The Ministry of Deaconesses #271046

It is a privilege to accede to the request that I should write something by way of Introduction to this little book. Yet I scarcely think an Introduction is required. It is in truth a book which has for some years past been wanted. Articles and speeches and Church Congress papers and the like have presented the subject from many points of view during the last quarter of a century but since the publication of Dean Howson's volume on 'Deaconesses' in 1862, there has so far as I know been no serious endeavour to deal consecutively with the early history of the Order and with its modem revival in the Church of England. The occasion is now ripe.