BROTHER MÃœLLER AND HIS
ORPHAN-WORK.

Among the curiosities of literature in our
day is a work, of which four parts have
appeared at intervals, entitled The Lord's
Dealings with George Müller. The first
edition of the first part was published twenty
years ago, the fourth part appeared only last
year. The tone of this very singular book is
like that of the author of the Bank of Faith,
who, when he wanted a new pair of trousers,
prayed for them over-night, and found them
by his bedside in the morning. But Huntington
prayed generally for himself, George
Müller takes thought of the orphan, and has
accomplished in his own way a substantial
work that must secure for him the respect of
all good men, whatever may be the form of
their religious faith.

George Müller, believing himself to be
elect, is one of those who thank the Lord
that they are not as other men are; it
grieves him to think that in the other world
he shall be parted from his natural father
and his brother, who are not among the
chosen. He does not believe in any gradual
amelioration of the world, but looks for the
return of the Lord to reign on earth, and is
not without expectation that the return may
be in his own day. In holding these opinions
he is perfectly sincere, and he believes, with a
liveliness of faith perhaps unequalled in our
time, that all things fitting for His children
will be supplied by our Father in heaven
in direct answer to trustful prayer. He
points to the Orphan-house on Ashley Down,
near Bristol, for the justification of his faith.
He has now been labouring in Bristol for a
quarter of a century. He has undertaken
large works of benevolence. He has established
that asylum for destitute orphans, which
for some time maintained three hundred
inmates, and to which a new wing has just been
added for the reception of four hundred more.
He expects to add another wing and find
room for a thousand. For the prosecution
of this orphan-work, as he calls it, he has
received ninety thousand pounds, without
once asking for a penny. When he wants
money he prays for it, and in his annual
reports, which are summed up in the
publication we have named, shows how it comes.
His reports make no appeal. The spirit and
intention of them is to bear testimony to the
truth of which he is convinced, that "the
Lord will provide," and so completely is this
their intention that on one occasion when
the annual meeting and report happened to
fall due at a time when his distress for funds
was very urgent, and to make the fact
known would procure instant relief, that
very circumstance compelled him to
postpone for a few months the issue of the
report. At another time of great want,
shortly before the expiration of a year's
housekeeping at the Orphan-house, when
Brother Müller did not know at breakfast-time
how he should buy the orphans' milk
for tea, a rich friend asked him whether the
balance in his accounts would be as good as
heretofore. A sign of want would have
produced a cheque immediately, but George
Müller only said the balance will be as the
Lord shall please. Of course by the annual
publication of such facts as these an appeal is
made to the religious sensibilities of
thousands. If Brother Müller never told his
prayers, and never worked to produce their
fulfilment, could he depend on them for the
production of an income? In his own
housekeeping Brother Müller followed the same
system. He destroyed the pews in his chapel;
and because he felt that subscriptions to the
salary of a minister were called for when it was
not convenient to some to pay them, and were
not always given cheerfully, he refused to
accept any salary at all. Again, because free
gifts paid to his hand might be made on some
compulsion of pride, for the sake only of
appearing to do right, and he could accept only
what was given cheerfully, he caused a box
to be set up in his chapel, and depended on
the anonymous gifts dropped into it by members
of his congregation. His deacons opened
the box about once every five weeks.
Sometimes he had no bread at home, and there
was money in the chapel-box. Perhaps he
might then pray that a deacon's heart should
be stirred up to open it, but he gave no sign
of his want to any man, and never asked that
the box should be opened, never if money
was owing to him asked his debtor for it.
Trusting in prayer only, he never starved,
and has obtained more than a hundred
thousand pounds for pious uses.

So much we have said, at once to secure