I cannot yet leave that sea-coast where so great a multitude go to find rest and healing. The Divine Narrative may well appeal to us in relation to such a locality, for it was by the sea-shore that the Gospel came to those who went out to seek Jesus of Nazareth; it was there that the poor people heard Him gladly; there that the sick who were brought to Him were made whole: there that He fed the great company who lacked bread.
All the deeds of humanity were recognised by Him who called himself the "Son of Man." The blessing of little children is one of those needs of true human life which the Lord recognised gladly. He recognises it still; and His solemn mingling of warning and of promise with regard to its observance, has an intensity that may well appeal to us all, now that, after eighteen centuries of comparative neglect and indifference, we are discerning that the only hope of social redemption is to be found in that care for children which shall forbid their being left either morally or physically destitute.
There is a house, standing high above the sea, in that great breezy suburb of Margate, known as Cliftonville—to which I want you to pay a visit when the bright, cheerful, airy wards, the light, spacious dining-room, and comfortable, home-like enlivening influences of the place will entitle it to be regarded as the fitting consummation of two other admirable institutions for the nurture and maintenance of orphan and fatherless children.
The modest little building referred to is named "The Convalescent and Sea-side Home for Orphans," Harold Road, Margate. The parent institutions are "The Orphan Working School," at Haverstock Hill, and that most attractive series of pretty cottages on the brow of the hill at Hornsey Rise, which have been more than once spoken of as "Lilliput Village," but the style and title of which is "The Alexandra Orphanage for Infants"—a name, the distinguishing feature of which is that it is immediately associated with its first patroness, the Princess of Wales.
Of the Home at Margate I need not now speak particularly, except to note that it is for the reception of the little convalescents, who—suffering, as many of them do, from constitutional and hereditary weakness, which is yet not actual sickness, and recovering, as many of them are, from the feeble condition which has been to some extent remedied by the careful nurture, good food, and healthy regimen, of the large institutions near London—are not fit patients either for their own or any other infirmary wards, and yet require to be restored to greater strength before they can join the main body of their young companions in the school or the playground.
Enough that it is picturesque and substantially pretty, as becomes a place which is to become the home of thirty children, taken from among nearly six hundred, the parents of nearly half of whom have died of consumption, and so left to their offspring that tendency to a feeble constitution which can be best remedied by the grand medicine of sea-air, wholesome nutritious food, and a judicious alternation of healthful exercise and rest.
It is to Mr. Joseph Soul—the late indefatigable secretary of the Working School, with which he has been connected for nearly forty years, and the honorary secretary of the Alexandra Orphanage, of which he may be regarded as the virtual founder—that the proposal to establish this Convalescent Home was due, and its affairs are administered at the office of the two charities, at 63, Cheapside.
But it is necessary to tell as briefly as possible the story of the oldest of the two institutions of which this building is to be an accessory—not only the oldest of these two, but probably the oldest voluntarily supported orphan asylum in London, since it dates from 116 years ago, when George II. was King, when Louis XV. was scandalising Europe and preparing the Revolution, when Wesleyan Methodism was commencing a vast religious revival, when Doctor Johnson had but just finished writing his dictionary, and when William Hogarth was painting those wonderful pictures which are still the most instructive records of society and fashion as seen in the year 1758.
It was in that year, on the 10th of May, that fourteen periwigged and powdered gentlemen met at the George Inn, in Ironmonger Lane, in order to discuss how they might best found an asylum for forty orphan children—that is to say, for twenty boys and twenty girls.
They soon came to a solemn decision that there was a "sufficient subscription for carrying the scheme into execution," and a record to that effect was soberly entered in the very first clean page of the first minute-book of the Charity, with the additional memoranda that a committee was chosen, and a treasurer appointed to collect and take care of the money necessary to support the undertaking.