During the first ten years of the founding of Kaiserswerth Pastor Fliedner spread his system of deaconesses until he had established sixty nurses in twenty-five different centres, and calls were coming from all sides. In 1849 he resigned his pastorate in order to journey about establishing branch houses in different parts of the world. His first long journey was to the United States, to conduct deaconesses to Dr. Passavant’s German parish at Pittsburg; and the second was to Jerusalem, where he founded a “mother house” with four deaconesses on Mount Zion in a building given by the King of Prussia. This branch undertakes to nurse all sick persons irrespective of creed, and forms a training school for nurses in the East. From Jerusalem he proceeded to Constantinople, established a branch there, and then proceeded to Alexandria, Beyrout, Smyrna, Bucharest, and other places. He had already started a deaconess home in London. The institutions spread rapidly through Germany, and to-day there is scarcely a town of any size in the Fatherland which has not its deaconess home which sends nurses to the poor without charge and supplies middle-class families at moderate fees. The last years of the pastor’s life were passed in bodily suffering, but he still kept his hand on the helm. His last work was to found at Kaiserswerth a Home of Rest for retired deaconesses. The good man was much cheered not only by the marvellous extension of his work--he left behind him a hundred houses attended by four hundred and thirty deaconesses--but at the fruit which seeds of his sowing had produced in the heart of the English lady who became the heroine of the Crimean War. It was with peculiar interest that he followed the work of Florence Nightingale in that campaign, for her deeds shed a reflected lustre on her Alma Mater. On October 4th, 1864, Pastor Fliedner, to use Miss Nightingale’s words, “passed to his _glorious_ rest.” Almost his last words were: “As I look back upon my life, I appreciate how full it has been of blessings; every heart-beat should have been gratitude and every breath praise.” Commenting upon his work, Miss Nightingale made this characteristic summary: “Pastor Fliedner began his work with two beds under a roof, not with a castle in the air, and Kaiserswerth is now diffusing its blessings and its deaconesses over almost every Protestant land.” CHAPTER VII _ENTERS KAISERSWERTH: A PLEA FOR DEACONESSES_ An Interesting Letter--Description of Miss Nightingale when she entered Kaiserswerth--Testimonies to her Popularity--Impressive Farewell to Pastor Fliedner. The travelled mind is the catholic mind educated from exclusiveness and egotism.--A. BRONSON ALCOTT.