port of the Orphans, or the Building Fund, there
were also presents in money sent for my own personal expenses, or those
of my family. These instances I have gladly recorded, as they came in
connexion with the donations referred to, because they afforded me an
opportunity of speaking well of the kindness and faithfulness of the
Lord in supplying my own personal or family need. It is now [i.e. in
1856] above Twenty Five years, since I have not had any regular income
whatever. In the year 1830, I saw it to be the Lord's will to give up
my regular income in connexion with the ministry of the Word, and to
trust in Him, alone for the supply of all my temporal necessities. I
have been enabled to continue in this path, and have not been allowed to
regret the step which I then took. Thus it is also in my position as
director of the various objects of the Scriptural Knowledge Institution.
I have no salary in this position; but the Lord abundantly supplies my
need; yea, though there are many expenses connected with this very
position, He abundantly meets all my wants, and gives me far more than I
need. If with all my might I had sought to obtain a lucrative place,
either as a preacher of the Gospel, or in some other way, I should not
have had more, I have reason to believe, if as much, as, unsought,
unasked for, so far as it regards man, I receive day by day out of the
loving hand of my Heavenly Father. When I look at His kindness to me in
saving my guilty soul, I am overwhelmed with the boundlessness of His
love and grace towards me in Christ Jesus; and when I look at His
kindness to me, even as it regards temporal things, I know not where to
begin, nor where to end, in speaking well of His name. I do desire to
magnify Him, and therefore declare in this public way His great goodness
to me in thus so abundantly supplying my temporal necessities; and I do
so also, if it may please God, by this means, to encourage the hearts of
His children more and more unreservedly to trust in Him. It is now above
twenty-five years since I have asked help for myself from any human
being; but God has been indeed my helper. And now the very work even
with which I am connected, respecting which I had every reason to
believe, when I commenced it, that it would be connected with great
expenses to myself, as well as be the means, looked at naturally, of
decreasing my own income, God has, though unsought for on my part, used
as the instrument to bring alo