Part 21 (1/2)
It is most helpful here to add that one of the parties for whom for so many years he unceasingly prayed has recently died in faith, having received the promises and embraced them and confessed Jesus as his Lord.
Just before leaving Bristol with this completed ma.n.u.script of Mr.
Muller's life, I met a lady, a niece of the man referred to, through whom I received a knowledge of these facts. He had, before his departure, given most unequivocal testimony to his faith and hope in the Saviour of sinners.
If George Muller could still speak to us, he would again repeat the warning so frequently found in his journal and reports, that his fellow disciples must not regard him as a _miracle-worker,_ as though his experience were to be accounted so exceptional as to have little application in our ordinary spheres of life and service. With patient repet.i.tion he affirms that in all essentials such an experience is the privilege of all believers. G.o.d calls disciples to various forms of _work,_ but all alike to the same _faith._ To say, therefore, ”I am not called to build orphan houses, etc., and have no right to expect answers to my prayers as Mr. Muller did,” is wrong and unbelieving. Every child of G.o.d, he maintained, is first to get into the sphere appointed of G.o.d, and therein to exercise full trust, and live by faith upon G.o.d's sure word of promise.
Throughout all these thousands of pages written by his pen, he teaches that every experience of G.o.d's faithfulness is both the reward of past faith and prayer, and the preparation of the servant of G.o.d for larger work and more efficient service and more convincing witness to his Lord.
No man can understand such a work who does not see in it the _supernatural_ power of G.o.d. Without that the enigma defies solution; with that all the mystery is at least an open mystery. He himself felt from first to last that this supernatural factor was the key to the whole work, and without that it would have been even to himself a problem inexplicable. How pathetically we find him often comparing himself and his work for G.o.d to ”the Burning Bush in the Wilderness”
which, always aflame and always threatened with apparent destruction, was not consumed, so that not a few turned aside wondering to see this great sight. And why was it not burnt? Because Jehovah of hosts, who was in the Bush, dwelt in the man and in his work: or, as Wesley said with almost his last breath, ”Best of all, G.o.d is with us.”
This simile of the Burning Bush is the more apt when we consider the _rapid growth of the work._ At first so very small as to seem almost insignificant, and conducted in one small rented house, accommodating thirty orphans, then enlarged until other rented premises became necessary; then one, two, three, four, and even five immense structures being built, until three hundred, seven hundred, eleven hundred and fifty, and finally two thousand and fifty inmates could find shelter within them,--how seldom has the world seen such vast and, at the same time, rapid enlargement! Then look at the outlay! At first a trifling expenditure of perhaps five hundred pounds for the first year of the Scriptural Knowledge Inst.i.tution, and of five hundred pounds for the first twelve month of the orphan work, and in the last year of Mr.
Muller's life a grand total of over twenty-seven thousand five hundred, for all the purposes of the Inst.i.tution.
The cost of the houses built on Ashley Down might have staggered a man of large capital, but this poor man only cried and the Lord helped him.
The first house cost fifteen thousand pounds; the second, over twenty-one thousand; the third, over twenty-three thousand; and the fourth and fifth, from fifty thousand to sixty thousand more--so that the total cost reached about one hundred and fifteen thousand. Besides all this, there was a yearly expenditure which rose as high as twenty-five thousand for the orphans alone, irrespective of those occasional outlays made needful for emergencies, such as improved sanitary precautions, which in one case cost over two thousand pounds.
Here is a burning bush indeed, always in seeming danger of being consumed, yet still standing on Ashley Down, and still preserved because the same presence of Jehovah burns in it. Not a branch of this many-sided work has utterly perished, while the whole bush still challenges unbelievers to turn aside and see the great sight, and take off the shoes from their feet as on holy ground where G.o.d manifests Himself.
Any complete survey of this great life-work must include much that was wholly outside of the Scriptural Knowledge Inst.i.tution; such as that service which Mr. Muller was permitted to render to the church of Christ and the world at large as a preacher, pastor, witness for truth, and author of books and tracts.
His preaching period covered the whole time from 1826 to 1898, the year of his departure, over seventy years; and from 1830, when he went to Teignmouth, his preaching continued, without interruption except from ill health, until his life closed, with an average through the whole period of probably three sermons a week, or over ten thousand for his lifetime. This is probably a low estimate, for during his missionary tours, which covered over two hundred thousand miles and were spread through' seventeen years, he spoke on an average about once a day notwithstanding already advanced age.
His church life was much blessed even in visible and tangible results.
During the first two and a half years of work in Bristol, two hundred and twenty-seven members were added, about half of whom were new converts, and it is probable that, if the whole number brought to the knowledge of Christ by his preaching could now be ascertained, it would be found to aggregate full as many as the average of those years, and would thus reach into the thousands, exclusive of orphans converted on Ashley Down. Then when we take into account the vast numbers addressed and impressed by his addresses, given in all parts of the United Kingdom, on the Continent of Europe, and in America, Asia, and Australia, and the still vaster numbers who have read his Narrative, his books and tracts, or who have in various other ways felt the quickening power of his example and life, we shall get some conception--still, at best, inadequate--of the range and scope of the influence he wielded by his tongue and pen, his labours, and his life. Much of the best influence defies all tabulated statistics and evades all mathematical estimates; it is like the fragrance of the alabaster flask which fills all the house but escapes our grosser senses of sight, hearing, and touch. This part of George Muller's work we cannot summarize: it belongs to a realm where we cannot penetrate. But G.o.d sees, knows, and rewards it.
CHAPTER XXI
THE CHURCH LIFE AND GROWTH
THROUGHOUT Mr. Muller's journal we meet scattered and fragmentary suggestions as to the true conception of Christian teaching and practice, the nature and office of the Christian ministry, the principles which should prevail in church conduct, the mutual relations of believers, and the Spirit's relation to the Body of Christ, to pure wors.h.i.+p, service, and testimony. These hints will be of more value if they are crystallized into unity so as to be seen in their connection with each other.
The founder of the orphan houses began and ended his public career as a preacher, and, for over sixty years, was so closely related to one body of believers that no review of his life can be complete without a somewhat extended reference to the church in Bristol of which he was one of the earliest leaders, and, of all who ministered to it, the longest in service.
His church-work in Bristol began with his advent to that city and ended only with his departure from it for the continuing city and the Father's House. The joint ministry of himself and Mr. Henry Craik has been traced already in the due order of events; but the development of church-life, under this apostolic ministry, furnishes instructive lessons which yield their full teaching only when gathered up and grouped together so as to secure unity, continuity, and completeness of impression.
When Mr. Muller and Mr. Craik began joint work in Bristol, foundations needed to be relaid. The church-life, as they found it, was not on a sufficiently scriptural basis, and they waited on G.o.d for wisdom to adjust it more completely to His word and will. This was the work of time, for it required the instruction of fellow believers so that they might be prepared to cooperate, by recognizing scriptural and spiritual teaching; it required also the creation of that bond of sympathy which inclines the flock to hear and heed the shepherd's voice, and follow a true pastoral leaders.h.i.+p. At the outset of their ministry, these brethren carefully laid down some principles on which their ministry was to be based. On May 23, 1832, they frankly stated, at Gideon Chapel, certain terms on which alone they could take charge of the church: they must be regarded as simply G.o.d's servants to labour among them so long as, and in such way as might be His will, and under no bondage of fixed rules; they desired pew-rents to be done away with, and voluntary offerings subst.i.tuted, etc.
There was already, however, a strong conviction that a new start was in some respects indispensable if the existing church-life was to be thoroughly modelled on a scriptural pattern. These brethren determined to stamp upon the church certain important features such as these: Apostolic simplicity of wors.h.i.+p, evangelical teaching, evangelistic work, separation from the world, systematic giving, and dependence on prayer. They desired to give great prominence to the simple testimony of the Word, to support every department of the work by free-will offerings, to recognize the Holy Spirit as the one presiding and governing Power in all church a.s.semblies, and to secure liberty for all believers in the exercise of spiritual gifts as distributed by that Spirit to all members of the Body of Christ for service. They believed it scriptural to break bread every Lord's day, and to baptize by immersion; and, although this latter has not for many years been a term of communion or of fellows.h.i.+p, believers have always been carefully taught that this is the duty of all disciples.
It has been already seen that in August, 1832, seven persons in all, including these two pastors, met at Bethesda Chapel to unite in fellows.h.i.+p, without any formal basis or bond except that of loyalty to the Word and Spirit of G.o.d. This step was taken in order to start anew, without the hindrance of customs already prevailing, which were felt to be unscriptural and yet were difficult to abolish without discordant feeling; and, from that date on, Bethesda Chapel has been the home of an a.s.sembly of believers who have sought steadfastly to hold fast the New Testament basis of church-life.
Such blessed results are largely due to these beloved colleagues in labour who never withheld their testimony, but were intrepidly courageous and conscientiously faithful in witnessing against whatever they deemed opposed to the Word. Love ruled, but was not confounded with laxity in matters of right and wrong; and, as they saw more clearly what was taught in the Word, they sought to be wholly obedient to the Lord's teaching and leading, and to mould and model every matter, however minute, in every department of duty, private or public, according to the expressed will of G.o.d.
In January, 1834, all teachers who were not believers were dismissed from the Sunday-school; and, in the Dorcas Society, only believing sisters were accepted to make clothes for the dest.i.tute. The reason was that it had been found unwise and unwholesome to mix up or yoke together believers and unbelievers.* Such a.s.sociation proved a barrier to spiritual converse and injurious to both cla.s.ses, fostering in the unbelievers a false security, ensnaring them in a delusive hope that to help in Christian work might somehow atone for rejection of Jesus Christ as a Saviour, or secure favour from G.o.d and an open door into heaven. No doubt all this indiscriminate a.s.sociation of children of G.o.d with children of the world in a ”mixed mult.i.tude” is unscriptural.
Unregenerate persons are tempted to think there is some merit at least in mingling with wors.h.i.+ppers and workers, and especially in giving to the support of the gospel and its inst.i.tutions. The devil seeks to persuade such that it is acceptable to G.o.d to conform externally to religious rites, and forms, and take part in outward acts of service and sacrifice, and that He will deal leniently with them, despite their unbelief and disobedience. Mr. Muller and Mr. Craik felt keenly that this danger existed and that even in minor matters there must be a line of separation, for the sake of all involved.
* 2 Cor. vi. 14-18.