In the Minutes of the General Assembly for 1884, page 114, and of 1888, page 640, we find an overture asking if the education of deaconesses is consistent with Presbyterian polity, and, if so, should they be ordained, answered in the negative in the following words: "_The Form of Government_ declares that in all cases the persons elected [deacons] must be male members. (Chap. 13. 2.) In all ages of the Church godly women have been appointed to aid the officers of the Church in their labors, especially for the relief of the poor and the infirm. They rendered important service in the Apostolic Church, but they do not appear to have occupied a separate office, to have been elected by the people, to have been ordained or installed. There is nothing in our constitution, in the practice of our Church, or in any present emergency, to justify the creation of a new office." The next year an explanation of this action, which so obviously contradicts the facts of history, was asked, but the committee declined to say any thing more. The Southern Presbyterian Church has proceeded further, and in the direction of the female diaconate, as it is characterized in its main features wherever it has existed, when it declares in its _Book of Church Order_, adopted in 1879, that "where it shall appear needful, the church session may select and appoint godly women for the care of the sick, of prisoners, of poor widows and orphans, and, in general, in the relief of the sick."[86] In isolated Presbyterian congregations deaconesses have already obtained recognition. At the Pan-Presbyterian Council, held in Philadelphia in 1880, Fritz Fliedner, the son of Dr. Theodor Fliedner, was present as a member, and through the influence of his words the Corinthian Avenue Presbyterian Church set apart five deaconesses, whose duty it should be to care for the poor and sick belonging to the congregation. "More recently the Third Presbyterian Church of Los Angeles, Cal., empowered its three deacons to choose three women from the congregation to co-operate with them in their work, granting them seats and votes in the board's monthly meeting."[87]