40 AN APPENDIX. fund, worthy to be laid out in some important undertaking; wherefore, I will even take this for the foundation of a charity- school." The same day he bought as many books as cost eight shillings, and then got a student to teach the poor children two hours in a day. He fitted up a place before his study for a charity-school, and fixed a box on one of the walls. At the top thereof, he set down these words : as For defraying the charges of putting to' school poor children and providing books and other necessaries;" Anno MDCXCV. And at the bottom? Prov. xix. 17. Ile that hath pity upon the poor, lendeth unto the Lord, and, that which he hath given, will he pay hum again. " We had, saith he, many poor children brought together before we had built a house to receive them : In the mean time the Lord inclined the heart of a person of quality to layout the sum of a thousand crowns for the use of the poor : And two other persons supplied us with four hundred crowns to encourage the design on foot. Much of this money was spent in feeding and clothing and instructing the orphans before they begun to build a hospital : and, as the author expresses it ; " The Lord knows we had not so much as would answer thecost of a small cottage, much less a building as might hold two hundred people : But the Lord strengthened my faith, and on July 13, 1698, the foundation of a hospital was laid in the name of God, and as for the building itself itself I was to wait upon God, and from week to week receive at his hand what he would be graciously pleased to fur, Gish me with for carrying on the same, The pious author goes on,and informs us how successfully the building proceeded in opposition to all the froward censures of ill- meaning people, by the most unforeseen and amazing in- stances of the liberality of persons known and unknown, which brought in daily, weekly, and sometimes hourly supplies both for the support of the orphans and the building of the house ; till it has at last arisen to such a fair extent and to the support and instruction of so many hundreds of the poor as to become the glory of the German churches, the wonder of the nations, and the most miraculous instance of the effect of faith and prayer that was ever known ofthis kind, not only since the days of the apos- tles, but perhaps since the creation. It is hardly possible to read the account without a sacred astonishment. Therewe find to what an extreme necessity they were at several times reduced in the building, and yet before night their supplies were as suitable, sufficient and surprizing, as if an angel had been appointed to oversee the work, and to take care that the workmen were paid. God has not only manifested his divine approbation of
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