George Müller of Bristol, and His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing GodPierson, Arthur T. (Arthur Tappan)
Religion
George Müller of Bristol, and His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God
Pierson, Arthur T. (Arthur Tappan)
Müller, George, 1805-1898; Orphanages -- Great Britain; Prayer
Those who knew but little of him and saw him only in his serious moods
might have thought him lacking in that peculiarly human quality,
_humour._ But neither was he an ascetic nor devoid of that element of
innocent appreciation of the ludicrous and that keen enjoyment of a good
story which seem essential to a complete man. His habit was sobriety,
but he relished a joke that was free of all taint of uncleanness and
that had about it no sting for others. To those whom he best knew and
loved he showed his true self, in his playful moods,--as when at
Ilfracombe, climbing with his wife and others the heights that overlook
the sea, he walked on a little in advance, seated himself till the rest
came up with him, and then, when they were barely seated, rose and
quietly said, "Well now, we have had a good rest, let us go on." This
one instance may suffice to show that his sympathy with his divine
Master did not lessen or hinder his complete fellow feeling with man.
That must be a defective piety which puts a barrier between a saintly
soul and whatsoever pertains to humanity. He who chose us out of the
world sent us back into it, there to find our sphere of service; and in
order to such service we must keep in close and vital touch with human
beings as did our divine Lord Himself.
Service to God was with George Muller a passion. In the month of May,
1897, he was persuaded to take at Huntly a little rest from his constant
daily work at the orphan houses. The evening that he arrived he said,
What opportunity is there here for services for the Lord? When it was
suggested to him that he had just come from continuous work, and that it
was a time for rest, he replied that, being now free from his usual
labours, he felt he must be occupied in some other way in serving the
Lord, to glorify whom was his object in life. Meetings were accordingly
arranged and he preached both at Huntly and at Teignmouth.
As we cast this last glance backward over this life of peculiar sanctity
and service, one lesson seems written across it in unmistakable letters:
PREVAILING PRAYER. If a consecrated human life is an _example_ used by
God to teach us the _philosophy_ of holy living, then this man was meant
to show us how _prayer, offered in simple faith, has power with God._
One paragraph of Scripture conspicuously presents the truth which George
Muller's living epistle enforces and illustrates; it is found in James
v. 16-18:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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