (who joined the convent later) was one of the earliest writers in German. Her work, " The Flowing Light of Divinity," in seven books has been republished (ed. G. Morel, Regensburg, 1869, and selected passages in Germ. transl. by S. Simon, Berlin, 1907). It is a serious inquiry into the nature of the soul and its relation to God, and it paved the way for more rational views than had prevailed in the earlier mysticism. Matilda of Hackeborn's "Book of Special Grace" (best ed., by the Benedictines of Solesmes, Revelationes Gertrudis ac Mathildiance, ii. 1-421, Paris, 1877), a series of visions and revelations, often translated and frequently reprinted, was notable in that class of literature which had its culmination in Dante.

The abuses which unquestionably sullied monastic life in the centuries preceding the Reformation were in large part attributable to concentration of interest upon the care of the individual 3. Decline soul-the effort to attain personal in Culture. sanctity by prayer, fasting, and later by discipline. Moral disorders ultimately resulted from this ideal. Education was maintained, but its scope was narrowed, its chief purpose being to fit the young for cloistered life. Still, intellectual pursuits were cherished in some German nunneries even into the fifteenth century. But a growing indifference to the intellectual occupations of women and the education of girls was evident, and the Humanists of the period, in their far-reaching plans for an improved system of education, left girls entirely out of account. The development of Universities (q.v.) (in which the existence of women was ignored) resulted in a serious lowering of the educational standard of the convent. The separation of the sexes and the stricter confinement of women, in the interests of morality, cut off the nuns from secular learning and from those public interests in which they had formerly been active. Thus the high ideals with which woman's service had been claimed and rendered in the early days became entirely obscured. Later monasticism was unable to make the lavished treasures of woman's love and self-sacrifice useful to the world, and woman lost her practical place in the service of the Church.

The decline of monasticism was inevitable so soon as the idea that virginity was in itself pleasing

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to God ceased to be in the foreground of moral consciousness. The persuasion that the vocation of women was the home was in part the effect and in part the cause of the decline in female education. This idea agreed with the views of Protestant Reformers, and prepared the way for the dissolution of nunneries. To this important revolution the growing change in social ideas, the decline of the system of association not only in religious but in artizan and commercial life, with the development of individualistic tendencies, contributed quite as much as the disorders of the monasteries and their failure to serve the public need.

Before the Reformation women had been conspicuous in attempts to reform or to preserve the purity of the Church. Toward the close of the sixth century Theodolinda, queen of the Lombards, extirpated the Arian heresy from her 4. Women realm. In the eleventh century Marin Reform. garet, patroness of Scotland, wife of Malcolm Conmore, instituted important reforms in the church of that country. St. Catharine of Sienna (q.v.) in the fourteenth century was not only hospital nurse, prophetess, preacher, and reformer of society, but did much to reform ecclesiastical abuses. In the sixteenth century St. Theresa (q.v.) wrought a remarkable reformation in the Carmelite monasteries and convents of Spain. It was largely due to her reforming work within the Roman Catholic Church that the progress of Protestantism was arrested in Spain. In the seventeenth century Angelique Arnauld's attempt at Port Royal to reform abuses in the monastic system, though rejected by the Roman Church, and without ultimate success, gives her a high place among women. The dissolution of religious houses had led to the formation of the great hospitals in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They were preceded by many small confraternities for the care of the sick. Such were found in nearly every village in Germany; they were always religious-lay hospitals did not exist until long after this. In them, as in the earlier monasteries, men and women worked together, though they communicated only for the needs of the service. The Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul (q.v.) more nearly resemble a modern church society than any previous form of benevolent activity in the Church. Under the direction of St. Francis de Sales (q.v.), his friend Mme. de Chantal founded the first Order of Visiting Nurses and herself acted in that capacity. Rosa Gavona, a Sardinian needlewoman, built up a society of young and unprotected needlewomen, which spread into many towns: The members take no vows, but support not only themselves, but the sick and infirm of their order. Marie Agnesi of Milan, rich and noble, a celebrated mathematician and theologian, and the recipient of many public honors, founded a hospital in her own house. With the reforms which were the reflex influence of Protestantism upon the Roman Catholic Church, new associations of women came into being, not so free as the early hospital and other associations, yet not strictly cloistered. See Magdalene, Orders of St. Mary.

111. andet Protestantism: The development of the sense of individuality which was the special contribution of Protestantism did not restore woman to her early position of usefulness in the Reformation churches. Unlike Romaniam, the x. Early Reformed Church found no sphere for Examples the activities of uneducated women, of Service. and the lowered educational standards and opportunities conspired with the growing conviction that woman's sphere is properly domestic to close against her for two hundred years the door of activity. Yet there were noble exceptions. Katherine Zell of Strasburg stood with her husband for toleration, Argula von Grumbaeh held her own as a controversialist, and by a letter which she wrote to Luther turned his thought to matrimony. Luther's brave wife, Katherine von Bora, was an important factor in his reforming work. In France Queen Marguerite of Navarre (q.v.), the friend of Calvin, her sister, Renee of France (q.v.), her daughter, Jeanne d'Albret (q.v.), mother of Henri IV., were nursing mothers of Protestantism. Charlotte de Laval persuaded her husband, Admiral Coligny, to take up the sword for the Protestant faith. In England Queen Catherine Parr, Lady Jane Grey, Elizabeth herself, served the Protestant cause. Anne Clifford, countess of Pembroke (1590-1676), rebuilt churches, pensioned distressed clergymen, admitting dissenting ministers to the bounty, repaired and restored almshouses, and built a hospital for poor women. Jane Welsh, daughter of John Knox and ancestress of Mrs. Carlyle, stood nobly for the Protestant faith. The rise of Quakerism made women prominent. Judge Fells widow, Margaret, the wife of George Fox, William Penn's first wife, Gulielina Springett, Mary Dyer the martyr, and many others preached the doctrine of the "inward light." Friendly patrons were Lady Claypole, also connected with the Cambridge Platonists (q.v.), and Elizabeth, abbess of Herford, who welcomed Penn, and who was attached to the Labbadist party of Holland (see Labadie, Jean de, Labadists). The great ornament of that party was Anna Maria van Schurman, accounted the moat learned and accomplished woman of her age. The cause of religion in the eighteenth century owes a great debt to Susannah Wesley (q.v.), the mother of the Wesleys, and to Lady Huntingdon (see Huntingdon, Selina Hastings), the foster mother of ministers during the evangelical revival, in which Miss Anne Steele, the hymn-writer, had a part. Margaret Baxter, who shared her husband's prison in the common jail, was a woman of large charities, as was Lady Rachel Russell. Hannah More (q.v.) carried on a large work of free education of the poor. With her pen and influence she rendered important aid to Wilberforce in his crusade against slavery, and also instituted an important temperance work among country clergy and farmers. The mystic Jane Lead (q.v.) was the English founder of the Philadelphian Society for the dissemination of the ideas of Jakob Boehme and her own revealings. From one branch of this society came Ann Lee; founder of Shakeriam in America. Jemima Wilkinson in this century founded the White Quakers. The Pietist movement in Germany shows the prophetess Eleanora von Merlau, and Frau Peterson, who shared her husband's literary toil in defense of

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Woodrow inward religion and universal salvation. Amalie Sieveking, a wealthy woman, broke new ground in dealing with the poor. She was the first exponent of the modern doctrine, "not alma but a friend," founding the society of "the Friends of the Poor" for systematic visiting in homes to relieve distress in all ways except by money. Beats Sturmin, " the Tabitha of Württemberg," and a woman of great devotion, exerted an unusual influence. Dorothea Trudel, a Swiss woman, began the " Faith Cure movement." But in spiritual power no woman of the eighteenth century can compare with Sarah Pierrepont, the wife of Jonathan Edwards and mother of a long line of notables in American church history. The divisions of Protestantism prevented that large cooperation in good work which the requirements and the growing social consciousness of the nineteenth century rendered necessary, z. Later and therefore many of the noblest or Philan- ganizations founded or participated in thropic by Protestant women of the past hun Work. dyed years have been distinctly outside of the Church. The prison reforms of Elizabeth Fry (q.v.), the army and hospital reforms of Florence Nightingale, the German Frauenverein founded by three women in 1813 to care for the wounded in the field whether friend or foe (now with auxiliaries all over the German empire), the Sanitary Commission of the American Civil War, the States Charities Aid Association, the Young Women's Christian Association (see Young People's Societies), the Women's Christian Temper ance Union, the Needlework Gild, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the Consu mers' League, the National Association of Mothers, Working Girls' Clubs, all of them religious services and all due to woman's initiative, belong in this category. To the individual initiative of Protes tant women is due much religious work of far-reaching importance, yet not in any sense "in the Church." About 1863, Mrs. Daniell, an officer's widow, made at Aldershot, England, the first at tempt to teach soldiers the blessings of religion. The work of Miss Sarah Robinson among soldiers resulted in the founding of the Soldiers' Institute, in 1874, and of an important work in the troop ships. Miss Marsh carried on effective work among navvies, and especially among the workmen on the Crystal Palace, in Sydenham. Josephine E. Butler founded first in England and then on the continent the most efficient and far-sighted work for outcast women ever instituted. Agnes Weston, the sailors' friend, has founded sailors' rests and homes all over the world. She also founded the Royal Naval Temperance Society. Countess Schimmelman carries on a large work for sailors. In the later field of Christian benevolence the names of Dora Patti son, Octavia Hill, and Ellice Hopkins are conspicu ous among many. The work of Mrs. Nassau Senior, first female inspector of workhouses in England, is truly a religious service. Mrs. Senior has done more for servants than any one else in our time. Mrs. MacPherson in 1870 instituted the work of sending friendless children to the colonies. The di rect services of women to the Church have, how- ever, not been few. Baroness Burdett-Coutta founded and endowed the three colonial bishoprics of Natal, British Columbia, and Adelaide, and opened many schools. Catherine Booth (q.v.) opened a great door of opportunity through which women of small education have been admitted to work side by aide with women of fine attainments. When she died, the number of women officers of the Salvation Army exceeded 5,000, and of Halleluiah lassies the number was in the tens of thousands. Mrs. Ballington Booth, a woman of rare eloquence, is one of the founders of the Volunteers of America (q.v.) and the founder of the Prison Gate Mission of America. Mrs. Meredith, of England, who was the first to advocate cottage homes for children, was, with Mrs. Pennefether, the moving spirit of the Mildmay mission.

In the Church of England and later in churches in the United States the movement toward denominational sisterhoods (see Deaconess) and associations of women and girls is rapidly growing. The

Wesleyan Methodists have an order of

3. Sisterhoods

Sisters of the Poor. The Church of , England has twenty-nine sisterhoods Education, devoted to helping girls, church work,

Missions. etc. The Order of St. Margaret's,

London, has founded a colored sisterhood in Baltimore. Mrs. Hugh Price Hughes of London has introduced some varieties of the sisterhood idea. Mary Aikenhead introduced into Ireland the Sifters of Charity, Catherine Elizabeth McAuley (q.v.) the Sisters of Mercy (see Mercy, Sisters of). From the Sisterhood of All Saints, founded in England about 1857, came Helen Bowden, Sister Helen, who founded Bellevue Hospital Training School for Nurses. The Girls' Friendly Society, founded in 1875 in England by Mrs. M. G. Townsend, to bring together Christian ladies and working girls, was introduced into this country by Mrs. Owen Thomas. The Girls' Letter Gild, to bring cultured Christian women into correspondence with working girls, founded in England in 1889, was introduced into America in 1892 by Miss F. Wadleigh. Movements analogous to these of the Anglican communion are now taking form in other denominations. The order of The King's Daughters, founded in 1886 by Mrs. Margaret Bottoms (see Young People's Societies, IV.) has spread into all countries where Protestant churches are found. The rise of Sunday-schools (q.v.) opened a wide field for women's service in the Church, a field of increasing usefulness now that the importance of special training for this work is being recognized. It is hardly more than a century since the right and the necessity of the higher. education for womenunquestioned in the early Church, and the secret of much of its usefulness-became recognized by modern civilization. In no sense due to the Church, yet to Christian women it is due that that right has again been won. The name of Mary Lyon stands first among these women, and by her side must stand the names of Emma Willard and Alice Freeman Palmer. Elizabeth Blackwell and Alice Jex Blake opened the doors of the medical profession to women, with all that this involves of blessing upon the mission field. The rise of modern missions had already

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opened to women a sphere of growing importance. The names of Harriet Newell, of Ann Hasseltine Judson, Emily Chubbock Judson, Fidelia Flake, Eliza Everett, of the English Anne and Alice Maokenzie, and of A. L. 0. E. (i.e., A Lady of England), Miss Charlotte Tucker (aunt of the Salvation Army officer, Booth-Tucker), whose pen did much to interest England in the evangelization of India, mark the first half of the century. In 1834 a little company of Englishwomen formed the Society for Promoting Female Education in the East. Fidelia Fiske introduced girls' schools into Persia; Sarah L. Huntington, the first wife of Dr. Eli Smith, first taught Syrian women to read. In 1860 Mrs. Bowen Thompson founded the British Syrian Schools. In 1862 Lady Kinnaird organized the India Female Normal School and Instruction Society, out of which sprang the Church of England Zenana Missionary Society, and the Zenana Bible and Medical Mission. Pandita Ramabai (q.v.) of India has done a remarkable work for Hindu widows. Mrs. Anna Satthianadhan in 1863 began zenana work in Madras. Her daughter-in-law, Mrs. S. (Krupabai) Satthianadhan, has rendered effective missionary service with her pen. Up to 1880 the idea of unmarried women in the mission field was coldly received notwithstanding some brilliant examples of such service, but in 1894 there were about 1,000 more women than men in mission work. Geraldine Guinness (Mrs. Howard Taylor, of the China Inland Mission) has done much to arouse missionary interest and consecration among the women of England and America.

The initiative in womanrs medical missions was taken by Mrs. Sarah J. Hale of Philadelphia about 1838, but a long struggle was involved to complete the movement. The first woman medical missionary was Dr. Swain, who went to India in 1870; the names of Dr. Mary Niles in China, Dr. Mary Patrick in Turkey, Dr. Mary P. Eddy in Syria, are conspicuous.

In 1860 Mrs. Anna Mason of Assam, coming home on furlough, inspired Mrs. Caroline Doremus with the thought of organizing women for mission work. In 1861 Mrs. Doremus formed the Woman's Union Missionary Society. Denominational women's missionary societies came later. The contributions of all these in twenty-eight years aggregated $13,500,000. For Home Missions (q.v.) in the United States between 1876 and 1893 seventeen women's societies were formed. The names of Sue MacBeth and Alice Fletcher among Indians, of Joanna Moore among negroes, and of Emilia Brewer among the poor whites of the South may be mentioned among hundreds of heroic workers.

The rapid development of the principles of church federation permitting concerted action between women of all denominations will surely result in bringing back to strengthen the Church many of those feminine activities which are truly Christian, though by the necessities of the case not now in the Church.

Louise Seymour Houghton.

Bibliography: Besides the literature under Deaconess, consult: H. Grégoire, De finftuence du christianisme Bur la condition des femmes, Paris, 1821; J. Kavanagh, Women of Christianity, Exemplary for Piety and Charity, new ed., London, 1859; W. Landels, Woman's Sphere and Work Considered in the Light of Scripture, 7th ed., ib. 1866; C. E. Stephen, The Sersice.of the Poor, ib. 1871; W. Welsh, Women Helpers in the Church, their Sayings and Doings, Philadelphia, 1872; H. C. G. Moale, Public Ministry of Women, London, 1892; Barons Burdett=Coutts,,Woman's Mission, New York, 1893; W de L. Love, St. Paul and Woman, ib. 1894; Lina Eckenstein, Woman under Monasticism, Cambridge, 1896; E. Modelsohn, Die Frauen des Alters Testaments . . . des Nguen Testaments, 2.vols., Mülheim, 1903-06; E. F. von der Golts, Der Dienat der Frau in der christlichen Kirche, Potsdam, 1905; J. Donaldson, Woman; her Position and Influence in Ancient Greece and Rome, and among the Early Christians, London, 1907; H. Merz, Christliche Frauen bilder, 6th ed., Stuttgart; 1907; L. Sticker, Die Frau in der alters Kirche, Tübingen, 1907; F. Wilke, Das Prauenideal und die Schatzung des WeibeB im Alters Testament, Leipsic, 1907; F. Hardson, Realities and Ideals Social, Political, Literary and Artistic, New York, 1908; M. LShr, Die Stellung des Weibes zu .lahwe-Religion u nd Kult, Leipsic 1908; A. D. Sertillanges, Feminisme et Christianisme, Paris, 1908; J. Apolant, Stellung and Mitarbeit der Frau in der Gemeinde, Leipsic, 1910; S. Coit, Woman in Church and State, London, 1910; J. W. von Walter, Frauenlos and Frauenarbeit in der Geschichte des Christentums, Leip sic, 1911; C. L. Brace, Gesta Christi, chap. xi., new issue, London and New York, 1911; G. Bhumer, Die Frau und das geistige Leben, Leipsic, 1911.