Benjamin St. John Ackers

“ God give them grace to bear up against the ever sundering years; because the tender, wooing voice of the mother shall be unknown to the child; the longed for and expected accents of the child shall be denied the poor mother. That early teaching at the knee of love, obedience, faith is God and man, it may not be for her to instil into the little heart. What wonder, if soon the baby daughter dies away, the dimpling smiles grow rare and disappear; the lonely life shrinks inward into death—a living death! ”

“ His will—if He reveals it through the working of the mind He gave us, and we are sure He does,—His will is, that these dear children of His and ours, whether they be born deaf or rendered so by sickness, should not for that reason be estranged from their fellow men. ”

“ And, except through lack of culture, they are not Dumb, for they may be trained, in the one case to make use of, in the other not to lose the power of speech, which mere deafness does not destroy: both may acquire our spoken language, and may join therefore in our thoughts and pursuits, and share, through God's goodness, in our pleasures. ”