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some sympathizer. This boy has been tossed about here and there,
from pillar to post, and he may have many errors, many careless ways,
with considerable independence, and he may lack reverence. But he
is quite enterprising, and with right instruction and kind treatment, I
have the fullest confidence that he would not disappoint our hopes,
but would fully repay all the labor expended on him. Considering his
disadvantages, I think he is a very good boy.
When we entreated you to take him we did it because we fully
believed it was your duty, and that in doing so you would be blessed.
We did not expect that you would do this merely to be benefited by
the help that you would receive from the boy, but to benefit him, to
do a duty to the orphan—a duty which every true Christian should
be seeking and anxiously watching to perform; a duty, a sacrificing
duty, which we believed it would do you good to take up, if you did it
cheerfully, with a view to being the instrument in the hands of God of
saving a soul from the snares of Satan, of saving a son whose father
devoted his precious life to pointing souls to the Lamb of God who
taketh away the sin of the world....
In regard to E, do not, I entreat of you, forget that he is a child with
only a child’s experience. Do not measure him, a poor, weak, feeble
boy, with yourselves and expect of him accordingly. I fully believe that
it is in your power to do the right thing by this orphan. You can present
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inducements to him so that he will not feel that his task is cheerless,
unrelieved by a ray of encouragement. You, my brother and sister,
can enjoy yourselves in each other’s confidence, you can sympathize
with each other, interest and amuse each other, and tell your trials and
burdens to each other. You have something to cheer you, while he is
alone. He is a thinking boy, but has no one to confide in or to give him
a cheering word amid his discouragements and severe trials, which I
know he has as well as those more advanced in years.
If you shut yourselves up to each other, it is selfish love, unattended
with Heaven’s blessing. I have strong hope that you will love the
orphan for Christ’s sake, that you will feel that your possessions are
but worthless unless employed in doing good. Do good; be rich in
good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate, laying up
in store for yourselves a good foundation against the time to come,
that you may lay hold on eternal life. None will reap the reward of
everlasting life but the self-sacrificing. A dying father and mother left