ty and want, and ready to fall victims to vice and ruin, happily rescued by your generous interposition, and decently clothed, supported and educated by your bounty.

66

66

66

66

"Deprived "of every parental aid, you became their guardians; destitute of any abode, you pro"vided for them a habitation; hungry and thirsty, you fed them and gave them drink; exposed continually to the wiles of the destroyer, you snatched them, with an angel's hand, from destruction; in danger of every "evil to which idleness and ignorance could "render them liable, you employed and in"structed them." If the recollection of beneficent actions, and the consciousness of good intentions, though defeated by the perverseness of men, or by those untoward accidents to which all human schemes are liable, are a source of pure and exquisite enjoyment; your satisfaction must be greatly increased, when you behold your intentions carried into execution, and your labours crowned with complete success. But how must the imagination. expand with hope, and the heart dilate with joy, when you look forward and behold those whom you now protect, entering into life; acting for themselves; filling useful and hon

ourable stations in society; adorning and improving their country by their ingenuity and industry, or defending it by their valour; becoming, themselves, the fathers and mothers of families, and transmitting to their children's children a portion of that happiness which they have derived from this institution. In this point of view, you will no longer consider this house as merely an asylum from present misery, but as a nursery of useful characters, as a seminary of religion and virtue, as the source of an incalculable addition to the happiness and improvement of the human

race.

It is the nature of charity not to boast or to envy but it is no less a property of it to listen with delight to the voice of sincere praise. Without, therefore, subjecting myself to the charge of boasting, or of making invidious comparison, I may affirm, that of all charitable institutions, those which regard the education and maintenance of orphan and destitute children, may justly claim the preference. God forbid that I should seek to withdraw your compassion and support from the aged and infirm, whose arm is now unstrung, and who, declining into the winter of life, no

longer display the blossoms of spring, or the fruit of autumn! God forbid that I should endeavour to dry up the sympathetic tear which flows for the sorrows of others; to make you deaf to the sigh of the afflicted, or render you less anxious to relieve the sick, and, by assistance and advice, to smooth the bed of death! God forbid that what is meant to excite charity, should create a jealousy of interest, or an interference of claims among institutions which have one common object in view, the relief of distress, the alleviation of human misery, in whatever shape it appears! My intention here is to congratulate you on the proper application of your charity; to encourage you to proceed in the same course; and to show that, while other charitable establishments> ought not to be neglected, this requires and deserves a more than common share of your attention and support. Many of the fair daughters of charity have done virtuously—but this excelleth them all.

Institutions of this nature may justly be styled more charitable than any other, because they relieve greater wretchedness. There is not, in nature, a more striking picture of weakness and helplessness than man in the first

stage of his existence. Some animals are capable of providing for their defence and nourishment from the moment of their birth: and all, in a short space of time, are independent of foreign support. But man, like a tender and delicate flower, must be reared with infinite care and attention; and requires for many years, the fostering hand of the parent. Happily the natural love of offspring, and the dictates of reason, combine to call forth the parental assistance. But when this support is, by the decree of heaven, removed; when they to whom they were accustomed to look for bread, are laid in the dust; when the unconcerned stranger, immersed in the pursuit of business or pleasure, passes by regardless of their distress: can imagination figure to itself a state more helpless and wretched? The very cries and tears, by which alone they can express their misery, speak more forcibly in the ears of the compassionate, than the most pathetic orator can in their behalf.

And yet, such has been the situation of most of those who have been received into this house. Some of them have been found wandering in the streets, without father or mother; without friend, except the compassion of the charita

ble, and the benevolent providence of him. who is the father of the fatherless, the shield of the stranger and the support of the orphan; scarcely acquainted with their own names; and truly able to say, The fores have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but we have not where to lay our heads. Others have been ushered into the acquaintance of the commissioners by the disconsolate mother, whose tears still flowed for the head and supporter of herself and her children, and who has addressed them in the piteous language of the widow of Israel to the prophet of old: Thy servant, my husband, is dead, and thou knowest that thy servant did fear the Lord. Thine handmaid hath nothing in the house save one pot of oil, and behold! the creditor is come to take my two sons to be bond men. In other cases, the children have been taken from the bedside of their aged, sick or infirm parents, who have thus been spared the heart-rending necessity of hearing them call for bread, while they had none to bestow; and who have then yielded with less reluctance to the irreversible sentence of heaven, when they knew that those whom they loved, and who would be the greatest losers by their death, were not left to wander