Friedrich von Müller

“ This indeed is what Muller calls a “case with a happy ending,” for scarcely a year later, to his own great embarrassment, he found himself the most honoured guest, and a centre of attraction equally with the bridal couple, at the marriage of Kurt von Mayringen and Asta Langen. Muller asserts, however, that he is not a success in society, and that he would rather unravel fifty difficult cases than again be the “lion” at a fashionable function. ”

“ Müller is a good leader, but very rude. People's position is nothing to him; he treats ladies of the greatest importance as a policeman would women who were obstructing the way. If we had to learn a difficult vocal piece, there would be more actions for damages than notes. But I must away, my good friend."
"I am very grateful to you for your zeal, dear Wegen; but whither are you going in such haste?" asked Blanden.
"You see I am freighted with music; I am going to Fräulein Cäcilie von Dornau. She will sing a solo, and I shall accompany her, but we have not yet decided what we shall select." ”

“ He arrived at a favourable conjuncture: the Tractarian strife, which had so long thrust learning into the background, was just over, and Oxford was becoming accessible to modern ideas. The young German excited curiosity and interest, and it was soon discovered that, although a genuine scholar, he was no mere bookworm. Part of his social success was due to his readiness to exert his musical talents at private parties. Max Müller was speedily subjugated by the genius loci. ”

“ At the close of this meeting, before the benediction, Colonel von Büren rose, and, on behalf of the Christians of Berne, thanked him publicly for his visit to the city; and here, [89] before proceeding any further, it seems desirable to make the following observations:—
Some of the readers of this Narrative may possibly feel inclined to say—"With so much travelling from place to place, so many public meetings, and such continual intercourse with strangers, how does Mr. Müller find time to attend to his own spiritual welfare? Whence does he obtain refreshment for the inner man himself? ”

“ Though Max Müller’s reputation was that of a comparative philologist and orientalist, his professional duties at Oxford were long confined to lecturing on modern languages, or at least their medieval forms. In 1860 the death of Horace Hayman Wilson, professor of Sanskrit, seemed to open a more congenial sphere to him. His claims to the succession seemed incontestable, for his opponent, Monier Williams, though well qualified as a Sanskritist, lacked Max Müller’s brilliant versatility, and although educated at Oxford, had held no University office. ”

“ On the whole, the present work is still the best historical performance which Germany can boast of. Müller's histories are distinguished by merits of another sort; by condensing, in a given space, and frequently in lucid order, a quantity of information, copious and authentic beyond example: but as intellectual productions, they cannot rank with Schiller's. Woltmann of Berlin has added to the Thirty-Years War another work of equal size, by way of continuation, entitled History of the Peace of Munster ”

“ George Müller considered nothing too small to be a subject of prayer, because nothing is too small to be the subject of God's care. If He numbers our hairs, and notes a sparrow's fall, and clothes the grass in the field, nothing about His children is beneath His tender thought. In every emergency, his one resort was to carry his want to his Father. When, in 1858, a legacy of five hundred pounds was, after fourteen months in chancery, still unpaid, the Lord was besought to cause this money soon to be placed in his hands ”

“ In bringing about this condition, and in establishing the deductive scientific method as alone admissible in the realm of natural science, we must look upon Müller as a reformer whose work has been of enduring benefit to science. The nature of his vitalistic hypothesis did not prevent him in the least from directing his labor to establish life phenomena on a physico-chemical basis. Even the vitalistic principle, as it appertains to the philosophy of the present day, is largely a matter of man's personal and ultimate view of his own life and his own destiny. ”

“ My comfort was the living God. During this week he had helped me so repeatedly and in such a remarkable way, as it regards the Orphan Houses, that it would have been doubly sinful not to have trusted in him for help under this fresh difficulty. No money came in this morning. About two, the usual time when the teachers are paid, a sovereign was given, with which I went immediately to brother T., who attends to this part of the work, to pay, at least in part, the weekly [154] salaries. I found that he had received a sovereign in the morning. ”

“ Among these we may distinguish chiefly the strongly-developed sense of order and method, and the deep spirit of enterprise and of indefatigable activity. To these were added a thorough knowledge of men, a great gift of observation, a conscientious punctuality, and a firmness of purpose together with a knowledge of the appropriate both in speech and in action. In his domestic life Müller appears to have been a true husband and to his son and daughters a good father. ”

“ To carry out conviction into action is sometimes a costly sacrifice; but whatever Mr. Müller's fidelity to conviction cost in one way, he had stupendous results of his life-work to contemplate, even while he lived. Let any one look at the above figures and facts, and remember that here was one poor man who, dependent on the help of God only in answer to prayer, could look back over threescore years and see how he had built five large orphan houses and taken into his family over ten thousand orphans, expending, for their good, within twelve thousand pounds of a round million. ”

“ These facts I state, in order to give a practical illustration that those are entirely mistaken who suppose that the work is now no longer a work of faith, as it used to be in former years. It is true, we have now a larger income than we used to have in the years 1838, 1839, and 1840; but it is also true that our expenses are three times as great. We have no regular income now, even as we had not then. We ask no human being now for help; even as we did not then. We depend alone upon God, by his grace ”

“ The double-minded man lacks steadiness in both respects: his faith has no uniformity of experience, for he is now at the crest of the wave and now in the trough of the sea; it has no uniformity of progress, for whatever he gains to-day he loses to-morrow.
Fluctuations in income and apparent prosperity did not take George Müller by surprise. ”

“ The year 1780, the date when the first opening of the retail business took place, was the turning-point in the history of the factory. Müller was acclaimed as a genius by his countrymen. It was proposed that a statue should be erected to his honour—and this in his lifetime. A wave of enthusiasm found an outlet in Latin poems to "the man who had done so much for his king and country." It is exceptional to find such contemporary honour bestowed on a potter. Rarely is a man a prophet in his own country. But happily Müller lived to wear the laurel wreath. ”

“ There was every thing that was needed in the three houses; I had made particular enquiry; there was meat even for today. We met yesterday again for prayer. Today I was not able to go, on account of indisposition; I sent, therefore, to brother T. to request him to divide the l8s. 6d., (10s. of which had come in last evening, and 8s. 6d. of which we had in hand) , between the three matrons. This afternoon I hear of a fresh deliverance which the Lord has wrought. About five weeks ago, a farmer applied for the admission of an orphan-girl, his grand-daughter. ”

“ Müller what would become of the work when he, the master workman, should be removed. Men find it hard to get their eyes off the instrument, and remember that there is only, strictly speaking, one AGENT, for an agent is one who works, and an instrument is what the agent works with. Though provision might be made, in a board of trustees, for carrying on the orphan work, where would be found the man to take the direction of it, a man whose spirit was so akin to that of the founder that he would trust in God and depend on Him just as Mr. ”

“ Müller’s life is one of the most wonderful miracles of Providence that ever was performed; that man, without ever asking for one farthing from anyone, committed his way to the Lord, walked with God, and in fifty years a million of money has passed through his hands ”

“ A brief service was held at Orphan House No. 3, where over a thousand children met, who had for a second time lost a 'father'; in front of the reading-desk in the great dining-room, a coffin of elm, studiously plain, and by request without floral offerings, contained all that was mortal of George Müller, and on a brass plate was a simple inscription, giving the date of his death, and his age.
Mr. James Wright gave the address, reminding those who were gathered that, to all of us, even those who have lived nearest God, death comes while the Lord tarries; that it is blessed to die in the Lord ”

“ Müller held a great number of meetings. On Sept. 12th he spoke at the Fulton Street prayer meeting, New York, and besides his regular preaching, visited Orphan and other Institutions, ministered amongst the Germans (of whom there are about ten millions throughout the United States) , and [32] continued actively engaged in the Lord's service until Sept. 20th, when we went by river steamer up the Hudson, to the city of Hudson, and attended a Convention, where be gave three addresses. On the 22nd we returned to Brooklyn, and on the following morning and evening he preached at Plymouth Church. ”

“ But, if any reader is still doubtful as to the facts, or thinks they are here arrayed in a deceptive garb or invested with an imaginative halo, he is hereby invited to examine for himself the singularly minute records which George Müller has been led of God to put before the world in a printed form which thus admits no change, and to accompany with a bold and repeated challenge to any one so inclined, to subject every statement to the severest scrutiny, and prove, if possible, one item to be in any respect false, exaggerated, or misleading. ”

“ Loyalty to truth, the obedience of faith, the sacrifice of love—these form the threefold key that unlocks to us all the closed chambers of that life, and these will, in another sense, unlock any other life to the entrance of God, and present to Him an open door into all departments of one's being. George Müller had no monopoly of holy living and holy serving. He followed his Lord, both in self-surrender to the will of God and in self-sacrifice for the welfare of man, and herein lay his whole secret. ”

“ In Un Héritage, the character of Franz Müller is at once pleasing and natural. He is not represented as perfect—he has his failings and weaknesses like any other mortal, and they are exhibited in the book, although we have not, in the outline we have traced of it, had occasion to give them prominence. But his heart is sound to the last. Wealth may momentarily bewilder, but it does not pervert him. He is true to his affections, and has the sense and courage to accept honourable toil as preferable to a fortune embittered by anxiety and dissension. ”

“ Müller, to express to him the feeling of kindliness towards his country, in its representation of the people of the United States and as one of the multitude of incidents exercising an influence over the people, is of greater value and greater importance than anything that the official Government of the United States can do. ”

“ Thus forty days had been passing away, whilst day after day we had been waiting unitedly upon the Lord; but the obstacles were greater than ever, yet my confidence in the Lord, that He would remove the difficulties in His own time, was greater than ever also. It was on July 12 that I said to a sister, being led to it by the certain prospect of one of the dear labourers in the Orphan-Houses going to leave; "Well, my soul is at peace. The Lords time is not yet come, but, when it is come, He will blow away all these obstacles, as chaff is blown away before the wind." ”

“ Müller's eye was on His power, wisdom, and riches, his own weakness, folly, and poverty were forgotten. Another objection was suggested: What if he should succeed in thus housing and feeding a thousand poor waifs, what would become of the institution after his death? The reply is memorable: "My business is, with all my might, to serve my own generation by the will of God: in so doing I shall best serve the next generation, should the Lord Jesus tarry." Were such objection valid, it were as valid against beginning any work likely to outlive the worker. ”

“ My feet begin to move forward in my boots, I go quicker, I run. Soldiers pass by me, I hear their voices without understanding. The earth is streaming with forces which pour into me through the soles of my feet. The night crackles electrically, the front thunders like a concert of drums. My limbs move supply, I feel my joints strong, I breathe the air deeply. The night lives, I live. I feel a hunger, greater than comes from the belly alone.
Müller stands in front of the hut and waits for me. I give him the boots. ”

“ I was waiting upon God. I had asked him repeatedly, but no supplies came. Brother T. called, between eleven and twelve o’clock, to tell me that about one pound two shillings would be needed, to take in bread for the three houses and to meet the other expenses; but we had only two shillings ninepence, which yesterday had been taken out of the boxes in the Orphan Houses. He went to Clifton to make arrangements for the reception of the three orphans of our sister Loader, who fell asleep on the 4th; for, though we have no funds in hand, the work goes on, and our confidence is not diminished. ”