but reside at
their own homes. This is a valuable feature of this mission, as it
interests ladies who are living in their own homes, and yet who can be
very useful to those who devote their whole work to the sisters' labor.
In the Report a great many instances are given which show what an
intimate knowledge of the poor people is obtained by these sisters, and
in what practical ways they minister to the bodily and spiritual needs
of those whom they find in their house-to-house visitations. The term
"sister," as it is used in the report of the London West Central
Mission, is in all respects a synonym for "deaconess," as the name is
understood in the large deaconess establishment at Mildmay. To the study
of this we shall devote the following chapter.

[52] Daniel Neal's _History of the Puritans_, London, 1703, vol. i,
pp. 344-346.
[53] _Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers of the Colony of Plymouth,
from 1602 to 1625._ By Alex. Young. Second edition. Boston:
C. E. Little & J. Brown, 1844, pp. 455, 456.
[54] Schaefer, _Die Weibliche Diakonie_, vol. i, p. 207.
[55] _The Royal Guide to London Churches_ for 1866, 1867. By Herbert
Fry, p. 162.
[56] _Official Year-book of the Church of England_, 1889.
[57] _Andover Review_, June, 1888, art., "European Deaconesses,"
p. 578.
[58] _Deaconesses in the Church of England._ Griffith & Farran:
London, 1880, p. 22.
[59] _Official Year-book of the Church of England_, 1889.
[60] _Armen und Kranken Freund_, October, 1888.
[61] "Deaconess Work in England," _The Churchman_, May 19, 1888.
[62] I am indebted to the kindness of the Rt. Rev. the Bishop of
Wakefield for these numbers, upon whom the mantle of Dean Howson
seems to have fallen in caring for the deaconess cause.
[63] _London Diocesan Deaconess District Services._
[64] _First Annual Report of the London West Central Mission_,
pp. 14-42.

CHAPTER XI.

MILDMAY INSTITUTIONS.

Valuable suggestions will be obtained from the study of every successful
deaconess institution, and none will perhaps furnish more practical
models for American Methodism than does the establishment at Mildmay
Park in North London. Its methods of work are flexible, and allow place
for a diversity of talent among the workers, while a wide variety of
charitable and evangelistic effort is undertaken. These two causes give
a breadth and vigor to the work at Mildmay th