in 1870, one for every 2,004; in 1880, one for every 2,468; and the religious history of Chicago is even more noteworthy in this respect: Chicago had in 1840 one church for every 747 of its population; in 1851 there was one for every 1,009; in 1862, one for every 1,301; in 1870, one for 1,593; in 1880, one for 2,081; in 1885, one for 2,254. All the large cities have districts which are destitute of church accommodations, and have not seats in Sunday-school for more than one tenth of their children."[94] Have we not as great need of deaconesses as any of the cities of the Old World? Most of our pastors stand alone. They do not have the assistant curates and pastors that are connected with large city churches in Berlin and London. When the minister makes pastoral calls, and, entering working-men's homes, finds sickness and scanty resources, he has no deaconess to call to his aid with her cheerful words of encouragement and her loving sympathy, that are better than money and medicine. It is not charity alone that is wanted in such cases; it is the knowledge of how to use proper means to make the sick one comfortable, how to lessen the burden on the family that a small additional call for work and care has so sadly taxed; how to enlighten the ignorance that is so common without wounding the susceptibilities that are so human. For, to quote the words of the Christ in the _Vision of Sir Launfal_: "Not what we give, but what we share, For the gift without the giver is bare; Who gives himself with his alms feeds three:-- Himself, his hungry neighbor, and Me." It is for such ministrations that we need deaconesses in every evangelical church of the United States; may the women that are ready to "publish the tidings" be "a great host." [90] _Der Diakonissenberuf nach seiner Vergangenheit und Gegenwart._ Emil Wacker, Guetersloh, 1888, p. 196. [91] McClintock and Strong's _Cyclopedia_, vol. iv, art. "Hospitals." The editors give as authority for this statement, Augustine, _De Civit. Dei_, i, xxii, c. 8. [92] Theodor Fliedner, _Kurzer Abriss seines Lebens_. Kaiserswerth, 1886, p. 60. [93] _The Bitter Cry of Outcast London_, pp. 3-10. [94] _Modern Cities_, by S. L. Loomis, New York, 1887, pp. 88, 89. CHAPTER XV. OBJECTIONS MET AND SUGGESTIONS OFFERED. "Success and glory are the children of hard work and God's favor," is the inscription upon the tablet erected in Christ's Hospital, London, to the memory of Sir Henry Maine.