This cannot well be, unless the second principle named be observed, and due congeniality be found between the orphaned and the protector. Some choice may generally be used, and the choice should turn on the fitness of the one to guide and the other to be guided. No statement is given of the process in our Saviour’s mind, that led him to make the bequest of the Cross, that legacy of love. But He knew what was in man, and knew well how much the mother and disciple were fitted for that filial companionship; the one by his deep intuitive mind fitted to enlighten her faith, and the other by her boundless affection fitted to inflame his piety and charity, to kindle his meditative wisdom into seraphic love. Let not the example be lost upon those who shrink from claiming equal sanctity. Are any of us to choose for an orphan or a half-orphan a protector, whether a guardian or an adopted parent, remember the legacy of the Cross, and in Christ’s name minister to the desolate.
We have illustrated first, the fact of orphanage, and secondly, the secondary relations that may be its alleviation. May we not add, that where the principles recommended are adopted, great blessing results to both parties concerned, the protector, and the protected. If, as the poet says,
“An orphan’s curse would drag to hell
A spirit from on high!”
an orphan’s blessing can lift to the mercy-seat of God a frail spirit of the earth. Many a time has this blessing been granted, and they who have befriended the lonely, have found a friend in God’s own Providence. Is it not remarkably the case, that orphan children when judiciously and kindly counselled and cautioned, well repay all solicitude, and well appreciate, as a gratuitous offering from their protector, the care which, if from a parent, they might regard as a matter of course, hardly claiming any grateful recognition? A relation of peculiar beauty sometimes springs up, at once filial and friendly, blending in itself the affections both of companion and child. The remark applies to step-children as well as to those who are wards by adoption or guardianship. “Hence,” says that gifted and fervent writer, Henry Zchokke, “not rare instances in which step-children manifest more cordial sympathy, more touching attachment towards their foster parents, than their own children. For what the latter are apt to take as matter of obligation, the former look upon as token of disinterested love and genuine goodness; and a grateful mind brings before them all the kindness and fidelity which they received from step-parents in the years of minority. As children, they may not understand what you have given, although they may see how you gave it. But when grown up, they understand what you have done for them.”
When under this form of adoption or the others specified, there is surely enough to interpret such secondary relations cheerfully, and history is full of passages, that illustrate the blessing of the legacy of the Cross. In our own experience we must in some way interpret that legacy, and find its joy or its rebuke. Do not leave the subject without touching its practical point. If such and so general is the fact of orphanage, such are the secondary relations which are providentially offered, and such is their solace when properly employed, there is a lesson from the subject, which no person can escape, a lesson as to our duty to our own children and to others. First of all, bear in mind the lonely, and strive to be comforter, and to find comforters for them. Think tenderly of the orphaned, who are in any way near your own sphere, whether from relationship, friendship, or any other association. It may not be, it is not generally money, that is most needed, but kindness, counsel, encouragement. Many an orphan boy is saved by a judicious word and timely hand from a friend of his lost father or mother, and many a lonely girl finds the path of peace and usefulness smoothed for her by those who remember the parent’s image in the daughter’s face. The story of Moses, the foundling of the Nile, and of Joseph, the exile from Jacob’s house, is often repeated in the lives of youths, like them in loneliness, and not wholly unlike them in subsequent energy and honor. Think of this in your homes, and make them pleasant and instructive and elevating to some guests sought by you, because you can make them happy, and who will repay your blessing better than guests of idleness or vanity, sometimes too eagerly sought, who may besot and befool your children by folly and excess. Think of it in your places of business, and seek openings of usefulness for the unprotected. Then you may hear, nay, have you not heard other voices than those of hard traffic there? then you may see, have you not seen, springs of living water gushing from the dusty pavements which you tread? Think of the orphan. For his own sake, do it, and for our own and our children’s sake. The probability is, that what others ask of us we shall need for ourselves. We must expect that our children will be in want of the very sympathy which we are to show; for who can be sure of leaving his offspring mature enough in years and wisdom to demand no guardian care in place of the parental? It becomes, therefore, an imperious duty to educate our children in such a manner, as to secure them trusty friends; to give them habits of self-reliance, that shall save them from annoying others by burdensome dependence; to train them to conciliating manners, attractive conversation, elevated ideas, that shall win for them the companionship and protection of the wise and good, keep them in right paths, and mature in their new homes all the worthy seeds of old scenes and affections. Then when the hour of our parting comes, we can think not wholly with sorrow of the legacy of the Cross; believing that they who have trusted in us, may trust in each other, or in friends divinely given, and that future years will deepen the former communion.
The great security, that this shall be so, is found where Christ placed it, in the Father. “I will not leave you comfortless,”—or orphaned, as the word is literally to be translated,—“I will come to you. Ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.” They that learn to live in the Father’s love, are saved from the worst bereavement, and the orphanage of the earth opens to them the parentage of heaven. The first and secondary relationships of earth are both commended and consecrated by the relation prior to them both and primal of all, however late it may be understood; for in spiritual as well as earthly ties, it requires time and thought to know our truest friend; and the playmates of an hour win the child of mortality’s ear more readily than the far-seeing parent, or than the Ancient of Days, the Father of all. Remember that whatever paternal wisdom or maternal tenderness we have ever known here, has its source and archetype on high. There dwells the Godhead that spoke and wrought through the victim of the Cross; there shines the wisdom that opened that disciple’s vision; there burns the love that glowed in the mother’s faithful heart. From the unseen, comes all the glory that is seen; and if any of us have an orphaned heart, as in some respects we all may have, let us find its solace in God, and whatever is God’s. Let the sweet breath of May, that whispers to devotees of Mary’s holy maternity, fill our hearts with more than vernal promise, ideals of more than human loveliness,—call us away from all wintry chills to the light and love of the Parent above all parents—to the home that unites all homes in one.
May.