Only seventeen days later, a letter accompanying a donation gave further joy to Mr. Muller's heart. It was from the husband of one of the orphans who, in her seventeenth year, had left the institution, and to whom Mr. Muller himself, on her departure, had given the first two volumes of the Reports. Her husband had read them with more spiritual profit than any volume except the Book of books, and had found his faith much strengthened. Being a lay preacher in the Methodist Free Church, the blessed impulses thus imparted to himself were used of God to inspire a like self-surrender in the class under his care. These are a few examples of the countless encouragements that led Mr. Muller, as he reviewed them, to praise God unceasingly. A Christian physician enclosed ten pounds in a letter, telling how first he tried a religion of mere duty and failed; then, after a severe illness, learned a religion of love, apprehending the love of God to himself in Christ and so learning how to love others. In his days of darkness he had been a great lover of flowers and had put up several plant-houses; flower-culture was his hobby, and a fine collection of rare plants, his pride. He took down and sold one of these conservatories and sent the proceeds as _"the price of an idol,_ cast down by God's power." Another giver enclosed a like amount from the sale of unnecessary books and pictures; and a poor man his half-crown, "the fruit of a little tree in his garden." A poor woman, who had devoted the progeny of a pet rabbit to the orphan work, when the young became fit for sale changed her mind and "kept back a part of the price"; _that part,_ however, _two rabbits,_ she found _dead_ on the day when they were to be sold.