Johannes Müller

“ The danger of all scientific work at present, not only among Oriental scholars, but, as far as I can see, everywhere, is the tendency to extreme specialization. Our age shows in that respect a decided reaction against the spirit of a former age, which those with gray heads among us can still remember, an age represented in Germany by such names as Humboldt, Ritter, Böckh, Johannes, Müller, Bopp, Bunsen, and others; men who look to us like giants, carrying a 320 weight of knowledge far too heavy for the shoulders of such mortals as now be ”

“ Let us turn again from the distinctively religious life to secular intellectuality. A wonderfully gifted Uranian occurs in Johannes von Müller, the famous German-Swiss historian (1752-1809) . Müller's monumental works in history, particularly as to mediæval Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and other parts of Europe, gave him in the prime of his career the sobriquet of "a monster of learning," and his labours are not yet unconsidered. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Müller's journal is not only a record of his outer life of consecrated labour and its expansion, but it is a mirror of his inner life and its growth. It is an encouragement to all other saints to find that this growth was, like their own, in spite of many and formidable hindrances, over which only grace could triumph. Side by side with glimpses of habitual conscientiousness and joy in God, we have revelations of times of coldness and despondency. It is a wholesome lesson in holy living that we find this man setting himself to the deliberate task of cultivating obedience and gratitude ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ God is able and willing to deliver me, if it be good for me; for it is written: "He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" Rom. viii. 32. This, this it was which, being believed by me through grace, kept my soul in peace.—Further, When in connection with the Orphan-Houses, Day Schools, etc., trials have come upon me which were far heavier than the want of means, when lying reports were spread that the Orphans had not enough to eat, or that they were cruelly treated in other respects, and the like ”

“ I the more need also to my own soul this last of all the proofs that I have not been mistaken, in order to have unquestionable assurance that, whatever trials hereafter may be allowed to befall me in connexion with this work, I did not at my own bidding and according to my own natural desire undertake it, but that it was under the guidance of God. The greatness of the sum required affords me a kind of secret joy; for the greater the difficulty to be overcome, the more will it be seen to the glory of God, how much can be done by prayer and faith ”

“ 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. ”

“ The burden of every report is to induce the reader to venture wholly upon God, to taste and see that the Lord is good, and find for himself how blessed are all they that put their trust in Him. Only in the light of this supreme purpose can these records of a life of faith be read intelligently and intelligibly.
Weakness of body again, in the autumn of 1839, compelled, for a time, rest from active labour, and Mr. Müller went to Trowbridge and Exeter, Teignmouth and Plymouth. God had precious lessons for him which He could best teach in the school of affliction. ”

“ With increasing frequency, earnestness, and minuteness, was George Müller led to put before God, in prayer, all matters that lay upon his mind. This man was to be peculiarly an example to believers as an intercessor; and so God gave him from the outset a very simple, childlike disposition toward Himself. In many things he was in knowledge and in strength to outgrow childhood and become a man, for it marks immaturity when we err through ignorance and are overcome through weakness. But in faith and in the filial spirit, he always continued to be a little child. ”

“ Müller but little, but knew his positive convictions and uncompromising loyalty to them, might suspect that he would have little forbearance with even minor errors, and would not bend himself from his stern attitude of inflexibility to accommodate himself to those who were ensnared by them. But those who knew him better, saw that he held fast the form of sound words with faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. Like Paul, ever ready to be made all things to all men that by all means he might save some, in his whole character and conduct nothing shone more radiantly beautiful, than Love. ”

“ 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 ”

“ And further, in those parts public meetings in abundance are held, in which the foundation truths of the Gospel are openly attacked by persons who call themselves "the Friends of Light." There then I mean to distribute among the common people as many thousands of Tracts as I can.—Germany is in great agitation. Light is increasing, there is a shaking in establishments; but there infidelity is also increasing, as well as democracy in politics. I watch with deep interest the state of things in Germany, and were not my position in Bristol what it is, I should remain longer here ”

“ 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. ”

“ There are several of his water-colour drawings in the South Kensington Museum. Müller was one of the most original and powerful of painters from nature. He seized the characteristics of a scene with wonderful clearness and promptitude, and set it down without hesitation or difficulty. His selection and generalisation were nearly always masterly, his colour pure and strong, and he could probably suggest more, with fewer touches, than any other painter of his time. He never spoilt the freshness of his work by over-labour or detail. ”

“ This purely human delight in the enjoyment of life, in the flavor of the German wine, and in the yet higher flavor of the German Symposium, finds it happiest expression in the drinking songs of Wilhelm Müller. They have often been set to music by the best masters, and have long been sung by the happy and joyous. The name of the poet is often forgotten, whilst many of his songs have become popular songs, just because they were sung from the heart and soul of the German people, as the people were fifty years ago, and as the best of them still are, in spite of many changes in the Fatherland. ”

“ For the sake of a passionate love for a young woman he had given up the work to which he felt drawn of God, 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 Müller, was acting and choosing more like that profane person Esau, when for one morsel of meat he bartered his birthright. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Müller's address was characterized by that stiff formality peculiar to the old school type of German professor; and yet with this he combined the dexterity and activity of the more modern scholar. His conversation was never productive. The constant consideration of the various problems of his activity was usually uppermost in his mind and, although he would talk pleasantly and interestingly of many varied subjects, as art, architecture and music, it was to some phase of his labors that the further discussion of these subjects almost invariably led back. ”