(AS
FOUND INTHE PRAYER LIFE OF GEORGE MULLER,OF
BRISTOL)
BY
ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D.
In
Psalm 68:4, we are bidden to "extol Him who rideth upon theheavens
by His name, JAH, and to rejoice before Him;" and in the nextverse,
He is declared to be "a father of the fatherless, and a judge of thewidows,
in His holy habitation."The name, "Jah," here only found, is
not simply an abbreviation of"Jehovah;" but the present tense of
the Hebrew verb to be; and expressesthe idea that this Jehovah is the Living,
Present God; and, as the heavensare always over our heads, He is always a
present Helper, especially tothose who, like the widow and the orphan, lack
other providers andprotectors.
George
Muller, of Bristol, undertook to demonstrate to the unbelievingworld
that God is such a living, present God, and that He proves it byanswering
prayer; and that the test of this fact might be definite andconclusive,
he undertook to gather, feed, house, clothe, and also to teachand
train, all available orphans, who were legitimate children, but deprivedof
both parents by death and destitute.
SIXTY-FIVE
YEARS OF PROOF
This
work, which he began in 1833, in a very small and humble way, bygiving
to a few children, gathered out of the streets, a bit of bread forbreakfast,
and then teaching them for about an hour and a half to read theScriptures,
he carried on for sixty-five years, with growing numbers untilthere
were under his care, and in the orphan houses which he built, twenty twohundred
orphans with their helpers; and yet, during all that time, Mr.Muller’s
sole dependence was Jah, the Living, Present God. He appealedto
no man for help; and did not even allow any need to be known before ithad
been supplied, even his intimate co-workers being forbidden tomention
any existing want, outside the walls of the institution. His aim andpurpose
were to effectually apply the test of prayer to the unseen God, insuch
a way as to leave no doubt that, in these very days in which we live itis
perfectly safe to cut loose from every human dependence and castourselves
in faith upon the promises of a faithful Jehovah. To make thedemonstration
more absolutely convincing, for some years he withheldeven
the annual report of the work from the public, although it coveredonly
work already done, lest some should think such a report an indirectappeal
for future aid.
A
human life thus filled with the presence and power of God is one ofGod’s
choicest gifts to His church and to the world.
DEMONSTRATION
AND ILLUSTRATION
Things
unseen and eternal are, to the average man, distant and indistinct,while
what is seen and temporal is vivid and real. Practically, any object innature
that can be seen or felt is thus more actual to most men than theLiving
God. Every man who walks with God, and finds Him a present Helpin
every time of need, who puts His promises to the practical proof andverifies
them in actual experience; every believer, who, with the key offaith,
unlocks God’s mysteries and with
the key of prayer unlocks God’streasuries,
thus furnishes to the race demonstration and illustration of thefact
that "He is, and is a Rewarder of them that diligently seek Him."
George
Muller was such an argument and example —
a man of likepassions,
and tempted in all points, as we are, but who believed God andwas
established by believing; who prayed earnestly that he might live a lifeand
do a work, which should be a convincing proof that God hears prayer,and
that it is safe to trust Him at all times; and who furnished just such awitness
as he desired. Like Enoch, he truly walked with God, and hadabundant
testimony borne to him that he pleased God. And, when on thetenth
day of March, 1898, it was told us of George Muller, that "he wasnot,"
we knew that "God had taken him": it seemed more like a translationthan
like death.
THE
MAN HIMSELF
To
those familiar with his long life story, or who intimately knew him andfelt
the power of personal contact, he was one of God’s
ripest saints, andhimself a living proof that a life of faith is possible;
that God may beknown, communed with, found, and become a conscious
companion in thedaily life. He proved for himself and for all others who
will receive hiswitness, that to those who are willing to take God at His
word and to yieldself to His will, He is "the same yesterday and today
and forever;" that thedays of divine intervention and deliverance are
past only so far as the daysof faith and obedience are past; that believing
prayer works still thewonders of which our fathers told in the days of
old.
All
we can do in the limited space now at our disposal, is to present a briefsummary
of George Muller’s work, the details of
which are spread throughthe five volumes of his carefully written
"Journal," and the facts of whichhave never been denied or doubted, being
embodied in five massive stonebuildings on Ashley Down, and incarnated in
thousands of living orphanswho have been, or still are, the beneficiaries
upon the bounty of the Lord,as administered by this great intercessor.
HIS
LIFE PURPOSE
One
sentence from Mr. Muller’s pen marks the
purpose which was the verypivot of his whole being: "I have joyfully
dedicated my whole life to theobject of exemplifying how much may be
accomplished by prayer andfaith." This prepared both for the
development of the character of him whohad such singleness of aim and for the
development of the work in whichthat aim found action. Mr. Muller’s
oldest friend, Robert C. Chapman, ofBarnstaple,
beautifully says that "when a man’s
chief business is to serveand please the Lord, all his circumstances
becomes his servants;" a maximverified in Mr. Muller’s
life work.
NO
VISIBLE SUPPORT
Mr.
James Wright, Mr. Muller’s son-in-law and
successor, said, inreviewing the sixty-five years of work, "It
is written (Job 26:7) ‘Hehangeth
the earth upon nothing’—
that is, no visible support. And so weexult in the fact that ‘The
Scriptural Knowledge Institution for Home andAbroad’
hangs, as it has ever hung, since its commencement, ‘uponnothing,’
that is, upon no visible support. It hangs upon no human patron,upon
no endowment or funded property, but solely upon the good pleasureof
the blessed God."
Blessed
lesson to learn: that to depend upon the invisible God is not tohang
"upon nothing," though it be upon nothing visible. The power andpermanence
of the invisible forces that hold up the earth after sixtycenturies
of human history are sufficiently shown by the fact that this greatglobe
still swings securely in space and is whirled through its vast orbit,and
without variation of a second still moves with divine exactness in itsappointed
path. Mr. Muller therefore trusted the same invisible God tosustain
with His unseen power all the work which faith suspended uponHis
truth and love and unfailing word of promise, though to the natural eyeall
these may seem as nothing.
SUMMARY
OF WORK DONE
In
the comprehensive summary contained in the fifty-ninth report,remarkable
growth is apparent during the sixty-four years since the outsetof
the work in 1834.
During
the year ending May 26, 1898, the number of day schools wasseven
and of pupils 354; the number of children in attendance from thebeginning
81,501. The number of home Sunday Schools, twelve, and ofchildren
in them 1,341; but, from the beginning, 32,944.The number of Sunday
Schools aided in England and
Wales,
twenty-five.The
amount expended in connection with home schools, 1736. 13s. 10d.;from
the outset, £109,992. 19s. 10d.The Bibles and parts thereof circulated, 15,411;
from the beginning1,989,266. Money expended for this purpose the past year
£439; from thefirst,
£41,090. 13s. 3d.Missionary laborers aided, 115. Money expended £2,082. 9s.
6d.; from theoutset,
£261,859. 7s. 4d.Circulation of books and tracts, 3,101,338; money spent
£1,100. 1s. 3d.;and from the first, £47,188. 11s. 10d.
The
number of orphans on Ashley Down 1,620, and from the first 10,024.Money
spent that year, £22,523. 13s. 1d., and from the beginning£988,829.To
carry conviction into action sometimes requires a costly sacrifice; but,whatever
Mr. Muller’s fidelity to
conviction cost in one way, he hadstupendous results of his life work to
contemplate even while he lived.
GIVING
WITH PRAYING
Let
any one look at these figures and facts, and remember that one poorman
who had been solely dependent on the help of God and only in answerto
prayer, could look back, over more than three score years and see howhe
had built five large orphan houses, and taken under his care over tenthousand
orphans, expending for them within twelve thousand pounds of around
million! This same man had given aid to day schools and SundaySchools,
in Britain
and other lands where nearly one hundred and fiftythousand
children have been taught, at a cost of over one hundred and tenthousand
pounds more. He had also circulated nearly two million Biblesand
parts thereof, at cost of over forty thousand pounds; and over threemillion
books and tracts, at a cost of nearly fifty thousand pounds more.
Besides
all this, he had spent over two hundred and sixty thousand poundsto
aid missionary laborers in various lands. The sum total of the moneythus
expended during sixty years thus reached very nearly the astonishingaggregate
of one and a half million of pounds sterling ($7,500,000). Mr.Muller’s
own gifts to the service of the Lord found, only after his death,full
record and recognition. In the annual reports, an entry recurring withstrange
frequency, suggested a giver that must have reached a very ripeage:
"from a servant of the Lord Jesus, who, constrained by the love ofChrist,
seeks to lay up treasure in heaven." If that entry be carefullyfollowed
throughout and there be added the personal gifts made by Mr.Muller
to various benevolent objects, the aggregate sum from this"servant"
reaches, up to March 1, 1898, a total of eighty-one thousand,four
hundred and ninety British pounds, eighteen shillings and eight pence.
After
his death, it first became known that this "servant of the Lord
Jesus"was
no other than George Muller himself who thus donated, from moneygiven
to him or left to him for his own use by legacies, an amount equal tomore
than one-fifteenth of the entire sum expended from the beginningupon
all five departments of the work (1,448,959 British pounds). This is arecord
of personal giving to which we know no parallel.
HIS
INVESTMENTS
Mr.
Muller had received increasingly large sums from the Lord which heinvested
well and most profitably, so that for over sixty years he never losta
penny through a bad speculation! But his investments were not in lands,or
banks, or railways, but in the work of God. He made "friends of themammon
of unrighteousness," and, when he failed, they received him intoeverlasting
habitations. He continued year after year to make provision forhimself,
his beloved wife and daughter only by laying up treasure in heaven.
Such
a giver had a right to exhort others to systematic beneficence. Hegave
as not one in a million gives — not a tithe, not any
fixed proportionof annual income, but all that was left after the simplest
and most necessarysupply of actual wants. While most disciples regard
themselves as doingtheir duty if, after they have given a portion
to the Lord, they spend all therest on themselves, God led George Muller to
reverse this rule and reserveonly the most frugal sum for personal needs that
the entire remainder mightbe given to him that needeth. An utter
revolution in our habits of givingwould be necessary were such a rule
adopted. Mr. Muller’s own wordsare:
"My aim never was, how much I could obtain, but rather how much Icould
give." Yet this was not done in the spirit of an ascetic, for he had nosuch
spirit.
HIS
STEWARDSHIP
He
kept continually before him his stewardship of God’s
property; andsought
to make the most of the one brief life on earth and to use for thebest
and largest good the property held by him in trust. The things of Godwere
deep realities, and, projecting every action and decision and motiveinto
the light of the judgment seat of Christ, he asked himself how it wouldappear
to him in the light of that tribunal. Thus he sought prayerfully andconscientiously
so to live and labor, so to deny himself, and, by love; servehis
Master, and his fellowmen that he should not be "ashamed before Himat
His coming." But not in a spirit of fear; for if any man of his generationknew
the perfect love that casts out fear it was he. He felt that God is loveand
love is of God. lie saw that love manifested in the greatest of gifts Hisonly
begotten Son; at Calvary he knew and believed the love that God hathto
us; he received it into his own heart; it became an abiding presencemanifested
in obedience and benevolence; and, subduing him more andmore,
it became perfected so as to expel all tormenting fear and impart aholy
confidence and delight in God.
FAVORITE
TEXTS
Among
the texts which strongly impressed and moulded Mr. Muller’shabits
of giving was Luke 6:38:"Give, and it shall be given unto you; good
measure, pressed down,and shaken together, and running over, shall men
give into yourbosom."
He
believed this promise and he verified it. His testimony is, "I had given,and
God had caused to be given to me again, and bountifully." Again heread,
"It is more blessed to give than to receive." He says that he
believedwhat
he found in the word of God and by His grace sought to actaccordingly,
and thus again records that he was blessed abundantly and hispeace
and joy in the Holy Spirit increased more and more.
It
will not be a surprise, therefore, that, as has been already noted, Mr.Muller’s
entire personal estate at his death, as sworn to, when the will wasadmitted
to probate, was only 169 British pounds, 9 shillings, 4 pence, ofwhich
books, household furniture, etc., were reckoned at over 100 pounds,the
only money in his possession being a trifle over sixty pounds, and eventhis
only awaiting disbursement as God’s
steward.