"But in the beginning," said Eva, "he had no money, and nothing to show to anybody. He was going to do a work that nobody believed in, among people that everybody thought so hopeless that it was money thrown away to help him. To whom could he go but God? He went and asked Him to help him, and began, and has been helped day by day ever since; and I believe God did help him. What is the use of believing in God at all, if we don't believe that?"
"Well," said Jim, "I'm not much on theology, but we newspaper fellows get a considerable stock of facts, first and last; and I've looked through this sort of thing, and I believe in it. A man don't go on doing a business of six or seven or eight thousand a year on prayer, unless prayer amounts to something; and I know, first and last, the expenses of that concern can't be less than that."
"Well," said Harry, "we have a lasting monument in the great orphan house of Halle—a whole city square of solid stone buildings. I have stood in the midst of them, and they were all built by one man, without fortune of his own, who has left us his written record how, day by day, as expenses thickened, he went to God and asked for his supplies, and found them."
"But I maintain," said Dr. Campbell, "that his appeal was to human nature. People found out what he was doing, their sympathies were moved, and they sent him help. The very sight of such a work is an application."
"I don't think that theory accounts for the facts," said Bolton. "Admitting that there is a God who is near every human heart in its most secret retirement, who knows the most hidden moods, the most obscure springs of action, how can you prove that this God did not inspire the thoughts of sympathy and purposes of help there recorded? For we have in this Franke's journal, year after year, records of help coming in when it was wanted, having been asked for of God, and obtained with as much regularity and certainty as if checks had been drawn on a banker."
"Well," said Dr. Campbell, "do you suppose that, if I should now start to build a hospital without money, and pray every week for funds to settle with my workmen, it would come?"
"No, Doctor, you're not the kind of fellow that such things happen to," said Jim, "nor am I."
"It supposes an exceptional nature," said Bolton, "an utter renunciation of self, an entire devotion to an unselfish work, and an unshaken faith in God. It is a moral genius, as peculiar and as much a gift as the genius of painting, poetry, or music."
"It is an inspiration to do the work of humanity, and it presupposes faith," said Eva. "You know the Bible says, 'He that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of those that diligently seek him.'"
The result of that fireside talk was not unfruitful. The next week was a harvest for the Home.