THE ORPHAN.
“Cold is the world without a father’s arm to shield, and a mother’s heart to love. The sun shines but dimly on the head of the orphan, for sorrow claims such as its own, and no earthly power can release from its embrace. When a father dies, and she who ‘loves with a deep, strong, fervent love,’ is laid in the grave, then is the brightness of earthly existence extinguished.”
Children, how accurately do the above lines describe the lonely and forsaken condition of the orphan!
Have you never felt your little hearts throb with sorrow when you saw the children of the Orphan Asylum walk quietly down the aisle of the church and seat themselves in regular order in the front pews? Did not their plain dress speak to you in language which you were obliged to hear? Did not the prayer arise from your breasts, that God would be a Father to the fatherless, that He would watch over, guide and protect, throughout the journey of life, that helpless little band of fatherless and motherless children?
How lonely must their condition be. No father to counsel, no mother to love, no home beneath whose shelter they may rest, but dependent upon the cold charities of a colder world.
He who would treat unkindly, or wound the feelings of an orphan, is worse than the brute of the field.
My young orphan friends, there is but one source to which I can direct you; there is but one friend who will never desert you; there is but one house whose door will never be closed against you.
That source is God; that friend is Christ; that house is one not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. God will counsel you; upon the bosom of Christ you may “lean for repose;” and the angels of heaven will ever welcome you to their blest abode.
The kind father and the loving mother, from whom you have been separated by death, you shall meet again, if you are Christians.
And to you, dear little readers, who know not the length and breadth and depth of a Saviour’s love, let me say one word: There is no orphanage like that of the soul which leans not upon Christ as its Saviour and Redeemer.