Chapter Sixteen, When the South Wind Blew
Chapter Sixteen, When the South Wind Blew
Both New Orphan-Houses were fully centrally heated. Towards the end of November 1857, Muller was informed that the boiler which fed the radiators in No. 1 had a serious leak with which it would be impossible to go through the winter. The boiler was entirely surrounded by brickwork and the location of the leak could not be identified without taking down the brickwork, an operation which would probably cause further damage to the boiler. For eight winters there had been no problems and the present fault was quite unexpected. Muller was firmly of the opinion that to have done nothing and to have said ‘I will trust God regarding it’ would have been careless presumption, and not faith in God. ‘It would,’ he said, ‘be the counterfeit of faith.’ Something, therefore, had to be done, and done quickly.
Muller was concerned that the children—especially the youngest— should not suffer from lack of warmth. He considered the possibilities: a new boiler would take many weeks to install. It was not certain whether the boiler could be repaired but, in any case, it would take several days to dismantle the brickwork to identify the problem. The introduction of temporary gas stoves was another possibility but on investigation it was found that there was not enough gas to spare from the lighting system to heat the large number of stoves which would be required. ‘Arnott’s’ stoves, too, would have been unsuitable as they needed long chimneys to remove fumes. Finance, however, was not the problem: Muller would have gladly laid out hundreds of pounds to prevent the children suffering from the cold. The problem was to know just what to do and how to spend the money.
At last [Muller later recorded] I determined on falling entirely into the hands of God, who is very merciful and of tender compassion, and I decided on having the brick-chamber opened, to see the extent of the damage, and whether the boiler might be repaired, so as to carry us through the winter.
The day was fixed, when the workmen were to come, and all the necessary arrangements were made. The fire, of course, had to be let out while the repairs were going on. But now see. After the day was fixed for the repairs, a bleak north wind set in. It began to blow either on Thursday or Friday before the Wednesday afternoon, when the fire was to be let out. Now came the first really cold weather, which we had in the beginning of that winter, during the first days of December. What was to be done? The repairs could not be put off. I now asked the Lord for two things, viz., that He would be pleased to change the north wind into a south wind, and that He would give to the workmen ‘a mind to work’; for I remembered how much Nehemiah accomplished in 52 days, whilst building the walls of Jerusalem, because ‘the people had a mind to work’.
Well, the memorable day came. The evening before, the bleak north wind blew still; but, on the Wednesday, the south wind blew: exactly as I had prayed. The weather was so mild that no fire was needed. The brickwork is removed, the leak is found out very soon, the boiler makers begin to repair in good earnest.
About half-past eight in the evening, when I was going home, I was informed at the lodge, that the acting principal of the firm, whence the boiler makers came, had arrived to see how the work was going on, and whether he could in any way speed the matter. I went immediately, therefore, into the cellar, to see him with the men, to seek to expedite the business. In speaking to the principal of this, he said in their hearing:
‘The men will work late this evening, and come very early again to-morrow.’
‘We would rather, sir,’ said the leader, ‘work all night.’
Then I remembered the second part of my prayer, that God would give the men ‘a mind to work’. Thus it was: by the morning the repair was accomplished, the leak was stopped, though with great difficulty, and within about 30 hours the brickwork was up again and the fire in the boiler; and all the time the south wind blew so mildly, that there was not the least need of a fire.’
In July Muller received what he considered to be a ‘deeply important’ letter from a manufacturer. It read:
I enclose a Post Office Order for £5, which by the blessing of Almighty God I am enabled to send you this year. You will, no doubt, remember that the first sum I sent you was 5s, I think now 4 years ago; and indeed at that time it was a large sum for me to send, I might say considerably larger than the present. For some years previous to the time I sent you the first amount, I was at times much perplexed on the subject of giving; and the end of my reasoning was always, that a person so straitened in circumstances as I was then, was not called upon to give. I kept this opinion, until one of your Reports fell into my hands, and, from the accounts contained therein, was encouraged to send you the first amount of 5s. Soon after I thought my circumstances got something easier. I then began to seek out cases of distress, and relieved them to the best of my ability; and, to the astonishment of many, who did not know the secret, who wondered how I could give, I have proved, that, just as I give, the Lord gives in return; for during the time, since I first made up my mind to give, what with weakness of faith, and false reasonings of friends, I sometimes withheld when I ought not, and just as I withheld, the Lord in His infinite mercy withheld also. During the panic, which has scarcely passed over us, I dealt out to all who came within my reach, according as I considered the circumstances required; and the result is, that, although many in the same trade have been almost ruined, it has been the most prosperous year I have had since I commenced business. It would fill your heart with joy, if time and space would permit, for me to relate how in many instances I was directed to go to such a house and enquire how they were getting on, and to find that I had arrived just in time. But, above all, I have to thank God that my spiritual condition is much improved since I began to give. Etc.’
Muller commented on this that, it is impossible to use for God the much or the little with which He may entrust us, without being blessed in our souls; for we walk, in this particular, according to His mind. In this way also life has a most blessed object. If we are willing to give back to Him the means with which He entrusts us, then occupation in our earthly calling becomes food for the inner man; for we work, because He would have us to work; and in order that our occupation of body or mind may be used for God. Laying up treasure on earth, and living for this, not only decreases spiritual enjoyment in the children of God, but weakens them more and more spiritually; whilst laying up treasure in heaven not only increases spiritual enjoyment, but develops and strengthens the spiritual faculties and powers; we are thus ‘laying hold on eternal life’ 1 Timothy 6: 17-19.
Donations for the third home were still arriving: in the early months of 1858, one gift of £3,000 was sent and two others of £800 and £700. These and similar gifts meant that Muller now had enough funds to begin work on No. 3. In September Muller bought eleven and a half acres of land on the other side of the road from Nos 1 and 2. He decided, the site being a large one, to build No. 3 spacious enough to accommodate 450 children instead of the 300 originally planned. This would mean that he would be caring for 1,150 children instead of one thousand. Several thousand extra pounds would now be needed. In December he was told that a glass manufacturer would supply freely all the glass for No. 3’s 350 large windows. Early in January, 1859, he received a gift of seven thousand pounds of which he took £4,000 for the building fund.
During 1859 and i860 gifts came in steadily and included numbers of very substantial donations towards the building. Even while No. 3 was being built and well before it was opened, Muller’s thoughts turned towards a further dramatic enlargement of his work. After a long period of daily prayer and self-examination, he decided to build two more large homes on Ashley Down for 850 more children so that he would eventually care for over two thousand children. What were Muller’s reasons for such a daring expansion and was it really necessary?
As to the need, the number of applications for admission was, in the early 1860s, increasing all the time. Fresh applications arrived almost daily, sometimes three or four new ones a day. Moreover, Muller had until this time concentrated more on providing a home for girls than for boys. ‘Girls,’ he said, ‘are the weaker sex; and are still more exposed than boys to utter ruin if neglected; and we can easily keep them till they are eighteen or nineteen years of age.’ Thus there had been a policy of taking in rather more girls than boys. ‘But now,’ Muller continued, ‘... I was led to consider whether something more might be done for boys also, to prevent if possible, the necessity of refusing the boys of a family, when the girls could be received.’
Accommodation in other orphan establishments in the United Kingdom was still inadequate; and their admissions policy highly selective. Muller said that even if there were room in them, which is not the case, still, the existing rules of admission by votes, which are in use in most of them, make it difficult if not impossible, for the poorest and most destitute persons, to avail themselves of them.... Some time since I had an application for some orphans, whose mother, a widow, in attempting to obtain votes for one of her fatherless children, was actually so worn out, that one day she came home, over-fatigued by canvassing for votes, sat down and died.
The only other alternative for these poor children continued to be the workhouses where, Muller still insisted, ‘vice abounds’.
Many of the children received by Muller since the beginning of his work had been quite unable to read when they arrived at the homes. This was true even of children of thirteen years and upwards. Muller reported that they had ‘had the joy of educating hundreds, who otherwise might have had no mental cultivation; besides teaching them a great variety of other things which are profitable for this life, in order to make them useful members of society’. But, he continued, ‘all physical and mental improvement regarding them could never satisfy us. All would be exceedingly little in our estimation, if they were not spiritually benefited ... And this blessing has been granted to us, not concerning 20 or 50 of the orphans, but concerning hundreds’.
Looking back on nearly thirty years of the work, there was ample incentive for Muller to expand the institutions’ activities. Increased administrative work would present little problem: by the early 1860s Muller already employed three full-time personal assistants who relieved him of much of the correspondence, accounting etc. His staff could be expanded as necessary. But the expense of looking after two thousand children plus staff would be enormous. Two new homes with the necessary land (a large field for cultivation by the boys would be required) would cost about fifty thousand pounds. ‘And how,’ people said, ‘will you be able to keep up the work, provided you are able to accomplish the building, as then the regular current expenses will amount to about £35,000 a year?’
I feel the force of all this [Muller replied] looking at it naturally. I am not a fanatic or enthusiast, but, as all who know me are well aware, a calm, cool, quiet, calculating business man; and therefore I should be utterly overwhelmed, looking at it naturally; but as the whole of this work was commenced, and ever has been gone on with in faith, trusting in the Living God alone for everything, so it is also regarding this intended enlargement. I look to the Lord alone for helpers, land, means, and everything else needed. I have pondered the difficulties for months, and have looked steadily at every one of them; but faith in God has put every one of them aside.
Indeed, it was to demonstrate what can be wrought by faith that Muller originally began his work.
My chief object was the glory of God, by giving a practical demonstration as to what could be accomplished simply through the instrumentality of prayer and faith, in order thus to benefit the Church of Christ at large, and to lead a careless world to see the reality of the things of God, by showing them, in this work, that the Living God is still, as 4,000 years ago, the Living God. This my aim has been abundantly honoured. Multitudes of sinners have been thus converted, multitudes of the children of God in all parts of the world have been benefited by this work, even as I had anticipated. But the larger the work has grown, the greater has been the blessing, bestowed in the very way in which I looked for blessing; for the attention of hundreds of thousands has been drawn to the work and many tens of thousands have come to see it. All this leads me to desire further and further to labour on in this way, in order to bring yet greater glory to the name of the Lord … That it may be seen how much one poor man, simply by trusting in God, can bring about by prayer; and that thus other children of God may be led to carry on the work of God in dependence upon Him, and that children of God may be led increasingly to trust in Him in their individual positions and circumstances, therefore I am led to this further enlargement.
Thus it was that at the end of May 1861 Muller announced his intention of enlarging his work to cater for two thousand children. By the end of the year not quite a thousand pounds had been received towards the fifty thousand pounds which would be needed to build houses Nos 4 and 5. Muller wrote that, ‘after this rate, it would take about twenty-five years before all that is needed for the Building Fund would come in. However, I am not discouraged. I believe in God.’
January nth 1862: before retiring to bed Muller was able to write the following in his journal:
I had again had my long season for prayer this evening for all the various objects of the Institution, and a variety of subjects in connection with them, as also for individuals for whom I daily pray, and, amidst other things, also asked the Lord again for means for the Building Fund, when, about half an hour afterwards, I found at my house a crossed cheque for £2,000, with the following lines: ‘I enclose a cheque, value £2,000, which accept with my best love and the expression of my heartfelt thankfulness to God for the privilege of being fellow-helper in the work of caring for orphans. I would like it to be applied towards the building you propose (DV) erecting. I shall consider as though I had £1,000 in each building; but you are at liberty to use the whole for the first, if you wish. Inasmuch as it is done to the Lord, I know it is well spent’.
Three days later he received another two thousand pounds and a fortnight later a further two thousand five hundred. The twenty-five year wait before Nos 4 and 5 were built began to look less likely!
It was in the early summer of 1861 that the Townsend family moved to Bristol. A close friendship developed between Muller and John Townsend who greatly assisted Muller in his Sunday School work. Townsend’s daughter Abigail was not yet three when the family arrived in Bristol but she soon grew very fond of Muller and was often with him on Ashley Down and at his home in Paul Street. She was filled with wonder at what she saw and at what she heard her parents say about the way God provided for Muller and his children. She often said that she wanted ‘to be like George Muller’.
On one occasion at Paul Street she said: ‘I wish God would answer my prayers like He does yours, George Muller.’
‘He will.’
Then, taking Abigail on his knee he repeated God’s promise, ‘What things soever ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye receive them and ye shall have them,’ and explained the meaning of the words to her.
‘Now, Abbie,’ he asked, ‘what is it you want to ask God for?’ ‘Some wool.’
Clasping her hands in an attitude of prayer, Muller said, ‘Now, you repeat what I say: Please God, send Abbie some wool.’
‘Please Dod send Abbie some wool.’
Jumping down Abigail ran out into the garden to play, perfectly sure that the wool would come. Then suddenly the thought came to her that God did not know what kind of wool she wanted, so she ran back to Muller.
‘I want to pray again.’
‘Not now, dear, I am busy.’
‘But I forgot to tell Dod the colour I want.’
Taking her up on his knee again, Muller said, ‘That’s right, be definite, my child, now tell God what you want.’
‘Please Dod, send it wa-re-gated,’ said Abigail who possessed a wide vocabulary but could not pronounce her ‘v’s’. (Later that day she asked her mother the meaning of the word ‘definite’ and Caroline Townsend obliged with an explanation.) Next morning her joy knew no bounds when a parcel arrived addressed to Abigail containing a quantity of variegated wool. Her Sunday School teacher, remembering that her birthday was close although uncertain of the date, and remembering too that she was a keen knitter, had purchased some wool and sent it—not on her birthday—but on the right day to demonstrate to the child that God hears and answers prayer.
On one occasion Caroline Townsend had tactfully to suggest to her daughter that it might be better if she ended her prayers ‘for Jesus’ sake’ instead of ‘like you do George Muller’s’ as she had been in the habit of doing.
One of the best loved ‘Muller anecdotes’ also concerns Abigail Townsend. The story is not recorded in Muller’s journal but is included in a short biographical sketch entitled, ‘The Adventures of Sister Abigail’ and is quoted by Nancy Garton in her biography of Muller.
Early one morning Abigail was playing in Muller’s garden on Ashley Down when he took her by the hand.
‘Gome, see what our Father will do.’
He led her into a long dining-room. ‘The plates and cups or bowls were on the table. There was nothing on the table but empty dishes. There was no food in the larder, and no money to supply the need.’ The children were standing waiting for breakfast.
‘Children, you know we must be in time for school,’ said Muller. Then lifting his hand he prayed, ‘Dear Father, we thank Thee for what Thou art going to give us to eat.’
According to the account, a knock was then heard at the door. The baker stood there.
‘Mr Muller, I couldn’t sleep last night. Somehow I felt you didn’t have bread for breakfast, and the Lord wanted me to send you some. So I got up at two o’clock and baked some fresh bread, and have brought it.’
Muller thanked the baker and praised God for His care.
‘Children,’ he said, ‘we not only have bread, but the rare treat of fresh bread.’
Almost immediately there came a second knock at the door. This time it was the milkman who announced that his milk cart had broken down outside the Orphanage, and that he would like to give the children his cans of fresh milk, so that he could empty his waggon and repair it.
During the summer of 1861 one of the contractors building the third orphan house had found it difficult to get hold of sufficient men to carry on the work and this had led to serious delays. Another contractor also experienced other difficulties and the building was not opened until March 2nd 1862. (This meant that well over ten thousand pounds was in hand on the opening day to meet current expenses.) No. 3 was the largest of the buildings erected by Muller on Ashley Down. Its position was also the most prominent and it became (as it remains) a familiar landmark in Bristol. A man living in Horfield, in sight of Ashley Down, said that ‘whenever he felt doubts about the Living God creeping into his mind he used to get up and look through the night at the many windows lit up on Ashley Down, gleaming out through the darkness as stars in the sky’.
But with a waiting list now of nearly a thousand children Muller was anxious that still more stars should shine on Ashley Down. In October 1864 a donation of five thousand pounds brought the building fund to over £27,000 and Muller felt justified in taking steps to buy land on which to build the fourth orphan house. For some years he had had his eye on a beautiful site on the same side of Ashley Down Road as Nos 1 and 2, opposite No. 3. The site was about eighteen acres and had a small house and out-houses built at one end, close to the point where Sefton Park Road (then a narrow track) meets Ashley Down Road. Muller had prayed hundreds of times that he would be enabled to erect two large houses on this site.
Now that enough money was in hand to build the fourth home, Muller saw the agent who acted for the owner of the land and asked him whether the land was for sale. He replied that it was but that it was let until March 25th 1867. Muller was not discouraged; he expected, through prayer, to come to an arrangement with the tenant whereby he would leave early in return for fair compensation. Two other difficulties, however, now arose. First, the owner asked £7,000 for the land which Muller judged to be considerably more than its value. Secondly, he read that the Bristol Water Works Company intended to build an additional reservoir on the site, and to get an Act of Parliament passed to that effect.
Several times a day Muller now gave himself to special prayer about these three problems. He then went to see the Committee of Directors of the Bristol Water Works Company about their reservoir. They told him that only a small area of the land would be required, not enough to interfere with his plans; and that if possible they would try not to take even this land. Muller then visited the tenant and told him of his plans, explaining that he hoped they could settle the matter in a pleasant and friendly manner. The tenant asked for a few days to think things over. While he thought, Muller prayed. After a week, he paid a second visit to the tenant who said that he did not wish to stand in the way of the land being used for such a worthwhile purpose; however, as he had spent a good deal of money on the house he expected fair compensation for leaving early. Muller was quite prepared and happy to do this.
He now had to tackle the last and most difficult problem: that of the price wanted for the land. Typically, he combined ardent prayer with shrewd business sense: here we see Muller the tough negotiator.
I knew well [he wrote] how much the land was worth to the Orphan Institution; but its value to the Institution was not the market value. I gave myself, therefore, day by day, to prayer, that the Lord would constrain the owner to accept a considerably lower sum than he had asked; I also pointed out to him why it was not worth as much as he asked. At last he consented to take £5,500 instead of £7,000, and I accepted the offer; for I knew that by the level character of the land we should save a considerable sum for the two houses, and that by the new sewer, which only a few months before had been completed, running along under the turnpike road near the field, we should be considerably benefited. In addition to these two points I had to take into account that we can have gas from Bristol, as in the three houses already in operation. And, lastly, the most important point of all, the nearness of this piece of land to the other three houses, so that all could be under the same direction and superintendence. In fact, no other piece of land, near or far off, would present so much advantage to us, as this spot, which the Lord thus so very kindly had given to us.
Muller took the view that although in the middle of the nineteenth century there was much in the Christian church which gave cause for sadness, there was also a bright side: ‘there are many things yet to be found among the children of God, to gladden the hearts of those who love the Lord. It has been my happy lot... to become acquainted with hundreds of individuals, who were not inferior to apostolic Christians’. A prime example was the missonary who sent Muller the following letter, received in August 1865:
My dear Brother in Jesus, I just write a line to inform you, that I have written to my father by this mail, requesting him to send you Five Hundred Pounds, being a portion of a legacy left me by my uncle, who departed to be, I hope, with Jesus. Please use it as our Lord directs. I feel unworthy of the privilege of contributing to the glorious work in your hands. If you think it right so to do, please do not let it be known who gave it. The other portion of the legacy I have ordered to be sent out here, as there are different objects, for which I feel it is greatly required. May the Lord enable me to act as His steward! etc.
Muller was impressed.
I love to dwell on such cases; ... Here is a missionary, labouring for years under many difficulties, trials, privations, and hardships, in order to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ to poor benighted idolaters, himself having been repeatedly reduced to the last piece of money. Now all at once he is put into the possession of many Hundreds of Pounds, and, instead of spending it on himself, or keeping it laid up in the Bank or otherwise on interest, the love of Christ constrains him to spend it, and gladly too, for the Lord.
Another missionary, who, despite his youth, greatly impressed Muller, paid a visit to Ashley Down that same August: James Hudson Taylor. From the commencement of his Christian life, Hudson Taylor had been profoundly influenced and inspired by Muller’s example; and now that—at the age of thirty-three—he was himself being led out along similar lines, he valued more than ever Muller’s prayers, his judgment and advice.
On August 22nd he arrived at Ashley Down with a party of outgoing missionaries and that evening recorded in his diary:
Had an hour with Mr Muller. He spoke most preciously on the call and spirit of the missionary; on the consecutive reading of the Scriptures; on prayer and faith in God; on obstacles and thorn hedges.
Next day Taylor recorded:
Mr Muller spoke on communion with God being work for God; on the need of not acting uncertainly; on mixing freely with the people, and restraining the speaking of English among ourselves (in the presence of Chinese who could not understand); and finally promised to pray for the party.
As this little band of missionaries was shown around the three houses, and saw those hundreds of children, laughing, healthy and well-clothed, they could not help but reflect on the value of that promise to pray. And for the next twenty years, Muller’s practical support of the China Inland Mission was to be crucial to its development. But that, too, is a story for another chapter.