A Protestant order of the Sisters of Mercy was founded at Davenport, England, 1S45, by Miss Lydia Seilon, who adopted a garb for the vocation; but the sisters were hound by no vows except of obedience to the superior while connected with the organization. It was composed of three classes of workers: those living in community and devoted singly to its active and laborious work; those residing with the connminity to give minor assistance while living a calm religious life: and married or single women in society who can lie relied on to give time to the work. It has a number of brandies in Eng land. The sisterhood of St. John the Baptist is another association under the English church, modeled upon the conventual system rather than upon the more practical working models of the modern French Sisters of Charity. There are quite a number of similar societies in England, all established within the past 30 years, of which the Sisters of the Poor, established in 1851, is one of the most active. In the United States the voluntary associations of benevolent ladies, acting by committees, in single church con gregations, orby non-sectarian associations, have an expansion and efficiency that enable them to do the same kind of work as the Sisters of Charity, except in lospitals and asylums, where the thorough organization, the devotional zeal, and the trained experi ence of the professional sisters, is pre-eminently valuable. Dr. Muldenberg established
the Sisters of the Holy Communion in New York in 1845, who have no established garb, are required to lie between 25 and 40 years old, to enter with the consent of parents or guardians, to labor on probation One year, and who may leave at their own pleasure. This organization has done a quiet but very efficient work in the charge of St. Luke's hospital, New York. In recent years numerous sisterhoods have been organized in the Protestant Episcopal church in this country, whose work thus far promises well, though the system is not yet so hilly developed as to decide its ultimate results.