Page:Opening of the Connecticut Asylum Sermon 1817.djvu/10

 system of education for the deaf and dumb, and of training up teachers for such remoter places, as may need similar establishments.

This State, too, has we trust given a pledge that it will not abandon an Asylum, which its own citizens have had the honour of founding; and which claims a connexion, (a humble one indeed,) with its other humane and literary institutions.

In this city, however, have the principal efforts been made in favour of this undertaking. Here, in the wise dispensations of his providence, God saw fit to afflict an interesting child with this affecting calamity, that her misfortune might move the feelings, and rouse the efforts, of her parents and friends, in behalf of her fellow-sufferers. Here, was excited, in consequence, that spirit of research, which led to the melancholy discovery that our own small state probably contains one hundred of these unfortunate. Here, were raised up the original benefactors of the deaf and dumb, whose benevolence has enabled the Asylum to open its doors for the reception of pupils, much sooner than was at first contemplated. Here, the hearts of many have been moved to offices of kindness, and labours of love, which the objects of their regard will have reason ever to remember with affectionate gratitude; and here is witnessed, for the first time in this western world, the affecting sight of a little group of fellow-sufferers assembling for instruction, whom neither sex, nor age, nor distance, could prevent from hastening to embrace the first opportunity of aspiring to the privileges that we enjoy, as rational, social, and immortal beings. They know the value of the gift that is offered them, and are not reluctant to quit the delights of their native home—(delights doubly dear to those whose circle of enjoyment is so contracted,) nor to forsake the endearments of the parental roof, that they may find, in a land of strangers, and through toils of indefatigable perseverance, the treasures of wisdom and knowledge! How can the importunity of such suppliants be rejected! Hard is that heart which can resist such claims upon its kindness.