Ministering children : a story showing how even a child may be a ministering angel of love to the poor and sorrowful ...

Front matter

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Preface To The American Edition

This book is suited to charm and benefit all classes of readers. It is so simple a child may understand it, and so full of pathos, beauty, and instruction, that an adult may find intense delight and spiritual profit from its perusal. That it is a work of uncommon power, is shown by its immense popularity in England, where upward of twenty-nine thousand copies have been sold. That its character and tendency are good, is evident from the approval it has received from the British Sunday-School Union, and the London Religious Tract Society, both of which associations advertise it with their publications. A W esley an layman, no mean

6 PREFACE TO AMERICAN EDITION.

judge of literary excellence, lias pronounced it tlie best work of its class yet published. We endorse bis opinion, and shall be greatly disappointed if our readers do not concur with us in this judgment. But be this as it may, we feel sure that no man whose humanity is in a healthy state, can read it without having his emotional nature profoundly moved, and his aspirations for the happiness of his fellow-creatures powerfully quickened. Confident that this book about ministering children will be itself a “ ministering angel ” to its readers, we commend it to the attention and patronage of all who love a pure and healthy religious literature.

D. W.

Preface

Difficulty being sometimes felt in training children to the exercise of those kindly feelings which have the poor for their object, it was thought that an illustrative tale might prove a help toward this important end. It must be allowed by all that the present is a day of increased exertion in behalf of those who are in need ; but much care is necessary that the temporal aid extended may prove, not a moral injury, but a moral benefit, to both the receiver and the communicator of that aid. May it not be worthy of consideration, whether the most generally effective way to insure this moral benefit on both sides, would not be the early calling forth and training the sympathies of children by personal intercourse with want and sorrow, while as yet those sympathies flow spontaneously ? Let the truth be borne in mind, that the influence of the giver far exceeds that of the gift on the

PREFACE.

receiver of it ; and it must surely then be admitted, that in all aid rendered to others, the calling into exercise the best feelings of the heart, in both the giver and receiver, is the most important object to be kept in view. To this end it is necessary that the talent of money be not suffered to assume any undue supremacy in the service of benevolence. Let children be trained, and taught, and led aright, and they will not be slow to learn that they possess a personal influence everywhere ; that the first principles of Divine truth acquired by them, are a means of communicating to others present comfort and eternal happiness, and that the heart of love is the only spring that can effectually govern and direct the hand df charity.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGK

I. — Little Ruth and the Poor Sick Child 11

IL — Little Jane and the Orphan Mercy 27