From a very early period women were admitted to this employment;[7.10] and, as in these days, they were called "sisters."[7.11] At first they were widows;[7.12] but later, virgins were preferred for this office.[7.13] Admirable tact was shown by the Church in this movement. These good and simple men, with that profound science which comes from the heart, laid the basis of that grand system of charity which is the peculiar merit of Christianity. They had no precedent for such an institution. A vast system of benevolence and of reciprocal aid, to which the two sexes brought their diverse qualities, and lent their united efforts for the relief of human misery, was the holy creation which resulted from the travail of these two or three first years--the most prolific years in the history of Christianity. It is certain that the vital thoughts of Jesus filled the souls of His disciples and directed all their acts. Justice, indeed, demands that to Jesus should be referred the honor of all the great deeds of His apostles. It is probable that during His life He laid the foundations of those establishments which were successfully developed so soon after His death. Women, naturally, were attracted towards a community where the weak were so cordially protected. Their position in society had previously been humble and precarious; widows, particularly, notwithstanding several protecting laws, were but little respected,[7.14] and often even abandoned to misery. Many of the doctors were opposed to giving them any religious education.[7.15] The Talmud placed along with the other pests of mankind, the gossiping and inquisitive widow, who spent her days in chatting with her neighbors, and the maiden who wasted her time in incessant praying.[7.16] The new religion offered to these poor and neglected souls a sure and honorable asylum.[7.17] Several women occupied a prominent place in the Church, and their houses served as places of meeting;[7.18] while those who had no houses were formed into a species of feminine presbyteral body,{7.19} comprising probably the virgins, who did important duty in charitable works. Those institutions, regarded as the fruit of a later Christianity, such as congregations of women, nuns, and sisters of charity, were really one of its first creations, the beginning of its influence, and the most perfect expression of its spirit. The admirable idea of consecrating by a sort of religious character and subjecting to regular discipline those women who were not in the bonds of marriage, is peculiarly and entirely Christian. The word "widow" became a synonyme for a person devoted to religious works, consecrated to God, and, consequently, a "deaconess."[7.20] In those countries, where the wife at her twenty-fourth year already began to fade, and where there was no middle state between the child and the old woman, it was practically a new life which was thus opened for that portion of the human race the most capable of devotion.