Author: Christian Golder

Publisher: Theclassics.Us

Published: 2013-09

Total Pages: 146

ISBN-13: 9781230314372

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1903 edition. Excerpt: ...Bishop Thoburn began to advocate the Deaconess Cause, and Mrs. Lucy Rider Meyer threw the weight of her powerful personality into the scales, it did not prove difficult to inaugurate the movement, which was to take a powerful hold on the Church in a comparatively short space of time. In 1886, Dr. J. M. Thoburn (at present Bishop Thoburn), who had been sent to India in 1859, and who is beyond question one of our greatest missionaries, returned to America to restore his health. The voyage proved to be of historic significance. The misery of women in India was uppermost in his mind during the trip, and, after much prayer, the thought came to him that the introduction of the Deaconess Work might bring the desired relief. Millions of the women of India are debarred from participating in the sacrament of the communion, and this deplorable state of affairs will necessarily continue until one of their own sex can administer this sacrament. Whenever the Mission Conferences in India convene, this matter is usually discussed, and the question has often been asked whether it be possible to revive the Deaconess Order of the primitive Church, and thus to create an office which would empower the female missionaries to administer the holy communion to the Zenana women, who are kept in such strict seclusion that missionaries are not allowed to approach them for that purpose. If in the primitive Church laymen (e. g., midwives) were permitted to administer baptism in case of urgency, why should female missionaries be prohibited from administering baptism to Zenana women who have been prepared for admission into the Church, and desire to be baptized? And if baptism is admissible under such circumstances, why not also communion? Dr. Thoburn declared that he...