Chapter Twenty-Five, Loved by Thousands
Chapter Twenty-Five, Loved by Thousands
Every time he returned from a long preaching tour, Muller found that his son-in-law, James Wright, assisted by an efficient staff, was running Ashley Down well. Moreover when a problem arose during a foreign tour which required Muller’s special judgment, Wright would include it in his frequent letters (sometimes he wrote more than once a week). Fears that donations would decrease in Muller’s absence had been allayed in the third year after Muller had begun his work abroad when the total income received had been greater than in any previous year.
Muller had therefore no hesitation in setting off again with his wife in August 1882 for their ninth tour. Having disembarked at Calais, they caught the first train to Brussels and then travelled to Dusseldorf on the Rhine. Here, Muller was delighted to be greeted by the City Missioner whom he had met six years earlier (page 241), and to be told that from that time he had resolved to take Muller’s advice and give himself more earnestly to prayer. Two months after Muller had left in 1876, five of the missioner’s six sons had been converted and the sixth was now also thinking seriously about Christian things.
From Dusseldorf the Mullers travelled via Cologne and Bonn, down the Rhine to Heidelberg, Mannheim and then to Vienna for a number of meetings. They visited Budapest and Prague before returning via Leipzig to Halberstadt where Muller had spent many of his school days. Here they wandered around the cathedral where Muller had taken communion for the first time sixty-two years earlier. Next morning they drove along the road to Kroppenstadt and Muller remarked that die road to his birthplace looked much the same as it had done when he was a boy, except that where there had been poplars on either side of the road, now there were fruit trees. It was the first time Muller had returned to Kroppenstadt since his childhood; he held two meetings in a large hall. The locals flocked to hear their most famous son give an account of his life and work: the building was crowded to overflowing. Muller was thrilled to find the house where he had been born still standing, and was able to show his wife the house in Heimersleben to which the family had moved when he was four.
From Heimersleben they travelled to Berlin for a number of addresses to large congregations as well as some—ever popular at this time—drawing-room meetings. Moving on to Danzig Muller met two friends from his days as a student at Halle: both of them had been ministers for fifty years. At Konigsberg on Christmas Day Muller addressed an immense congregation of three thousand people who had gathered that morning to hear him at half-past nine in the Tragheimer Kirche. In the afternoon he spoke again at the Moravian Hall, and hundreds were turned away for lack of room.
On December 29th they boarded a Prussian train bound for St Petersburg. They procured a comfortable sleeping compartment, heated with warm air, and containing two couches, double windows and a little table. Next morning they awoke to find themselves travelling through a ‘vast wilderness of snow’. At St Petersburg station, after a journey from Konigsberg of nearly seven hundred miles, they were met ‘very affectionately’ by Her Highness the Princess Lieven and Colonel Paschkoff, an officer of the Imperial Guards, and wealthy nobleman whom Muller described as ‘one of the most active Christians in the whole vast empire’. The Princess, whom Mrs Muller described as ‘a beloved sister in the Lord’, immediately pressed them to stay with her in her mansion; but, said Muller, ‘as we rarely accept invitations to stay with friends, because I require as much rest and time to myself as possible, we declined the proposal, and went to an hotel where we remained for two nights. Finding, however, that the Princess greatly desired we should be her guests, and that she would have been much disappointed if we had continued to refuse her kind offer of hospitality, on Monday January 1st, we went to her mansion, and were most kindly entertained there, for upwards of eleven weeks.’
The room set apart for the Mullers was known as the Malachite Hall, because of its magnificent malachite mantelpiece, pillars and cornices. The malachite—a hard green stone, beautiful when polished —had been mined near Ekaterinburg, on the eastern slopes of the Urals. Despite the splendid luxury of the accommodation, however, Muller’s stay at St Petersburg was to be neither idle nor without its excitement. He preached sixteen times at the British and American chapel, in English; eight times in German at the German Reformed Church, eleven times in German at the Moravian Church; held three meetings for the Swedes at the British and American Chapel, with translation into Swedish, attended three pastors’ meetings, held five large drawing-room meetings at Colonel Paschkoff’s mansion, conducted two at the residence of Count Korff, and held thirty-five at the home of Princess Lieven. On top of this, he received visitors and enquirers every day, and had about forty private interviews lasting from between one to two hours each with very small groups of Christian workers. He spoke in hospital wards and children’s institutions.
Tolstoy in his Resurrection captured the fascination certain sections of St Petersburg society had for drawing-room meetings in the late nineteenth century. Nekhlyudov’s aunt, Countess Katerina Ivanova, is portrayed as a ‘fervent adherent of the doctrine which teaches that faith in the Redemption is the essence of Christianity’. Tolstoy described the elegant carriages which brought the faithful to a meeting which had been arranged in the Countess’s ball-room.
Ladies in silk, velvet and lace, with false hair, tightly laced waists and padded figures, sat in the luxuriously furnished ball-room. Between the ladies were men in uniforms and evening-dress, and five or six from the lower classes: two house-porters, a shopkeeper, a footman and a coachman. Kiesewetter [the preacher], a thick-set man with hair just turning grey, spoke in English, and a thin girl wearing pince-nez translated quickly and well. He said that our sins were so great, and the punishment they deserved was so great and unavoidable, that it was impossible to live, anticipating such punishment.
It is thought that Tolstoy modelled his Kiesewetter on Dr F. W. Baedeker, cousin of the ‘Baedeker’ of Continental Guide-Book renown, and himself a contributor to several of the Guides. Baedeker, whose home was in Weston-Super-Mare, had since the 1860s been a close friend of Muller and also stayed with Princess Lieven on his frequent visits to St Petersburg. He used to tell of a long conversation he once had with Count Tolstoy in Moscow about England and contemporary Russian affairs; there seems no reason to doubt that it was Baedeker who inspired Tolstoy in his somewhat unsympathetic portrayal of Kiesewetter.
Through application by friends to the Minister of the Interior Muller had obtained permission to preach at the German churches in St Petersburg, and also to the Swedes in the British Chapel. The document from the Minister was in Russ, which neither Muller, nor his friends who handed it to him understood, but they told him that the desired permission had been granted.
On the evening of Friday February 9th, however, the Mullers were startled to receive unexpected visitors at the mansion. It was the police, with a summons for Muller to appear early next morning before their chief officer. He was charged with having held meetings with translation into Russ, for which no permission had been granted by the Minister of the Interior. The Director of Police treated Muller with great courtesy, shook hands with him, and offered half an apology for acting as he did. From that time the services at Colonel Paschkoff’s house were stopped but Muller was allowed to continue his other activities without hindrance.
Muller noted that during his stay he had frequent conversations ‘with persons of high rank, who I sought to benefit spiritually’. But, he emphasised, ‘this was unsought for on my part; but the Lord opened deeply important service for me in this manner, which, I doubt not, will be found in the day of Christ to have been helpful not only to those dear Christians amongst whom I more particularly laboured, publicly and privately; but also, through them, to many others in the vast empire’.
A few years later, Colonel Paschkoff was exiled to Siberia by Tsar Alexander III for his persistent evangelising, drawing-room meetings and tract distribution. Once the Tsar allowed him to return to attend to his affairs, and soon heard new rumours about the Colonel’s activities. He sent for Paschkoff.
‘I hear you have resumed your old practices.’
‘My friends have certainly called to greet me, and we have prayed and read the Word of God together.’
‘Which you know I will not permit. I will not suffer you to defy me. If I had thought you would have repeated your offences, you would not have been allowed to return. Now go; and never set foot upon Russian soil again!’
St Petersburg lost a courageous Christian.
The Mullers found the cold, that winter, very severe and more intense than they ever found in Canada or the United States. However, they did not allow the weather to deter them in their search for a little adventure. In March, they visited by sledge a small settlement of Laplanders encamped on the ice of the Neva. Mrs Muller recorded:
A party of Lapps (clothed in skins and furs, with the warm side turned inwards and looking as if sewn up in their thick garments) were standing near a tent. They wear no under linen (we were told), and never wash themselves nor change their clothes, except when they fall off from dirt and constant use. The interior of a Laplander’s hut too, upon the ice, presented a miserable, uncomfortable appearance. It consisted of a tent made of skins, with the fur turned inwards, and had an opening at the top, which answered the double purpose of chimney and of window. An iron pot, containing soup, was suspended over a small fire in the centre of this tent, and the floor of ice in the hut was covered by rugs; but the domestic arrangements inside were of a most repulsive character ...
They returned to England via Poland, where the highlight of their stay was Muller’s success in touching the hearts of the citizens of Lodz, a large industrial town. After nearly a week of crowded services in the town, Muller received a note of which the following is a translation:
I, and almost the whole population of this town, in the name of the Lord Jesus, entreat that you will have the kindness to remain with us until after next Sunday. In the name of many thousands I thank you for your ministry.
The crowds at Muller’s meetings continued to be as large as the German Baptist Church could hold, about 1,200 people, and Mrs Muller noted that ‘the preaching too was the theme of conversation in the factories, public houses, and in many private families’. They therefore prolonged their visit as long as possible—until April 15th.
Returning via Germany to England in May, Muller went immediately to London where he spoke seven times at a crowded Mildmay Conference, once at Clapton Hall, once at Kilburn Hall and. also addressed a large audience of Jews in German at Whitechapel. An address at a young ladies’ school at Ipswich attended also by the clergy and many of the citizens of the area brought Muller’s ninth tour to a close.
On arrival, on June 1st on Ashley Hill after an absence of nearly a year, the hearty welcome from the huge crowd of children all but melted the Mullers to tears.
After fourteen engagements in Scotland in September, and speaking at Clapton Hall, London, the Mullers left Tilbury on September 26th 1883 aboard the Siam bound for Madras. Their stop at Malta was long enough to allow a drive to the beautiful Orange and Lemon Gardens of St Antonio, and at Ceylon there was time for a ride in an open ‘bandy’ through Colombo and its neighbourhood as well as to conduct a drawing-room meeting at Calton Lodge.
They set foot on Madras Pier at the end of October to stay with Robert Franck. Muller preached many times at Madras including an address to four hundred Hindus at the Free Church of Scotland. An Indian servant named Abraham had been engaged to travel with the Mullers throughout India, to look after their luggage generally and also because he could speak Hindustani, Tamil and Canarese. Meetings followed at Bangalore before the couple travelled by train and palanquin coach, drawn by bullocks, to Colar where they stayed at an orphanage founded by Miss Anstey.
In December a ‘tonga’—a covered carriage on two wheels, drawn by ponies—took them up into the Nilgiri Hills to Coonoor where they stayed with Robert Stanes. At Christmas a second period of engagements at Madras began until January nth 1884 when they sailed to Calcutta, to be entertained by Robinson Souttar. One afternoon, at Calcutta, Muller stood in the centre of Wellington Square and preached in the open air to a large crowd of Indians and Europeans with translation into Hindustani. Many other meetings followed in the various Calcutta churches including one in a Bengali church with translation into Bengali by Kali Charan Banurji, a converted Hindu barrister. Another of the many meetings was a public question and answer session at the Methodist Episcopal Church in Dharamtolla Street. They visited the ‘Black Hole of Calcutta’ and recalled that morning in 1756 when twenty-three dying figures were pulled out from amongst the hundred and twenty or so dead bodies of a whole garrison of soldiers who had been crammed into a dungeon eighteen feet square, at the hottest season of the year.
On the afternoon of January 30th they took tea on the lawns of Government House with the Governor of Bengal, Rivers Thompson, a keen Christian who had expressed a special wish to meet Muller.
In February they travelled up to Darjeeling in the foothills of the Himalayas and stayed at the Woodlands Hotel. In between meetings at Union Chapel and the Town Hall they found time to drive higher into the hills for a fine view of the 2,800-foot summit of Kinchin Junga, but to their disappointment Everest was not visible.
They travelled next to Benares, chief of the Hindu sacred cities, where their host was the Reverend John Hewlett of the London Missionary Society. Such was the heat that to explore the city an early start was necessary and on February 22nd they rose at five to set off in an open carriage for a drive through the city and its suburbs.
We visited a celebrated School of Philosophy, where numerous Brahmins, pundits and their pupils, were at work; embarked afterwards in a small steam-boat upon the Ganges, and from her deck had a full view of the city, as it extends along the river’s banks, with its numerous bathing-ghats, its burning-ghat, for consuming bodies of the dead, its Temples, Mosques, sacred Wells, etc for which the city is so renowned. We ... observed the dead bodies of three human beings floating down the Ganges, upon which crows were perched, pecking at their flesh, because the poor, who cannot afford to pay for the wood which is needed to consume the dead bodies of their relatives, throw them into the river instead of burning them.
Mrs Muller also recorded that before our departure from Benares, Mrs Hewlett conducted me ... to visit a school for native girls, belonging to the London Missionary Society, situated in the Compound where the Mission House stands; and with these girls, most of whom were extremely poor, by means of interpretation I conversed. The delight with which they listened to a few particulars about our Orphans, at the Five Houses on Ashley Down, Bristol, was great; and my brief interview with them was a most interesting one.
At Allahabad, where the Mullers stayed at the Zenana Mission House, Muller’s busy programme continued unabated. Moving on then to Cawnpore, Mrs Muller received a letter from the John Hewlett with whom they had stayed at Benares:
We have been exceedingly thankful to hear of the large meetings which Mr Muller has had at Allahabad, and feel confident that, in answer to fervent prayer, great spiritual blessing was the result. The memory of your visit to Benares is never likely to be forgotten; for many continue, from their hearts, to thank God for bringing you here, and for the stimulus they received from Mr Muller’s services, to a complete surrender and consecration of life to Christ. Words fail me, to express the debt of gratitude I owe to your husband, for the new impulse I received from him, to my faith and zeal. May the precious Saviour’s richest blessing be with you both; and may God spare Mr Muller for a number of years, for further apostolic work on earth.
From Agra, their next stop, they were able to drive to the Taj Mahal, on the banks of the Jumna, and were suitably impressed by the magnificence of the immense marble dome.
Having received an invitation from Sir Charles Aitchison, Governor of the Punjab, to join him at his Camp at Umritzur, they left Agra by moonlight in the reserved compartment of an early morning train. At Umritzur an open carriage, sent by Sir Charles, took them to the Camp which consisted of about seventy tents, including those belonging to the Governor’s officers and servants; the Mullers were shown to a large tent, divided off into a sitting-room and bedroom which had been made ready for them. In the afternoon they drove with the Rev. Wade, of the Church of England Missionary Society, to visit the Alexandra School for native girls. They saw a litde of Umritzur which is to Sikhs, what Benares is to Hindus. That evening at eight they dined with Sir Charles in his tent with a party of fifty people including several other missionaries.
Next morning they rose at four, left the camp and travelled with the Governor and his retinue in special saloon carriages attached to an ordinary train to Lahore the capital of the Punjab. ‘From the railway station,’ recorded Mrs Muller with understandable awe, ‘a large waggonette, drawn by four camels, with riders on them in scarlet livery, conveyed Sir Charles Aitchison and ourselves to Government House, and there my husband and I remained in large, cool apartments, prepared for our reception, until March 31st.’ Muller held meetings every evening at Lahore, and one ‘for educated natives’ at the Rang Mahal was crowded to overflowing. ‘I shall never, never forget, all you told us regarding prayer,’ a gentleman from Lahore told Muller before he left, ‘I mean now to persevere in prayer, and to expect answers from God.’
One evening Mrs Muller and Sir Charles’ sister rode through Lahore upon an elephant in a ‘howdah’, containing seats constructed to carry four persons, which was considered the best way of seeing the city to advantage. The huge animal, with a mahout, or driver, riding on his neck, knelt for us to mount him; but even then, a short ladder was necessary for us to get into the ‘howdah’. We visited the mosque of Wazir Khan, the Jama Musjid, Rungit Singh’s Mausoleum, and other objects usually considered interesting by strangers.
The beginning of April found George and Susannah at Delhi. Stepping down from the train at the station they were handed a note from Mr Tremlett, formerly a Delhi High Court Judge, but then Commissioner; it contained an invitation to stay with him at his home, Ludlaw Castle, which they accepted and were promptly driven to the Commissioner’s magnificent residence. While at Delhi Muller was able to address the soldiers at the barracks attached to the Castle.
At Mhow, in Central India, they stayed with General Sir Robert Phayre. On the first two evenings at Mhow Muller held open air meetings by the brilliant fight of the full moon in the compound surrounding the General’s home, and each time many officers and soldiers were among the audience.
On April 21st the Mullers took an early morning drive to Par-buttee a high hill four miles from Poona. Alighting from their carriage at the bottom of the hill, they walked to the top and admired the magnificent view. A temple stood on the summit containing a representation of the god Shiva, and other gods and goddesses. Their guide, a Hindu, was on the point of enlightening them about these deities when Mrs Muller, never a woman to mince her words, nor prone to see a great deal of light in other religions interrupted:
‘We do not believe in Shiva in the least,’ she said, ‘but in the true and living God, who made heaven and earth, and who sent His Son to die for poor lost sinners, as revealed in the Holy Scriptures.’
‘I, too, believe in a supreme Being,’ said their guide.
‘Did you ever hear of Jesus Christ?’
‘Never!’
‘Can you not then ask some kind missionary to teach you about Jesus, for without faith in Him you will never get to heaven.’
‘I must try and learn about Him,’ said the guide, ‘I must try, I must try.’
A busy programme in Bombay brought the Indian tour to a close. Before they left Mrs Muller received a letter from the Rev. John Fordyce who was well known in India at that time, which referred to Muller as ‘loved by thousands in India, and I believe by hundreds of thousands in other lands.’
Early in May they bid Abraham, their faithful servant, a reluctant farewell and boarded the Indus for Aden and home. On June 5th they caught an express from Paddington which made Bristol in two and a half hours, and returned to No. 3 House after a journey of over twenty thousand miles.
The next three tours were all in the British Isles; on the first of these Muller spoke at conference meetings in Leominster and crowded meetings in Hereford, Tenby, Manorbier, Begelly, Saun-dersfoot, Coldinn, Haverfordwest, Milford Haven, New Milford and Pembroke. This tour through Wales was cut short when Mrs Muller was taken ill with an attack of erysipelas in her face, brought on it was thought by sitting through too many crowded and badly ventilated meetings.
The second tour, in the summer of 1885, began with meetings at the Old Hall, Wellington, Shropshire, but after these Muller, who was intending to travel to northern and southern Ireland, was himself taken ill with a violent cold and lameness in his foot, and was forced to travel with Susannah to the Isle of Wight for a period of convalescence. Frequent long drives in a pony carriage on the island had the required effect and Muller was able to return to Bristol in July.
The third of these tours began with a series of meetings in Dundee, and on September 22nd, the couple travelled to Liverpool where they stayed at the Adelphi until early October: it was at the Adelphi that Muller celebrated his eightieth birthday. He conducted eight meetings at Liverpool, including some at Toxteth Tabernacle. The tour ended with Muller speaking at conference meetings at Clifton.
The fourteenth tour took the Mullers (via the States) to countries which they had never previously visited. On January 23rd 1886 the couple sailed into Port Jackson harbour, Sydney, aboard the Australia; there they stayed—at Petty’s Hotel—until March 3rd. Muller held a large number of crowded meetings. In mid February they were introduced by Sir Alfred Steven to Lord Carrington, the Governor of New South Wales and also called on Sir James Martin, Sydney’s Chief Justice.
Next stops on the tour were at Bathurst and Melbourne, where Muller twice addressed audiences of three thousand at the Theatre Royal and on one occasion preached to about five thousand at Melbourne Town Hall. More meetings were held on a return visit to Sydney before moving on to Brisbane where the couple preferred the climate.
In August they boarded the Dacca bound for Java, where there was time for a little exploration before boarding the Borneo bound for Hong Kong. The captain of the Borneo was a Christian and at Singapore the Mullers drove with him into the town to collect their letters from the Post Office. At Hong Kong they stayed at the Victoria Hotel until the end of September, during which time Muller held many meetings with translation into Chinese. They took a number of evening drives through the beautiful city in a small open carriage on two wheels, drawn by coolies, known as a jinrickshaw; and one afternoon they ‘were carried in chairs, resting upon long poles, on the shoulders of coolies, two of these men being before, and two behind each chair (eight of them altogether), up one of the mountains as far as the Victoria Peak, 1,400 feet above the level of the sea, from which a fine view of Hong Kong, its harbour, and the mountainous scenery around, was obtained.’
On then into the heart of China for meetings at Shanghai, Hankau, and Nankin where they visited the great Temple of Confucius.
The feature of their stay in Japan, which was the next country visited, was the immense size of the audiences which turned up to hear Muller wherever he preached: it was the same story at Yokohama, Tokyo, Kobe, Kioto and Osaka. At Tokyo, the large Kosi-kwau hall was frequently crowded to overflowing with about two thousand five hundred people present. Translation into Japanese was by two Professors of Theology, Ishimoto Sanjiuro and Kajinosuke Ibuka—both converted men. Their sightseeing included a visit to the Emperor’s Palace and Gardens at Tokyo, a Buddhist Temple, a Pagoda and a Shrine.
On their return journey Muller delivered more addresses at Hong Kong and Singapore before travelling back to London via Nice and Switzerland. They rested for a few days in London, in June 1887, staying at the Charing Cross Hotel; after a journey which had kept them away from Bristol for twenty months the traditional cheers from the children on Ashley Down when they first caught sight of the intrepid travellers were almost deafening.
Mr and Mrs Muller’s next tour (from August 1887 to March 1890) was their last beyond European shores, and—as it turned out— Muller was fortunate to arrive home alive. They travelled first, via the States to Adelaide, Australia, where Muller held many meetings during a stay lasting some months and which included a visit to Keyneston. Muller also spoke at Mount Gambier, where they enjoyed a visit to the lovely Blue Lake, Narracoorte and Border Town before they travelled on to Tasmania where Muller preached twenty times in Hobart and a number of times in Perth (Tasmania).
Next they went to New Zealand where their tour began with a series of meetings at Queenstown. Then, early in 1888, they travelled by train from Kingston to Dunedin. Opposite them, in a long saloon carriage, sat a gentleman with a newspaper in his hand, out of which [Mrs Muller recorded] he read aloud for a few minutes to his fellow passengers, that ‘the Rev. George Muller of Bristol, England, was about to visit Dunedin,’ etc etc; adding,—‘I would give a great deal indeed to see him.’ Upon being informed that Mr Muller was sitting just opposite him, he was delighted, took offhis hat, shook hands with us both, and entered into a long conversation, in which all our fellow passengers seemed greatly interested.
At Dunedin they stayed at the Grand Hotel and all Muller’s meetings were crowded including those at the large Garrison Hall, which held nearly three thousand.
The New Zealand tour took them on to Port Chalmers, Oamaru —where they stayed at the Star and Garter—Timaru, and Wellington. On Monday February 27th 1888 one Wellington newspaper stated that, ‘Yesterday evening the Rev. George Miiller of Bristol, England, preached at the Opera House to the largest congregation ever packed into that building, for not only were all the seats crowded to the utmost, but hundreds of persons were obliged to stand.’
Next they visited Palmerston, Wanganui, Hawera, New Plymouth and Auckland, where they stayed—most of the time at Oram’s Hotel—from April 19th to June 27th. At Auckland Mr Muller preached forty-seven times altogether, including services___in the suburbs of Remuera, Parnell, Newton, North Shore, Ponsonby and Onehunga, where, at the different Churches, at the Opera House, in the Tabernacle, at the Theatre and at the Room of the Brethren, he had very large audiences continually, by whom he was listened to with great interest and attention.
From Auckland they took an excursion to Ohinemutu and walked to the springs of boiling water, saw several quantities of boiling mud bubbling up at a little distance from the surface of the ground; and, in the afternoon, took a drive to the Geysers, which are springs of boiling water that rise with great force for several feet into the air, and generate large quantities of steam, which can be seen floating about in clouds from a considerable distance.
Following this period in Auckland they returned to Australia where, on his third visit to Sydney, Muller preached eighty-six times and publicly answered questions put to him at the Burton Street Tabernacle. After more meetings in Melbourne they left Australia, aboard the Britannia for Ceylon. On December 3rd 1888 they landed at Colombo and were conveyed in a gharry for a mile to the Galle Face Hotel, which surrounded by large groves of cocoa-nut trees, stands in a pleasant, healthy situation upon the sea-shore, and our luggage followed us in a bullock-cart. Whilst at Colombo my husband held many meetings at the principal Churches... Having received an earnest invitation to attend a Convention at Nuwara-Eliya, on the morning of December 14th we rose at 5, ... and, after a slow and circuitous, but beautiful, journey up the mountains, surrounded by magnificent scenery, arrived at Nuna-Oya at 4 in the afternoon, alighted from the train, and were driven in an open carriage, four miles higher up, to Nuwara-Eliya, 6220 feet above the level of the sea, in a lovely and romantic situation, where, taking up our abode at the Grand Hotel, we remained until December 17th ... There are about 800 Tea Planters living on those mountains, from amongst whom many had been brought, not long since, to the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. In order that they might be benefited by the teaching of Mr Muller, and by his long experience in the divine life, he had been especially invited to attend this Convention, and a most abundant blessing was conveyed by his ministry.
Whilst staying at Nuwara-Eliya, we walked occasionally in the gardens of the Hotel, where there were many flowers in full bloom, saw an immense flight of butterflies, millions of those insects, all flying in the sunshine in one direction, and had a good view of Mount Pedrotellagallah, 8400 feet above the level of the sea, which is the highest mountain in Ceylon.
On December 31st they arrived in Calcutta for the start of their second visit to India. Once again they engaged an Indian servant to accompany them on their travels—this time, a native of Madras named John Nathaniel.
Muller worked hard in Calcutta, preaching many times, despite the heat which became intense even for India.
The mosquitos, too, became increasingly trying, both by day and by night; and though large punkahs, in the drawing-room and dining-hall were worked continually by coolies, and in our own bedroom a great punkah was swinging rapidly all day and all night long, nothing could satisfactorily abate the intensity of the heat.
Muller was now in his eighty-fourth year and Mrs Muller grew alarmed for his health.
I persuaded my husband, therefore, to consult a physician with reference to the climate, who told him that we ought not, on any account, to remain a day longer in the city than was absolutely necessary, and that, if we did, so, it would be at the risk of our lives ... On April 29th, therefore, we left Calcutta by the 4.30 p.m. train; but, soon after our departure from the railway station, my beloved husband—though an excellent traveller, and one amongst a thousand in his ability to endure fatigue—became so extremely unwell from exhaustion, produced by the amazing heat, that I was exceedingly alarmed, and feared that he might die suddenly in the train. I knew, too, that there were no hotels on the road, nor any railway stations at which we could stop with anything like comfort; so I persuaded him to lie down upon one of the long seats of the saloon compartment we occupied, in which, happily, there were no other passengers besides ourselves, placed one of the pillows we carry with us, when taking night journeys, under his head, and kept all the windows down, so that we might not lose a single breath of air. I fanned him repeatedly also with a large fan, persuaded him to drink a little of the wine and water, and to eat a few of the sandwiches, we had with us, and begged him, if possible, to try and sleep. When the train stopped long enough at the stations, too, and Nathaniel came to ask us if we wanted anything, I sent him to fetch a cup of tea for Mr Muller, or a glass of lemonade; and in answer to repeated, fervent prayer, managed to keep life in him until we reached Damookdea Ghat, where we arrived at nine in the evening. There, finding that his pulse was good, I took courage; we went on board the ferry-steamer immediately, where, seated upon a chair on deck, he found the night breezes blowing over the Ganges exceedingly refreshing; and, at Sara Ghat, we went on shore. At that station, a comfortable sleeping compartment was secured for us by Nathaniel in another train; at ten o’clock we started, and after travelling all night, in the course of which Mr Muller slept soundly for several hours, the next morning (April 30th) at halfpast eight, we reached Siligari. From that station, we travelled by steam tram-carriage up the Himalayan Mountains to Darjeeling, and arrived there in the afternoon at half-past four, when a jinrickshaw conveyed my husband, and I was carried in a dandy on the shoulders of Nepalese coolies, up a very steep, long road to Rockville, a large Boarding House, in a beautiful situation, with a fine view from it of the snow-covered peaks of the Himalayan Mountains in the distance, when the weather is clear. There, in a few days, Mr Muller regained his ordinary good health, and I am thankful to say that, through the Lord’s kindness, he became as well and as strong as usual.