THE PERIOD OF WORLD-WIDE WITNESS
GOD'S real answers to prayer are often seeming denials. Beneath the
outward request He hears the voice of the inward desire, and He responds
to the mind of the Spirit rather than to the imperfect and perhaps
mistaken words in which the yearning seeks expression. Moreover, His
infinite wisdom sees that a larger blessing may be ours only by the
withholding of the lesser good which we seek; and so all true prayer
trusts Him to give His own answer, not in our way or time, or even to
our own expressed desire, but rather to His own unutterable groaning
within us which He can interpret better than we.
Monica, mother of Augustine, pleaded with God that her dissolute son
might not go to Rome, that sink of iniquity; but he was permitted to go,
and thus came into contact with Ambrose, bishop of Milan, through whom
he was converted. God fulfilled the mother's _desire_ while denying her
_request._
When George Muller, five times within the first eight years after
conversion, had offered himself as a missionary, God had blocked his
way; now, at sixty-five, He was about to permit him, in a sense he had
never dreamed of, to be a missionary to the world. From the beginning of
his ministry he had been more or less an itinerant, spending no little
time in wanderings about in Britain and on the Continent; but now he was
to go to the regions beyond and spend the major part of seventeen years
in witnessing to the prayer-hearing God.
These extensive missionary tours occupied the evening of Mr. Muller's
useful life, from 1875 to 1892. They reached, more or less, over Europe,
America, Asia, Africa, and Australia; and would of themselves have
sufficed for the work of an ordinary life.
They had a singular suggestion. While, in 1874, compelled by Mrs.
Muller's health to seek a change of air, he was preaching in the Isle of
Wight, and a beloved Christian brother for whom he had spoken, himself a
man of much experience in preaching, told him how 'that day had been the
happiest of his whole life'; and this remark, with others like it
previously made, so impressed him that the Lord was about to use him to
help on believers outside of Bristol, that he determined no longer to
confine his labours in the Word and doctrine to any one place, but to go
wherever a door might open for his testimony.
In weighing this question he was impressed with seven reasons or
motives, which led to these tours:
1. To _preach the gospel_ in its simplicity, and especially to show how
salvation is based, not upon feelings or even upon faith, but upon the
finished work of Christ; that justification is ours the moment we
believe, and we are to accept and claim our place as accepted in the
Beloved without regard to our inward states of feeling or emotion.
2. To _lead believers to know their saved state,_ and to realize their
standing in Christ, great numbers not only of disciples, but even
preachers and pastors, being themselves destitute of any real peace and
joy in the Lord, and hence unable to lead others into joy and peace.
3. To _bring believers back to the Scriptures,_ to search the Word and
find its hidden treasures; to test everything by this divine touchstone
and hold fast only what will stand this test; to make it the daily
subject of meditative and prayerful examination in order to translate it
into daily obedience.
4. To _promote among all true believers, brotherly love;_ to lead them
to make less of those non-essentials in which disciples differ, and to
make more of those great essential and foundation truths in which all
true believers are united; to help all who love and trust one Lord to
rise above narrow sectarian prejudices, and barriers to fellowship.
5. To _strengthen the faith of believers,_ encouraging a simpler trust,
and a more real and unwavering confidence in God, and particularly in
the sure answers to believing prayer, based upon His definite promises.
6. To _promote separation from the world_ and deadness to it, and so to
increase heavenly-mindedness in children of God; at the same time
warning against fanatical extremes and extravagances, such as sinless
perfection while in the flesh.
7. And finally to _fix the hope of disciples on the blessed coming of
our Lord Jesus;_ and, in connection therewith, to instruct them as to
the true character and object of the present dispensation, and the
relation of the church to the world in this period of the out-gathering
of the Bride of Christ.
These seven objects may be briefly epitomized thus: Mr. Muller's aim was
to lead sinners to believe on the name of the Son of God, and so to
_have eternal life;_ to help those who have thus believed, to _know_
that they have this life; to teach them so to _build up_ themselves on
their most holy faith, by diligent searching into the word of God, and
praying in the Holy Ghost, as that this life shall be more and more a
real possession and a conscious possession; to promote among all
disciples the _unity of the Spirit_ and the _charity_ which is the bond
of perfectness, and to help them to exhibit that life before the world;
to incite them to cultivate an _unworldly and spiritual type of
character_ such as conforms to the life of God in them; to lead them to
the _prayer of faith_ which is both the expression and the expansion of
the life of faith; and to direct their hope to the _final appearing of
the Lord,_ so that they should purify themselves even as He is pure, and
occupy till He comes. Mr. Muller was thus giving himself to the double
work of evangelization and edification, on a scale commensurate with his
love for a dying world, as opportunity afforded doing good unto all men,
and especially to them who are of the household of faith.
Of these long and busy missionary journeys, it is needful to give only
the outline, or general survey. March 263 1875, is an important date,
for it marks the starting-point. He himself calls this "the beginning of
his missionary tours."
From Bristol he went to Brighton, Lewes, and Sunderland--on the way to
Sunderland preaching to a great audience in the Metropolitan Tabernacle,
at Mr. Spurgeon's request--then to Newcastle-on-Tyne, and back to London,
where he spoke at the Mildmay Park Conference, Talbot Road Tabernacle,
and 'Edinburgh Castle.' This tour closed, June 5th, after seventy
addresses in public, during about ten weeks.
Less than six weeks passed, when, on August 14th, the second tour began,
in which case the special impulse that moved him was a desire to follow
up the revival work of Mr. Moody and Mr. Sankey. Their short stay in
each place made them unable to lead on new converts to higher
attainments in knowledge and grace, and there seemed to be a call for
some instruction fitted to confirm these new believers in the life of
obedience. Mr. Muller accordingly followed these evangelists in England,
Ireland, and Scotland, staying in each place from one week to six, and
seeking to educate and edify those who had been led to Christ. Among the
places visited on this errand in 1875, were London; then Kilmarnock,
Saltwater, Dundee, Perth, Glasgow, Kirkentilloch in Scotland, and Dublin
in Ireland; then, returning to England, he went to Leamington, Warwick,
Kenilworth, Coventry, Rugby, etc. In some cases, notably at Mildmay
Park, Dundee and Glasgow, Liverpool and Dublin, the audiences numbered
from two thousand to six thousand, but everywhere rich blessing came
from above. This second tour extended into the new year, 1876, and took
in Liverpool, York, Kendal, Carlisle, Annan, Edinburgh, Arbroath,
Montrose, Aberdeen, and other places; and when it closed in July, having
lasted nearly eleven months, Mr. Muller had preached at least three
hundred and six times, an average of about one sermon a day, exclusive
of days spent in travel. So acceptable and profitable were these labours
that there were over one hundred invitations urged upon him which he was
unable to accept.
The third tour was on the Continent. It occupied most of the year
closing May 26, 1877, and embraced Paris, various places in Switzerland,
Prussia and Holland, Alsace, Wurtemberg, Baden, Hesse Darmstadt, etc.
Altogether over three hundred addresses were given in about seventy
cities and villages to all of which he had been invited by letter. When
this tour closed more than sixty written invitations remained
unaccepted, and Mr. Muller found that, through his work and his
writings, he was as well known in the continental countries visited, as
in England.
Turning now toward America, the fourth tour extended from August, 1877,
to June of the next year. For many years invitations had been coming
with growing frequency, from the United States and Canada; and of late
their urgency led him to recognize in them the call of God, especially
as he thought of the many thousands of Germans across the Atlantic, who
as they heard him speak in their own native tongue would keep the more
silence. (Acts xxii. 2.)
Mr. and Mrs. Muller, landing at Quebec, thence went to the United
States, where, during ten months, his labours stretched over a vast
area, including the States of New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts,
Pennsylvania, Maryland, District of Columbia, Virginia, South Carolina,
Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, and Missouri. Thus having swept
round the Atlantic sea-border, he crossed to the Pacific coast, and
returning visited Salt Lake City in Utah--the very centre and stronghold
of Mormonism--Illinois, Ohio, etc. He spoke frequently to large
congregations of Germans, and, in the Southern States, to the coloured
population; but he regarded no opportunity for service afforded him on
this tour as so inspiring as the repeated meetings with and for
ministers, evangelists, pastors, and Christian workers; and, next to
them in importance, his interviews with large bodies of students and
professors in the universities, colleges, theological seminaries, and
other higher schools of education. To cast the salt of the gospel into
the very springs of social influence, the sources whence power flows,
was to him a most sacred privilege. His singular catholicity, charity,
and humility drew to him even those who differed with him, and all
denominations of Christians united in giving him access to the people.
During this tour he spoke three hundred times, and travelled nearly ten
thousand miles; over one hundred invitations being declined, for simple
lack of time and strength.
After a stay in Bristol of about two months, on September 5, 1878, he
and his wife began the fifth of these missionary tours. In this case, it
was on the Continent, where he ministered in English, German, and
French; and in Spain and Italy, when these tongues were not available,
his addresses were through an interpreter. Many open doors the Lord set
before him, not only to the poorer and humbler classes, but to those in
the middle and higher ranks. In the Riviera, he had access to many of
the nobility and aristocracy, who from different countries sought health
and rest in the equable climate of the Mediterranean, and at Mentone he
and Mr. Spurgeon held sweet converse. In Spain Mr. Muller was greatly
gladdened by seeing for himself the schools, entirely supported by the
funds of the Scriptural Knowledge Institution, and by finding that, in
hundreds of cases, even popish parents so greatly valued these schools
that they continued to send their children, despite both the threats and
persuasions of the Romish priests. He found, moreover, that the pupils
frequently at their homes read to their parents the word of God and sang
to them the gospel hymns learned at these schools, so that the influence
exerted was not bounded by its apparent horizon, as diffused or
refracted sunlight reaches with its illumining rays far beyond the
visible track of the orb of day.
The work had to contend with governmental opposition. When a place was
first opened at Madrid for gospel services, a sign was placed outside,
announcing the fact. Official orders were issued that the sign should be
painted over, so as to obliterate the inscription. The painter of the
sign, unwilling both to undo his own work and to hinder the work of God,
painted the sign over with water-colours, which would leave the original
announcement half visible, and would soon be washed off by the rains;
whereupon the government sent its own workman to daub the sign over with
thick oil-colour.
Mr. Muller, ready to preach the gospel to those at Rome also, felt his
spirit saddened and stirred within him, as he saw that city wholly given
to idolatry--not pagan but papal idolatry--the Rome not of the Caesars,
but of the popes. While at Naples he ascended Vesuvius. Those masses of
lava, which seemed greater in bulk than the mountain itself, more
impressed him with the power of God than anything else he had ever seen.
As he looked upon that smoking cone, and thought of the liquid death it
had vomited forth, he said within himself, "What cannot God do!" He had
before felt somewhat of His Almightiness in love and grace, but he now
saw its manifestation in judgment and wrath. His visit to the Vaudois
valleys, where so many martyrs had suffered banishment and imprisonment,
loss of goods and loss of life for Jesus' sake, moved him to the depths
of his being and stimulated in him the martyr spirit.
When he arrived again in Bristol, June 18, 1879, he had been absent nine
months and twelve days, and preached two hundred and eighty-six times
and in forty-six towns and cities. After another ten weeks in Bristol,
he and his wife sailed again for America, the last week of August, 1879,
landing at New York the first week in September. This visit took in the
States lying between the Atlantic Ocean and the valley of the
Mississippi--New York and New Jersey, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and
Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota--and, from London and Hamilton to
Quebec, Canada also shared the blessing. This visit covered only two
hundred and seventy-two days, but he preached three hundred times, and
in over forty cities. Over one hundred and fifty written invitations
still remained without response, and the number increased the longer his
stay. Mr. Muller therefore assuredly gathered that the Lord called him
to return to America, after another brief stay at Bristol, where he felt
it needful to spend a season annually, to keep in close touch with the
work at home and relieve Mr. and Mrs. Wright of their heavy
responsibilities, for a time.
Accordingly on September 15, 1880, again turning from Bristol, these
travellers embarked the next day on their seventh mission tour, landing,
ten days later, at Quebec. Mr. Muller had a natural antipathy to the
sea, in his earlier crossing to the Continent having suffered much from
sea-sickness; but he had undertaken these long voyages, not for his own
pleasure or profit, but wholly on God's errand; and he felt it to be a
peculiar mark of the loving-kindness of the Lord that, while he was
ready to endure any discomfort, or risk his life for His sake, he had
not in his six crossings of the Atlantic suffered in the least, and on
this particular voyage was wholly free from any indisposition.
From Quebec he went to Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey,
and Pennsylvania. Among other places of special interest were Boston,
Plymouth--the landing-place of the Pilgrims,--Wellesley and South Hadley
colleges--the great schools for woman's higher education,--and the
centres farther westward, where he had such wide access to Germans. This
tour extended over a smaller area than before, and lasted but eight
months; but the impression on the people was deep and permanent. He had
spoken about two hundred and fifty times in all; and Mrs. Muller had
availed herself of many opportunities of personal dealing with
inquirers, and of distributing books and tracts among both believers and
unbelievers. She had also written for her husband more than seven
hundred letters,--this of itself being no light task, inasmuch as it
reaches an average of about three a day. On May 30, 1881, they were
again on British shores.
The eighth long preaching tour, from August 23, 1881, to May 30, 1882,
was given to the Continent of Europe, where again Mr. Muller felt led by
the low state of religious life in Switzerland and Germany.
This visit was extended to the Holy Land in a way strikingly
providential. After speaking at Alexandria, Cairo, and Port Said, he
went to Jaffa, and thence to Jerusalem, on November 28. With reverent
feet he touched the soil once trodden by the feet of the Son of God,
visiting, with pathetic interest, Gethsemane and Golgotha, and crossing
the Mount of Olives to Bethany, thence to Bethlehem and back to Jaffa,
and so to Haipha, Mt. Carmel, and Beirut, Smyrna, Ephesus,
Constantinople, Athens, Brindisi, Rome, and Florence. Again were months
crowded with services of all sorts whose fruit will appear only in the
Day of the Lord Jesus, addresses being made in English, German, and
French, or by translation into Arabic, Armenian, Turkish, and modern
Greek. Sightseeing was always but incidental to the higher service of
the Master. During this eighth tour, covering some eight months, Mr.
Muller spoke hundreds of times, with all the former tokens of God's
blessing on his seed-sowing.
The _ninth_ tour, from August 8, 1882, to June 1, 1883, was occupied
with labours in Germany, Austria, and Russia, including Bavaria,
Hungary, Bohemia, Saxony, and Poland. His special joy it was to bear
witness in Kroppenstadt, his birthplace, after an absence of about
sixty-four years. At St. Petersburg, while the guest of Princess Lieven,
at her mansion he met and ministered to many of high rank; he also began
to hold meetings in the house of Colonel Paschkoff, who had suffered not
only persecution but exile for the Lord's sake. While the Scriptures
were being read one day in Buss, with seven poor Russians, a policeman
summarily broke up the meeting and dispersed the little company. At Lodz
in Poland, a letter was received, in behalf of almost the whole
population begging him to remain longer; and so signs seemed to
multiply, as he went forward, that he was in the path of duty and that
God was with him.
On September 26, 1883, the _tenth_ tour began, this time his face being
turned toward the Orient. Nearly sixty years before he had desired to go
to the East Indies as a missionary; now the Lord permitted him to carry
out the desire in a new and strange way, and _India_ was the
twenty-third country visited in his tours. He travelled over 21,000
miles, and spoke over two hundred times, to missionaries and Christian
workers, European residents, Eurasians, Hindus, Moslems, educated
natives, native boys and girls in the orphanage at Colar, etc. Thus, in
his seventy-ninth year, this servant of God was still in labours
abundant, and in all his work conspicuously blessed of God.
After some months of preaching in England, Scotland, and Wales, on
November 19, 1885, he and his wife set out on their fourth visit to the
United States, and their _eleventh longer mission tour._ Crossing to the
Pacific, they went to Sydney, New South Wales, and, after seven months
in Australia, sailed for Java, and thence to China, arriving at Hong
Kong, September 12th; Japan and the Straits of Malacca were also
included in this visit to the Orient. The return to England was by way
of Nice; and, after travelling nearly 38,000 miles, in good health Mr.
and Mrs. Muller reached home on June 14, 1887, having been absent more
than one year and seven months, during which Mr. Muller had preached
whenever and wherever opportunity was afforded.
Less than two months later, on August 12, 1887, he sailed for South
Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, Ceylon, and India. This twelfth long
tour closed in March, 1890, having covered thousands of miles. The
intense heat at one time compelled Mr. Muller to leave Calcutta, and on
the railway journey to Darjeeling his wife feared he would die. But he
was mercifully spared.
It was on this tour and in the month of January, 1890, while at
Jubbulpore, preaching with great help from the Lord, that a letter was
put into Mr. Muller's hands, from a missionary at Agra, to whom Mr.
Wright had sent a telegram, informing his father-in-law of his dear
Lydia's death. For nearly thirty years she had laboured gratuitously at
the orphan houses and it would he difficult to fill that vacancy; but
for fourteen years she had been her husband's almost ideal companion,
and for nearly fifty-eight years her father's unspeakable treasure--and
here were two other voids which could never be filled. But Mr. Muller's
heart, as also Mr. Wright's, was kept at rest by the strong confidence
that, however mysterious God's ways, all His dealings belong to one
harmonious spiritual mechanism in which every part is perfect and all
things work together for good. (Romans viii. 28.)
This sudden bereavement led Mr. Muller to bring his mission tour in the
East to a close and depart for Bristol, that he might both comfort Mr.
Wright and relieve him of undue pressure of work.
After a lapse of two months, once more Mr. and Mrs. Muller left home for
other extensive missionary journeys. They went to the Continent and were
absent from July, 1890, to May, 1892. A twelvemonth was spent in Germany
and Holland, Austria and Italy. This absence in fact included two tours,
with no interval between them, and concluded the series of extensive
journeys reaching through seventeen years.
This man--from his seventieth to his eighty-seventh year--when most men
are withdrawing from all activities, had travelled in forty-two
countries and over two hundred thousand miles, a distance equivalent to
nearly eight journeys round the globe! He estimated that during these
seventeen years he had addressed over three million people; and from all
that can be gathered from the records of these tours, we estimate that
he must have spoken, outside of Bristol, between five thousand and six
thousand times. What sort of teaching and testimony occupied these
tours, those who have known the preacher and teacher need not be told.
While at Berlin in 1891, he gave an address that serves as an example of
the vital truths which he was wont to press on the attention of fellow
disciples. We give a brief outline:
He first urged that believers should never, even under the greatest
difficulties, be discouraged, and gave for his position sound scriptural
reasons. Then he pointed out to them that the chief business of every
day is first of all to seek to be truly at rest and happy in God. Then
he showed how, from the word of God, all saved believers may know their
true standing in Christ, and how in circumstances of particular
perplexity they might ascertain the will of God. He then urged disciples
to seek with intense earnestness to become acquainted with God Himself
as revealed in the Holy Scriptures, and carefully to form and maintain
godly habits of systematic Bible study and prayer, holy living and
consecrated giving. He taught that God alone is the one all-satisfying
portion of the soul, and that we must determine to possess and enjoy Him
as such. He closed by emphasizing it as the one, single, all-absorbing,
daily aim to glorify God in a complete surrender to His will and
service.
In all these mission tours, again, the faithfulness of God
conspicuously seen, in the bounteous supply of every need. Steamer fares
and long railway journeys; hotel accommodations, ordinarily preferred to
private hospitality, which seriously interfered with private habits of
devotion, public work, and proper rest--such expenses demanded a heavy
outlay; the new mode of life, now adopted for the Lord's sake, was at
least three times as costly as the former frugal housekeeping; and yet,
in answer to prayer and without any appeal to human help, the Lord
furnished all that was required.
Accustomed to look, step by step, for such tokens of divine approval, as
emboldened him to go forward, Mr. Muller records how, when one hundred
pounds was sent to him for personal uses, this was recognized as a
foretoken from his great Provider, "by which," he writes, "God meant to
say to my own heart, 'I am pleased with thy work and service in going
about on these long missionary tours. I will pay the expenses thereof,
and I give thee here a specimen of what I am yet willing to do for
thee.'"
Two other facts Mr. Muller specially records in connection with these
tours: first, God's gracious guiding and guarding of the work at Bristol
so that it suffered nothing from his absence; and secondly, the fact
that these journeys had no connection with collecting of money for the
work or even informing the public of it. No reference was made to the
Institution at Bristol, except when urgently requested, and not always
even then; nor were collections ever made for it. Statements found their
way into the press that in America large sums were gathered, but their
falsity is sufficiently shown by the fact that in his first tour in
America, for example, the sum total of all such gifts was less than
sixty pounds, not more than two thirds of the outlay of every day at the
orphan houses.
These missionary tours were not always approved even by the friends and
advisers of Mr. Muller. In 1882, while experiencing no little difficulty
and trial, especially as to funds, there were not a few who felt a deep
interest in the Institution on Ashley Down, who would have had God's
servant discontinue his long absences, as to them it appeared that these
were the main reason for the falling off in funds. He was always open to
counsel, but he always reserved to himself an independent decision; and,
on weighing the matter well, these were some of the reasons that led him
to think that the work of God at home did not demand his personal
presence:
1. He had observed year after year that, under the godly and efficient
supervision of Mr. Wright and his large staff of helpers, every branch
of the Scriptural Knowledge Institution had been found as healthy and
fruitful during these absences as when Mr. Muller was in Bristol.
2. The Lord's approval of this work of wider witness had been in manner
conclusive and in measure abundant, as in the ample supply of funds for
these tours, in the wide doors of access opened, and in the large fruit
already evident in blessing to thousands of souls.
3. The strong impression upon his mind that this was the work which was
to occupy the 'evening of his life,' grew in depth, and was confirmed by
so many signs of God's leading that he could not doubt that he was led
both of God's providence and Spirit.
4. Even while absent, he was never out of communication with the helpers
at home. Generally he heard at least weekly from Mr. Wright, and any
matters needing his counsel were thus submitted to him by letter; prayer
to God was as effectual at a distance from Bristol as on the spot; and
his periodical returns to that city for some weeks or months between
these tours kept him in close touch with every department of the work.
5. The supreme consideration, however, was this: To suppose it necessary
for Mr. Muller himself to be at home _in order that sufficient means
should be supplied,_ was a direct contradiction of the very principles
upon which, and to maintain which, the whole work had been begun. _Real
trust in God is above circumstances and appearances._ And this had been
proven; for, during the third year after these tours began, the income
for the various departments of the Scriptural Knowledge Institution was
larger than ever during the preceding forty-four years of its existence;
and therefore, notwithstanding the loving counsel of a few donors and
friends who advised that Mr. Muller should stay at home, he kept to his
purpose and his principles, partly to demonstrate that no man's presence
is indispensable to the work of the Lord. "Them that honour Me I will
honour." (1 Samuel ii. 39.) He regarded it the greatest honour of his
life to bear this wide witness to God, and God correspondingly honoured
His servant in bearing this testimony.
It was during the first and second of these American tours that the
writer had the privilege of coming into personal contact with Mr.
Muller. While I was at San Francisco, in 1878, he was to speak on
Sabbath afternoon, May 12th, at Oakland, just across the bay, but
conscientious objections to needless Sunday travel caused me voluntarily
to lose what then seemed the only chance of seeing and hearing a man
whose career had been watched by me for over twenty years, as he was to
leave for the East a few days earlier than myself and was likely to be
always a little in advance. On reaching Ogden, however, where the branch
road from Salt Lake City joins the main line, Mr. and Mrs. Muller
boarded my train and we travelled to Chicago together. I introduced
myself, and held with him daily converse about divine things, and, while
tarrying at Chicago, had numerous opportunities for hearing him speak
there.
The results of this close and frequent contact were singularly blessed
to me, and at my invitation he came to Detroit, Michigan, in his next
tour, and spoke in the Fort Street Presbyterian Church, of which I was
pastor, on Sundays, January 18 and 25, 1880, and on Monday and Friday
evenings, in the interval.
In addition to these numerous and favourable opportunities thus
providentially afforded for hearing and conversing with Mr. Muller, he
kindly met me for several days in my study, for an hour at a time, for
conference upon those deeper truths of the word of God and deeper
experiences of the Christian life, upon which I was then very desirous
of more light. For example, I desired to understand more clearly the
Bible teaching about the Lord's coming. I had opposed with much
persistency what is known as the premillennial view, and brought out my
objections, to all of which he made one reply: "My beloved brother, I
have heard all your arguments and objections against this view, but they
have one fatal defect: _not one of them is based upon the word of God._
You will never get at the truth upon any matter of divine revelation
unless you lay aside your prejudices and like a little child ask simply
what is the testimony of Scripture."
With patience and wisdom he unravelled the tangled skein of my
perplexity and difficulty, and helped me to settle upon biblical
principles all matters of so-called expediency. As he left me, about to
visit other cities, his words fixed themselves in my memory. I had
expressed to him my growing conviction that the worship in the churches
had lost its primitive simplicity; that the pew-rent system was
pernicious; that fixed salaries for ministers of the gospel were
unscriptural; that the church of God should be administered only by men
full of the Holy Ghost, and that the duty of Christians to the
non-church-going masses was grossly neglected, etc. He solemnly said to
me: "My beloved brother, the Lord has given you much light upon these
matters, and will hold you correspondingly responsible for its use. If
you obey Him and walk in the light, you will have more; if not, the
light will be withdrawn."
It is a singular lesson on the importance of an anointed tongue, that
forty simple words, spoken over twenty years ago, have had a daily
influence on the life of him to whom they were spoken. Amid subtle
temptations to compromise the claims of duty and hush the voice of
conscience, or of the Spirit of God, and to follow the traditions of men
rather than the word of God, those words of that venerated servant of
God have recurred to mind with ever fresh force. We risk the forfeiture
of privileges which are not employed for God, and of obscuring
convictions which are not carried into action. God's word to us is _"use
or lose."_ "To him that hath shall be given: from him that hath not
shall be taken away even that which he seemeth to have." It is the hope
and the prayer of him who writes this memoir that the reading of these
pages may prove to be an interview with the man whose memorial they are,
and that the witness borne by George Muller may be to many readers a
source of untold and lifelong blessing.
It need not be said that to carry out conviction into action is a costly
sacrifice. It may make necessary renunciations and separations which
leave one to feel a strange sense both of deprivation and loneliness.
But he who will fly as an eagle does into the higher levels where
cloudless day abides, and live in the sunshine of God, must consent to
live a comparatively lonely life. No bird is so solitary as the eagle.
Eagles never fly in flocks: one, or at most two, and the two, mates,
being ever seen at once. But the life that is lived unto God, however it
forfeits human companionship, knows divine fellowship, and the child of
God who like his Master undertakes to "do always the things that please
Him," can like his Master say, "The Father hath not left me alone." "I
am alone; yet not alone, for the Father is with me." Whosoever will
promptly follow whatever light God gives, without regard to human
opinion, custom, tradition, or approbation, will learn the deep meaning
of these words: "Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord."