ar also will
help us in every way, as our circumstances may call for it.

At the close of these details (with reference to the year from Dec.
9, 1839, to Dec. 9, 1840) I make a few remarks in connexion with them.

1. Though our trials of faith during this year also have been many,
and recurring more frequently than during any previous year, and
though we have been often reduced to the greatest extremity, yet the
Orphans have lacked nothing; for they have always had good nourishing
food, and the necessary articles of clothing, etc.

2. Should it be supposed by any one in reading the plain details of
our trials of faith during this year, that on account of them we have
been disappointed in our expectations, or are discouraged in the
work, my answer is, that the very reverse is the fact. Such days were
expected from the commencement of the work; nay, more than this, the
chief end for which the Institution was established is, that the
Church of Christ at large might be benefited by seeing manifestly the
hand of God stretched out on our behalf in the hour of need, in
answer to prayer. Our desire, therefore, is not that we may be
without trials of faith, but that the Lord graciously would be
pleased to support us in the trial, that we may not dishonour Him by
distrust.

3. This way of living brings the Lord remarkably near, He is, as it
were, morning by morning inspecting our stores, that accordingly He
may send help. Greater and more manifest nearness of the Lord's
presence I have never had, than when after breakfast there were no
means for dinner, and then the Lord provided the dinner for more than
one hundred persons; or when, after dinner, there were no means for
the tea, and yet the Lord provided the tea; and all this without one
single human being having been informed about our need. This moreover
I add, that although we, who have been eye witnesses of these
gracious interpositions of our Father, have not been so benefited by
them as we might and ought to have been, yet we have in some measure
derived blessing from them. One thing is certain, that we are not
tired of doing the Lord's work in this way.

4. It has been more that once observed, that such a way of living
must lead the mind continually to think whence food, clothes, etc.,
are to come, and so unfit for spiritual exercises. Now, in the first
place, I answer, that our minds are very little tried about the
necessaries of life, just because the care res