at impress every one who
has knowledge of it.

Whenever we find a good cause carried on successfully and prosperously,
we know that behind it there must be a strong man or woman who has
"thought and wrought" to good purpose. So the first question that arises
in the mind of the visitor who for the first time forms one of the
audience in the great Conference Hall, or looks about in the adjoining
building to see the deaconess home, is, "Who first thought this out? Who
was the founder of this wonderful mission?" And the answer tells us
that Mildmay originated, as did Kaiserswerth, in the prayerful
determination of a Christian minister and his wife to reach out to every
good end that God's spirit of enlightenment could suggest to them. Rev.
William Pennefather was rector of Christ's Church at Barnet, and while
devoted to his ministerial duties his sympathies did not end with his
own people, nor his own denomination. His home was sometimes called the
"Missing Link," for it was a meeting-place for noblemen and farmers,
bishops and clergymen of all churches; a place "where nationalities and
denominations were easily merged in the broad sunshine of Christian
love."[65] He carried his principle of Christian fellowship further,
for, after mature deliberation, in 1856, he issued a call for a
conference to be held at Barnet whose object was "to bring into closer
social communion the members of various Churches, as children of the one
Father, animated by the same life, and heirs together of the same
glory."[66] These conferences have been continued from then to the
present time, and are known and prized in many lands. I was present at
the conference of 1888, and representatives were there from nearly
every Protestant country, while on the platform were leaders of nearly
every Protestant denomination, furnishing a wonderful illustration of
the union of the Christian Church in Christ; a spiritual union so real
and eternal that the minor differences of faith were swallowed up in the
great fact that in Christ Jesus all are one.

Gradually a variety of missionary and evangelistic agencies grew up
about the conferences. In 1860 the little Home was opened at Barnet
which subsequently developed into the deaconess house at Mildmay Park.
The question of calling into more active exercise the energies of
educated Christian women, as we have seen in the preceding chapter, was
one that was attracting attention at the time in England. Mr. and Mrs.