Part 23 (1/2)
They were thus at last put out to usury, after many years of gathering ”rust” in h.o.a.rded idleness and uselessness. Little did bridegroom or bride foresee how these coins, after more than a hundred years, would come forth from their hiding-place to be put to the Lord's uses. Few people have ever calculated how much is lost to every good cause by the simple withdrawal of money from circulation. Those four crown pieces had they been carefully invested, so as to double in value, by compound interest, every ten years, would have increased to one thousand pounds during the years they had lain idle!
One gift was sent in, as an offering to the Lord, instead of being used to purchase an engagement-ring by two believers who desired their lives to be united by that highest bond, the mutual love of the Lord who spared not His own blood for them.
At another time, a box came containing a new satin jacket, newly bought, but sacrificed as a snare to pride. Its surrender marked an epoch, for henceforth the owner determined to spend in dress only what is needful, and not waste the Lord's money on costly apparel. Enlightened believers look on all things as inalienably G.o.d's, and, even in the voluntary diversion of money into sacred rather than selfish channels, still remember that they give to Him only what is His own! ”The little child feels proud that he can drop the money into the box after the parent has supplied the means, and told him to do so; and so G.o.d's children are sometimes tempted to think that they are giving of their own, and to be proud over their gifts, forgetting the divine Father who both gives us all we have and bids us give all back to Him.”
A gift of two thousand pounds on January 29,1872, was accompanied by a letter confessing that the possession of property had given the writer much trouble of mind, and it had been disposed of from a conviction that the Lord ”saw it not good” for him to _hold so much_ and therefore allowed its possession to be a curse rather than a blessing. Fondness for possessions always entails curse, and external riches thus become a source of internal poverty. It is doubtful whether any child of G.o.d ever yet h.o.a.rded wealth without losing in spiritual attainment and enjoyment.
Greed is one of the lowest and most destructive of vices and turns a man into the likeness of the coin he wors.h.i.+ps, making him hard, cold, metallic, and unsympathetic, so that, as has been quaintly said, he drops into his coffin ”with a c.h.i.n.k.”
G.o.d estimates what we _give_ by what we _keep,_ for it is possible to bestow large sums and yet reserve so much larger amounts that no self-denial is possible. Such giving to the Lord _costs us nothing._
In 1853, a brother in the Lord took out of his pocket a roll of bank-notes, amounting to one hundred and ten pounds, and put it into Mr.
Muller's hand, it being _more than one half of his entire worldly estate._ Such giving is an ill.u.s.tration of self-sacrifice on a large scale, and brings corresponding blessing.
The _motives_ prompting gifts were often unusually suggestive. In October, 1857, a donation came from a Christian merchant who, having sustained a heavy pecuniary loss, _wished to sanctify his loss by a gift to the Lord's work._ Shortly after, another offering was handed in by a young man in thankful remembrance that twenty-five years before Mr.
Muller had prayed over him, as a child, that G.o.d would convert him. Yet another gift, of thirty-five hundred pounds, came to him in 1858, with a letter stating that the giver had further purposed to give to the orphan work the chief preference in his will, but had now seen it to be far better to _act as his own executor_ and give the whole amount while he lived. Immense advantage would accrue, both to givers and to the causes they purpose to promote, were this principle generally adopted! There is ”many a slip betwixt the cup” of the legator and ”the lip” of the legatee. Even a wrong wording of a will has often forfeited or defeated the intent of a legacy. Mr. Muller had to warn intending donors that nothing that was reckoned as real estate was available for legacies for charitable inst.i.tutions, nor even money lent on real estate or in any other way derived therefrom. These conditions no longer exist, but they ill.u.s.trate the ease with which a will may often be made void, and the design of a bequest be defeated.
Many donors were led to send thank-offerings for _avoided_ or _averted calamities:_ as, for example, for a sick horse, given up by the veterinary surgeon as lost, but which recovered in answer to prayer.
Another donor, who broke his left arm, sends grateful acknowledgment to G.o.d that it was not the _right_ arm, or some more vital part like the head or neck.
The offerings were doubly precious because of the unwearied faithfulness of G.o.d who manifestly prompted them, and who kept speaking to the hearts of thousands, leading them to give so abundantly and constantly that no want was unsupplied. In 1859, so great were the outlays of the work that if day by day, during the whole three hundred and sixty-five, fifty pounds had been received, the income would not have been more than enough. Yet in a surprising variety and number of ways, and from persons and places no less numerous and various, donations came in. Not one of twenty givers was personally known to Mr. Muller, and no one of all contributors had ever been asked for a gift, and yet, up to November, 1858, over _six hundred thousand pounds_ had already been received, and in amounts varying from eighty-one hundred pounds down to a single farthing.
Unique circ.u.mstances connected with some donations made them remarkable.
While resting at Ilfracombe, in September, 1865, a gentleman gave to Mr.
Muller a sum of money, at the same time narrating the facts which led to the gift. He was a hard-working business man, wont to doubt the reality of spiritual things, and strongly questioned the truth of the narrative of answered prayers which he had read from Mr. Muller's pen. But, in view of the simple straightforward story, he could not rest in his doubts, and at last proposed to himself a test as to whether or not G.o.d was indeed with Mr. Muller, as he declared. He wished to buy a certain property if rated at a reasonable valuation; and he determined, if he should secure it at the low price which he set for himself, he would give to him one hundred pounds. He authorized a bid to be put in, in his behalf, but, curious to get the earliest information as to the success of his venture, he went himself to the place of sale, and was surprised to find the property actually knocked off to him at his own price.
Astonished at what he regarded as a proof that G.o.d was really working with Mr. Muller and for him, he made up his mind to go in person and pay over the sum of money to him, and so make his acquaintance and see the man whose prayers G.o.d answered. Not finding him at Bristol, he had followed him to Ilfracombe.
Having heard his story, and having learned that he was from a certain locality, Mr. Muller remarked upon the frequent proofs of G.o.d's strange way of working on the minds of parties wholly unknown to him and leading them to send in gifts; and he added: ”I had a letter from a lawyer in your very neighbourhood, shortly since, asking for the proper form for a bequest, as a client of his, not named, wished to leave one thousand pounds to the orphan work.” It proved that the man with whom he was then talking was this nameless client, who, being convinced that his doubts were wrong, had decided to provide for this legacy.
In August, 1884, a Christian brother from the United States called to see Mr. Muller. He informed him how greatly he had been blessed of G.o.d through reading his published testimony to G.o.d's faithfulness; and that having, through his sister's death, come into the possession of some property, he had _come across the sea,_ that he might see the orphan houses and know their founder, for himself, and hand over to him for the Lord's work the entire bequest of about seven hundred pounds.
Only seventeen days later, a letter accompanying a donation gave further joy to Mr. Muller's heart. It was from the husband of one of the orphans who, in her seventeenth year, had left the inst.i.tution, and to whom Mr.
Muller himself, on her departure, had given the first two volumes of the Reports. Her husband had read them with more spiritual profit than any volume except the Book of books, and had found his faith much strengthened. Being a lay preacher in the Methodist Free Church, the blessed impulses thus imparted to himself were used of G.o.d to inspire a like self-surrender in the cla.s.s under his care.
These are a few examples of the countless encouragements that led Mr.
Muller, as he reviewed them, to praise G.o.d unceasingly.
A Christian physician enclosed ten pounds in a letter, telling how first he tried a religion of mere duty and failed; then, after a severe illness, learned a religion of love, apprehending the love of G.o.d to himself in Christ and so learning how to love others. In his days of darkness he had been a great lover of flowers and had put up several plant-houses; flower-culture was his hobby, and a fine collection of rare plants, his pride. He took down and sold one of these conservatories and sent the proceeds as _”the price of an idol,_ cast down by G.o.d's power.” Another giver enclosed a like amount from the sale of unnecessary books and pictures; and a poor man his half-crown, ”the fruit of a little tree in his garden.”
A poor woman, who had devoted the progeny of a pet rabbit to the orphan work, when the young became fit for sale changed her mind and ”kept back a part of the price”; _that part,_ however, _two rabbits,_ she found _dead_ on the day when they were to be sold.
In July, 1877, ten pounds from an anonymous source were accompanied by a letter which conveys another instructive lesson. Years before, the writer had resolved before G.o.d to discontinue a doubtful habit, and send the cost of his indulgence to the Inst.i.tution. The vow, made in time of trouble, was unpaid until G.o.d brought the sin to remembrance by a new trouble, and by a special message from the Word: ”Grieve not the Spirit of G.o.d.” The victory was then given over the habit, and, the practice having annually cost about twenty-six s.h.i.+llings, the full amount was sent to cover the period during which the solemn covenant had not been kept, with the promise of further gifts in redemption of the same promise to the Lord. This instance conveys more than one lesson. It reminds us of the costliness of much of our self-indulgence. Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, in submitting the Budget for 1897, remarked that what is annually wasted in the unsmoked remnants of cigars and cigarettes in Britain is estimated at a million and a quarter pounds--the equivalent of all that is annually spent on foreign missions by British Christians.
And many forms of self-gratification, in no way contributing to either health or profit, would, if what they cost were dedicated to the Lord, make His treasuries overflow. Again, this incident reminds us of the many vows, made in time of trouble, which have no payment in time of relief. Many sorrows come back, like clouds that return after the rain, to remind of broken pledges and unfulfilled obligations, whereby we have grieved the Holy Spirit of G.o.d. ”Pay that which thou hast vowed; for G.o.d hath no pleasure in fools.” And again we are here taught how a sensitive and enlightened conscience will make rest.i.tution to G.o.d as well as to man; and that past unfaithfulness to a solemn covenant cannot be made good merely by keeping to its terms _for the future._ No honest man dishonours a past debt, or compromises with his integrity by simply beginning anew and paying as he goes. Reformation takes a retrospective glance and begins in rest.i.tution and reparation for all previous wrongs and unfaithfulness. It is one of the worst evils of our day that even disciples are so ready to bury the financial and moral debts of their past life in the grave of a too-easy oblivion.
One donor, formerly living in Tunbridge Wells, followed a principle of giving, the reverse of the worldly way. As his own family increased, instead of decreasing his gifts, he gave, for each child given to him of G.o.d, the average cost of maintaining one orphan, until, having seven children, he was supporting seven orphans.
An anonymous giver wrote: ”It was my idea that when a man had sufficient for his own wants, he ought then to supply the wants of others, and consequently I never had sufficient. I now clearly see that G.o.d expects us to give of what we have and not of what we have not, and to leave the rest to Him. I therefore give in faith and love, knowing that if I first seek the kingdom of G.o.d and His righteousness, all other things will be added unto me.”