Part 207

6. Suppose, now, you were even to succeed in getting this large Orphan House built, how will you be able to provide for seven hundred other orphans? Answer: There is much weight in this objection, looking at it _naturally_. I am too much a man of business, and too much a person of calm, quiet, cool calculation, not to feel its force. And indeed, were I only to look at the thing _naturally_, I should at once be ready to own that I am going too far; for the increase of expenditure for the support of these seven hundred other orphans could not be less than eight thousand pounds a year more, so that the current expenses of the Scriptural Knowledge Institution, reckoning its present state, and including those eight thousand pounds, would be about fifteen thousand pounds a year. Now I am free to own that I have no human prospect of obtaining such a sum year by year. But while matters stand thus, looking at them _naturally_, I see no difficulty at all in them _spiritually_. If according to the will of God I am enabled to go about this intended second Orphan House; and if, under his help, I shall be enabled to finish it; he will surely provide for those who are gathered together in it as long as he shall be pleased to enable me to trust in him for supplies. And here I look back upon the way in which the Lord has led me and dealt with me. When, about seventeen years ago, I took up, in dependence upon the living God for means, two charity schools, with which the Scriptural Knowledge Institution commenced (and this involved an expense of less than one hundred pounds a year), I had no certain prospect of being able to meet even that small sum; but God so helped me that I had shortly _six_ charity schools. He helped me then, also, and enabled me to meet all their expenses. When, fifteen years ago, I began the orphan work, which was connected with far heavier expenses, I had still less prospect, according to natural reason, of being able to meet _them_; but I trusted in God, and he helped me, and he not only enabled me to meet the current expenses of thirty orphans in the first house rented for them, but enabled me also soon to open another for thirty-six more, and I was also enabled to meet all those expenses; for as I had begun in faith in the living God, and not in putting my trust in my brethren in Christ, so I was not confounded. After I had gone on some time with these orphans in the two rented houses, about thirteen years ago the Lord was pleased greatly to encourage me and to increase my faith by a donation of five hundred pounds for the orphans; for up to that period I had never received more than one hundred pounds at once. But this kind donor, a stranger to me up to that time, suggested to me the propriety of investing this sum and using only the interest of it, as I could not expect to have the orphans supported for a continuance in the way they had been till then; for that such institutions must depend upon regular subscriptions or funded property, otherwise they could not go on. As, however, this was only a friendly hint, and no condition under which the money was given, I took this five hundred pounds towards fitting up a third house, for the reception of thirty more orphans. From that time the work has been increasing more and more, till it has come to what it is at present. Now, suppose I had said, seventeen years ago, looking at matters according to natural reason, "The two charity schools are enough, I must not go any further;" then the work would have stopped there. Or, if I had had a little more trust in my exertions or my friends, I might have taken at the utmost one or two steps further. Instead of this, however, I looked in no degree whatever at things according to my natural fallen reason, and I trusted not in the circle of my Christian friends, but in the living God; and the result has been that there have been since 1834 ten thousand souls under our instruction in the various day schools, Sunday schools, and adult schools; several hundred orphans have been brought up, and many of them from their very tenderest infancy; several hundred thousand tracts and many thousand copies of the Word of God have been circulated; about forty preachers of the gospel at home and abroad have been, for several years, assisted in connection with the Scriptural Knowledge Institution; and a house has been built and fitted up for the accommodation of three hundred destitute orphans, each of whom has neither father nor mother. How blessed therefore is it to trust in God, and in him alone, and not in circumstances nor friends! There is, however, one thing which I must record here, because it has taken place since I last wrote in my journal on this subject, on January 2. It is this. During these twelve days I have received for the various objects of the Scriptural Knowledge Institution, in smaller donations, sixty-four pounds fifteen shillings sixpence two farthings, also a donation of one hundred and fifty pounds, and one of three thousand pounds. Is not this a plain proof that God is both able and willing to help simply in answer to prayer? Is not human reason confounded by such instances? When I first began to write these exercises of my mind about another Orphan House, I knew not that on January 4, I should receive a donation of three thousand pounds; yet I was fully assured that God was able to support one thousand orphans as easily as he did the thirty whom I first received in a rented house. Does he not, however, tell me by all this, Go forward, my servant, and I will help thee?