The Life of Trust, George Müller [e ink epub reader .txt] 📗

might to serve my own generation; in doing so I shall best serve the next generation, should the Lord Jesus tarry. Soon he may come again; but, if he tarry, and I have to fall asleep before his return, I shall not have been altogether without profit to the generation to come, were the Lord only to enable me to serve my own generation. Suppose this objection were a sound one, I ought never to have commenced the orphan work at all, for fear of what might become of it after my death, and thus all the hundreds of destitute children without father and mother, whom the Lord has allowed me to care for during the last fifteen years, would not have been taken up by me. The same argument was again and again used to Franké, my esteemed countryman, who at Hallé, in Prussia, commenced, about a. d. 1696, the largest charitable establishment for poor children that, as far as I know, exists in the world. He trusted in God alone. He went on trusting in God alone. And God helped him throughout abundantly. Simply by trust in the living God, the Institutions, resembling a large street rather than a house, were erected, and about two thousand children instructed in them. For about thirty years all was going on under his own eye, until 1727, when it pleased God to take his servant to himself. At his death these Institutions were directed by his truly pious son-in-law. It is true that, at the latter part of the last century, and during the first part of the present, there was little real vital godliness in these Institutions; still, they were a temporal blessing to many tens of thousands of young persons even then. So then for several tens of years they were carried on in a truly godly way, after Franké’s death, and when afterwards there was but little real, vital godliness found in these schools, yet tens of thousands of children were benefited at least for this life. Now these Institutions have existed already one hundred and fifty years, and are in existence still; and, if the Lord Jesus tarry, are likely, humanly speaking, to exist hereafter, as they have existed hitherto. Suppose, then, that dear man of God, A. H. Franké, had listened to the suggestions of unbelief, and said, I must not undertake this work, for what will become of it after my death?—then all the blessing which spiritually resulted from it to thousands, and all the temporal benefits which have resulted from it to hundreds of thousands, would have been lost. I add, however, this. The new Orphan House has been placed in the hands of eleven trustees, and has been properly enrolled in chancery, and so also, should God condescend to honor me further in building for him this intended house for seven hundred orphans, it would likewise be placed in the hands of trustees and enrolled in chancery. I say one word in conclusion on this subject: let every one take heed lest, in caring about what will become of the next generation, he forget to serve his own generation. The latter, each one should seek to do with his might, and thus it should be with each succeeding generation; then, though we be dead, yet should we be speaking. A. H. Franké is long since gone to his rest, but he spoke to my soul in 1826, and he is speaking to my soul now; and to his example I am greatly indebted in having been stirred up to care about poor children in general, and about poor orphans in particular.

8. The last objection which has occurred to my own mind is, that, by building another Orphan House, I should be in danger of being lifted up. Answer: I should be in danger of it indeed; and so I am in great danger, even were I not in the least degree to go forward. Yea, the tenth part of the honor which the Lord has condescended to bestow upon me, and the tenth part of service with which he has been pleased to intrust me, would be enough, if I were left to myself, exceedingly to puff me up. I cannot say that hitherto the Lord has kept me humble; but I can say that hitherto he has given me a hearty desire to give to him all the glory, and to consider it a great condescension on his part that he has been pleased to use me as an instrument in his service. I do not see, therefore, that fear of being lifted up ought to keep me from going forward in this work; but that I have rather to beseech the Lord that he would be pleased to give me a lowly mind, and never suffer me to rob him of the glory which is due to him alone.

Reasons for establishing another Orphan House for Seven Hundred Orphans.—1. The many applications for the admission of destitute orphans which continue to be made, I consider as a call from God upon me to do all that is in my power to provide a home and scriptural education for a still greater number of orphans. Nothing but positive inability to go forward ought to keep me standing still, whilst I have almost daily fresh entreaties to receive orphans. Since I began writing on this subject in my journal, thirty more orphans have been applied for, from two years old and upward. I cannot refuse to help, as long as I see a door open, and opened by God, as I consider, to help them.

2. The moral state of the poor-houses greatly influences me to go forward. I have heard it again and again, from good authority, that children, placed at the Unions, are corrupted, on account of the children of vagrants, and other very bad young people, who are in such places; so that many poor relatives of orphans, though unable to provide for them, cannot bear the idea of their going there, lest they should be corrupted. I therefore judge that, even for the sake of keeping orphans of poor yet respectable people from being obliged to mix with the children of vagabonds, I ought to do, to my utmost power, all I can to help them. For this reason, then, I purpose, in dependence upon the living God, to go forward and to establish another Orphan House for seven hundred destitute children, who are bereaved of both parents. When I write thus about the poor-houses, I do not wish to be understood in the way of reproof: for I know not how these matters could be altered; but I simply state the fact that thus it is.

3. In this my purpose I am the more confirmed, since I know it to be a fact that the Orphan Houses already in existence in the kingdom are by no means sufficient to admit even the most deserving and distressing cases, and far less all that it would be well to provide for. Moreover, there is great difficulty connected with the admission of an orphan into most of the ordinary orphan establishments, on account of the votes which must be obtained, so that really needy persons have neither time nor money to obtain them. Does not the fact that there were six thousand young orphans in the prisons of England about five years ago call aloud for an extension of orphan institutions? By God’s help I will try to do what I can to keep poor orphans from prison.

4. In this purpose I am still further encouraged by the great help which the Lord has hitherto given me in this blessed service. When I look at the small beginning, and consider how the Lord has helped me now for more than fifteen years in the orphan work; and when I consider how he has been pleased to help me through one great difficulty after another; and when I consider, especially, how, as with an unseen hand, I might say almost against my will and former desires and thoughts, he has led me on from one step to another, and has enlarged the work more and more,—I say, when I review all this, and compare with it my present exercise of mind, I find the great help, the uninterrupted help which the Lord has given me for more than fifteen years, a great reason for going forward in this work. And this, trusting in him, I am resolved to do.

5. A further reason for going forward in this service I see in the experience which I have had in it. From the smallest commencement up to the present state of the establishment, with its three hundred orphans, all has gone through my own hands. In the work itself I obtained the experience. It has grown with the work. I have been the sole director of the work, under God, from its smallest commencement. Now this is not an every-day case. No committee member of a society, no president or vice-president of an institution, except they had been situated as myself, could have this experience. Coupled with this is the measure of gift which the Lord has been pleased to give me for such work, and for the exercise of which I am responsible to him. These things, in connection with the former reasons, it appears to me, are a call from God to go forward in a greater degree than ever in this work.

6. The spiritual benefit of still more orphans is another especial reason with me why I feel called to go forward. The orphans who have been under my care hitherto were almost all the children of parents who were naturally weak in body, if not consumptive. The very fact of a child being deprived of both parents when four, five, six, or seven years old, shows that, except the parents lost their lives by casualty, they were constitutionally weak. On this account young orphans, generally speaking, require particular care as to their health. In this respect I desire to care for them; but there is more than that to be attended to. I further heartily desire to keep them from the corrupting and demoralizing effect of the lowest sort of children in the streets and courts and Unions. But I desire more for them than mere decency and morality; I desire that they should be useful members of society, and that the prisons of the United Kingdom should not be filled with poor, destitute, and homeless orphans; and we bring them up therefore in habits of industry, and seek to instruct them in those things which are useful for the life that now is. But I desire more than this for the orphans. I cannot be satisfied with anything concerning them short of this, that their souls be won for the Lord. For this reason I long to have them from their early days, yea, the younger the better, under my care, that thus, under the care of godly nurses and teachers, they may be brought up from their earliest days in the fear of the Lord. Now, as this is the chief and primary aim concerning the dear orphans, even the salvation of their souls through faith in the Lord Jesus, I long to be more extensively used than hitherto, even that I may have a thousand of them instead of three hundred under my care.

7. But there is one point which weighs more strongly with me than even the last mentioned one. It is this: When I began the orphan work more than fifteen years ago, it was for the definite and especial purpose that, by means of it, the unconverted might see, through the answers of prayer that I received in connection with it, that there is verily reality