In modern times several attempts have been made to revive the order of deaconesses. In 1833 Pastor Fleidner founded "an order of deaconesses for the Rhenish provinces of Westphalia" at Kaiserswerth. The original aim of the institution was to train nurses for hospital work, but its scope was afterwards extended and it trained its members for teaching and parish work as well. Kaiserswerth became the parent of many similar institutions in different parts of the continent. A few years later, in 1847, Miss Sellon formed for the first time a sisterhood at Devonport in connexion with the Church of England. Her example was gradually followed in other parts of the country, and in 1898 there were over two thousand women living together in different sisterhoods. The members of these institutions do not represent the ecclesiastical deaconesses, however, since they are not ministers set apart by the Church; and the sisterhoods are merely voluntary associations of women banded together for spiritual fellowship and common service. In 1861 Bishop Tait set apart Miss Elizabeth Ferard as a deaconess by the laying on of hands, and she became the first president of the London Deaconess Institution. Other dioceses gradually adopted the innovation. It has received the sanction of Convocation, and the Lambeth Conference in 1897 declared that it "recognized with thankfulness the revival of the office of deaconess," though at the same time it protested against the indiscriminate use of the title and laid it down emphatically that the name must be restricted to those who had been definitely set apart by the bishop for the position and were working under the direct supervision and control of the ecclesiastical authority in the parish.
In addition to Miss Robinson's book cited above, see _Church Quarterly Review_, xlvii. 302 ff., art. "On the Early History and Modern Revival of Deaconesses" (London, 1899), and the works there referred to; D. Latas, [Greek: Christianikê Archaiologia], i. 163-171 (Athens, 1883); _Testamentum Domini_, ed. Rahmani (Mainz, 1899); L. Zscharnack, _Der Dienst der Frau in den ersten Jahrhunderten der chr. Kirche_ (1902).
DEAD SEA, a lake in Palestine occupying the deepest part of the valley running along the line of a great "fault" that has been traced from the Gulf of Akaba (at the head of the Red Sea) to Hermon. This fracture was caused after the end of the Eocene period by the earth-movement which resulted in the raising of the whole region out of the sea. Level for level, the more ancient rocks are on the eastward side of the lake: the cretaceous limestones that surmount the older volcanic substrata come down on the western side to the water's edge, while on the eastern side they are raised between 3000 and 4000 feet above it. In the Pleistocene period the whole of this depression was filled with water forming a lake about 200 m. long north to south, whose waters were about the same level as that of the Mediterranean Sea. With the diminishing rainfall and increased temperature that followed that period the effects of evaporation gradually surpassed the precipitation, and the waters of the lake slowly diminished to about the extent which they still display.
