"Among the afflicted of our suffering race," thus speaks the constitution of the society, "none makes a stronger or more impressive appeal to humanity than the _destitute orphan_. Crime has not been the cause of its misery, and future usefulness may yet be the result of its protection; the reverse is often the case of more aged objects. God himself has marked the fatherless as the peculiar subjects of his divine compassion. 'A Father of the fatherless is God in his holy habitation,' 'When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up.' To be the blessed instrument of, divine Providence in making good the promise of God, is a privilege equally desirable and honorable to the benevolent heart.'" And truly God has made good his promise towards this benevolent institution. He has crowned the undertaking with his remarkable blessing. It was begun by his disciples in faith, and he has acknowledged them in it. Having for fourteen months occupied a hired house for an asylum, the ladies entertained the bold idea of building an asylum on account of the society. They had then about three hundred and fifty dollars as the commencement of a fund for the building; they purchased four lots of ground in the village of Greenwich, on a healthful, elevated site, possessing a fine prospect. The corner-stone was laid on the 7th of July, 1807. They erected a building fifty feet square; from time to time they proceeded to finish the interior of the building, and to purchase additional ground as their funds would permit; and such was the liberality of the legislature and of the public, that the society soon possessed a handsome building and nearly an acre of ground, all of which must have cost them little short of twenty-five thousand dollars. In that house Mrs. Graham and Mrs. Hoffman spent much of their time; there they trained for eternity the children of those whose widowed dying mothers they had cheered with the hope that when they should be taken away, God would fulfil his gracious promise and preserve their fatherless children alive. Mrs. Hoffman survived Mrs. Graham seven years. Her end, like that of her friend, was peace. But though God removed those mothers in Israel, their prayers are still before him, and the institution continues to prosper. In 1836, the city having extended to where the asylum was situated, and the property at the same time increased in value, the society became desirous to remove where the children would enjoy purer air, and have greater convenience for a garden and pasture for cows. With the advice of their patrons, they sold the property for about thirty-nine thousand dollars; purchased nearly ten acres of ground at Bloomingdale, and on the 9th of June the same year laid the foundation-stone of their present beautiful building. In the Thirty-fourth Annual Report of the society for 1840, we find the following record of God's goodness: