CHAPTER XVII

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REAPING BOUNTIFULLY.

1845-1846.

AN UNEXPECTED REQUEST--DELIBERATION--A GREAT UNDERTAKING--RELIANCE ON THE RESOURCES OF THE LIVING GOD--AN ANSWER EXPECTED AND RECEIVED--PRAYER FOR FAITH AND PATIENCE--FURTHER PROOFS OF DIVINE FAVOR--THE BLESSEDNESS OF DEVISING LIBERAL THINGS.

I began the service of caring for children who are bereaved of _both_ parents, by death, born in wedlock, and are in destitute circumstances, on Dec. 9, 1835. For nearly ten years I had never had any desire to _build_ an Orphan House. On the contrary, I decidedly preferred spending the means which might come in for present necessities, and desired rather to enlarge the work according to the means which the Lord might be pleased to give. Thus it was till the end of October, 1845, when I was led to consider this matter in a way in which I had never done before.[18] The occasion of my doing so was this: On Oct. 30, 1845, I received from a gentleman, who lived in the street where the four Orphan Houses were, a polite and friendly letter, in which he courteously stated to me that the inhabitants in the adjoining houses were in various ways inconvenienced by the Orphan Houses being in Wilson Street. He left to myself the judgment of the case.

[Footnote 18: The reader will not fail to remark the striking illustration afforded in the present chapter, of the truth stated in