3. I do not mean to begin the building until I have the means requisite in hand, just as was the case with regard to the new Orphan House. If God will condescend to use me in building for him another Orphan House (as I judge he will), he will give me the means for it. Now, though I have not on my own mind any doubt left that it is his will that I should do so, which has been stated again and again in the preceding pages; yet there is one point still wanting for confirmation, and that is, that he will also furnish me, without personal application to any one, with all the means requisite for this new part of my service. I am the more needing also to my own soul this last of all the proofs that I have not been mistaken (as I firmly believe I have not been), in order to have unquestionable assurance that, whatever trials hereafter might be allowed to befall me in connection with this work, I did not at my own bidding and according to my own natural desire undertake it, but that it was under the guidance of God. The greatness of the sum required affords me a kind of secret joy; for the greater the difficulty to be overcome, the more will it be seen, to the glory of God, how much can be done by prayer and faith; and also because, when God himself overcomes our difficulties for us, we have, in this very fact, the assurance that we are engaged in his work, and not in our own.
CHAPTER XXI.
UNVARYING PROSPERITY.
1850-1852.
DESIRES FOR MORE ENLARGED USEFULNESS GRATIFIED—A LARGE DONATION ANTICIPATED AND RECEIVED—REVIEW OF 1851—PERSONAL EXPERIENCE—BUILDING FUND FOR THE SECOND NEW ORPHAN HOUSE—DOUBT RESISTED—WAITING ON GOD NOT IN VAIN—REVIEW OF 1852.
At the commencement of the year beginning with May, 1850, it was my purpose to seek help from the Lord that I might be able, in a still greater degree than before, to assist brethren who labor in the gospel at home and abroad, in dependence upon God for their temporal supplies, and to labor more than ever in the circulation of the Holy Scriptures, and of simple gospel tracts.
June 11. By the sums which came in within the first fifteen days of this period I was able to begin to carry out the purpose I had formed; and as the Lord enabled me, without anxious reckoning, to go on giving out as he was pleased to intrust me with means, so again he sent further supplies before all was gone. It is a point of great importance in the divine life not to be anxiously reckoning about the morrow, nor dealing out sparingly on account of possible future wants which never may come; but to consider that the present moment to serve the Lord only is ours, and that the morrow may never come to us.
April 20, 1851. During the whole of the current year, up to this date, the Lord has so abundantly supplied me with means that there came not one single case before me in which it would have been desirable to help, according to the measure of light given to me, or to extend the work, without my having at the same time ample means for doing so. In the midst of the great depression of the times, which was so generally felt, and on account of which, humanly speaking, I also might have been exceedingly tried for want of means, I, on the contrary, at no period of the work for the seventeen years previous had a greater abundance of means. I do on purpose lay stress upon this because I desire that it may become increasingly known that there is no easier, no better, and no happier way in the end than God’s way, and this in particular also with regard to the obtaining of means simply in answer to prayer, without personal application to any one.