Transcribed from the 1864 Rivingtons edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org [Picture: Pamphlet cover] AN ADDRESS TO THE SISTERS OF ST. PETER’S HOME, BROMPTON, FOUNDED FOR THE RECEPTION OF CONVALESCENT WOMEN OF GOOD CHARACTER TILL THE COMPLETION OF THEIR RECOVERY: DELIVERED ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDATION, JUNE 30, 1864. BY EDWARD MEYRICK GOULBURN, D.D. PREBENDARY OF ST. PAUL’S, CHAPLAIN OF THE BISHOP OF OXFORD, AND ONE OF HER MAJESTY’S CHAPLAINS IN ORDINARY. * * * * * LONDON; RIVINGTONS, WATERLOO PLACE: AND HIGH STREET, OXFORD. 1864. * * * * * LONDON: GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, PRINTERS, ST. JOHN’S SQUARE. * * * * * TO THE RIGHT HON. AND RIGHT REVEREND ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL, LORD BISHOP OF LONDON, THE VISITOR OF ST. PETER’S HOME, THESE PAGES ARE BY HIS KIND PERMISSION INSCRIBED. INTRODUCTION. AMONG the many signs of the vitality of the English Church, which every dutiful son of hers will hail with joy, are the various organizations of the Work of Women which have recently sprung up amongst us, the Institution of Deaconesses, the employment of Parochial Mission Women, and the foundation of Sisterhoods. It is a mistake surely to look coldly upon such movements, because they assume (what to our generation is) a somewhat novel form. There ought to be in every living Church a plastic power, which adapts its machinery to the wants of the age, and to the ever-varying shapes which Society is taking; and we rejoice to find in our own Church evidences of this power. Enthusiasms many and fervent are rising up in her, and driving her members to these new agencies, which should not be regarded with suspicion because they are new, but rather tried fairly, and guided discreetly, and watched vigilantly.