Part 2 (1/2)

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 wis.h.i.+ng 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.