
The principle of his whole life was that he never made known his financial needs to anyone or asked for money. He took no salary during the last 68 years of his ministry, but trusted God to put in people’s hearts to send him what he needed when he needed it. He never took out a loan or went into debt and his orphans never went hungry. At an early stage he set his heart to prove to God’s people everywhere that the Lord would faithfully provide for them if they would trust Him.
“It seemed to me best done, by the establishing of an Orphan-House. It needed to be something which could be seen, even by the natural eye. Now, if I, a poor man, simply by prayer and faith, obtained, without asking any individual, the means for establishing and carrying on an Orphan-House: there would be something which, with the Lord's blessing, might be instrumental in strengthening the faith of the children of God besides being a testimony to the consciences of the unconverted, of the reality of the things of God. This,
then, was the primary reason, for establishing the Orphan-House…The first and primary object of the work was, (and still is) that God might be magnified by the fact, that the orphans under my care are provided, with all they need, only by prayer and faith, without any one being asked by me or my fellow-laborers, whereby it may be seen, that God is FAITHFUL STILL, and HEARS PRAYER STILL.”