ll good things." I remember, too, the gracious patience with which,
during one of the crowded days of the last conference, Miss
Coventry, the superintendent, spent a long hour with us, answering
fully and minutely the many questions which we put when trying to
supplement our want of knowledge by her long experience. Indeed, the
spirit of Mildmay impressed me as generous and helpful; as has been
said, "Over the whole house rules the spirit of love, devotion, and
prayer."*

* "Deaconess Work in England," _The Churchman_, May 12, 1888.

The second question is more easy of response. There is a probation
house, where ladies that present themselves as candidates are received
for a month, and are given work in teaching orphan children, or go out
to the city missions and the night-schools under the care of a
deaconess. If the probation has proved satisfactory the candidate enters
the training-school called "the Willows," a mile or two from the Central
House, a pleasant home which about three years ago came into the
possession of the institution and the inmates of the school, formerly
accommodated in five small houses, are now gathered, at slightly greater
expense, under one roof in the larger, pleasanter home. The following
extracts, taken from a little circular called "A Missionary
Training-school," will give us a good idea of the life of the embryo
deaconesses, and the instruction, practical and theoretical, that they
receive. "The house, which lies a little back from the road, is entered
through a conservatory passage, and on the other side of the spacious
hall, with its illuminated motto, 'Peace be to this house,' above the
fireplace, are the lady superintendent's sitting-room and the large
dining-room, where, on the day when I visited 'the Willows,' about
thirty of us sat down to dinner. Several others were absent in
connection with their medical studies. Both these rooms open on a
terrace, and beyond stretches a garden which, even in lifeless
winter-time, looked inviting, and, in its spring beauty and summer
loveliness, must be in itself a training for the young natures which are
learning in the slums of Bethnal Green and Hoxton their hard
acquaintance with sin and sorrow. Perhaps in these days of strain and
toil too little has been thought of the need of young hearts for some
gentle relief from the first shock of meeting with the evil with which
older workers have a mournful familiari