the large sums required, week after week, for meeting the current
expenses for the present state of the work. Moreover, I delight in the
greatness of the difficulty as it respects the large sum needed for
building and fitting up such an establishment; for I desire to be most
fully assured, from the very outset, that I go forward in this matter
according to the Lord's bidding. If so, he will give me the means; if
not, I shall not have them. Nor do I mean to apply to any one personally
for pecuniary help, but purpose to give myself to prayer for means, as
heretofore.

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 h