At the end of the following year, the home was full of fatherless and motherless little ones, and others were seeking admission for whom there was no room. I sent out a second appeal, asking God to put it into the heart of someone to provide a second home. A few weeks afterwards a lady well known in Manchester paid us a visit at the home and two days later I received from her a cheque for £1000. In this way we got our second home. Another year and this second home was also full. Again I prayed God to dispose the heart of some one to help us, and I sent out another appeal. One day, perhaps two or three weeks later, a gentleman stopped me in the street and said he had been wanting to see me for some days, as he had a cheque for £700 waiting for me at his office. At the moment the orphan home was not in my mind, and I asked what the cheque was for. Why, he said, I understand your two orphan homes are full and that you want another. And so we got our third home. Another year and it too was full. Again after earnest prayer I received a cheque for £1000 from another Manchester gentleman, who in some way had come to know that a fourth home was needed.
In these four cases you have, I think, remarkable instances of direct answer to prayer. So, at any rate, I must always regard them. I need not say how encouraged we were, year after year, to go on with the work, though each additional home meant a large increase in our annual expenditure.
The money with which the fifth orphanage house was bought was not given in one sum nor specially for the purpose, and the circumstances would not warrant me in saying that it came in direct answer to prayer. When a sixth home became necessary an appeal was made to the schoolgirls of Lancashire and Cheshire, and they found the £500 for the purchase money. This house is called "The School Girls' Home." The inscription on the memorial stone, "His children shall have a place of refuge," was suggested by the late Bishop of Manchester.
In smaller, but perhaps not less important matters, we have had unmistakable proofs that God answers prayer. One case which occurred in the early days of the work greatly impressed me. A letter came one morning from Stalybridge asking us to take in five little children who had been left destitute and without a friend in the world. I went over to make inquiries, and found the children in the same room with the dead body of their mother, which had little more to cover it than an old sack. Our means at that time were very small, and I thought we could hardly venture to take in all the children. The clergyman of the parish pleaded with me to take at least two or three. I asked what was to become of the others, and the answer was that there was nothing for them but the workhouse. What to do I did not know. I made it a matter of prayer, but all that night it lay upon my heart a great burden. Next morning I came downstairs still wondering what to do. Amongst the letters on my table was one from a gentleman at Bowdon, enclosing, unasked, a cheque for £50. In those days £50 was an exceptionally large sum for us to receive, and I took the letter as a direct word from God that we should accept the care of the children. We did so, and I am glad to say every one of them turned out well.