iversary of the founding of
the Hamburg house, at which time six sisters were set apart to their
life calling by a service of consecration. As in all places where our
deaconesses are employed, so also in Hamburg their influence is felt in
the increase of religious life among the families they serve.

In Berlin, again, there is an imperative call for enlarged house
accommodations, and more sisters are needed to meet the requests for
help that are constantly coming to them. As the report expresses it,
"Something must happen!"[49] After six years of activity in Berlin the
deaconesses find themselves well appreciated, and with a broad field of
labor. The city authorities gave them permission to take a house
collection during the months of February and March. One of the German
ministers said, "This is an unusual favor, only granted in exceptional
cases, as when a village is swept away, or there is an inundation, or a
failure of harvests." This collection was no easy task. In the depth of
winter, in rigorous cold and snow the sisters had to climb weary flights
of stairs, in houses four and five stories high, arranged in flats; to
knock at many doors, often meeting with but slight success or a positive
refusal; yet daily they went with fresh courage to their work,
encouraged by the thought that they were toiling not for themselves, but
to serve the needy, "for Jesus' sake." The collection resulted in
obtaining nearly twenty thousand marks, to which has been added the loan
of a larger sum at a small rate of interest, so that there is good
prospect of soon obtaining a permanent home as the property of the
deaconess society.

St. Gall is one of the newer stations, but from the beginning it has
been a work of promise. In this old center of missionary operations,
where Irish missionaries founded one of the most famous monasteries of
mediaeval times, is now to be erected a hospital under the care of
Methodist deaconesses, who have already begun to collect means for this
purpose. In Scheffel's famous story of _Ekkehard_ the only way in which
the Duchess Hadwig could enter the monastery of St. Gall (as there was a
law that no woman should set her foot upon the threshold) was by the
ingenious device of a young monk, who lifted her over in his arms. These
peaceful women of Methodism are finding no obstacle now as did Hadwig of
old; they do not need even figuratively to be lifted over the entering
threshold; they are gladly welcomed, an