Missionary and Evangelistic Work
George Müller
Although pre-eminently a worker for the benefit of orphans and destitute poor, Mr. Muller had also been very successful as a preacher of the Gospel. The congregations to which he has ministered have increased in numbers, while their faith and charity have been manifested by deeds. The companies of believers meeting at Bethesda and Gideon chapels increased until they were counted by hundreds, so that the cares of these churches formed a heavy burden. Mr. Muller has dealt with these things, however, in the spirit of simple prayer and faith during a long series of years, in which he has acted as a beloved, painstaking, and faithful teacher in Christ” to his people, instructing them, and imparting to them much of that light which has irradiated his own soul.
His interest in mission-work has been constant and intense. At different times of his life he was moved to work personally in the foreign missionary field; indeed, it was the inspiration which first animated him when he experienced a change of heart; but events have combined to point out both to him, and to his friends, that his chosen sphere of usefulness lay in England. Part of the influence and funds of the Scriptural Knowledge Institution have been given to the support of missions and missionaries in all parts of the world. From the time when this branch of work was commenced, the total amount spent upon missionary operations down to May, 1884, was y 1 96,63 3 I2S. 5d. It would be impossible even to conjecture the amount of good accomplished in this direction only.
Mr. Müller has also taken long missionary journeys, with the avowed objects of stirring up the Lord’s people to greater activity and faith, and to see for himself those Christian friends in whom he felt an interest. After a long ministry of fifty-seven years, he felt that he could speak words of help and cheer to those with whom he should meet, and possibly, lead them to exercise a more simple, / unquestioning faith in that same God who had so marvellously helped him in his varied career. In these objects he has been singularly successful, having addressed students, professors, ministers, missionaries, and Christian workers of all grades, ages, sects, and opinions.
And this he has done in many lands, having visited Switzerland, Germany, Holland, France, Spain, Italy, Canada, the United States, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor, Turkey, Greece, Austria, Hungary, Poland, Bohemia, Russia, and India. It will be interesting to our young readers to give a few incidents of travel and labour on these missionary tours.
In Holland, during the spring of 1877, he visited an orphan asylum, established at Nimeguen, after the pattern of those on Ashley Down, and capable of accommodating 450 children. Mr. Muller addressed the children, and afterwards visited each department of the asylum. From this place he passed to Amsterdam. The diamond industry of this city is the most extraordinary in the world, and gives employment to about io,cxx) workmen. Here he preached in German; an interpreter, however, sometimes translated his sermons into Dutch.
In the autumn of 1877, Mr. and Mrs Muller (for he had married a second time), sailed for America. They visited Niagara, New York, Charleston, Boston, Jersey City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, and many other towns and cities, discoursing to large congregations, of the “old old story” of Christ’s love. At a missionary college at Amherst, the following story, related by the Principal to Mr. Müller, seems to have made a deep impression on him.
One of the former students was a young Japanese. While in his native land, many years previously, the young man had grown dissatisfied with the old system of idolatry pursued by his countrymen, but found nothing to substitute for it One day, however, he happened to meet with a primer for children, written by a missionary, in Japanese, and which contained these words: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Genesis i. i. From that time he worshipped this great Creator, though ignorantly.. Desiring to learn more about God, he left the country, secretly, and went to China, hoping to find instruction there. At Shanghai, somebody gave him a Chinese New Testament, and the first verse that claimed his attention on opening it was that glorious epitome of Gospel truth in John iii., “God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Taking that word “whosoever” to include himself, he believed what he read, and by the teaching of the Holy Spirit, became a decided Christian. But he desired to know more of Christ, and obtained a passage to America, on board a ship bound for Boston. A Christian gentleman of that city became so interested in the young man that he sent him to school for three years, and afterwards to college, where he became fitted for the Christian ministry. He then returned to Japan, as a missionary; and was the instrument of the conversion to Christianity of his parents, brothers, and sisters.
In April, 1878, Air. and Mrs. Müller went to San Francisco. “Soon after leaving Omaha,” he writes, “we entered upon the prairies, which consisted of millions of acres of wild, barren, uncultivated land, stretching away for hundreds of miles in all directions, with scarcely a bush, tree, or plant of any size among them, and covered only with short, dry, stunted grass.... Some idea could be formed of the wilderness through which the children of Israel passed on their way to Canaan.” At Sherman, the highest railway station in the world (8,235 above the level of the sea, and higher than the summit of the Righi), the cold was intense, and the snow several feet deep. When they reached California, however, they found the “fields covered with grass, intermingled with brilliant masses of wild flowers, lupines, wild roses, geraniums, and millions of Califomian poppies, of an intense yellow, deepening into orange colour.”
At San Francisco, Mr. Müller preached to overflowing congregations, and among the rest of his hearers, met with a waiter at an hotel, who was the brother of one of the orphans at Ashley Down. Among the sights of the city, they were shown some immense trees growing in the neighbourhood. one of which was 62 feet in circumference, and 296 feet high.
At Chicago they were spoken to by several orphans, who had gone out to America, to make their new homes, but who remembered and honoured the benefactors of their youth.
Near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, they visited the soldiers’ cemetery, famous for containing the remains of 32,000 soldiers who fell in the Civil War. They returned to England safely, after having travelled over nineteen thousand miles, and conducted 308 public services.
In the winter of 1878 — 79, they visited the continent of Europe, going by way of France into Spain and Italy. At Montpellier, a gentleman descended from, the Huguenots gave Mr. and Mrs. Müller some interesting incidents of the past persecutions. In front of the hotel where they lodged was a piece of ground — then laid out as a public garden — but formerly used as a place of execution for Protestants. Some were hung in chains till dead; others had both legs and arms broken only, so that they might suffer hours of excruciating agony, and then, in mercy, a blow on the chest, from an iron bar, terminated their agonies. These cruelties took place in the reign of Louis XIV.
At Barcelona, they visited ten day-schools, which were supported entirely by the Scriptural Knowledge Institution, and saw some hundreds of Spanish children who were being educated in the religion of Jesus Christ Mr. Müller spoke to them through an interpreter. In Madrid, they visited five schools sustained in the same way. Both teachers and children were delighted to see their benefactor.
In 1 88 1 Mr. and Mrs. Müller visited Egypt, Palestine, Turkey, Asia Minor, and Greece. He preached habitually in English or in German, and the services of an interpreter were called into requisition in order to reach the audiences of native Christians ministered to by him. Speaking of the streets and people of Alexandria, Mrs. Müller says: “In going to and from the meetings we noticed the great variety of costumes worn by persons who passed us in the streets. Loose, white garments and red turbans with gold ornaments were worn by the Turks; most of the women were closely veiled, so that their eyes only could be seen, and a few had veils arranged in such a manner that one eye alone was visible. Brass ornaments, too, fixed between the eyes were generally worn by unveiled women, which disfigured their countenances much. Most of the poor walked about. barefoot, and some Arabs, in thin clothing, slept soundly as they lay stretched at full length by the side of the pavement in the street.” Beside this interesting little peep at the social customs of the city, Mrs. Müller tells us that they had some nice conversation with several Jewish 3chool-girls, by means pf an Ariabic interpreter.
From Alexandria and Ramleh they proceeded to Jaffa and Jerusalem. “In the streets of Jerusalem, dayafter day, we saw numbers of men, women, and children standing about half-naked or clothed in miserable rags; and strangers cannot walk a short distance without being besieged for alms by the beggars that abound, not a few of whom are lepers. They hold up their disfigured hands and arms, and, pointing to their dreadful sores, follow visitors, persistently entreating them, in piteous and lamentable tone of voice, to have compassion on them and help them.”
At Constantinople, Mr. Müller addressed a congregation of 500 Armenians by the aid of a Turkish interpreter. At Athens, he spoke to 257 Greek boys — scholars of the Ragged School there under missionary care, and a few days later to 700 children belonging to Mrs. Hill’s mission school. These addresses were translated as delivered, into Greek.
Another Continental journey was undertaken in 1882. While at Brunn, in Moravia, the travellers were shown over the dungepns of the Spielburg, a gloomy castle, in which Baron Trenck, Silvio Pellico, and other notable prisoners had been confined. Mrs. Müller writes of these gloomy abodes: “One of these dark vaults contained a stone figure representing a man stretched out at full length upon a rack, with his arms drawn up above his head to show the manner in which the limbs of victims used to be gradually torn from their bodies by means of machinery, which ruptured their blood-vessels and dislocated their bones. Then on the walls were iron rings, to which, with outstretched arms, condemned criminals were fastened in such a way that it was impossible to move, and there, without food or water, they were left to perish. In another of the dungeons was a second figure of a man in chains, standing upright, but fettered so cruelly that if he had been a living human being, the agony occasioned by the ‘bonds would have been excruciating. Some of the prisoners not killed by cold and hunger were partially devoured by the rats, whilst others, were slowly put to death by atrocities that rivalled even the dread punishment of the Inquisition... Many of the Lord’s people had in time past to pass through trials such as these.”
On this visit Mr. Müller visited his native place, together with some other spots familiar to his youth, and preached “the unsearchable riches of Christ” to crowded assemblies.
After returning from this tour, he visited India, and much encouraged the hearts of numbers of devoted missionaries who were eager to see him. Many schools and missionary workers in India are supported by the Scriptural Knowledge Institution, consequently his visits to them partook of a fatherly character, being calculated to inspire with fresh vigour each servant of the Master who labours in the same 64 The Worlds Worjcers.
* word and doctrine.” Quietly but prayerfully he is helping to win that vast land for Christ
For nearly sixty years now, the principles of which George Müller is the cheerful saintly embodiment, have inspired his life and urged him to new deeds of faith — deeds which have been the wonder of the age. Let the sceptic point to the Orphan Houses on Ashley Down, and say whether they do not afford incontrovertible proof that there is a God, and that He answers fervent, believing prayer.