Finally she determined to spend some months at Kaiserwerth, near
Dusseldorf, on the Rhine, in Pastor Fliedner's great Lutheran
hospital. He had been a poor clergyman, the leader of a scanty flock,
whose church was badly in debt. A man of much enterprise and warm
heart, he could not see his work fail for lack of means; so he set
out among the provinces, to tell the needs of his little parish.
He collected funds, learned much about the poverty and ignorance
of cities, preached in some of the prisons, because interested in
criminals, and went back to his loyal people.

But so poor were they that they could not meet the yearly expenses, so
he determined to raise an endowment fund. He visited Holland and Great
Britain, and secured the needed money.

In England, in 1832, he became acquainted with Elizabeth Fry. How one
good life influences another to the end of time! When he went back to
Germany his heart was aglow with a desire to help humanity.

He at once opened an asylum for discharged prison-women. He saw how
almost impossible it was for those who had been in prison to obtain
situations. Then he opened a school for the children of such as worked
in factories, for he realized how unfit for citizenship are those who
grow up in ignorance. He did not have much money, but he seemed able
to obtain what he really needed. Then he opened a hospital; a home for
insane women; a home of rest for his nurses, or for those who needed
a place to live after their work was done. Soon the "Deaconesses" at
Kaiserwerth became known the country over. Among the wildest Norwegian
mountains we met some of these Kaiserwerth nurses, refined, educated
ladies, getting in summer a new lease of life for their noble labors.

This Protestant sisterhood consists now of about seven hundred
sisters, at about two hundred stations, the annual expense being about
$150,000. What a grand work for one man, with no money, the pastor of
a very humble church!

Into this work of Pastor Fliedner, Florence Nightingale heartily
entered. Was it strange taste for a pretty and wealthy young woman,
whose life had been one of sunshine and happiness? It was a saintlike
taste, and the world is rendered a little like Paradise by the
presence of such women. Back in London the papers were full of
the great exhibition of 1851, but she was more interested in her
Kaiserwerth work than to be at home. When she had finished her course
of instruction, Pastor Fliedner said, sinc