The Orphan

“ What friend, what tie, shall make up for her eternal absence? What even are the present sufferings of the orphan child, to the dreary void, the irreparable loss she will feel through all her future years. ”

“ The sun shines but dimly on the head of the orphan, for sorrow claims such as its own, and no earthly power can release from its embrace. When a father dies, and she who ‘loves with a deep, strong, fervent love,’ is laid in the grave, then is the brightness of earthly existence extinguished.”
Children, how accurately do the above lines describe the lonely and forsaken condition of the orphan!
Have you never felt your little hearts throb with sorrow when you saw the children of the Orphan Asylum walk quietly down the aisle of the church and seat themselves in regular order in the front pews? ”

“ KING: You may go, for you're at liberty, our pirate rules protect you, And honorary members of our band we do elect you! SAMUEL: For he is an orphan boy! CHORUS: He is! Hurrah for the orphan boy! GENERAL: And it sometimes is a useful thing To be an orphan boy. CHORUS: It is! Hurrah for the orphan boy! Hurrah for the orphan boy! ENSEMBLE: Oh, happy day, with joyous glee They will away and married be! Should it befall auspiciously, Her (Our) sisters all will bridesmaids be! (RUTH enters and comes down to FREDERIC) RUTH: Oh, master, hear one word, I do implore you! ”

“ THE ORPHAN.
THEY who cease as time goes by,
‘Father, mother dear,’ to cry,
They are needy, they are poor,
Gold and silver though they store;
How much more then poorer he
Who to strangers’ doors must flee! ”

“ He had been left an orphan some years before, but had found a father and a mother in every household in the community. He was at home with all, and although he was attached to one family in a particular manner, he was nevertheless equally the favourite of the rest. If the bread of strangers can ever be eaten without that bitterness which the great Italian poet has ascribed to it, surely love had sweetened its salt for the shepherd orphan-boy. ”

“ Out of the wealth the Master gave unto her She clothed the needy and the hungry fed; The poor will mourn a true friend taken from them Above her will the orphan's tear be shed. The orphan's prayer, a prayer of power unbounded. ”

“ Though a child, I knew that the worst part of his grief had passed away. Poor little Cora, how she clung and wept, and nestled in his bosom! His strange coldness had seemed like a second death to the child. I felt that both were happier, and looked on with a glow of the heart.
“My child—my poor, poor orphan,” he murmured, kissing her forehead, while one little pale cheek was pressed to his bosom—“my orphan, my orphan”——
“What is an orphan, papa?” questioned the child, lifting up her face, and gazing at him through her tears. “What is an orphan?” ”

“ Yes, in future life, the orphan frequently owned that all his earthly comforts had sprung from the decision which he had been strengthened to make when, at the turning-point of his course, he had stood at the door of the infant school, listening with a penitent heart to the hymn which his mother had taught him! ”

“ The whole story of the night was then calmly recited—and when the mother heard how the stripling had followed her sweet Hannah into the storm, and borne her in his arms through a hundred drifted heaps—and then looked upon her in her pride, so young, so innocent, and so beautiful, she knew, that were the child indeed to become an orphan, there was one, who, if there was either trust in nature, or truth in religion, would guard and cherish her all the days of her life. ”

“ Raise not a building that has not a strong foundation; if thou dost, beware.
Discourse concerning Kindness to Orphans
Protect him whose father is dead; remove the dust from his raiment, and injure him not. Thou knowest not how hard is his condition; no foliage is there on a rootless tree. Give not a kiss to a child of thine own in the sight of a helpless orphan. If the latter weep, who will assuage his grief? If he be angered, who will bear his burden? See that he weeps not, for the throne of God trembles at the orphan’s lament. ”

“ Spoke the mother to the Raven: "O my son—my brave young hunter, Feed my tender little orphan; Be a father to my orphan; Be a mother to my orphan,— For the Crafty Red Fox robbed us,— Robbed the Sea-Gull of her husband, Robbed the infant of her mother. From this cliff the treacherous woman Headlong into Gitchee Gumee Plunged the mother of my orphan. Then a Nébe-nâw-baig caught me,— Chief of all the Nébe-nâw-baigs— Took me to his shining wigwam, In the cavern of the waters, Deep beneath the might waters. All below is burnished copper, All above is burnished silver Gemmed with amethyst and agates. ”

“ Wachst doch Grās un' Dörner.
Gottunju, Gottunju,
Gottunju du mein,
Wās hāst du mich nit beschaffen
Mit dem Masel wie meine Freund?
Water foams, water foams, one can hear afar. When father and mother die the orphan sheds tears.—The orphan goes, the orphan goes, the orphan does all in vain. People judge, people say that the orphan is good for nothing.—The orphan goes, the orphan goes, in pain and in sorrow. People judge, people say that the orphan is drunk with wine.—With my friends, with my friends there grows wheat and grain. ”

“ No condition of life excites so keenly the compassion of the compassionate as the helplessness of the orphan. It is not only that a child is deprived, by its parents' death, of the means of subsistence; its natural guardian, teacher, friend is gone. Henceforth it is a waif on the ocean of the world. In no respect different was that void which threatened the disciples when the Master's presence had been withdrawn. ”

“ Ah! no, never trust your mother's orphan boy to strangers, or to his own guidance. Go for the poor, desolate lad, and never leave him, or suffer him to leave you. I know what orphanage in childhood is, dear Thurston, and so must you. Bring the boy home. And if he lives with you, I will do all I can to supply his mother's place."
"Dear girl! dear, dear Marian, my heart so longs to press you to itself. A plague upon these horses that keep us so far apart! ”

“ The kind of boy who would have been saved by the devotion of a mother who understood him, he had been left doubly an orphan at an age so early that he had but a confused memory even of his mother's face. ”

“ The little orphan grew, meanwhile, as a garden rose that accident has thrown amid briers and weeds—blooming with alien beauty, and unfolding its soft petals—and shedding its ambrosial odour beneath the airs of heaven, unharmed by its strange position. Lovely as a day of paradise, which, by some strange chance, visits this nether world to gladden every heart, she charmed even her selfish protectress ”

“ In the earliest stage of childhood the orphan may not be aware of this. But when, with the keen intuition of the youthful mind, he opens his eyes to the realities of his situation, the consciousness of this privation, of this difference, of this dependence, will be apt to grow upon him, and then to cast a shadow over his spirits; to give him morbid impressions as to his relations to the rest of mankind, to darken his hopes, to weaken his self-reliance, and to impede the development of his individual energies. ”

“ Rejoice! rejoice! still cry'd the croud,
⁠My mother answer'd with her tears!
Why are you crying thus, said I,
⁠While others laugh and shout with joy
She kiss'd me, and with such a sigh,
⁠She call'd me her poor Orphan Boy!
What is an Orphan Boy? ”

“ A child who, being always with grown-up people, learned to think long before her proper time—a child who had never lain down to sleep when a storm was raging without praying God to bring those who were on sea, safe to land—a young thing who had seen women wringing their hands and mourning for the dead—who having lost both father and mother herself could understand the meaning of the word orphan, and cry with the fatherless children as they talked about the parents who might never again come home. ”

“ The beautiful orphan— (for beautiful she was, Gertrude, as the heroine of the tale you bid me tell ought to be,—should she not have to the dreams of my fancy your lustrous hair, and your sweet smile, and your eyes of blue, that are never, never silent? Ah, pardon me that in a former tale I denied the heroine the beauty of your face, and remember that, to atone for it, I endowed her with the beauty of your mind) —the beautiful orphan blushed to her temples, and culling from the flowers in her lap the freshest of the roses, began weaving them into a wreath for Warbeck. ”

“ It is I, the poor, nameless, penniless orphan, that he loves, because I have proved myself to be sincere, brave, and generous. And I am so truly loved that he offers a life of comparative ease, and an honourable position to me, who seemed destined to a life of poverty, if not absolute want. ”

“ But oh, horror! in place of the coin and jewels, armour and apparel, it was filled with wasted forms bowed with misery and distress! the tear-worn orphan, the neglected sick. Here she saw lying a youth, wan and emaciated, struck down in all the promise of boyhood, and his mother tore her hair in agony by his side. ”

“ In almost every case, an orphan was said to be a child deprived of one or both parents; and, what is very singular, the term orphan occurs but once throughout the Old and New Testaments. In Lamentations it says, ‘We are orphans, and fatherless, and our mothers are as widows.’ Now, in the opinion of many, the orphan and fatherless, and those whose mothers are as widows, here mentioned, are three distinct sets of children—that is, as the lament says, some of us are orphans, meaning children without father and mother, some of us are fatherless ”

“ Think of the orphan. For his own sake, do it, and for our own and our children’s sake. The probability is, that what others ask of us we shall need for ourselves. We must expect that our children will be in want of the very sympathy which we are to show; for who can be sure of leaving his offspring mature enough in years and wisdom to demand no guardian care in place of the parental? It becomes, therefore, an imperious duty to educate our children in such a manner, as to secure them trusty friends ”

“ He does not feel the creeping cold that makes its way in through the holes in his garments; he does not feel the wet that enters boldly his half-open boots; he makes gestures with his hand, talks to himself, to the leaden clouds, or to the pale winter sun; he has so much to think about, so much to say. He is the one orphan lad, but there are three orphan girls, and he would like to know which of them is for him. ”

“ I have been again much in prayer yesterday and today about the Orphan-House, and am more and more convinced that it is of God. May He in mercy guide me! The three chief reasons for establishing an Orphan-House are:—1. That God may be glorified, should He be pleased to furnish me with the means, in its being seen that it is not a vain thing to trust in Him; and that thus the faith of His children may be strengthened. 2. The spiritual welfare of fatherless and motherless children. ”

“ Think tenderly of the orphaned, who are in any way near your own sphere, whether from relationship, friendship, or any other association. It may not be, it is not generally money, that is most needed, but kindness, counsel, encouragement. Many an orphan boy is saved by a judicious word and timely hand from a friend of his lost father or mother, and many a lonely girl finds the path of peace and usefulness smoothed for her by those who remember the parent’s image in the daughter’s face. ”

“ It must ever remain a check upon the poor solitary orphan, that while those females who have parents, or brothers, or riches, to defend their indiscretions, that the orphan must depend solely upon character. ”

“ You bother me to death, and it is all I can do to cook enough for you!”
After the laugh had subsided and a steaming cup of coffee had been placed at the foreman’s elbow, Helen impatiently urged her brother to begin his story.
He lighted his cigar with exasperating deliberateness and then laughed softly: “Gosh! I’m getting to be a second fiddle around here. From morning to night all I hear is The Orphan. The first thing that hits me when I come home is, ‘Have you seen The Orphan?’ or, ‘Have you heard anything about him?’ The worst offenders are Miss Ritchie and Helen. ”

“ There is not much fun in being an orphan until you escape from the orphan asylum, and I want to say that my chum and myself have had two red letter days in the town where we seemed to drop out of a balloon into the hearts of the country people. ”

“ They ought to do everything from love.
Wait until you see the orphan asylum that I am going to be the head of! It ’s my favorite play at night before I go to sleep. I plan it out to the littlest detail—the 154 meals and clothes and study and amusements and punishments; for even my superior orphans are sometimes bad.
But anyway, they are going to be happy. I think that every one, no matter how many troubles he may have when he grows up, ought to have a happy childhood to look back upon. ”

“ ORPHAN BESS.
I am sure that most of our young friends know the meaning of the word "orphan"; and perhaps among the numerous readers of the Little Gleaner are some that are orphans themselves. But if some of the younger ones do not understand what is meant by the word, we must tell them that, when children have lost both parents by death, we call them orphans. Very sad indeed it is to lose both father and mother while young, for no earthly friend can really fill their place. ”

“ There was grief in the aristocratic house, and there was joy in the Bower. Mr Wegg argued, if an orphan were wanted, was he not an orphan himself; and could a better be desired? And why go beating about Brentford bushes, seeking orphans forsooth who had established no claims upon you and made no sacrifices for you, when here was an orphan ready to your hand who had given up in your cause, Miss Elizabeth, Master George, Aunt Jane, and Uncle Parker? ”