PREFACE.
BEING now about to embark for Georgia, I am willing, before I go, to give the world a short account of the Orphan-House erected there. I have, therefore, in the following sheets, reprinted a continuation of an account published when I was last at Edinburgh; to which I have subjoined some letters received since; and also an account of money received and disbursed since the publication of that account: and in order to give the reader a view of this design from its beginning, I have affixed my preface to the account I first published about two years ago. I commend it to God. May he give it his blessing!
G. W.
London, January 14, 1743.
Bethesda, December 23, 1741.
THE following sheets, to the best of my knowledge, contain a faithful account of what money I have received, as also how I have disbursed it, for the use of the Orphan-House in Georgia.
I think, with a full assurance of faith I may affirm, the Lord put it into my heart to build that house. It has prospered beyond expectation. It has already, and I hope will more and more answer its name, Bethesda, and be a House of Mercy to the souls and bodies of many people, both old and young.
When I left England, I proposed to take in only twenty children; but when I arrived at Georgia, I found so many objects of charity, besides the orphans, among poor people’s children, that I resolved in this, as well as in all other respects, to imitate Professor Franck, and make a provision for their maintenance also.
Two of the orphan boys were put out apprentices just before I last left Savannah; one to a bricklayer, the other was bound to a carpenter; a third is to be bound to the surgeon belonging to the Orphan-House; one weaves in a loom at home; two I have put to a taylor I brought over, and the rest are now fitting themselves to be useful to the commonwealth. Whoever among them appear to be sanctified, and have a good natural capacity, these, under God, I intend for the ministry.