DELIVERED ON THE FORTY-EIGHTH ANNIVERSARY OF The Orphan House, IN CHARLESTON, S. C. October 18th, 1837. BY REV. THOMAS SMYTH. PUBLISHED BY REQUEST OF THE COMMISSIONERS. CHARLESTON: ORATION. HALLE is a large town of Prussian Saxony, situated on both sides of the river Saale. It contains twenty-four thousand inhabitants and many objects of attraction. Among these are its cathedral, the tower of which is higher than two hundred and sixty-eight feet, and its famous university, which is even yet attended by six hundred students, and has sent forth some of the most eminent German scholars. The But the celebrity of Halle depends on a different cause. traveller who enters this town, as he casts his eyes around, is attracted by a large pile of buildings sufficient to fill both sides of a court eight hundred feet long. On inquiry he is informed that this is the Orphan House, and that it was built by one who had himself, by the early loss of his father, known what it was to be left an orphan in a friendless world. The Rev. Augustus Herman Francke was a man remarkable for his piety and benevolence. When he came to live in Halle as a Professor in its university, it was customary for the poor to go round on certain days and receive from the inhabitants whatever assistance they might be disposed to render. Francke was struck, not only with their poverty and squalid wretchedness, but much more by their moral degradation. Though himself poor, he determined out of his poverty, to make an effort to befriend them, by taking charge of some children and having them educated. Being encouraged and assisted in this attempt he finally resolved, in dependence upon that charity which God might awaken in answer to his prayers, to attempt the erection of a large building, where these orphan children might be received, provided for, and instructed. By a series of the most wonderful and almost incredible interpositions of divine providence, he completed that establishment which has perpetuated his fame, given celebrity to the town, and rendered incalculable benefit to the country and the world. His birth-day is still yearly celebrated at the institutions, which commands the undiminished interest of the inhabitants. In the year 1727, when Francke died, there were in all the schools connected with this establishment two thousand and two hundred pupils. One hundred and thirty-four of these were orphans who lived in the Orphan House, and who with one hundred and sixty other children and two hundred and fifty indigent students, daily ate at the public tables of the establishment without charge. |