The deaconesses as novices passed through every department of the work, and received a thorough training in both nursing and household work, the pastor wisely considering that if, when in visiting the poor, they could render them practical help, their words would prove far more effective.  Much was made of Bible study, both public and private, and this, as well as the Stille Stunde (quiet hour), a half-hour daily set apart for prayer and meditation, could not but tend to give a spiritual tone to the whole work.  Agnes revelled in all this, and found great happiness in the daily routine, in spite of much which was, perhaps, somewhat needless drudgery, such as sweeping and dusting her room, washing up after meals, and even black-leading stoves.  She had, however, well learned the lesson that no action can be mean to the Christian if it come in the way of duty.  Sometimes, indeed, it seemed a waste of strength to spend so much of the day in manual work, especially work which so injured her hands that for some time she was obliged to keep them poulticed, and was thus unable to assist in the hospital.  Still she was, as she said herself, “as happy as the day is long, and it does not seem half long enough,” in spite of a longing sometimes “for home sights and voices.”

Soon after her arrival at Kaiserswerth, fourteen sick boys were given into her care for twelve hours a day.  This was no easy task, particularly when she was left in sole charge of them, some being too far recovered to lie in bed, and needing to be kept at lessons or work.  As the weeks rolled by, her work was changed, and in addition to other employment, she instructed a number of classes in English, both in the training-school and among the deaconesses.  As for herself, she was daily becoming more proficient in German, and in a very short time was able easily to follow the sermon.  This was a great enjoyment to her, as she much valued the truly evangelical teaching at Kaiserswerth.

At the end of three months of steady work, she spent a few days with an uncle and aunt who were staying at Bonn, but the gay boarding-house life contrasted so unfavourably with the happy Christian fellowship at Kaiserswerth, that she was thankful to return to her duties, playfully writing:—­“The nun will not soon again leave her cell, for it was with very nun-like feelings she met the world again.”  Yet she was no misanthrope.  She did not bring to God a heart which had tried earth’s pleasures and had found them wanting, nor a life jaded with pursuing them.  From the first, she had cast aside the love of worldly things, and had chosen to be wholly the Lord’s.

During the latter part of her stay at Kaiserswerth, her duties lay entirely in the hospital.  In January she wrote:—­“My duties are in the children’s hospital, all ages from two to twelve.  It is a new life for me in a nursery of sick children, and a busy one too, for every moment they want something done for them.”