The Life of Trust, George Müller [e ink epub reader .txt] 📗
- Author: George Müller
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How can I sufficiently praise, and adore, and magnify the Lord for his love and faithfulness in carrying me thus from year to year through this his service, supplying me with all I need in the way of means, fellow-laborers, mental strength, and, above all, spiritual support! But for his help and support I should be completely overpowered in a very short time; yet, by his help I go on, and am very happy, spiritually, in my service; nor am I now generally worse in health than I was twenty years ago, but rather better.
During the year 1852-53, there were four day schools, with 235 children in them, entirely supported by the funds of the Institution. Further, one Sunday school in Bristol, with 150 children, was entirely supported, and three others in Devonshire, Somersetshire, and Gloucestershire, with 280 children, were assisted. Lastly, one adult school, with 103 adult scholars, was entirely supported by the funds of the Institution. There were under our care, from March 5, 1834, to May 26, 1853, in the various day schools 5,686 children, in the Sunday schools 2,673 children, and in the adult school 2,132 persons. There was expended of the funds of the Institution during this year, for the various schools, £349, 12s. 11d.
During this year there was laid out of the funds of the Institution, on the circulation of the Holy Scriptures, £431, 5s, 1½d., and there were circulated 1,666 Bibles and 1,210 New Testaments. There were circulated from March 5, 1834, up to May 26, 1853, 10,476 Bibles, and 6,061 New Testaments.
For several years past this part of the work has appeared more and more important to me on account of the fearful attempts which have been made by the powers of darkness to rob the church of Christ of the Holy Scriptures. I have on this account sought to embrace every opportunity to circulate the Holy Scriptures in England, Ireland, Canada, British Guiana, the East Indies, China, Australia, etc. Every open door which the Lord was pleased to set before me in these or other parts of the world, I have joyfully entered; yea, I have counted it a privilege, indeed, to be permitted of God to send forth his Holy Word. Many servants of Christ, in various parts of the world, have assisted me in this service, through whose instrumentality copies of the Holy Scriptures have been circulated.
During this year there was spent of the funds of the Institution for missionary objects £2,234, 2s. 6d. By this sum fifty-four laborers in the word and doctrine, in various parts of the world, were to a greater or less degree assisted.
There was laid out for the circulation of tracts, from May 26, 1852, to May 26, 1853, the sum of £555, 16s. 7½d.; and there were circulated within this year 733,674 tracts.
The total number of tracts which were circulated up to May 26, 1853, was 1,820,040. From Nov. 19, 1840, to May 10, 1842, the first period that the circulation of tracts was in operation in connection with the Scriptural Knowledge Institution for Home and Abroad, there were circulated 19,609; from May 26, 1851, to May 26, 1852, 489,136; and during this period 733,674.
At the beginning of this period there were 300 orphans in the new Orphan House on Ashley Down, Bristol. During the year there were admitted into it 13 orphans, making 313 in all. The total number of orphans who were under our care from April, 1836, to May 26, 1853, was 528.
Without any one having been personally applied to for anything by me, the sum of £55,408, 17s. 5¾d. was given to me for the orphans, as the result of prayer to God, from the commencement of the work up to May 26, 1853. It may be also interesting to the reader to know that the total amount which was given for the other objects, from the commencement of the work up to May 26, 1853, amounted to £19,163, 14s. 1½d.; and that which came in by the sale of Bibles and tracts, and by the payments of the children in the day schools, amounted to £3,490, 7s. 1¼d. Besides this, also, a great variety and number of articles of clothing, furniture, provisions, etc., were given for the use of the orphans.
The expenses in connection with the support of the 300 orphans and the apprentices during this year were £3,453, 15s. 1½d.
Dec. 31, 1852. During this year there have been received into fellowship 35 believers. The Lord has been pleased to give unto me £445, 8s. 8½d.
My brother-in-law, Mr. A. N. Groves, of whom mention has been made in the first part of this Narrative, as having been helpful to me by his example when I began my labors in England in 1829, in that he, without any visible support, and without being connected with any missionary society, went with his wife and children to Bagdad, as a missionary, after having given up a lucrative practice of about one thousand five hundred pounds per year, returned in autumn 1852, from the East Indies, a third time, being exceedingly ill. He lived, however, till May 20, 1853, when, after a most blessed testimony for the Lord, he fell asleep in Jesus in my house.
I have already stated that on May 26, 1853, I had on hand toward building premises large enough for the accommodation of 700 children, the sum of £12,531, 12s. 0¼d.
A single circumstance will illustrate the widely diverse sources from which donations are received, as well as the great disparity in amount.
Jan. 17, 1854. From S. R. and E. R., two poor factory girls, near Stroud, 1s. 7d. This day I also received the promise that there should be paid to me, for the work of the Lord in my hands, £5,207, to be disposed of as I might consider best.
The whole amount received for the new Orphan House, during the year closing May 26, 1854, was £5,285, 17s. 5d., which made the total of £17,816, 19s. 5¼d. in hand on May 26, 1854.
During this year the current expenses for the various objects of the Scriptural Knowledge Institution for Home and Abroad amounted to £7,507, 0s. 11½d., being £471, 8s. 11d. more than during any previous year; yet the Lord not only enabled me to meet them all, but to add the sum of £5,285, 7s. 5d. to the building fund.
There is yet a large sum required before I shall be enabled to build another house for 700 orphans; nor have I now, any more than at the first, any natural prospect of obtaining what is yet needed; but my hope is in the living God. When I came to the conclusion that it was the will of God that I should build another Orphan House, I had not only no natural prospect of obtaining the £35,000 which would be needed for this object, but also I had no natural prospect of being able to provide for the necessities of the three hundred orphans already under my care. Three years have elapsed since then, and I have had all I needed for them, amounting to about £10,500; and £17,816, 19s. 5¼d. I have received for the building fund. May I not well trust in the Lord for what is yet needed for the building fund? By his grace I will do so, and delight in doing so; for I know that at last all my prayers will be turned into praises concerning this part of the service.
There is one point which is particularly an encouragement to me to go on waiting upon the Lord for the remainder of the means which are required, viz: applications for the admission of orphans continue to be made. On May 26, 1853, there were 480 orphans waiting for admission. Since then 181 more have been applied for, making in all 661. These children are from three months old and upwards, and all bereaved of both parents by death.
During the year now under review I received the following donation for the missionary laborers, under circumstances of peculiar interest.
On Aug. 9, 1853, I received a letter from a Christian brother, accompanied with an order for eighty-eight pounds two shillings sixpence on his bankers, of which three pounds two shillings sixpence were the proceeds of an orphan box in a meeting-place of believers, and eighty-five pounds from a poor widow who had sold her little house, being all her property, and who had put ninety pounds, the total amount of what she had received, into that orphan box two months before, on June 9, 1853. In this box the money had been for some time, without its being known, till the orphan box was opened, and the ninety pounds with a few lines without name were found in it. As, however, the fact of her intending to sell the little house, and her intention of sending me the money for the Lord’s work, had been known to the brother who sent me the money, he did not feel free to send it to me without remonstrating with her through two brethren, whom he sent with the money, offering it again to her; for he knew her to be very poor, and feared that this might be an act of excitement, and therefore be regretted afterwards. These brethren could not prevail on her to receive back the money, but they did persuade her to receive back five pounds of the amount, and then the brother referred to felt no longer free to keep the money from me, and hence sent me the eighty-five pounds.
On the receipt of this, I wrote at once to the poor godly widow, offering her the travelling expenses for coming to Bristol, that I might have personal intercourse with her; for I feared lest this should be an act of excitement, and the more so, as she had received back five pounds of the sum. This sister in the Lord, a widow of about sixty years of age, came to Bristol, and told me in all simplicity how that ten years before, in the year 1843, she had purposed that if ever she should come into the possession of the little house in which she lived with her husband, she would sell it, and give the proceeds of it to the Lord. About five years afterwards her husband died, and she, having no children, nor any one having particular claim upon her, then sought to dispose of her little property, as had been her mind all those years before. However, one difficulty after another prevented her being able to effect a sale. At last
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