Page:Annalsoffaminein00nich.djvu/48

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42
ANNALS OF THE

That day my mind was most active, devising how the greatest good might be effected by the little which God had intrusted to me. Indian meal, when cooked in a suitable manner, was now becoming a great favorite; this I knew how to do, and determined to use the money for this object, always cooking it myself. When this was adjusted in my mind, the remainder of the day was devoted to writing letters to America, mostly for the two objects of thanking them for what they had done, and giving them, from eye-witness, a little account of the famine. In this, the desire and even the thought was entirely withheld of receiving anything myself to give; acting entirely as a passive instrument; moving, because moved upon. Here, afterward, was the wisdom of Him who sees not as man seeth, peculiarly manifest; for had I that day, by the parcel put into my hands from New York, been in possession of a hundred pounds, the day would have been spent in going into the cabins of the starving, and distributing to the needy—the money would have soon been expended, and then no more means would have been in my power to do good. But my weakness was God's strength, my poverty His riches; and as He had shown me, all the journey through, that my dependence should be entirely on Him, so now, more than ever, it was to be made manifest. The letters crossed the ocean, found the way to the hands and hearts of those to whom they were sent, and, when in the multitude of other thoughts and cares they were by the writer forgotten as a past dream, they were returned, embodied in a printed parcel, ac-