OTHER CHARACTERISTICS
363
the Lord give me this, which is the result of trusting in him, I should
scarcely be able to work at all; for it is now comparatively a rare thing
that a day comes when I am not in need for one or another part of the
work.”
1
In building his orphanages simply by prayer and faith, Müller affirms that
his prime motive was “to have something to point to as a visible proof
that our God and Father is the same faithful God that he ever was, — as
willing as ever to prove himself the living God, in our day as formerly,
to all that put their trust in him.”
2
For this reason he refused to borrow
money for any of his enterprises. “How does it work when we thus anti-
cipate God by going our own way? We certainly weaken faith instead
of increasing it; and each time we work thus a deliverance of our own
we find it more and more difficult to trust in God, till at last we give way
entirely to our natural fallen reason and unbelief prevails. How different if
one is enabled to wait God’s own time, and to look alone to him for help
and deliverance! When at last help comes, after many seasons of prayer it
may be, how sweet it is, and what a present recompense! Dear Christian
reader, if you have never walked in this path of obedience before, do
so now, and you will then know experimentally the sweetness of the joy
which results from it.”
3
When the supplies came in but slowly, Müller always considered that
this was for the trial of his faith and patience. When his faith and pati-
ence had been sufficiently tried, the Lord would send more means. “And
thus it has proved,” — I quote from his diary, — “for to-day was given me
the sum of 2050 pounds, of which 2000 are for the building fund [of a
certain house], and 50 for present necessities. It is impossible to describe
my joy in God when I received this donation. I was neither excited nor
surprised; for I look out for answers to my prayers. I believe that God hears
me. Yet my heart was so full of joy that I could only sit before God, and
admire him, like David in 2 Samuel vii. At last I cast myself flat down
upon my face and burst forth in thanksgiving to God and in surrendering
my heart afresh to him for his blessed service.”
4
George Müller’s is a case extreme in every respect, and in no
respect more so than in the extraordinary narrowness of the man’s
intellectual horizon. His God was, as he often said, his business
partner. He seems to have been for Müller little more than a sort of
supernatural clergyman interested in the congregation of tradesmen
1
The Life of Trust; Being a Narrative of the Lord’s Dealings with George Müller, New
American edition, N. Y., Crowell, pp. 228, 194, 219.
2
Ibid., p. 126.
3
Op. cit., p. 383, abridged.
4
Ibid., p. 323.
364
THE VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE
and others in Bristol who were his saints, and in the orphanages
and other enterprises, but unpossessed of any of those vaster and
wilder and more ideal attributes with which the human imagina-
tion elsewhere has invested him. Müller, in short, was absolutely
unphilosophical. His intensely private and practical conception of
his relations with the Deity continued the traditions of the most
primitive human thought.
1
When we compare a mind like his with
such a mind as, for example, Emerson’s or Phillips Brooks’s, we see
the range which the religious consciousness covers.
There is an immense literature relating to answers to petitional
prayer. The evangelical journals are filled with such answers, and
books are devoted to the subject,
2
but for us Müller’s case will suffice.
A less sturdy beggar-like fashion of leading the prayerful life is
followed by innumerable other Christians. Persistence in leaning
on the Almighty for support and guidance will, such persons say,
1
I cannot resist the temptation of quoting an expression of an even more primitive style
of religious thought, which I find in Arber’s English Garland, vol. vii. p. 440. Robert Lyde,
an English sailor, along with an English boy, being prisoners on a French ship in 1689, set
upon the crew, of seven Frenchmen, killed two, made the other five prisoners, and brought
home the ship. Lyde thus describes how in this feat he found his God a very present help in
time of trouble: —
“With the assistance of God I kept my feet when they three and one more did strive to
throw me down. Feeling the Frenchman which hung about my middle hang very heavy, I
said to the boy, ‘Go round the binnacle, and knock down that man that hangeth on my
back.’ So the boy did strike him one blow on the head which made him fall. . . . Then I
looked about for a marlin spike or anything else to strike them withal. But seeing nothing, I
said, ‘L
ORD
! what shall I do?’ Then casting up my eye upon my left side, and seeing a marlin
spike hanging, I jerked my right arm and took hold, and struck the point four times about a
quarter of an inch deep into the skull of that man that had hold of my left arm. [One of the
Frenchmen then hauled the marlin spike away from him.] But through G
OD
’s wonderful
providence! it either fell out of his hand, or else he threw it down, and at this time the
Almighty G
OD
gave me strength enough to take one man in one hand, and throw at the
other’s head: and looking about again to see anything to strike them withal, but seeing
nothing, I said, ‘L
ORD
! what shall I do now?’ And then it pleased G
OD
to put me in mind of
my knife in my pocket. And although two of the men had hold of my right arm, yet G
OD
Almighty strengthened me so that I put my right hand into my right pocket, drew out the
knife and sheath, . . . put it between my legs and drew it out, and then cut the man’s throat
with it that had his back to my breast: and he immediately dropt down, and scarce ever
stirred after.” — I have slightly abridged Lyde’s narrative.
2
As, for instance, In Answer to Prayer, by the B
ISHOP
OF
R
IPON
and others, London, 1898;
Touching Incidents and Remarkable Answers to Prayer, Harrisburg, Fa., 1898 (?); H. L.
H
ASTINGS
: The Guiding Hand, or Providential Direction, illustrated by Authentic Instances,
Boston, 1898 (?).