In the Diocese of Long Island Bishop Littlejohn instituted an association of deaconesses by publicly admitting six women to the office of deaconess in St. Mary's Church, Brooklyn, February 11, 1872. The association has not continued in the form in which it originated, but has now changed into the Sisterhood of St. John the Evangelist. Still this sisterhood retains many of the distinctive deaconess features. A sister may, for instance, withdraw from the sisterhood for proper cause. She labors without remuneration, and the sisters live together in a home, or singly, as they may please, in any place where their work is located. In the Diocese of Western New York there are five deaconesses, with their associates and helpers, under the direction of the bishop of the diocese. In America, however, as in England, within the Episcopal Church sisterhoods are more influential and more rapid in their growth than are deaconess institutions. In a list of the sisterhoods of the Episcopal Church in America, given in the monthly magazine devoted to women's work in the Church,[85] fourteen sisterhoods are named, one religious order of widows, and two orders of deaconesses, one of which is that which is now changed into the Sisterhood of St. John the Evangelist. In 1871 the Board of Missions of the Protestant Episcopal Church discussed at some length the relation of women's work to the Church, and there resulted increased interest in the subject of sisterhoods and deaconess institutions. An effort has been made to obtain for the order of deaconesses a wider recognition than it now enjoys, as it simply has the support of the bishop within whose diocese the deaconesses are at work. To this end, in the General Convention of 1880, a canon was presented to the House of Bishops, and accepted by a large vote. But it reached the Lower House too late for consideration, and no further action has been taken since that time. In the Presbyterian Church of America the question of the revival of the office of deaconess has already claimed some attention. The late Dr. A. T. McGill for many successive years earnestly recommended the revival of the office to the members of his classes in the theological seminary at Princeton; and his views, matured by years of reflection, were given for publication in an article published in the _Presbyterian Review_, 1880.