Already, in St Francis's lifetime, his friars had grown into an order dedicated to spiritual ministrations among the poor, the sick, the ignorant, the outcasts of the great cities; while by the very conception of their institute the Dominicans were dedicated to the special work of preaching, especially to heretics and heathens.
Men refused to attend their ministrations; in some cases they were subjected to what was afterwards called boycotting.
The state of the female side had already attracted the attention of that devoted woman, Mrs Fry, whose ministrations and wonderful success no doubt encouraged, if they did not bring about, the formation of the Prison Society.
Bacon, like Aristotle, was anticipated in this or that point; but, as Aristotle was the first to construct a system of deduction in the syllogism and its three figures, so Bacon was the first to construct a system of induction in three ministrations, in which the requisites of induction, hitherto recognized only in sporadic hints, were combined for the first time in one logic of induction.
He celebrates marriages in accordance with the provisions of the Foreign Marriage Act 1892, and, where the ministrations of a clergyman cannot be obtained, reads the burial service.