German composition

Section 18 Give⁠ the Honour to God Alone1

A lady applied⁠2 to the worthy philanthropist⁠3 Richard Reynolds on behalf of a little orphan boy. After he⁠4 had (App. § 17) given liberally⁠5, she said: “When⁠6 he is old enough, I (App. § 15) will teach⁠7 him to thank his benefactor.” “Stop⁠8,” said the good man, “thou art mistaken⁠9. We do not thank the clouds for rain (S. 3, N. 2). Teach⁠10 him to look higher, and thank Him⁠11 who giveth both the clouds and the rain.”—Rev. R. K. Arvine.

Notes

1 Say ‘Give God alone the honour’.

2 to apply to a person on behalf of somebody, sich bei einem für jemand verwenden.

3 Menschenfreund, m.

4 To avoid ambiguity turn the pron. ‘he’ here by ‘Reynolds’.

5 ‘liberally’, here reichlich.

6 The conjunction ‘when’, used in the sense of ‘whenever’, and referring to indefinite time, must be rendered by ‘wenn’ (compare S. 4, N. 2); as—
When (whenever) my old teacher came to Hamburg, he always stayed with me. Wenn mein alter Lehrer nach Hamburg kam, wohnte er stets bei mir.

7 The verb ‘lehren’, to teach, requires the accusative of the person. Render the sentence ‘I — benefactor’ by ‘I will teach him to be thankful to his benefactor’.

8 Halt´!

9 to be mistaken, sich irren.

10 Teach — higher, Lehre ihn höher blicken.

11 The pronoun ‘Him’ is here used as a demonstr. pron.; ‘both... and’, sowohl... wie auch; ‘to give’, here = to send.