rl with constitutionally weak lungs.
During this same year, however, the Spirit of God wrought mightily among
the girls, as in the previous year among the boys, so that over one
hundred became deeply earnest seekers after salvation; and so, even in
tribulation, consolation abounded in Christ. Mr. Muller and his wife and
helpers now implored God to deepen and broaden this work of His Spirit.
Towards the end of the year closing in May, 1866, Emma Bunn, an orphan
girl of seventeen, was struck with consumption. Though, for fourteen
years, she had been under Mr. Muller's care, she was, in this dangerous
illness, still careless and indifferent; and, as she drew near to death,
her case continued as hopeless as ever. Prayer was unceasing for her;
and it pleased God suddenly to reveal Christ to her as her Saviour.
Great self-loathing now at once took the place of former indifference;
confession of sin, of previous callousness of conscience; and
unspeakable joy in the Lord, of former apathy and coldness. It was a
spiritual miracle--this girl's sudden transformation into a witness for
God, manifesting deepest conviction for past sin and earnest concern for
others. Her thoughtless and heedless state had been so well known that
her conversion and dying messages were now the Lord's means of the _most
extensive and God-glorifying work ever wrought up to that time among the
orphans._ In one house alone three hundred and fifty were led to seek
peace in believing.
What lessons lie hidden--nay, lie on the very surface--to be read of
every willing observer of these events! Prayer can break even a hard
heart; a memory, stored with biblical truth and pious teaching, will
prove, when once God's grace softens the heart and unlooses the tongue,
a source of both personal growth in grace and of capacity for wide
service to others. We are all practically too careless of the training
of children, and too distrustful of young converts. Mr. Muller was more
and more impressed by the triumphs of the grace of God as seen in
children converted at the tender age of nine or ten and holding the
beginning of their confidence steadfast unto the end.
These facts and experiences, gleaned, like handfuls of grain, from a
wide field, show the character both of the seed sown and the harvest
reaped, from the sowing.
Again, when, in 1866, cholera developed in England, in answer to special
prayer _not one_ case of this disease was known in the orphan houses;
a
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