Chapter Twenty-One, Return to the Rigi
Chapter Twenty-One, Return to the Rigi
It was now nearly two years since Mary had died. Lydia’s engagement, amongst other things, finally led Muller to the decision to marry again—a decision reached, he said, ‘in the fear of God, and in the full assurance that I had the sanction and approval of my Heavenly Father.’ He recorded that he had known Miss Susannah Grace Sangar for ‘more than twenty-five years as a consistent Christian, and regarding whom I had every reason to believe that she would prove a great helper to me in my various services’. They were married on November 30th.
For the next two years or so Susannah Muller learned more and more about the work and sought to relieve her husband of as much as she could. And then, in March 1874, she developed a heavy fever: it was typhoid. At first it seemed that the attack was not unduly serious.
On Thursday, March 26th [Muller recorded], I left my dear wife for the Orphan Houses better than she had been for several days; more quiet, less under the power of the fever apparently, and having had a better night than several nights before. My dear daughter, Mrs Wright, took my place in the house, in case anything should need direction, during my absence. At half-past one, p.m., my dear daughter came to the Orphan-Houses, to fetch me, as my dear wife had had a haemorrhage. I hastened home and found that she had had the most fearful loss of blood. Dr Williams had been sent for, and soon was on the spot. My dear wife looked as pale as death, and the perspiration of death was on her brow; but by the means used, after awhile seemed brought back again to life. But now as to my feelings, when I came home and saw the death-like countenance of my dear wife. There was naturally everything to make one excited to the utmost, yea, to be overwhelmed; because there seemed nothing but death to be expected within a few hours. My soul, however, by the grace of God, was calm and in perfect peace. I was enabled, through my knowledge of God, to take this cup out of the hands of my Heavenly Father, as the best thing for me under the circumstances. I delighted myself in God. I was satisfied with His dealings with me, being assured that much good would come out of this to me.
On Sunday April 5th Susannah became delirious; the fever was at its peak. In the evening Dr Williams consulted Dr Black whose judgment was that Mrs Muller might recover if she could have some sleep; but for more than thirty hours she had not shut her eyes for a moment. A third nurse was sent for so that one of the other two could get some rest. ‘This was the second time, when my dear wife seemed on the very brink of the grave. I did what I could in seeing that all medical directions to the utmost were carried out; but my hope was in God alone. I knew Him, and I knew He would do what would be best for me. My heart was satisfied with Him. I delighted myself in Him.’ By that time, Mrs Muller’s condition was known in many parts of the world. Thousands of prayers were offered up on her behalf.
That night the crisis came and passed. She slept for five hours and through most of Monday. From that day very slight signs of improvement were seen. But still, Susannah’s pulse was about 120 and very weak. On 11 April 17th Muller recorded:
I was told, that one of the most eminent and most experienced London physicians had stated that he had never known a patient to recover after such an haemorrhage as my dear wife had had [He wrote:] For the third time now my inmost soul sought to be satisfied with God, to delight myself in God, to kiss the hand which smote me; and, by His grace, I did so ... I know what a lovely, gracious, bountiful Being God is, from the revelation which He has been pleased to make of Himself in His holy Word; I believe this revelation; I also know from my own experience the truth of it; and therefore I was satisfied with God, I delighted myself in God; and so it came, that He gave me the desire of my heart, even the restoration of my dear wife.
By the beginning of May Mrs Muller was well enough to be wheeled in an easy chair out of her bed-room to a sitting-room to be on a sofa, first for two hours a day, then for three or four hours, then six and eight hours until on May nth she was strong enough to be taken out in a carriage for an hour.
By the end of May the couple were able to travel to Burnham, Somerset, so that Susannah might enjoy the benefit of sea air. And then, in September, they journeyed to Ventnor, on the Isle of Wight, for a stay of two months. There, on the Island, Mrs Muller’s health was completely restored.
That autumn Muller preached at a series of meetings in one of Ventnor’s non-conformist chapels. On the last Sunday evening, the gentleman who had invited Muller to preach (and who had himself taught and preached on the Island for many years) said to him:
‘Dear Mr Muller, I do not wish to flatter you, but I consider it my duty to tell you, for your encouragement, that this has been the happiest day of my whole life.’
Since coming to Bristol in 1832 Muller had preached almost exclusively in that city, but it often occurred to him that it might be God’s will for him to preach and teach further afield. However his position as pastor of the large church at Bethesda, and as Director of the Scriptural Knowledge Institution had tied him to Bristol. But the situation at Bethesda was changing: there were numbers of gifted and experienced brethren who could shoulder the responsibilities. And James Wright had already proved himself to be an able codirector of the work on Ashley Down and of the Institution generally. Thus after a good deal of prayer and waiting upon God, Muller decided to devote his closing years to a world-wide ministry of preaching and teaching as long as his health and strength permitted.
He was convinced that there were many people who were perfectly genuine in their desire to be right with God, but who lacked peace, because they relied upon their feelings. ‘They do not see,’ he said, ‘that every one, who is convinced that he is a lost sinner by nature, and confesses this before God, passes sentence upon himself (so to speak), that, if he depends solely on the perfect obedience of the Lord Jesus unto death, even the death on the cross and upon His substitutional sacrifice, he receives the forgiveness of all his sins, is justified the moment he believes in Jesus and shall not perish, but have everlasting life. Romans 5 :1; Acts 10:43; John 3 :16.’
After more than half a century of daily, systematic and consecutive study of the Bible Muller would now aim to share with a wider audience the truths that he had discovered, and to encourage Christians to become lovers of the Bible themselves; and to test everything by the word of God. At the same time he would warn against extravagances (such as sinless perfection) which are not to be found in the Bible.
Another of Muller’s aims in embarking on his preaching tours would be (in the true spirit of Groves and the early Brethren) to break down the barriers of denominationalism and to promote, as he put it, ‘brotherly love amongst true Christians’.
Though not agreeing at all, with some of their opinions and practices, I nevertheless preach amongst all, having seen for many years how greatly the heart of the Lord Jesus must be grieved by the dis-union that exists among His own true disciples. On this account, therefore, I have sought (in my feeble measure) to unite all real believers; but, as this cannot be done, by standing aloof from our brethren in Christ, until they see eye to eye with us, in every point, I have gone amongst them, and have united with them, in so far as nothing has been required of me which I could not do with a good conscience.
He would seek, too, to strengthen the faith of Christians and encourage them to put complete trust in the Living God, as he had done at Wilson Street and on Ashley Down. Finally, on his missionary tours Muller would ‘strive to lead the Church of Christ to look for His second coming as her great hope’. He would seek to do this despite his belief that the Bible teaches that certain events must take place before Christ’s return.
Susannah Muller loved travel and would make an ideal companion on Muller’s tours. Her husband’s health was still good and he was an excellent traveller; but it would have been impossible for him to complete the arduous programme of world-wide engagements which would occupy the next seventeen years without Susannah at his side to act as nurse-cum-secretary. She would ensure, too, that the tours would not be all work and no play: for, no doubt partly due to her influence, the couple took some time off from George’s numerous engagements to visit the tourist attractions, and places of historic interest, in most of the countries they visited.
Their first tour—not leaving English shores—was a short one in the spring and early summer of 1875. Muller was in his seventieth year and Susannah about fifty. On their way from Brighton to Sunderland, Spurgeon asked Muller to preach for him, and there in the famous Metropolitan Tabernacle Muller addressed a large congregation. In June he held eighteen meetings in Newcastle, before returning to London to speak, at last, at the Mildmay Park Conference. This was the inter-denominational, evangelical ‘Keswick’ of its day (Keswick, itself, had just begun), and the conveners had again and again invited Muller to speak but he had been unable to accept until now. He spoke three times to about three thousand people.
Gavin Kirkham, himself a gifted evangelist, and first secretary of the Open-Air mission, wrote at the time:
Mr Muller’s appearance is striking; he is tall and commanding. He is in his seventieth year. He has a strong German accent, though he is easily understood by any English hearer. In his public ministry, he is emphatically a teacher, yet he frequendy brings in the way of salvation, in a clear, sweet, persuasive manner. Preachers may learn from his method of preaching. He first of all gets a message from the Lord: that is he waits upon the Lord, by reading the Scriptures, meditation and prayer, till he realises that he has the mind of the Spirit as to what he shall say. He has sometimes been in doubt till almost the last minute, but never once has the Lord failed him. He strongly advocates and practises expository preaching. Instead of a solitary text detached from its context, he selects a passage, it may be of several verses, which he goes over consecutively, clause by clause. His first care is to give the meaning of the passage, and then to illustrate it by other Scriptures, and afterwards apply it.
This is done sentence by sentence, so that it is definition, illustration, and application all the way through. Yet there is no uncertainty to his hearers as to when he is coming to a close, as he intimates at the outset how many verses he purposes to consider. His illustrations are occasionally taken from history, biography, or nature, but chiefly from the Scriptures or his own personal experience.
One of the most striking things about Mr Muller’s preaching is the way in which he induces his hearers to reconsider what has already been said. He frequently says: ‘Let us ask ourselves, Have I understood this? How does it apply to me? Is this my experience?
The first tour was a relatively short one, with Muller preaching some seventy times in public; but one thing was obvious: wherever he went in the years that lay ahead, he would be assured of eager and attentive audiences.
On August 14th 1875 Moody and Sankey arrived back in New York after a campaign in Britain which had made them famous. Moody had described Muller as one of three men in England he longed to meet; he had duly visited Bristol, in his biographer’s words, ‘to imbibe a heady draught of Muller’s faith’.
On the day that Moody and Sankey returned to New York, Mr and Mrs Muller set off on their second tour of Britain which would last until July 1876. Muller described his particular aim as being to ‘help forward the work of the devoted brethren, Moody and Sankey ... These dear brethren, from having been able to stay on a comparatively short time in each place, were unable to lead on the young converts in knowledge and grace; I therefore sought to follow up their labours, and, in my feeble measure, to do what I could to supply this lack of service.’ He was particularly anxious to instruct young converts and therefore held fourteen meetings at the Mildmay Park Conference Hall in London: often speaking to three thousand people at once.
They then travelled to Scotland where he preached at a Convention in Glasgow to five thousand people on the power of the Spirit. Even then not all who came could get in to the hall, and Muller accepted an invitation to speak to an overflow meeting of about 1,200 in a neighbouring church. During thirty days in Glasgow he preached thirty-eight times, and every Sunday evening for five weeks addressed three thousand people in the Prince of Wales Theatre.
Then, after spending three weeks in Dublin and preaching twenty-one times including a number of addresses to a packed Merrion Hall, the Mullers travelled to Liverpool. There Muller was invited to preach at the immense Victoria Hall which had been built for Moody and Sankey.
In this vast audience [wrote W. H. Harding] sits a bronzed, weather-beaten man, now the captain of a merchant vessel, who in other days was an inmate of the Orphan House. How can such a man, still unconverted, sit in peace while this old benefactor, grey and obviously ageing, delivers once again, as in the long ago, the blessed message of eternal life? The scarred captain listens, weeps, apprehends spiritually the motive of Muller’s life, and steers straight for the haven of soul rest.
This conversion, of a former Ashley Down boy, on his first evening at Liverpool was an enormous encouragement to Muller. He stayed on to preach over fifty times; on Sundays to between five and six thousand and on week-days to from two thousand to two thousand five hundred. Then the Mullers travelled on to Kendal and Edinburgh (fifty-three meetings) Arbroath, Montrose and Aberdeen where Muller spoke to numbers of ministers and theological students. Susannah recorded that while staying at the village of Crathie ‘we became acquainted with a Christian housekeeper living at Balmoral Castle, who kindly conducted us one afternoon through the Queen’s residence in Scotland; and, a short time before we left Crathie, Her Majesty arrived at the Castle, whom we saw driving out occasionally, accompanied by the Princess Beatrice’.
The third tour was of Europe, and the Mullers spent the last two weeks of August 1876 in Paris. They combined a number of preaching engagements with a visit to Versailles and Charenton-le-Pont when they took the opportunity to distribute little gospel books in French.
On September 1st they arrived in Berne where Muller preached in German for the first time in thirty-one years. On the following Sunday afternoon he preached in a large hall known as the Festhutte to an audience of nearly two thousand pastors, young men, Sunday School teachers, country women in Swiss costumes and children. The following afternoon they went to Die Enge, a hall on the side of a steep hill outside Berne, where about a hundred and fifty brethren and sisters had been invited by Colonel von Biiren to meet them. They were given a hearty welcome to Switzerland, and drank coffee looking across to the distant Alps, whose snow-covered peaks appeared rose coloured in the light of a setting sun.
‘Le bon Dieu Va fait expres pour vous donner plaisir,’ said someone, and there was general agreement.
Muller, having given a short talk, threw the meeting open to questions; this opportunity was readily accepted.
An intensive programme of meetings lay ahead of the Mullers in Switzerland, but before embarking on this they took the opportunity for a few days’ relaxation. Boarding a steamer at Lucerne they crossed the lake to Vitznau at the foot of the Rigi. More than half a century had passed since Muller had last seen the mountain. How much had happened since he had climbed to the summit with Beta and his other student friends in that summer of 1825! Fortunately, in the intervening years, someone had built a cog-wheel railway, and George and Susannah travelled to the summit in relative comfort. But the view across the Bernese Oberland to Geneva in the south and up to the Black Forest in the north had not changed.
It was bitterly cold and as snow began to fall the couple were glad to find shelter in a hotel beneath the summit.
At half-past four the next morning [wrote Mrs Muller] we rose and ascended the Rigi Kulm, whence splendid ranges of innumerable snowy mountain peaks and distant glaciers could be seen extending far and wide, to which, illuminated as they were by the bright beams of the rising sun, a gorgeous prismatic colouring was imparted; and there we stood for a considerable time, gazing round upon that grand, wild, solitary, silent region with an interest that could scarcely be exceeded.
Their next excursion was to the Hospice, at the top of the St Gothard Pass, nine thousand feet above sea level and enveloped in a dense fog. Once again the cold was intense; and the former governess from Clifton and her husband were ‘thankful to accept the very poor accommodation afforded at the Hospice, and, in spite of the smoke from the cigars of some Italians that filled the only room with a fire in it which the house contained, were glad to be allowed to share it with them, and with any other travellers who happened to come in’.
This pleasant, if chilly, break lasted for almost a week, but on the 17th Muller was at Zurich to fulfil the engagements he had made there. On the Sunday he preached twice at the Anna Capelle to large congregations overflowing into the staircases and doorways. For the next month, meeting followed meeting, until on the 24th October the Mullers arrived at Constance where they took the opportunity to visit the Council Chamber in the Merchants’ Hall where John Huss had been tried and sentenced to be burned at the stake. Then, at Schaffhausen after visiting the Rhine Falls, Muller preached to about three thousand people in the immense Johannes Kirche: he preached four more times in the same church ‘with great help from the Lord’. At Basle, he addressed theological students at the university and spoke for an hour and a quarter to missionary students and their lecturers.
Then to Germany for crowded meetings at many towns including Strasburg, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Bonn (with theological students at the university) Cologne, Diisseldorf and Essen. While at Stuttgart Muller was sent for by the Queen of Wurtemberg, and at the palace answered a number of questions from Her Majesty about the orphan work in Bristol. At Darmstadt he held a drawing-room meeting at the house of the Court preacher giving (by special request) an account of his life and work. Four drawing-rooms were thrown open, and Princess Karl (mother of Prince Louis of Hesse, husband of Princess Alice of England), Princess von Battenburg, and several people connected with the court were present. The two Princesses shook the Mullers warmly by the hand and expressed great interest in the work on Ashley Down. At Dusseldorf, the City Missioner approached Muller in some distress. He had six sons, for whose conversion he had been praying for many years. ‘Tell me what I should do?’ he asked Muller.
‘Continue to pray for your sons,’ Muller replied, ‘and expect an answer to your prayer, and you will have to praise God.’
By now, spring (1877) had arrived and Mr and Mrs Muller visited the Wartburg Castle near Halle where Luther had been imprisoned in 1521. They saw the sitting-room where the reformer had translated the Bible into German, his bed and other relics. At Halle, too, Muller preached at Francke’s Orphanage, the institution which had been such an inspiration to him in the early days at Bristol. Muller was also delighted to find that his old tutor, Professor Tholuck was still alive and now Counsellor of the Upper Consistorium of Prussia. The two men had a joyful reunion and a long conversation.
On the way to Berlin, at Wittenberg, they saw the church on whose door in 1517 Luther had nailed his ninety-five theses against indulgences; and at an old monastery were shown the room where he had lived as an Augustinian monk, and some more of his personal possessions. They also visited an oak which marks the spot where Luther had burned the papal bulls.
For over three weeks, at Berlin, Muller preached nearly every evening to large congregations. On the 7th of April, Count Bismark (a cousin of the famous Prince), came 125 miles on purpose to see and hear the man whose Narratives, he said, ‘had been a great blessing to his soul’.
In May the couple visited an Orphan House for 450 children, seven miles from Nimegen, Holland, which had been established as a direct result of the Ashley Down example, and was carried on according to the same principles. Muller spoke to the children, with translation into Dutch—this being one of the few European languages in which he was not fluent. After conducting meetings in most towns in Holland, Muller ended his European tour having preached over three hundred times. While he was at Amsterdam, a letter had arrived from the United States, signed by the Rev. E. P. Thwing and four other pastors begging him to come to America and preach.
This invitation was the most recent of many which Muller had received over the years to visit the United States. At last, he felt able to accept.