Part 17 (2/2)
C----, renewing her endeavors for her consolation and establishment in the faith of Christ; and soon after informed her of the dangerous illness of two of her grandchildren, one of whom, in the righteous dispensations of an unerring Providence, was taken, and the other left.
To Mrs. C----, Boston.
”GREENWICH, N.Y., Sept. 26, 1805.
”MY DEAR FRIEND--I arrived here on Monday. I found my children in health, but much affected with the death of the amiable youth M----, and the melancholy situation of his bereaved parents.
”The epidemic spreads over the city in every direction among the few remaining in it. All the public offices are here; crowds of the citizens, and houses and stores spring up in a day; all is bustle and confusion, and all seem mad on business.
”Parting with my dear friend was most painful, so painful that nothing could alleviate it but the presence of my own children, who, could there have been room from deeper sorrows, would have shared it with me. O that I could put my G.o.d in my place in your heart. What are earthly friends? How few are steady against all change of circ.u.mstances; of these, fewer still have it in their power to supply every link of friends.h.i.+p's chain; a thousand unforeseen incidents disappoint their wishes and frustrate their hopes, rendering abortive their greatest exertions. But there is a Friend, everywhere present, thoroughly acquainted with every circ.u.mstance of the heart and of the life; all-powerful to relieve; whose love is invariable, and ever the most tender when every other friend stands aloof; a friend in adversity, 'a friend who sticketh closer than a brother,' whose love surpa.s.seth the love of women. This Friend receiveth sinners--casts out none who come to him. He was never known to disappoint the hopes of any poor sinner. He receives them into his heart; he takes all their burdens and cares on himself, pays all their debts, answers all demands against them, and is every way surety for them; they become his own, no one has any thing to say to them but himself. He knows them--how apt to err, to wander, yea, to forget him, and prove ungrateful; all this he knows, but he has made provision for all. He has a rod, and he will subdue their iniquities. He will heal their backslidings, he will bring back and restore his wanderers. He will in due time perfect what concerns them, and present them to his Father purified, without spot or wrinkle.
”In the meantime he requires them to confide in him; to go up through this wilderness leaning upon him; to tell him all their complaints and griefs, and to comfort themselves: and he will impress the comfort by means of his great and precious promises, scattered like so many pearls through his sacred Bible, tabled there on purpose for us to ground our prayers upon, and delight ourselves in. This is your friend's Friend, and of ten thousand besides. This was the wicked Magdalene's Friend; this, the persecuting Paul's Friend, wicked Mana.s.seh's Friend; the adulterous, murdering David's Friend. And he is your Friend, though your eyes are holden that you see him not. He is leading you by a way that you know not. This is one of his characters, 'I will bring the blind by a way that they know not.'
”I was happy to find your niece was to return with Mr. C----; but, my dear, a painful dread has a.s.saulted my peace, lest Satan get the advantage by means of a stranger in the family, and undo what has been begun. The world may have peace without G.o.d; but you shall not.
You have, however feebly, taken hold of his covenant, and he will keep you to your choice. 'If his children forsake his laws and go astray,'
etc. Psalm 79:30.”
”NOVEMBER, 1805.
”MY DEAR FRIEND--This is not our rest; through much tribulation all Christ's disciples must follow him. There is a rest prepared for the people of G.o.d: as far as tasted in this world--and in this world it is tasted--it consists in a mind resigned to the will of G.o.d in proportion as it can say, 'Thy will be done on earth, as it is done in heaven.' Christ himself was made perfect through suffering, and all his followers shall be so in their appointed measure. What is our cup to his? O my dear friend, we are ransomed, we are redeemed, and we are fitting and preparing for the purchased inheritance, that perfect rest prepared for the people of G.o.d when their warfare is finished. Let him do all his pleasure with us here; let him subdue our iniquities in his own way; let him glorify his name by our sufferings--his glory is ever connected with his people's best interests. We shall one day acknowledge that he has done all things well, and that not one word of all that he has promised has failed.
”It has pleased the Lord to take from us our dear sweet Rebecca; young as she was, through much tribulation she entered in: I have scarcely seen severer suffering, nor a harder dismission. It is well; the Lord will answer his own ends by it for the good of all concerned, as well as for his own glory. Our dear G---- was ill at the same time, and all hope was lost as to him also; for a whole week we looked upon him as dying, A bold measure was taken with him, which succeeded; the Lord had commanded life; it was not thought of for her. G.o.d had appointed to her entrance into life eternal. It is all well. Blessed, blessed be his name; for her he has taken and him he has restored, both equally. I.G. S---- was confined at the same time with a broken arm; N. B---- with the fever and pleurisy. Deep have been the wounds in this aged heart, not yet weaned from earth, but tremblingly alive to every thing that concerns my children. Yet I do give up. I have asked but one thing with importunity, and by that I abide. I did not ask for temporal life, but the life which Christ died to purchase, and lives to bestow; let him answer my pet.i.tion by means of his own appointing: by health or by sickness, by riches or by poverty, by long life or early deaths--only let all mine by the ties of nature, be his by regeneration of his Spirit.”
Having felt the trials and the responsibilities of widowhood, she wrote to her brother's widow, Mrs. Marshall, in 1805:
”You are now, my dear sister, the only head of your family. Will you take Joshua's determination? 'As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.' Take hold of G.o.d's covenant for your orphan children as for yourself, and consider them as his, to be brought up for him.
Be a priestess in your own house, and keep up the wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d daily in your family, and confess your Lord and Master before angels, men, and devils. Those who thus honor G.o.d, he will honor.
”You are indeed, my dear, arrived at an important stage of your journey through this great wilderness. You are now the head of the family, and are to G.o.d immediately answerable. No earthly consideration must make you give up the government of it, nor the prerogative which he hath given you, to counsel, and even beseech your household to serve the Lord. You cannot give grace; you cannot give life; and where there is no life there can be no spiritual exercise: but you may use means, although there is much prudence to be observed to avoid disgust.
”Be faithful, then, my dear sister, to your important trust. See that your household remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy; your children, of course, will accompany you to the house of G.o.d, but let not your servants absent themselves from his ordinances, and endeavor, on your return home, to explain and bring home the word that may have been spoken to their consciences. Above all, let it be your constant aim to set before them a G.o.dly, consistent example, and be much engaged in prayer for them--I mean for your servants as well as for your children, and G.o.d will, in all probability, make you a mother in Israel, the mother of many spiritual children, and turn your captivity into rejoicing, and fill your mouth with songs of praise; or should you not have this comfort, should the night of adversity last to the very valley of the shadow of death, the morning of eternal rest shall then beam forth upon your own soul, and your prayers may be answered for others, when the eyes that wept and the breast that heaved are at rest in the dust. O, then, my sister, possess your soul in patience, and seek to make daily advances in holiness.”
CHAPTER IX.
ORPHAN ASYLUM SOCIETY--FOREIGN MISSIONARIES--LETTERS.
On the 15th of March, 1806, the female subscribers to proposals for providing an asylum for orphan children met at the City Hotel; Mrs. Graham was called to the chair, a society organized, and a board of direction chosen, Mrs. Hoffman was elected the first directress of the Orphan Asylum Society. Mrs. Graham continued in the office of first directress of the Widows' Society, but took a deep interest in the success of the Orphan Asylum also; she, or one of her family, taught the orphans daily, until the funds of the inst.i.tution were sufficient to provide a teacher and superintendent. She was a trustee at the time of her decease. The wish to establish this new society was occasioned by the pain which it gave the ladies of the Widows' Society to behold a family of orphans driven, on the decease of a widow, to seek refuge in the almshouse; no melting heart to feel, no redeeming hand to rescue them from a situation so unpromising for mental and moral improvement.
”Among the afflicted of our suffering race,” thus speaks the const.i.tution of the society, ”none makes a stronger or more impressive appeal to humanity than the _dest.i.tute orphan_. Crime has not been the cause of its misery, and future usefulness may yet be the result of its protection; the reverse is often the case of more aged objects. G.o.d himself has marked the fatherless as the peculiar subjects of his divine compa.s.sion. 'A Father of the fatherless is G.o.d in his holy habitation,' 'When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up.' To be the blessed instrument of, divine Providence in making good the promise of G.o.d, is a privilege equally desirable and honorable to the benevolent heart.'”
And truly G.o.d has made good his promise towards this benevolent inst.i.tution. He has crowned the undertaking with his remarkable blessing. It was begun by his disciples in faith, and he has acknowledged them in it. Having for fourteen months occupied a hired house for an asylum, the ladies entertained the bold idea of building an asylum on account of the society. They had then about three hundred and fifty dollars as the commencement of a fund for the building; they purchased four lots of ground in the village of Greenwich, on a healthful, elevated site, possessing a fine prospect. The corner-stone was laid on the 7th of July, 1807. They erected a building fifty feet square; from time to time they proceeded to finish the interior of the building, and to purchase additional ground as their funds would permit; and such was the liberality of the legislature and of the public, that the society soon possessed a handsome building and nearly an acre of ground, all of which must have cost them little short of twenty-five thousand dollars. In that house Mrs. Graham and Mrs.
Hoffman spent much of their time; there they trained for eternity the children of those whose widowed dying mothers they had cheered with the hope that when they should be taken away, G.o.d would fulfil his gracious promise and preserve their fatherless children alive.
Mrs. Hoffman survived Mrs. Graham seven years. Her end, like that of her friend, was peace. But though G.o.d removed those mothers in Israel, their prayers are still before him, and the inst.i.tution continues to prosper. In 1836, the city having extended to where the asylum was situated, and the property at the same time increased in value, the society became desirous to remove where the children would enjoy purer air, and have greater convenience for a garden and pasture for cows. With the advice of their patrons, they sold the property for about thirty-nine thousand dollars; purchased nearly ten acres of ground at Bloomingdale, and on the 9th of June the same year laid the foundation-stone of their present beautiful building.
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