The rules for probationers are full of practical suggestions touching the details of daily life. There is not space to transcribe them here, but those who have charge of training schools will find them valuable reading. Every kind of house and hospital service is clearly defined. The deaconesses are instructed what duties are theirs in hospitals for women and in hospitals for men. In the latter the sister undertakes only such nursing as is suited to her sex, and for that reason she has a male assistant. She must follow strictly the doctor's orders in all matters pertaining to diet, medicine, and ventilation, and must inform him daily of the patient's state. She also assists the clergyman, if desired, in ministering to spiritual needs. But she must not obtrude her religion, when it is distasteful to her patients; rather manifest it in her deeds and manner of life. Every portion of the day has definite duties assigned to it. On reading them over you say, Can much be accomplished when the hours are subdivided into so many portions, and given over to so many objects? But the unvarying testimony is that no nurses accomplish more than the German deaconesses. No matter how busy they may be, the effort is made for each to have a quiet half hour for meditation and private devotion. Every afternoon the chapel is opened for this purpose, and all the sisters who can be spared meet here. A hymn is sung, and afterward each spends the time as she will in meditation, reading the Bible or silent prayer, the quietness and stillness being unbroken by words. The "Stille halbe Stunde," as it is called, is greatly prized by the sisters, and is observed by them in all their institutions, and in all lands. There are Bible-classes and prayer-meetings for the deaconesses during the week, and the first Sunday of every month there is a special service of prayer and thanksgiving for all sisters, all the affiliated houses, and similar homes wherever they exist. Fliedner prepared a book of daily Bible readings for the use of the sisters, and a hymn-book, used in all the Kaiserswerth institutions at home and abroad. "We have no vows," he said, "and I will have no vows, but a bond of union we must have, and the best bond is the word of God, and our second bond is singing."[37] The sisters of each house meet together to give their votes for the admission of new deaconesses and the election of the superintendents. Each deaconess is expected to obey those who are placed over her, and to accept the kind of work assigned her, except in the case of contagious diseases, when her permission is asked. What a tribute it is to these women that such a refusal has never yet been known! Every effort is made to harmonize the right of the individual with the needs of the whole body, a marked characteristic of the Protestant sisters of charity.