Chapter Eight, ‘Whom Christ has Received’
Chapter Eight, ‘Whom Christ has Received’
Early in June 1837 it had been announced in London that the King’s health was breaking, and at twelve minutes past two in the morning of Tuesday the 20th June King William IV died at Windsor Castle in the arms of Queen Adelaide. While Bristol and the rest of England slept, London saw a flurry of activity. The Archbishop of Canterbury, who had performed the last rites, took his leave of Queen Adelaide and drove with Lord Conyngham in the darkness through country lanes to Kensington. At 5 a.m. they arrived at Kensington Palace but found great difficulty in gaining admission. The porter refused to rouse the young princess. Eventually they were allowed in and the Baroness Lehzen was sent for; she reluctantly agreed to inform the new sovereign of their presence. The Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Chamberlain stood as the Princess Victoria entered the room, a shawl thrown over her dressing gown, her feet in slippers, and her hair falling down her back. Lord Conyngham then knelt on one knee and saluted her as Queen; Victoria held out her hand which the gentleman kissed. The Archbishop followed suit and told the Princess that the King had died peacefully, at which Victoria clasped her hands and enquired anxiously for news of her Aunt Adelaide.
A meeting of the Privy Council followed at 11 a.m. when the usual oaths were administered by the Lord Chancellor. Although the Queen was less than five feet tall, the Duke of Wellington commented that ‘she not merely filled her chair, she filled the room’. It is said that as she read a speech which had been written for her by the Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, a few days earlier, her distinct and perfectly modulated elocution thrilled her audience.
Victoria was eighteen at her accession and her reign was to be the longest in English history. Muller was thirty-one but he would live to preach a lengthy sermon on the occasion of the Queen’s diamond jubilee.
Later that day, news of the King’s death reached Bristol and flags were lowered to half mast on ships, churches and public buildings. Some shops were closed and bells tolled until late into the night. But Saturday June 24th was a day of rejoicing on account of the proclamation of Her Majesty. The flags were raised and the church bells rang peals. At ten o’clock a procession ‘for proclaiming her most gracious majesty Queen Victoria in the Borough of Bristol’ wended its way from the top of the High Street via Wine Street, Peter’s Pump and Bridge Street over the bridge to Temple Cross. From there, the city police led the Mayor, the Sheriff, the Magistrates, clergy and dissenting ministers along Temple street and Portwall Lane to Thomas Street, over the bridge along the Back through the Mansion House into Queen Square, where the procession passed the statue of the late King, along the Quay to Quay Pipe and finally to the Council House.
The Victorian era had begun; and for Muller and Craik the responsibility of caring for two large congregations at Gideon and Bethesda continued. God’s word in the Bible was the final authority to which they looked in their handling of the two churches. A minor crisis in the summer of 1837, together with the events preceding it, illustrates that they combined their supreme respect for the Scriptures with an intelligent flexibility of approach—particularly when they were themselves uncertain what was ‘the mind of God’. From the earliest days of their labours in Bristol they were never quite sure whether only those who had been baptised after becoming Christians should be received into the fellowship at Bethesda or whether all who believed in Christ irrespective of baptism should be received. For some time they had reached no decision on this, but at the same time they had a secret wish that only baptised believers would join with them in the church. One reason for this was that while they had been in Devon they had seen a number of painful quarrels which were, in their opinion, the result of baptised and unbaptised believers being in fellowship together. So without making it a rule that Bethesda was to be a church of ‘close communion’, they were careful always to instruct those who applied for fellowship about baptism.
For many months after their arrival in Bristol there had been no difficulty: no one applied for fellowship who had not either already been baptised, or wished to be, or who did not become convinced that believers’ baptism was scriptural after instruction from Muller and Craik. Later, however, three women applied for fellowship none of whom had been baptised and whose views were not altered after they had been spoken to. Here was a dilemma: Craik and Muller had no doubt that the applicants were true believers, and, although they were still not fully convinced what was God’s will in the matter, they felt it right that the three sisters should be received. They knew well that there were several in fellowship at Bethesda who could not in conscience receive unbaptised believers, and as it was then the practice for everything to be done in the church unanimously, they announced the names of the ladies to the church. They stated that the applicants did not consider believers’ baptism to be scriptural, and if, on that account, anyone saw a reason why they should not be received he should let Muller or Craik know. Several people objected. Two or three meetings were held and the two pastors listened carefully to the objections which were brought forward; they prayed about it but remained undecided. Several days passed and then one of the sisters came to Muller and Craik, thanked them for not receiving her, for, as she explained, she realised that it was only pride and fear which had kept her back, and that she now wished to be baptised. Those who considered it scriptural that only baptised believers should be received into fellowship were immediately confirmed in their views by this incident; and Muller and Craik began seriously to wonder whether this group might not be right.
The sister who had seen the light was received into fellowship, but the two others not. The situation was not too serious because at that time it was possible for all believers (whether or not baptised) to take the Lord’s supper at Bethesda without being received into full fellowship, which meant acceptance as a recognised member of the local church. (Muller and Craik later decided that there is no Biblical distinction between being in fellowship with people and breaking bread with them.) For many months that was how the position remained: unbaptised believers were received at the Lord’s table, but were not received to all the privileges of fellowship.
Then in August 1836 Muller had a long conversation on the subject with Robert Chapman. Chapman was the son of Sir Thomas Chapman, a wealthy Yorkshire merchant; after his conversion, he had given up a highly promising solicitor’s practice in London to serve God in Barnstaple. Like Muller and Craik, he received no salary and depended on God for all his needs. Since 1832 he had been building up a church on similar lines to Muller at Bristol; it was the beginning of a life-long friendship. Chapman opened his Bible to II Thessalonians 3:6: ‘Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which he received of us.’
‘Now,’ Chapman said to Muller, ‘either unbaptised believers come under the class of persons who “walk disorderly” and, in that case, we ought to withdraw from them; or they do not walk disorderly. Now if a believer be walking disorderly,’ continued Chapman, applying the logic of a trained lawyer, ‘we are not merely to withdraw from him at the Lord’s table, but our behaviour towards him ought to be decidedly different from what it would be were he not walking disorderly.’
Muller and Chapman agreed that this was not the case with the conduct of baptised believers towards their unbaptised brethren: their not having been baptised did not necessarily imply that they were ‘walking disorderly’. It would not be right to refuse to have fellowship with them in prayer, in Bible study, in conversation generally, or in the Lord’s work—so how could they refuse to break bread with them?
Muller felt that Chapman had helped him at last to see the mind of the Lord on the subject; they ought to ‘receive all whom Christ has received’ (Romans 15:7) irrespective of their views on baptism. Muller reported the conversation to Craik who came to accept the same conclusion.
In May 1837 another sister, who had neither been baptised, nor considered herself under any obligation to be baptised, applied to join the fellowship at Bethesda. Muller and Craik were unable to convince her otherwise, but were happy that she was a true Christian. They therefore proposed to the church that she be received into fellowship. About a third of the members promptly expressed conscientious difficulties in receiving her. They argued that in the New Testament the apostles had invariably baptised the first believers immediately on profession of their faith. Muller and Craik agreed that this was a very powerful argument, but maintained that the truth about believers’ baptism had been mingled with error for so long, that it could not be held to be wilful disobedience if anyone in the nineteenth century refused to be baptised after conversion. As they argued their case to the flock, the number of those who considered that only baptised believers should be in communion decreased almost daily. At last on August 28th 1837, fourteen brethren and sisters out of a church numbering nearly two hundred, thought it right to leave Bethesda. Most of them later returned, however, and the church was never again troubled over the matter.
In June 1837 Muller decided to open a third home, for about forty boys aged seven years and above, first because the need for one was so obvious in Bristol and secondly because without one he had nowhere to send the infant boys when they reached seven. By September enough money had been provided and suitable staff had offered themselves; all that remained was to find a suitable house. On October 21st Muller was offered another of the houses in Wilson Street—No. 3—which he gladly accepted.
Early in November, Muller’s health again began to deteriorate. He woke in the night of the 4th with a feeling of weakness in his head. After some time, he got off to sleep by tying a handkerchief around his head which seemed to ease the weakness. By 7th November he was unable to work, and although the boys’ orphan house was about to be opened and there were certain problems at Bethesda, he decided to leave Bristol for rest and quiet. An anonymous letter arrived from Ireland enclosing £5 for his personal expenses, and he took this as a sign that it was right for him to leave.
On the following morning he left his house with no idea where he would go. The first available coach was travelling to Bath—and Muller climbed aboard. He decided he would not stay with Christians, because that would mean he would have to talk which made his head feel worse. He booked into a hotel at Bath but found it so ‘worldly’ that he was forced to visit a Christian friend he knew in the city. This brother and his aunts persuaded Muller to stay with them which he did for about a week. The symptoms in his head were now so distressing that he feared he was going insane. The effort required to make conversation proved too much and after a week he returned to Bristol. On receiving another £5 for personal expenses, he travelled with Mary, their daughter Lydia and their servant to Weston-Super-Mare where they took lodgings. Many times, at Weston, Muller was afraid that the trouble in his head indicated the approach of insanity. While there, he received the news that one of the small girls at Wilson Street had died—but that she had trusted Christ before her death. After ten days at Weston the party returned to Bristol where Muller was seen by a surgeon who assured him that, although his nerves were disordered, there was no reason to fear insanity.
Still he remained ill; he took comfort in the kindness of his friends who sent him gifts including a pickled tongue, poultry, cakes and grapes. At the end of the month he wrote to his father thinking it might be the last letter he would write. As in London in 1829, Muller was afraid he might soon die. In December, doctors diagnosed the problem as an inactive liver which was weakening his whole system. He now found that going to meetings at Bethesda made him feel worse, and that any sort of mental exertion exhausted him.
The work continued to grow and funds were ample: there were now seventy-five children in the three homes and more were arriving almost daily; they had room for twenty-one more. On December 12th, a hundred pairs of top quality blankets arrived at Muller’s house for distribution to the poor. It was known that Muller was anxious to ease a number of cases of considerable hardship which had come to his notice in the area, and, despite his illness, he was able to arrange for this to be done.
Gifts of money for his personal use were now more than he needed, and remained so for the rest of his life enabling him to give away large sums. But his health was not improving; his doctors changed his medicine but there was no noticeable improvement in his condition. Looking out of his window on Sunday December 17th, lie saw the thirty-two girls from No. 6 on their way to Bethesda with one of the staff. He noticed how comfortable they looked in their clean dresses and warm cloaks, and felt grateful to God that he had been made the instrument of providing for them. This, he thougth, was the answer to those of his friends who kept telling him, ‘you do too much’.
There had never been more to do. By the end of 1837, eighty-one children and nine full time staff sat down to meals in the three homes. There were enough applications to fill another home with girls aged seven and above, and many more applications for infants than they were able to accommodate. 350 children were taught in the Day Schools run by the Scriptural Knowledge Institution, and there were 320 children at the Sunday School.
Continued ill-health and growing responsibilities were getting Muller down. At the end of the month he wrote in his journal, ‘This morning I greatly dishonoured the Lord by irritability, manifested towards my dear wife, and that almost immediately after I had been on my knees before God, praising Him for having given me such a wife.’
1838 did not get off to an encouraging start. On the night of January 1st thieves, apparently with an odd sense of humour, broke into Muller’s house: they were prevented from access to much of the building by a second strong door and took nothing but some cold meat. They then proceeded to the school room at Gideon Chapel, broke open several boxes but took nothing. Next day some bones, less the meat, were found—some in the boxes at the Gideon school room and one in a tree in Muller’s garden.
Muller’s doctor now advised a further change of air. Muller was reluctant to leave Bristol; but when £15 ‘for the express purpose of change of air’ arrived from a lady who lived fifty miles from Bristol and who had no way of knowing the doctor’s advice, he took this as an indication of God’s will in the matter. He recalled that in 1829 at Exmouth and in 1835 at Niton on the Isle of Wight, a change of air had proved both a physical and spiritual tonic. On this occasion, though, for some reason he chose—not sea breezes—but the restful air of Wiltshire.
On Friday January 12th he arrived with Mary and Lydia at the home of some Christian friends in Trowbridge, where he settled down to read Philip’s Life of George Whitfield. He was struck by the prayerfulness of the man and his habit of reading the Bible on his knees—the importance of which he had known for years, but, he now felt, had practised too little. He continued reading Whitfield’s life on the Sunday, but, besides spending several hours in prayer, spent two hours on his knees reading and ‘praying over’ Psalm 63. He wrote in his journal that night:
God has blessed my soul much to-day... My soul is now brought into that state, that I delight myself in the will of God, as it regards my health. Yea, I can now say, from my heart, I would not have this disease removed till God, through it, has bestowed the blessing for which it was sent... what hinders God, to make of one, so vile as I am, another Whitfield? Surely, God could bestow as much grace upon me, as He did upon him. O, my Lord, draw me closer and closer to Thyself, that I may run after Thee!—I desire, if God should restore me again for the ministry of the Word (and this I believe He will do soon, judging from the state in which He has now brought my soul, though I have been worse in health the last eight days, than for several weeks previously), that my preaching may be more than ever the result of earnest prayer and much meditation, and that I may so walk with God, that ‘out of my belly may flow rivers of living water’.
The following day, the pain and discomfort in his head being less severe, he spent three hours on his knees praying over Psalms 64 and 65. While meditating on Psalm 65:2, ‘O thou that hearest prayer’, he noted down eight specific requests: two personal ones, two general and four concerning various aspects of the work at Bristol. At the bottom of the list he wrote, ‘I believe He has heard me.’ Three years later he was able to record that five of the petitions had been answered in full and the other three in part.
Tuesday dawned bitterly cold: and constantly having to rise from his knees to poke the fire, or pace about the room to keep warm, Muller grew steadily more irritable. Eventually he wrapped up and took a brisk walk to encourage his circulation. The change of scenery led him to confess his ‘sin of irritability’, and he concluded that the devil was trying to rob him of his recent peace with God. Returning to the house he spent several hours in undisturbed consideration of Psalm 66, in particular verses 10 to 12, 16 and 18—the latter being a verse which he emphasised repeatedly during his life: ‘If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.’
Despite great discomfort again in his head on the Wednesday, Muller’s spirit was revived as, reading on in his Bible he came across the fifth verse of Psalm 68 where God is described as ‘A Father of the fatherless’. He wrote:
By the help of God this shall be my argument before Him, respecting the Orphans, in the hour of need. He is their Father, and therefore has pledged Himself, as it were, to provide for them, and to care for them; and I have only to remind Him of the need of these poor children, in order to have it supplied ... This word ‘a Father of the fatherless’, contains enough encouragement to cast thousands of Orphans, with all their need, upon the loving heart of God.
The Mullers stayed on in Trowbridge for another fortnight. On the whole, the improvement in George’s spirits lasted the stay— although once or twice he felt ashamed after spending time on his knees reading Whitfield’s Life instead of his Bible! On the 2nd February, although his physical health had not improved, he gave up all his medicine and left for Oxford where he arrived at the home of friends, the following evening.
At Oxford Muller decided on a spell of horse riding. He managed to hire a well-behaved horse with a placid temperament which, he thought, would suit his troubled nerves. For a while this excellent therapy went well, and Muller followed Wesley’s footsteps— although it is not known whether, like Wesley, he read his Bible as he rode. But—alas—after three days with Muller on his back, the horse himself was taken ill! Muller returned to his Bible study and prayer until he was told that the horse was well enough to resume his duties. And so to the stables again, but Muller had not been seated long in the saddle when he discovered, to his great dismay, that this formerly good-natured animal had become self-willed and obdurate. He tried desperately to control the beast, but it was no use: the creature would not be tamed. Muller’s equestrian diversion was thus abruptly and sadly halted.
He then travelled north to Lutterworth in Leicestershire, where feeling very unwell again, he was forced to resume his course of medicine. A friend strongly advised him to try the waters at Leamington Spa, and offered to pay his expenses if he would stay there. Having consulted his doctor in Bristol and receiving a favourable reply he decided to accept the offer, and left Lutterworth on 17th February in a heavy fall of snow. His route was via Rugby and Southam and then at furious pace to Leamington, driven by a drunken coachman. At the Spa he found excellent lodgings for ten shillings a week and was able to write up his journal by his own fireside. ‘How very kind of the Lord!’, he wrote—it was a typical ‘Mullerism’—and retired to bed.
Muller found that the Leamington waters seemed to help his condition, but after ten days he was disturbed by inner tensions and temptations, the nature of which we can only guess from an entry in his journal: ‘Grace fought against evil suggestions of one kind and another, and prevailed; but it was a very trying season ... To-day I earnestly prayed to God to send my wife to me, as I feel that by being alone, and afflicted as I am in my head, and thus fit for little mental employment, Satan gets an advantage over me.’
Next day, a letter was delivered a day late announcing that Mary was on her way; and shortly afterwards, the good lady arrived in person to Muller’s great delight. The couple spent the following days taking long walks in the Warwickshire countryside and Muller’s head began to feel better than it had for several months, although he was still far from well.
At this time Muller was toying with the idea of making a short visit to Germany, partly so that he could offer advice and assistance to some contacts in Berlin who were keen to become missionaries, partly to witness to Christ before his father and brother, and partly also because he thought—rather optimistically perhaps—that his native air would do his health good. He wrote to Henry Craik and his doctor seeking their comments on the idea; Craik’s reply was to go ahead, but the doctor’s orders were to wait for a month or two lest the trip should prove too exhausting. Thus Muller spent March at Leamington with his wife until on 2nd April his doctor, on a brief visit to the area, pronounced him fit enough to make the trip. Next day George and Mary read Psalm 121 together, ‘The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore’, before going their separate ways—Mrs Muller back to Bristol and Mr Muller to the land of his childhood.
Muller arrived in Hamburg on the 9th April, having suffered badly from sea-sickness on the early part of the voyage. He spent ten days in Berlin meeting a number of brethren who planned to become missionaries, and then travelled to Heimersleben to stay with his father. Herr Muller had aged markedly and apparently did not have long to live; Muller doubted whether he would survive another winter. Relations between father and son were now good and the strain brought about by George’s conversion had been forgotten. Muller found that his brother was living in ‘open sin’ and took the opportunity to speak to both men about his faith in Christ; neither showed any sign of response. When the day of Muller’s departure arrived, his father accompanied him some of the way to Magdeburg; as they parted both felt they would never meet again: as it happened, they were wrong.
Early in May, Muller arrived back in London and spent the night with his friends in Chancery Lane; the 7th saw him in Bristol again. The following evening he went to the prayer meeting at Gideon Chapel: since November 6th, 1836, he had been unable to take part at any meeting at Gideon or Bethesda. But that evening the familiar voice was heard again reading Psalm 103.
‘Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases ...’ During the following months, as his strength increased, Muller found that ‘I preached, on the whole, with much more enjoyment, and with much more earnestness and prayerfulness, than I did before I was taken ill. I also felt more the solemnity of the work.’
Muller was approaching his thirty-third birthday. In the years immediately following he had two or three bouts of less severe illness, but during his long life was never again so seriously ill as he had been in 1829 and 1837-8. And the man whom the army had rejected, claimed many years later that he felt fitter in his seventies than he had in his thirties.