e naturally turn first of all to the orphan
work. Ten thousand motherless and fatherless children had found a home
and tender parental care in the institution founded by George Muller,
and were there fed, clad, and taught, before he was called up higher.
His efforts to improve their state physically, morally, and spiritually
were so manifestly owned of God that he felt his compensation to be both
constant and abundant, and his journal, from time to time, glows with
his fervent thanksgivings.

This orphan work would amply repay all its cost during two thirds of a
century, should only its _temporal benefits_ be reckoned. Experience
proved that, with God's blessing, one half of the lives sacrificed among
the children of poverty would be saved by better conditions of
body--such as regularity and cleanliness of habits, good food, pure air,
proper clothing, and wholesome exercise. At least two thirds, if not
three fourths, of the parents whose offspring have found a shelter on
Ashley Down had died of consumption and kindred diseases; and hence the
children had been largely tainted with a like tendency. And yet, all
through the history of this orphan work, there has been such care of
proper sanitary conditions that there has been singular freedom from all
sorts of ailments, and especially epidemic diseases; and when scarlet
fever, measles, and such diseases have found entrance, the cases of
sickness have been comparatively few and mild, and the usual percentage
of deaths exceedingly small.

This is not the only department of training in which the recompense has
been abundant. Ignorance is everywhere the usual handmaid of poverty,
and there has been very careful effort to secure proper _mental_
culture. With what success the education of these orphans has been
looked after will sufficiently appear from the reports of the school
inspector. From year to year these pupils have been examined in reading,
writing, arithmetic, Scripture, dictation, geography, history, grammar,
composition, and singing; and Mr. Horne reported in 1885 an average per
cent of all marks as high as 91.1, and even this was surpassed the next
year when it was 94, and, two years later, when it was 96.1.

But in the moral and spiritual welfare of these orphans, which has been
primarily sought, the richest recompense has been enjoyed. The one main
aim of Mr. Muller and his whole staff of helpers, from first to last,
has been to save these children--to bring th