"About My Father's Business": Work Amidst the Sick, the Sad, and the SorrowingArcher, Thomas
Religion
"About My Father's Business": Work Amidst the Sick, the Sad, and the Sorrowing
Archer, Thomas
Pastoral theology
This was the condition of the orphans in 1775; but still
the charity grew—grew out of house-room; and as the
funds grew also, it was determined that it should have a
building of its own, on a plot of ground in the City Road,
where, improvements having set in, the grand old charity
moved with the march of modern improvement. Life
became less hard, and instruction more extended. The
influences of modern thought and education had superseded
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the old severity, and new Governors succeeded
the bewigged and powdered founders, who had, after all,
so well ordered their work, that it increased with the
growth of intelligence.
During the seventy-two years from 1775 to 1847, the
institution had received 1,124 orphans; and again the
dimensions of the house were unequal to the demands of
the inmates; while the house itself, and the ground on
which it stood, had become so valuable, that it was determined
to buy a plot of land at Haverstock Hill, and
there to found a truly representative Home for 240 orphan
boys and girls—a number which has now increased (as
the building itself has been extended) till 400 orphans are
taught, fed, and clothed in one of the most truly representative
charities in all great London.
The obvious distress and suffering of those who are
destitute, and whose claims are constantly before us, may
lead us to forget the frequent needs of a large number of
people who represent uncomplaining poverty. There is
a tendency to identify general appeals to benevolence
with efforts for the relief of that extreme necessity which
demands immediate and almost undiscriminating aid,
and requires the prompt distribution of alms or the provision
of a meal, warmth, and shelter. Doubtless, the
actually homeless and destitute claim our first attention—especially
in the case of deserted and neglected children—and
I have tried to show what is being done for those
little ones, whose presence in the streets of this great
wilderness of brick and stone should of itself be an appeal
strong enough to move the heart of humanity in their
behalf.
There is, however, another class of poverty, which
makes no sign, and bears distress dumbly. There is a
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need, which, without being that of actual destitution,
requires a constant struggle to prevent its representing
the want of nearly all the luxuries, and some of those
things which most of us regard as the necessaries of
life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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