s cared for by the deaconesses.
There is more of ceremony and formality in the English deaconess
institutions which are under the direction of the Church of England. At
Salisbury, for instance, the candidate must reside in the home for three
months, that her ability and efficiency may be tested. If accepted, she
then puts on a gray serge habit, a leathern girdle, white cap, black
bonnet, the veil and cloak of a probationer, and is admitted to the
"degree" of a probationer at a special service. The year of probation
having come to an end, she is again presented to the bishop, and is set
apart as a deaconess by the laying on of hands. This time the habit is
changed from gray to blue, and a black ebony cross, with one of gold
inlaid, is hung upon her neck.[61]

This is very different from the way in which Fliedner regarded the dress
and adornment of the deaconesses for whom he was responsible. The king
of Prussia desired to present them with a small silver cross as their
badge of service, but the simple-hearted German pastor dissuaded him,
saying that the deaconesses needed no ornament save a meek and quiet
spirit, and they must avoid symbols which would suggest Romish
imitations.

The Strasburg deaconesses also at first wore a small cross, but Pastor
Haerter discontinued it when he found that the wearing of it gave
occasion for complaint.

Yet however we may differ in the lesser details, of garb, of rules, and
of ceremonies, from those accepted by some of the Church of England
deaconess institutions, we can give unstinted admiration to the lives of
self-denial, and active, unceasing efforts in behalf of others, that we
see among their numbers. Take, for instance, the little publication _The
Deaconess_, issued by the East London Home, and notice the undertakings
carried on by the members--district-visiting, nursing of the sick,
mothers' meetings, Sunday-school teaching, Bible classes, and all the
multitudinous ways of meeting the squalor, poverty, ignorance, sickness,
and sin of the poor of the east of London. There is no poetic enthusiasm
that strengthens one for such work, the dirt, the degradation, the
forlorn condition are so trying. The little children so precociously
wicked, so preternaturally cunning, that the natural charm and
attraction of childhood have wholly disappeared; the sights and sounds
that assail the senses; the dulled, hopeless faces, the apathy, the
stunted intellectual growth--these are the depres