1896. The society meets once a month for the purpose of discussing the
papers which each member in his turn is required to read. Representing
as it does Lutherans of all kinds, species and varieties, it serves as a
clearing house for the theological output of the members. It has been
helpful in removing some of the misunderstandings that are liable to
arise among men of positive convictions.

On the third Sunday in Advent, 1898, Sister Emma Steen, of Richmond,
Indiana, the first Lutheran deaconess to engage in parish work in New
York, was installed in Christ Church. She had received her preparation
for this ministry in the motherhouse at Kaiserswerth on the Rhine, and
was one of the first six sisters to enter the motherhouse of the General
Synod in Baltimore. After four years of faithful service she was
succeeded by Sister Regena Bowe who has now for fifteen years by her
devoted work illustrated the value of the female diaconate in the work
of our churches in New York. Deaconeses are now laboring in seven of
our churches. They are needed in a hundred congregations.

The revival of this office is due to the genius and zeal of Pastor
Fliedner who established the first motherhouse at Kaiserswerth on the
Rhine in 1833. In America there are eight motherhouses with an
enrollment of 378 sisters.*
*In 1885 the author was appointed chairman of a committee of the
General Synod to report on the practicability of establishing the office
of deaconess in the parish work of our American churches. In pursuit of
information he visited the principal Deaconess Houses of Europe. His
reports were published in the Minutes of the Synod from 1887 to 1897 and
contributed to the introduction of the office into the Synod's scheme of
church work.