George Muller of Bristol Part 2

He now began in different directions a good fight against evil. Though as yet weak and often vanquished before temptation, he did not habitually 'continue in sin,' nor offend against G.o.d without G.o.dly sorrow. Open sins became less frequent and secret sins less ensnaring.

He read the word of G.o.d, prayed often, loved fellow disciples, sought church a.s.semblies from right motives, and boldly took his stand on the side of his new Master, at the cost of reproach and ridicule from his fellow students.

George Muller's next marked step in his new path was _the discovery of the preciousness of the word of G.o.d._

At first he had a mere hint of the deep mines of wealth which he afterward explored. But his whole life-history so circles about certain great texts that whenever they come into this narrative they should appear in capitals to mark their prominence. And, of them all, that 'little gospel' in John iii. 16 is the first, for by it he found a full salvation:

"G.o.d SO LOVED THE WORLD THAT HE GAVE HIS ONLY-BEGOTTEN SON, THAT WHOSOEVER BELIEVETH IN HIM SHOULD NOT PERISH, BUT HAVE EVERLASTING LIFE."

From these words he got his first glimpse of the philosophy of the plan of salvation--why and how the Lord Jesus Christ bore our sins in His own body on the tree as our vicarious Subst.i.tute and suffering Surety, and how His sufferings in Gethsemane and Golgotha made it forever needless that the penitent believing sinner should bear his own iniquity and die for it.

Truly to grasp this fact is the beginning of a true and saving faith--what the Spirit calls "laying hold." He who believes and knows that G.o.d so loved him first, finds himself loving G.o.d in return, and faith works by love to purify the heart, transform the life, and overcome the world.

It was so with George Muller. He found in the word of G.o.d _one great fact:_ the love of G.o.d in Christ. Upon that fact faith, not feeling, laid hold; and then the feeling came naturally without being waited for or sought after. The love of G.o.d in Christ constrained him to a love--infinitely unworthy, indeed, of that to which it responded, yet supplying a new impulse unknown before. What all his father's injunctions, chastis.e.m.e.nts, entreaties, with all the urgent dictates of his own conscience, motives of expediency, and repeated resolves of amendment, utterly failed to effect, the love of G.o.d both impelled and enabled him to do--renounce a life of sinful self-indulgence. Thus early he learned that double truth, which he afterwards pa.s.sionately loved to teach others, that in the blood of G.o.d's atoning Lamb is the Fountain of both forgiveness and cleansing. Whether we seek pardon for sin or power over sin, the sole source and secret are in Christ's work for us.

The new year 1826 was indeed a _new year_ to this newborn soul. He now began to read _missionary_ journals, which kindled a new flame in his heart. He felt a yearning--not very intelligent as yet--to be himself a messenger to the nations, and frequent praying deepened and confirmed the impression. As his knowledge of the world-field enlarged, new facts as to the dest.i.tution and the desolation of heathen peoples became as fuel to feed this flame of the mission spirit.

A carnal attachment, however, for a time almost quenched this fire of G.o.d within. He was drawn to a young woman of like age, a professed believer, whom he had met at the Sat.u.r.day-evening meetings; but he had reason to think that her parents would not give her up to a missionary life, and he began, half-unconsciously, to weigh in the balance his yearning for service over against his pa.s.sion for a fellow creature.

Inclination, alas, outweighed duty. Prayer lost its power and for the time was almost discontinued, with corresponding decline in joy. His heart was turned from the foreign field, and in fact from all self-denying service. Six weeks pa.s.sed in this state of spiritual declension, when G.o.d took a strange way to reclaim the backslider.

A young brother, Hermann Ball, wealthy, cultured, with every promising prospect for this world to attract him, made a great self-sacrifice. He chose Poland as a field, and work among the Jews as his mission, refusing to stay at home to rest in the soft nest of self-indulgent and luxurious ease. This choice made on young Muller a deep impression. He was compelled to contrast with it his own course. For the sake of a pa.s.sionate love for a young woman he had given up the work to which he felt drawn of G.o.d, and had become both joyless and prayerless: another young man, with far more to draw him worldward, had, for the sake of a self-denying service among despised Polish Jews, resigned all the pleasures and treasures of the world. Hermann Ball was acting and choosing as Moses did in the crisis of his history, while he, George Muller, was acting and choosing more like that profane person Esau, when for one morsel of meat he bartered his birthright. The result was a new renunciation--he gave up the girl he loved, and forsook a connection which had been formed without faith and prayer and had proved a source of alienation from G.o.d.

Here we mark another new and significant step in preparation for his life-work--a decided step forward, which became a pattern for his after-life. For the second time a _decision for G.o.d had cost him marked self-denial._ Before, he had burned his novel; now, on the same altar, he gave up to the consuming fire a human pa.s.sion which had over him an unhallowed influence. According to the measure of his light thus far, George Muller was _fully, unreservedly given up to G.o.d,_ and therefore walking in the light. He did not have to wait long for the recompense of the reward, for the smile of G.o.d repaid him for the loss of a human love, and the peace of G.o.d was his because the G.o.d of peace was with him.

Every new spring of inward joy demands a channel for outflow, and so he felt impelled to bear witness. He wrote to his father and brother of his own happy experience, begging them to seek and find a like rest in G.o.d, thinking that they had but to know the path that leads to such joy to be equally eager to enter it. But an angry response was all the reply that his letter evoked.

About the same time the famous Dr. Tholuck took the chair of professor of divinity at Halle, and the advent of such a G.o.dly man to the faculty drew pious students from other schools of learning, and so enlarged George Mullers circle of fellow believers, who helped him much through grace. Of course the missionary spirit revived, and with such increased fervor, that he sought his father's permission to connect himself with some missionary inst.i.tution in Germany. His father was not only much displeased, but greatly disappointed, and dealt in reproaches very hard to bear. He reminded George of all the money he had spent on his education in the expectation that he would repay him by getting such a 'living' as would insure to the parent a comfortable home and support for his old age; and in a fit of rage he exclaimed that he would no longer look on him as a son.

Then, seeing that son unmoved in his quiet steadfastness, he changed tone, and from threats turned to tears of entreaty that were much harder to resist than reproaches. The result of the interview was a _third_ significant step in preparation for his son's life's mission. His resolve was unbroken to follow the Lord's leading at any cost, but he now clearly saw that he could be _independent of man only by being more entirely dependent on G.o.d, and that henceforth he should take no more money from his father._ To receive such support implied obedience to his wishes, for it seemed plainly wrong to look to him for the cost of his training when he had no prospect nor intention of meeting his known expectations. If he was to live on his father's money, he was under a tacit obligation to carry out his plans and seek a good living as a clergyman at home. Thus early in life George Muller learned the valuable lesson that one must preserve his independence if he would not endanger his integrity.

G.o.d was leading His servant in his youth to _cast himself upon Him for temporal supplies._ This step was not taken without cost, for the two years yet to be spent at the university would require more outlay than during any time previous. But thus early also did he find G.o.d a faithful Provider and Friend in need. Shortly after, certain American gentlemen, three of whom were college professors,* being in Halle and wishing instruction in German, were by Dr. Tholuck recommended to employ George Muller as tutor; and the pay was so ample for the lessons taught them and the lectures written out for them, that all wants were more than met. Thus also in his early life was written large in the chambers of his memory another golden text from the word of G.o.d:

"O FEAR THE LORD, YE HIS SAINTS!

FOR THERE IS NO WANT TO THEM THAT FEAR HIM."

(Psalm x.x.xiv. 9.)

* One of them, the Rev. Charles Hodge, afterward so well known as professor at Princeton Theological Seminary, etc.

CHAPTER III

MAKING READY THE CHOSEN VESSEL

THE workman of G.o.d needs to wait on Him to know the work he is to do and the sphere where he is to serve Him.

Mature disciples at Halle advised George Muller for the time thus quietly to wait for divine guidance, and meanwhile to take no further steps toward the mission field. He felt unable, however, to dismiss the question, and was so impatient to settle it that he made the common blunder of attempting to come to a decision in a carnal way. _He resorted to the lot,_ and not only so, but to the lot as cast in the lap of the _lottery!_ In other words, he first drew a lot in private, and then bought a ticket in a royal lottery, expecting his steps to be guided in a matter so solemn as the choice of a field for the service of G.o.d, by the turn of the 'wheel of fortune'! Should his ticket draw a prize he would _go;_ if not, _stay_ at home. Having drawn a small sum, he accordingly accepted this as a 'sign,' and at once applied to the Berlin Missionary Society, but was not accepted because his application was not accompanied with his father's consent.

Thus a higher Hand had disposed while man proposed. G.o.d kept out of the mission field, at this juncture, one so utterly unfit for His work that he had not even learned that primary lesson that he who would work with G.o.d must first wait on Him and wait for Him, and that all undue haste in such a matter is worse than waste. He who kept Moses waiting forty years before He sent him to lead out captive Israel, who withdrew Saul of Tarsus three years into Arabia before he sent him as an apostle to the nations, and who left even His own Son thirty years in obscurity before His manifestation as Messiah--this G.o.d is in no hurry to put other servants at work. He says to all impatient souls: "My time is not yet full come, but your time is always ready."

Only twice after this did George Muller ever resort to the lot: once at a literal parting of the ways when he was led by it to take the wrong fork of the road, and afterward in a far more important matter, but with a like result: in both cases he found he had been misled, and henceforth abandoned all such chance methods of determining the mind of G.o.d. He learned two lessons, which new dealings of G.o.d more and more deeply impressed:

First, that the safe guide in every crisis is believing prayer in connection with the word of G.o.d.

Secondly, that continued uncertainty as to one's course is a reason for continued waiting.

These lessons should not be lightly pa.s.sed over, for they are too valuable. The flesh is impatient of all delay, both in decision and action; hence all carnal choices are immature and premature, and all carnal courses are mistaken and unspiritual. G.o.d is often moved to delay that we may be led to pray, and even the answers to prayer are deferred that the natural and carnal spirit may be kept in check and self-will may bow before the will of G.o.d.

In a calm review of his course many years later George Muller saw that he "ran hastily to the lot" as a shorter way of settling a doubtful matter, and that, especially in the question of G.o.d's call to the mission field, this was shockingly improper. He saw also how unfit he had been at that time for the work he sought: he should rather have asked himself how one so ignorant and so needing to be taught could think of teaching others! Though a child of G.o.d, he could not as yet have given a clear statement or explanation of the most elementary gospel truths. The one thing needful was therefore to have sought through much prayer and Bible study to get first of all a deeper knowledge and a deeper experience of divine things. Impatience to settle a matter so important was itself seen to be a positive disqualification for true service, revealing unfitness to endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. There is a constant strain and drain on patient waiting which is a necessary feature of missionary trial and particularly the trial of deferred harvests. One who, at the outset, could not brook delay in making his first decision, and wait for G.o.d to make known His will in His own way and time, would not on the field have had long patience as a husbandman, waiting for the precious fruit of his toil, or have met with quietness of spirit the thousand perplexing problems of work among the heathen!

Moreover the conviction grew that, could he have followed the lot, his choice would have been a life-mistake. His mind, at that time, was bent upon the East Indies as a field. Yet all subsequent events clearly showed that G.o.d's choice for him was totally different. His repeated offers met as repeated refusals, and though on subsequent occasions he acted most deliberately and solemnly, no open door was found, but he was in every case kept from following out his honest purpose. Nor could the lot be justified as an indication of his _ultimate_ call to the mission field, for the purpose of it was definite, namely, to ascertain, not whether _at some period of his life_ he was to go forth, but whether _at that time_ he was to go or stay. The whole after-life of George Muller proved that G.o.d had for him an entirely different plan, which He was not ready yet to reveal, and which His servant was not yet prepared to see or follow. If any man's life ever was a plan of G.o.d, surely this life was; and the Lord's distinct, emphatic leading, when made known, was not in this direction. He had purposed for George Muller a larger field than the Indies, and a wider witness than even the gospel message to heathen peoples. He was 'not suffered' to go into 'Bithynia' because 'Macedonia'

was waiting for his ministry.

With increasing frequency, earnestness, and minuteness, was George Muller led to put before G.o.d, in prayer, all matters that lay upon his mind. This man was to be peculiarly an example to believers as an _intercessor;_ and so G.o.d gave him from the outset a very _simple, childlike disposition_ toward Himself. In many things he was in knowledge and in strength to outgrow childhood and become a man, for it marks immaturity when we err through ignorance and are overcome through weakness. But in faith and in the filial spirit, he always continued to be a little child. Mr. J. Hudson Taylor well reminds us that while in nature the normal order of growth is from childhood to manhood and so to maturity, in _grace_ the true development is perpetually backward toward the cradle: we must become and continue as little children, not losing, but rather gaining, childlikeness of spirit. The disciple's maturest manhood is only the perfection of his childhood. George Muller was never so really, truly, fully a little child in all his relations to his Father, as when in the ninety-third year of his age.

Being thus providentially kept from the Indies, he began definite work at home, though yet having little real knowledge of the divine art of coworking with G.o.d. He spoke to others of their soul's welfare, and wrote to former companions in sin, and circulated tracts and missionary papers. Nor were his labours without encouragement, though sometimes his methods were awkward or even grotesque, as when, speaking to a beggar in the fields about his need of salvation, he tried to overcome apathetic indifference by speaking louder and louder, as though, mere bawling in his ears would subdue the hardness of his heart!

In 1826 he first attempted to _preach._ An unconverted schoolmaster some six miles from Halle he was the means of turning to the Lord; and this schoolmaster asked him to come and help an aged, infirm clergyman in the parish. Being a student of divinity he was at liberty to preach, but conscious ignorance had hitherto restrained him. He thought, however, that by committing some other man's sermon to memory he might profit the hearers, and so he undertook it. It was slavish work to prepare, for it took most of a week to memorize the sermon, and it was joyless work to deliver it, for there was none of the living power that attends a man's G.o.d-given message and witness. His conscience was not yet enlightened enough to see that he was acting a false part in preaching another's sermon as his own; nor had he the spiritual insight to perceive that it is not G.o.d's way to set up a man to preach who knows not enough of either His word or the life of the Spirit within him, to prepare his own discourse. How few even among preachers feel preaching to be _a divine vocation and not a mere human profession;_ that a ministry of the truth implies the witness of experience, and that to preach another man's sermon is, at the best, unnatural walking on stilts!

George Muller 'got through' his painful effort of August 27, 1826, reciting this memoriter sermon at eight A.M. in the chapel of ease, and three hours later in the parish church. Being asked to preach again in the afternoon, but having no second sermon committed to memory, he had to keep silent, or _depend on the Lord for help._ He thought he could at least read the fifth chapter of Matthew, and simply expound it. But he had no sooner begun the first beat.i.tude than he felt himself greatly a.s.sisted. Not only were his lips opened, but the Scriptures were opened too, his own soul expanded, and a peace and power, wholly unknown to his tame, mechanical repet.i.tions of the morning, accompanied the simpler expositions of the afternoon, with this added advantage, that he talked on a level with the people and not over their heads, his colloquial, earnest speech riveting their attention.

Going back to Halle, he said to himself, 'This is the _true way to preach,_' albeit he felt misgivings lest such a simple style of exposition might not suit so well a cultured refined city congregation.

He had yet to learn how the enticing words of man's wisdom make the cross of Christ of none effect, and how the very simplicity that makes preaching intelligible to the illiterate makes sure that the most cultivated will also understand it, whereas the reverse is not true.

Here was another very important _step in his preparation_ for subsequent service. He was to rank throughout life among the simplest and most scriptural of preachers. This first trial of pulpit-work led to frequent sermons, and in proportion as his speech was in the simplicity that is in Christ did he find joy in his work and a harvest from it. The committed sermon of some great preacher might draw forth human praise, but it was the simple witness of the Word, and of the believer to the Word, that had praise of G.o.d. His preaching was not then much owned of G.o.d in fruit. Doubtless the Lord saw that he was not ready for reaping, and scarcely for sowing: there was yet too little prayer in preparation and too little unction in delivery, and so his labours were comparatively barren of results.

About this same time he took another step--perhaps the most significant thus far in its bearing on the precise form of work so closely linked with his name. For some two months he availed himself of the free lodgings furnished for poor divinity students in the famous _Orphan Houses built by A. H. Francke._ This saintly man, a professor of divinity at Halle, who had died a hundred years before (1727), had been led to found an orphanage in entire dependence upon G.o.d. Half unconsciously George Muller's whole life-work at Bristol found both its suggestion and pattern in Francke's orphanage at Halle. The very building where this young student lodged was to him an object lesson--a visible, veritable, tangible proof that the Living G.o.d hears prayer, and can, in answer to prayer alone, build a house for orphan children. That lesson was never lost, and George Muller fell into the apostolic succession of such holy labour! He often records how much his own faith-work was indebted to that example of simple trust in prayer exhibited by Francke. Seven years later he read his life, and was thereby still more prompted to follow him as he followed Christ.

George Muller's spiritual life in these early days was strangely chequered. For instance, he who, as a Lutheran divinity student, was essaying to preach, hung up in his room a framed crucifix, hoping thereby to keep in mind the sufferings of Christ and so less frequently fall into sin. Such helps, however, availed him little, for while he rested upon such artificial props, it seemed as though he sinned the oftener.

He was at this time overworking, writing sometimes fourteen hours a day, and this induced nervous depression, which exposed him to various temptations. He ventured into a confectioner's shop where wine and beer were sold, and then suffered reproaches of conscience for conduct so unbecoming a believer; and he found himself indulging ungracious and ungrateful thoughts of G.o.d, who, instead of visiting him with deserved chastis.e.m.e.nt, multiplied His tender mercies.

He wrote to a rich, liberal and t.i.tled lady, asking a loan, and received the exact sum asked for, with a letter, not from her, but from another into whose hands his letter had fallen by "a peculiar providence," and who signed it as "An adoring worshipper of the Saviour Jesus Christ."

While led to send the money asked for, the writer added wise words of caution and counsel--words so fitted to George Muller's exact need that he saw plainly the higher Hand that had guided the anonymous writer. In that letter he was urged to "seek by watching and prayer to be delivered from all vanity and self-complacency," to make it his "chief aim to be more and more humble, faithful, and quiet," and not to be of those who "say 'Lord, Lord,' but have Him not deeply in their hearts." He was also reminded that "Christianity consists not in words but in power, and that there must be life in us."

He was deeply moved by this message from G.o.d through an unknown party, and the more as it had come, with its enclosure, at the time when he was not only guilty of conduct unbecoming a disciple, but indulging hard thoughts of his heavenly Father. He went out to walk alone, and was so deeply wrought on by G.o.d's goodness and his own ingrat.i.tude that he knelt behind a hedge, and, though in snow a foot deep, he forgot himself for a half-hour in praise, prayer, and self-surrender.

Yet so deceitful is the human heart that a few weeks later he was in such a backslidden state that, for a time, he was again both careless and prayerless, and one day sought to drown the voice of conscience in the wine-cup. The merciful Father gave not up his child to folly and sin. He who once could have gone to great lengths in dissipation now found a few gla.s.ses of wine more than enough; his relish for such pleasures was gone, and so was the power to silence the still small voice of conscience and of the Spirit of G.o.d.

Such vacillations in Christian experience were due in part to the lack of holy a.s.sociations and devout companionships. Every disciple needs help in holy living, and this young believer yearned for that spiritual uplift afforded by sympathetic fellow believers. In vacation times he had found at Gnadau, the Moravian settlement some three miles from his father's residence, such soul refreshment, but Halle itself supplied little help. He went often to church, but seldom heard the Gospel, and in that town of over 30,000, with all its ministers, he found not one enlightened clergyman. When, therefore, he could hear such a preacher as Dr. Tholuck, he would walk ten or fifteen miles to enjoy such a privilege. The meetings continued at Mr. Wagner's house; and on the Lord's day evenings some six or more believing students were wont to gather, and both these a.s.semblies were means of grace. From Easter, 1827, so long as he remained in Halle, this latter meeting was held in his own room, and must rank alongside those little gatherings of the "Holy Club" in Lincoln College, Oxford, which a hundred years before had shaped the Wesleys and Whitefield for their great careers. Before George Muller left Halle the attendance at this weekly meeting in his room had grown to twenty.

These a.s.semblies were throughout very simple and primitive. In addition to prayer, singing, and reading of G.o.d's word, one or more brethren exhorted or read extracts from devout books. Here young Muller freely opened his heart to others, and through their counsels and prayers was delivered from many snares.

One lesson, yet to be learned, was that the one fountain of all wisdom and strength is the Holy Scriptures. Many disciples practically prefer religious books to the Book of G.o.d. He had indeed found much of the reading with which too many professed believers occupy their minds to be but worthless chaff--such as French and German novels; but as yet he had not formed the habit of reading the word of G.o.d daily and systematically as in later life, almost to the exclusion of other books. In his ninety-second year, he said to the writer, that for every page of any other reading he was sure he read ten of the Bible. But, up to that November day in 1825 when he first met a praying band of disciples, he had never to his recollection read one chapter in the Book of books; and for the first four years of his new life he gave to the works of uninspired men practical preference over the Living Oracles.

After a true relish for the Scriptures had been created, he could not understand how he could ever have treated G.o.d's Book with such neglect.

It seemed obvious that _G.o.d's having condescended to become an Author,_ inspiring holy men to write the Scriptures, He would in them impart the most vital truths; His message would cover all matters which concern man's welfare, and therefore, under the double impulse of duty and delight, we should instinctively and habitually turn to the Bible.

Moreover, as he read and studied this Book of G.o.d, he felt himself admitted to more and more _intimate acquaintance with the Author._ During the last twenty years of his life he read it carefully through, four or five times annually, with a growing sense of his own rapid increase in the knowledge of G.o.d thereby.

Such motives for Bible study it is strange that any true believer should overlook. Ruskin, in writing "Of the King's Treasuries," refers to the universal ambition for 'advancement in life,' which means 'getting into good society.' How many obstacles one finds in securing an introduction to the great and good of this world, and even then in getting access to them, in securing an audience with the kings and queens of human society! Yet there is open to us a society of people of the very first rank who will meet us and converse with us so long as we like, whatever our ignorance, poverty, or low estate--namely, the society of authors; and the key that unlocks their private audience-chamber is their books.