Training by the Teign
Chapter Three, England, 1829
You could, smell the spring in London in 1829. The City had hardly begun to invade the country north of Hyde Park Corner. Over four hundred acres of rough heathland, north of Oxford Street had recently been made into a beautiful park for the Prince Regent by John Nash: they called it Regent’s Park. Leading south from the Park to the Mall, where the Prince lived, Nash had designed and built Regent Street. As one of the Street’s prominent features he had built a fine church with a circular Ionic portico: All Souls, Langham Place, just five years old when Muller arrived in London.
By 1829 Nash was occupied with the rebuilding of Buckingham Palace for George IV, but the King died the following year before the work was done. William IV preferred to live at St James’s Palace and the young Princess Victoria, now living at Kensington, would not move into the Palace until after her Coronation in 1837. Muller was no doubt intrigued by the modern gas lamps which lit Pall Mall: a sign to all that London was the most advanced city in the world. He would have heard the incredible news, too, that at Rainhill, in the previous October, a Mr George Stephensen had driven a steam locomotive, The Rocket, on rails at thirty-five m.p.h.
Muller eventually found some inexpensive lodgings—not in the fashionable west end—but in Hackney, said at that time to be a haunt of highwaymen. His great desire was to become fluent in English as quickly as possible, but most of his fellow students being German, opportunities to further this ambition were limited. It was in the country beyond Hackney that he spoke in English for the first time ‘to a little boy ... about his soul, thinking that he would bear with my broken English’.
Soon after his arrival in England Muller heard one of his colleagues talking about a wealthy Exeter dentist named Anthony Norris Groves. Groves, he was told, had given up his fifteen-hundred-pound-a-year practice, and planned to go as a missionary to Persia, with his wife and children, depending on God alone for his needs. ‘This made such an impression on me,’ Muller recorded, ‘and delighted me so, that I not only marked it down in my journal, but also wrote about it to my German friends.’
Characteristically, Muller worked hard in London: for about twelve hours a day, mainly at Hebrew (which included memorising portions of the Hebrew Old Testament), Chaldee and the Rabbinic alphabet. As he worked, he would pray about the most minute matters: ‘I looked up to the Lord even whilst turning over the leaves of my Hebrew dictionary, asking His help, that I might quickly find the words.’
On May 15th 1829 Muller, who was then aged twenty-three, fell ill. He had been far from well when he left Germany, and the long hours of study took their toll in London. He felt sure he was dying; introspection set in but an inner happiness prevailed. ‘It was as if every sin, of which I had been guilty, was brought to my remembrance; but, at the same time, I could realise that all my sins were completely forgiven—that I was washed and made clean, completely clean, in the blood of Jesus. The result of this was great peace. I longed exceedingly to depart and be with Christ.’ But this departure was not to be just yet. After a fortnight’s illness, his doctor announced that he was better. ‘This, instead of giving me joy, bowed me down, so great was my desire to be with the Lord; though almost immediately afterwards grace was given me to submit myself to the will of God.’
Muller’s friends advised him to go to the country for a change of air. Quite naturally, he prayed about it, ‘Lord, I will gladly submit myself to Thy will, and go, if Thou wilt have me go. And now let me know Thy will by the answer of my medical attendant. If, in reply to my question, he says it would be very good for me, I will go; but if he says it is of not great importance, then I will stay’.
‘It is the very best thing you could do,’ was the verdict of his doctor. The air chosen to aid Muller’s convalescence was that of South Devon. It was his first visit to the country where he would later spend over two years, but this stay lasted for less than three months. It was at Teignmouth, in that summer of 1829 that Muller struck up a friendship that would last thirty-six years and change the course of his life.
Henry Craik was a Scotsman who, like Muller, was nearly twenty four and who, also like Muller, had been converted while at university. After graduating with some distinction at St Andrew’s, he had moved to Exeter in 1826 to become private tutor in the home of Anthony Norris Groves—the dentist about whom Muller had been told in London. In Exeter Craik had led a course of Bible studies in a school-room at Heavitree before moving, in 1828, to Teignmouth. What really attracted Muller to Craik was ‘his warmth of heart towards the Lord’; and both were at this time fascinated by the study of Hebrew.
While at Exeter Craik had been greatly influenced by Anthony Norris Groves, and it must have been from Craik that Muller first learnt more about this remarkable man and the equally remarkable circle of friends Groves had met in Dublin. In 1822 Groves, who at that time described himself as a ‘high churchman’, had begun an intensive study of the Bible and had come to regard the Scriptures alone as a sufficient source of spiritual growth. In 1825 he had written a tract entitled Christian Devotedness in which he set out the reasons why he thought that Christ was speaking literal truth, and meant to be understood as so speaking, when he used expressions such as ‘Sell that ye have, and give alms,’ (Luke 12:23) and ‘Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth,’ (Matthew 6:19). He argued for a return to the spirit and practice of the early church whose members ‘sold their possessions, and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need’ (Acts 2:43); this, he said, was as ‘consonant with reason as it is with revelation’.
Groves then proceeded to practice what he preached: he and his wife had already given up first a tenth and then a quarter of their income and distributed it among the poor. Now they abandoned any idea of saving money or putting it aside for their children, and, reducing their expenses by simplifying their living, they gave away all the rest.
In preparation for missionary service, Groves had enrolled as an external student of Trinity College, Dublin, intending to take a degree in theology before ordination in the Church of England. It was in Dublin that he met a group of men who are now regarded as the founders of the ‘Plymouth Brethren’ although they had no idea they were founding a movement: indeed the last thing any of them would have wished to do would have been to add another denomination to what they saw as a sadly divided Christendom. They were young men of culture, education and outstanding ability: men whom G. H. Lang referred to as a ‘brilliant galaxy of classical and theological talent and acquirement’. One of Groves’ closest friends was John Gifford Bellett (aged thirty-four in 1829) who Groves discovered had spent his childhood in Exeter, being educated at Exeter School, before going on to become a classical prizeman at Trinity College. Among the others were: Lord Congleton (aged twenty-four), son of the Irish M.P. Sir Henry Brooke Parnell, later the first Baron Congleton; Dr Edward Cronin (aged twenty-eight), another graduate of Trinity College; Francis Hutchinson (aged twenty-seven) son of Sir Samuel Synge, Archdeacon of Killala (Synge assumed the additional surname of Hutchinson on succeeding his uncle); and John Nelson Darby (aged twenty-nine), son of a wealthy Irish land-owner and merchant, and godson of the famous Admiral from whom he received his second name. Darby was educated at Westminster School and Trinity College where he graduated as Classical Gold Medallist. To this impressive list of well-connected intellectuals must be added the name of Benjamin Wills Newton (aged twenty-two) who took a ‘first’ at Exeter College, Oxford, and became a Fellow of that college. It was Newton who became so influential at one of the first Brethren meetings in England—Ebrington Street, Plymouth—the assembly which gave the movement its popular, though misleading title.
More important however than the cultural background and immense ability of these men was their passion for reality in spiritual things. Having recognised that God is, they were satisfied with no manner of life in which He was not pre-eminent; and in words penned later by Groves’ widow, they wanted, like him, ‘to see more devotedness to Christ’.
Convinced that the Bible is ‘the only infallible rule of faith and practice’ they studied the Scriptures, according to Mildred Cable and Francesca French, ‘with the intense concentration that scientists give to the study of natural phenomena, and the Church is debtor to this hour to the men who were brave enough to divest themselves of the cerements of preconceived notions and ready-made truth, and whose passionate devotion was rewarded by spiritual revelation.’ But as a result of their studies, despite their readiness to approach Scripture without preconceived ideas, they initiated no doctrinal peculiarities. And those amongst them who were trained Anglican (or Church of Ireland) theologians abandoned none of the great fundamental truths which they had learned.
What disturbed them, however, and this is where their youth and a certain radicalism becomes apparent, was the divided and sectarian state of the church; therefore they tried—nearly a hundred and fifty years before modern ecumenism—to find a way in which they could come together for worship and communion simply as fellow-Christians, disregarding denominational barriers which were then even less easily surmounted than they are to-day. Edward Cronin, for instance, arrived in Dublin as a medical student at Trinity College in 1826. A contemporary of his, Andrew Miller, recorded that after his conversion Cronin ‘applied for communion as a visitor [to Dublin] and was readily received by the Independents [dissenters], but when they learnt he had become a resident this liberty was refused. He was then informed that he could no longer be admitted to the table of any of the congregations without special membership with some one of them.’ Cronin declined to do this on the grounds that ‘the Church of God was one, and that all that believed were members of that one Body’. After a lengthy study of the Scriptures, Cronin and Edward Wilson, Secretary of the Bible Society, met for ‘breaking of bread and prayer’ in one of Wilson’s rooms.
At about the same time (spring 1827) Groves made one of his periodic visits to Dublin taking with him Miss Bessie Paget, a non-conformist friend from Exeter (she and her sister Charlotte were the only two dissenters Groves knew). Miss Paget recorded that during the visit, Bellett said to her, ‘Groves has just been telling me, that it appeared to him from Scripture, that believers, meeting together as disciples of Christ, were free to break bread together, as their Lord had admonished them, and that, in as far as the practice of the apostles could be a guide, every Lord’s day should be set apart for thus remembering the Lord’s death, and obeying His parting command’ (quoted by F. Roy Coad: A History of the Brethren Movement). Shortly after this Groves and Bellett heard about and began to meet with Cronin, Wilson and the few others who had already begun to break bread in this way. Being joined by others, including Francis Hutchinson, they moved from Wilson’s room to the back parlour of Cronin’s house in Lower Pembroke Street; but as their numbers increased still further Francis Hutchinson lent them a large room in his house in Fitzwilliam Square.
About this time, too, Lord Congleton and two friends, in the words of E. H. Broadbent, being troubled by the fact that their fellowship with one another during the week was obscured by their separating on Sundays to their different denominations, tried to find some circle in which their differences of view on ecclesiastical points would no longer prevent the expression of their unity as children of God. Failing to find any company such as they sought, and being clear that they needed no consecrated building nor ordained minister, they began to meet and break bread in one of their own rooms. Shortly afterwards one of their number going out on a Sunday met a member of that circle where Bellett [plus Cronin, Groves, etc. was, whom he knew as a Christian. In a brief conversation they were struck by the fact that, though one in Christ, they were going different ways, and this led eventually to the bringing together of these two groups.
By this time, Bellett and those with him had been joined by the Rev. J. N. Darby. The merged groups thus began to meet together in Hutchinson’s house. They were careful to have the Lord’s Supper on Monday evenings, so that the clergymen among them, including Darby, and others who might wish to attend the usual Sunday services at churches or dissenting chapels might join them.
At the close of one of these gatherings, one of those present asked, ‘Are there no principles in the Word of God, which would unite all believers in worship, whatever might be their various views or attainments in the Divine life?’
Groves answered, and the reply is important: ‘Yes, there are: we are evidently called to know nothing among our fellow-Christians, but this one fact—Do they belong to Christ? Has Christ received them? Then we may receive all such to the glory of God.’ Commenting on his father’s reply thirty years later, Henry Groves wrote,
The unsectarian fellowship here contemplated, is that alone whereby the oneness of the Spirit can be kept in the bond of peace. A unity not in a doctrine, nor in an attainment, far less one in external forms and circumstances; but a oneness that owned a common link, in the possession of a common life, and that the Eternal Life which is vouchsafed to those that believe, who therein are enabled to stand before the throne, because their garments were washed white in the blood of the Lamb. This was the point aimed after in those days.
Such was the stage which the story of the early Brethren movement had reached when Muller spent those long hours in Teignmouth with Henry Craik during the summer of 1829. Groves’ decision to go to Persia as a missionary had compelled Craik to seek alternative employment and in the summer of 1828 he had been engaged by Mr John Synge, then living at Teignmouth, as tutor to his two sons. Synge’s permanent home was at Glanmore Castle, near Dublin, and he was one of the circle with which Groves had been in contact in that city. Thus Muller must have gained from Craik and Synge a pretty full and accurate picture of developments in Dublin. Moreover Craik’s and Muller’s links with Groves continued and in Muller’s case (as we shall see) were to become particularly close.
A few days after his arrival in Teignmouth Muller attended the reopening of Ebenezer Chapel and was greatly impressed by one of those who preached on this occasion. He recorded, ‘though I did not like all he said, yet I saw a gravity and solemnity in him different from the rest’. After the service Muller made enquiries to find out more about this preacher and was invited to Exmouth, where he was staying, to spend ten days with him in the same house. Muller readily accepted the invitation and recorded that ‘through the instrumentality of this brother the Lord bestowed a great blessing upon me, for which I shall have cause to thank Him throughout eternity’. Unfortunately we do not know who ‘this brother’ was: Craik who lived at Shaldon is unlikely to have been staying in Exmouth, and Groves had left England in June; in any case Muller would almost certainly have referred to both these men by name. It is possible that it was Captain Percy Hall. Hall had resigned the rank of Commander in the Navy for conscientious reasons and was an early friend of Darby, Soltau, Harris and Wigram. He had taken part in the prophetic meetings at Aldbury Park in 1827; when Darby arrived in Plymouth in the early 1830s he found that Hall was actively engaged in preaching in the south Devon area. But this is speculation; what is clear, however, is that the development of Muller’s thought during and immediately following his stay in Exmouth reflects the influence of his contacts with infant Brethrenism. First, he accepted the supreme authority of the Bible; and decided that the only way to understand the Scriptures is by the help of the Holy Spirit. It was one summer evening in Devon that he first laid aside his commentaries and gave himself entirely to prayer and meditation over the Bible. He found that he learnt more in a few hours than he had done previously over a period of months; and he found his soul strengthened by doing so. He began to apply the test of Scripture to all that he had learnt at Halle and in London, and concluded that the only valuable ideas were those which stood this test. Secondly, Muller changed his attitude to the doctrine of election. This is the doctrine that God chose Christians ‘before the foundation of the world’ (Ephesians 1:4), that nothing can happen to shake God’s resolve to save them and that once saved they are safe for ever. A few days after arriving in Teignmouth he had called this a ‘devilish doctrine’. He did not believe that he had brought himself to God, ‘for that was too manifestly false; but yet I held, that I might have resisted finally’. He now read the New Testament through with this doctrine in mind. ‘To my great astonishment I found that the passages which speak decidedly for election and persevering grace, were about four times as many as those which speak apparently against these truths; and even those few, shortly after, when I had examined and understood them, served to confirm me in the above doctrines.’ Muller was aware of the danger that the belief that Christians are eternally secure could sanction a careless attitude to holiness, but held that the doctrine was only dangerous if believed in the head and not in the heart. Looking back some years later to the time when he first adopted these views in Teignmouth, he wrote:
For in the time of temptation, I have been repeatedly led to say: Should I thus sin? I should only bring misery into my soul for a time, and dishonour God; for, being a son of God for ever, I should have to be brought back again, though it might be in the way of severe chastisement. Thus, I say, the electing love of God in Christ (when I have been able to realise it) has often been the means of producing holiness, instead of leading me into sin.
The third matter on which Muller’s views changed during his stay in Devon was the second coming of Christ. Until that time he had accepted the standard eighteenth-century view which is known as the post-millennial interpretation. On this thesis the thousand years of the millennium would begin with the conversion of the world as a result of a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit, would involve the restoration of the Jews to Palestine, and the overthrow of both pope and Turk. The millennium would then be followed by the second coming. This view naturally excluded the possibility that Christ’s return could occur during the lifetime of anyone living and thus death was regarded as the ‘Christian’s hope’. Muller now decided that this view was ‘vague and unscriptural’; and came to adopt the idea of the pre-millennial return of Christ (now standard amongst evangelical Christians). His acceptance of this view (which involves a ‘futurist’ interpretation of the Book of Revelation) indicates that he had come under the influence of the findings of the Albury Park Conferences of 1826-1830. These meetings, convened by Henry Drummond, and dominated by Edward Irving, were attended by a number of the early Brethren. The studies continued at a series of Conferences in Ireland (1831-33) arranged by Lady Powerscourt (which Muller and Craik attended).
Muller recorded his adoption of pre-millennialism in the following terms:
I found in the Word, that we have not the least Scriptural warrant to look for the conversion of the world before the return of our Lord. I found in the Scriptures, that that which will usher in the glory of the church, and uninterrupted joy to the saints, is the return of the Lord Jesus, and that, till then, things will be more or less in confusion. I found in the Word, that the return of Jesus, and not death, was the hope of the apostolic Christians; and that it became me, therefore, to look for His appearing.
Although Muller had arrived in Devon in a very weak condition, hardly expecting to see London again, his mind was now lifted above thoughts of death to dwell on His Saviour’s return. He began to consider how he could most usefully occupy himself in the meantime.
In addition to these truths Muller felt that God was leading him to a ‘higher standard of devotedness’ than he had known before. His comments on this in his journal suggest that he had carefully studied and been impressed by Groves’ tract Christian Devotedness: ‘it ill becomes the servant,’ he wrote, ‘to seek to be rich, and great, and honoured in that world, where his Lord was poor, and mean, and despised’.
All in all he described the change which he experienced during his stay in Devon as being ‘like a second conversion’. In a letter written many years later, Muller wrote of this time as follows:
I became a believer in the Lord Jesus in the beginning of November 1825 ... For the first four years afterwards, it was for a good part in great weakness; but in July 1829 ... it came with me to an entire and full surrender of heart. I gave myself fully to the Lord. Honour, pleasure, money, my physical powers, my mental powers, all was laid down at the feet of Jesus, and I became a great lover of the Word of God. I found my all in God____
Muller returned to London in September, determined to share his new insights and enthusiasms with his colleagues. He organised a meeting every morning from six to eight for prayers and Bible reading, at which each man present explained what God had shown him from the Bible portion he had read. One of his fellow students, in particular, shared his enthusiasm for spiritual things. On several evenings, when Muller enjoyed particularly good times of communion with God he went to his friend’s room after midnight and found him in a similar state. The two of them then continued in prayer together until one or two in the morning. Muller would then return to his room, but a few times he felt so full of joy that he hardly slept until six when it was time for him to meet his colleagues again for prayer and fellowship.
But Muller was not content merely to bask in the blessings of his faith and to share his knowledge of the truth with his Christian friends only. He believed that God had called him to preach the gospel, and was not prepared to wait until he became a fully qualified missionary before he began to work amongst London’s Jews. He wrote his name and address on hundreds of tracts, and, as he gave them out, invited the recipients to come and talk with him about the things of God. He preached at favourite Jewish meeting points and regularly read the Bible to about fifty Jewish boys: he became a teacher in a Sunday School.
Towards the end of November 1829, Muller began to wonder whether he should continue his connection with the London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews. At the root of his disenchantment were the same ideas which had been developing during his stay at Teignmouth in the summer. The feeling was growing in his mind that as a servant of Christ he ought to be guided by the Holy Spirit in his missionary endeavours and not by men. One of the requirements of the Committee would be that he should spend the greater part of his time working amongst the Jews. Now Muller loved the Jews, and had already proved this by his work amongst them in London. However it seemed to him that the Scriptural plan for him, on arrival in an area, would be to seek out and work especially among the Jews, but if they rejected the gospel to preach to the Gentiles also.
If he served with the society, it was likely that he would be sent to the Continent where unordained ministers were generally prevented from working freely. In all conscience he was not prepared to be ordained by men who, he thought, might not even be converted. He felt increasingly sure that he could not work happily with an ‘established’ church which—by definition, it seemed to him—would not accept the Word of God as its final authority.
By December 12th 1829 he had more or less made up his mind to write to the committee of the Society to make his views known to them. But, typically, he decided to wait a month longer to consider the matter so as to be sure he was taking the right course. Before making his final decision, he travelled again to Devon, leaving London on December 30th 1829, intending to spend a short vacation there. As things turned out, however, he never returned to London as a student.
He planned to spend a fortnight in Exmouth and determined not to idle away his time. On the first morning he preached at Ebenezer Chapel on the difference between being a Christian and a happy Christian. Several of those present promptly asked him to speak again in the afternoon, which he did and took the opportunity to suggest a meeting in the chapel every morning at ten, when he would expound Paul’s epistle to the Romans.
On the second day, after his first exposition of Romans, a devout Devonian approached him with a suggestion:
I have been praying for this month past that the Lord would do something for Lympstone, a large parish where there is little spiritual light. There is a Wesleyan chapel, and I doubt not you would be allowed to preach there.’
Muller gladly took up the suggestion, and the next day, a Sunday, found him at Lympstone enjoying the rich smells of the mud-flats on the Exe estuary. He had no difficulty in obtaining permission to preach twice that day at the Wesleyan chapel in the village. On most days in the following week he held a meeting ‘in a room with several ladies, for reading the Scriptures with them’; and preached in another village near Exmouth.
In view of these growing commitments he decided to write straight away to the Committee in London so that while they were making up their minds about him, he could continue to preach. His letter set out what his views on missionary service were before he became connected with the Society and how they had since changed. He said that he owed them a lot for their part in bringing him to England, where he had been so blessed; and that he would be happy in future to serve them without any salary if they would allow him to go from place to place throughout England, as the Lord directed him, and to preach to nominal Christians as well as Jews. He would like to obtain his supplies of Hebrew Scriptures and tracts for the Jews from the Society.
In reply, he received a ‘very kind private letter from one of the secretaries, who always had been very kind to me’ plus the following official communication from the Committee.
London Society for promoting Christianity amongst the Jews.
At a meeting of the Missionary Sub-Committee, held January 27th 1830, Society House, io, Wardrobe Place, Doctors’ Commons, a letter was read from Mr G. F. Muller.
Resolved that Mr Muller be informed, that while the Committee cordially rejoice in any real progress in knowledge and grace which he may have made under the teaching of the Holy Spirit, they, nevertheless, consider it inexpedient for any society to employ those who are unwilling to submit themselves to their guidance with respect to missionary operations; and that while, therefore, Mr Muller holds his present opinions on that point, the committee cannot consider him as a missionary student; but should more mature reflection cause him to alter that opinion, they will readily enter into further communication with him.
Thus ended Muller’s connection with the Society which he had come to England to serve. He did not attach any blame to the Society, and always appreciated the help it had been to him; but, at the same time, never regretted the break he had made. He was now free to put into practice his sincere belief ‘A servant of Christ has but one Master’ and to work whenever and wherever his Master directed him.
After three weeks in Exmouth Muller left for Teignmouth intending to spend ten days with the friends he had made there during his convalescence the previous summer. The journey from Exmouth to Teignmouth is not a long one as the crow flies: Exmouth lies just east of the estuary where the Exe meets the sea, and Teignmouth lies on the other side a few miles to the south-west. But for those, like Muller, unable to fly, the journey involves either a detour of nearly twenty miles to the lowest bringing point of the Exe at Countess Wear, or the use of a tiresome ferry from Exmouth to Starcross. However, the compensation for the weary traveller is the magnificent scenery. There is the fine view across the estuary to Powderham and the woods of Mamhead. And beyond, on the Haldon hills, Belvedere Tower already stood out, in 1830 as it does to-day, a landmark over much of Devon. This was the country which was to become familiar to Muller—not as he thought for ten days or so, but for the next two and a half years. Who would have expected that the young Prussian who had so recently been rejected by the army on grounds of health, and who spoke such broken English, would now make the West Country his home until his death at the close of the century? He travelled to Teignmouth with little more than five pounds in his pocket, no income and no employment. But it was in those two and a half years that George Muller began to learn the lessons which would fit him for the work that lay ahead.
Training by the Teign
Teignmouth already had a long history as a small seaport, fishing and market town, when in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century it became a fashionable seaside resort. Both Keats and Fanny Burney stayed there, among other notables. In 1827, a bridge was opened which linked the town to Shaldon, the charming village on the opposite bank of the Teign estuary where Henry Craik lived.
Almost immediately on his arrival at Teignmouth, a member of the congregation of Ebenezer Chapel asked Muller whether he would consider becoming their minister to replace the existing one who was leaving. Muller replied that he did not intend to put down roots at any one place, but to travel the country preaching as and where God directed him.
On his first evening in the area, Henry Craik asked Muller to preach for him at the Baptist chapel in Shaldon. In the congregation that night were three ministers: none of them liked the sermon. But a young lady who had been servant to one of them was converted after the service; Muller could not help reflecting that she had heard her master preach many times.
Muller preached every night that first week either at Shaldon or Teignmouth. Some of those who listened who had been friendly to him in the summer now turned hostile. Muller concluded ‘That the Lord intended to work through my instrumentality at Teignmouth, and that therefore Satan, fearing this, sought to raise opposition against me’. Nevertheless there were a number who responded to the gospel and became Christians in that first week.
Despite a degree of opposition, the pressure from a section of the congregation at Ebenezer Chapel for Muller to become their minister increased. And then, after twelve weeks, the whole congregation unanimously invited him to become their pastor. Muller accepted the invitation but made it clear that he would only stay with them for as long as he was sure that this was God’s will. He had not given up his intention to go from place to place as God directed him. The congregation offered him £55 a year, a sum which they later increased as numbers grew. But this method of support was later abandoned as Muller’s views developed. Although he lived at Teignmouth Muller began to preach regularly at Exeter, Topsham, Shaldon, Exmouth, Lympstone, Bishopsteign ton, Chudleigh, Collompton and Newton Abbot.
At about the beginning of April (1830) Muller went to preach at the select little town of Sidmouth and became involved in a conversation with three equally select ladies. The conversation turned to the subject of baptism and he was asked to give his opinion. Muller who had often spoken against believers’ baptism, replied:
‘I do not think that I need to be baptised again.’
One of the ladies who had been baptised as a believer said, ‘Have you ever read the Scriptures, and prayed with reference to this subject?’
‘Then I entreat you never to speak any more about it till you have done so.’
Thus chastened Muller made up his mind to examine the subject. Characteristically he read the New Testament from the beginning looking particularly at references to the disputed matter. He decided that believers only are the proper subjects for baptism, and that immersion is the scriptural pattern. He was especially struck by Acts 8:36-38 and Romans 6:3-5; some time afterwards he was baptised by Henry Craik, and almost all of his friends followed suit sooner or later.
Devon is a big county—about seventy-five miles from north to south—but news of the able young Prussian who had settled at Teignmouth was spreading rapidly. In the north at Barnstaple, a lawyer, Thomas Pugsley had built a chapel and invited Muller to preach at the opening in June (1830). Muller accepted the invitation and two locals were converted. In fact almost every time Muller now preached there was a response; he commented, ‘So graciously did the Lord condescend to use me, that almost everywhere He blessed the word which I preached, thereby testifying that He had sent me, and thereby also getting glory to Himself in using such an instrument.’
In that summer of 1830 Muller decided that Ebenezer Chapel should follow the example of the Apostles in Acts 20:7 and observe the Lord’s Supper every Sunday, although he admitted that there is no commandment to do so either from Christ or in the epistles. He decided, too, that it was scriptural, according to Ephesians 4, and Romans 12 etc, ‘that there should be given room for the Holy Ghost to work through any of the brethren whom He pleased to use; that thus one member might benefit the other with the gift which the Lord has bestowed upon him. Accordingly at certain meetings any of the brethren had an opportunity to exhort or teach the rest, if they considered that they had anything to say which might be beneficial to the hearers.’ Thus Ebenezer Chapel, with Midler as pastor, adopted a distinctively Brethren-style observance of the Lord’s Supper. A few weeks earlier the Brethren in Dublin had, at Lord Congleton’s suggestion, hired (in May) a large auction room in Aungier Street; this seems to have been in order that the celebration of the Lord’s Supper should be more of a public witness than it had been when held in Francis Hutchinson’s house. The Plymouth meeting commenced late in 1831 and owing to its size (by 1845 there were about a thousand members) and the fact that it attracted speakers and listeners from all over England, the other assemblies which began to meet on similar lines in various parts of the United Kingdom became known as ‘Plymouth Brethren’.
In general, it did not remain practical for long for Brethren to continue to be members of their original churches, although in 1832 Darby would still be referred to in newspapers as ‘the Rev. Mr Darby’; in 1834 Bellett described him as ‘all but detached from the Church of England’. One of the first to leave had been Anthony Norris Groves; in one sense, however—despite the fact that he probably has more claim to be regarded as the founder of the movement than anyone else—Groves never really left the Church of England. In December 1828, writing to an Anglican friend, he had put his position like this,
You say I quitted your communion; if you mean by that, that I do not now break bread with the Church of England, this is not true; but if you mean that I do not exclusively join you, it is quite true, feeling this spirit of exclusiveness to be of the very essence of schism, which the apostle so strongly reproves in the Corinthians.
I therefore know no distinction, but am ready to break the bread and drink the cup of holy joy with all who love the Lord and will not lightly speak evil of His name. I feel every saint to be a holy person, because Christ dwells in him, and manifests Himself where he worships; and though his faults may be as many as the hairs of his head, my duty still is, with my Lord, to join him as a member of the mystical body, and to hold communion and fellowship with him in any work of the Lord in which he may be engaged.
This growing conviction of the unity of all believers in Christ was shared by Muller and Craik and influenced them as they played their part in the growth of the movement.
Throughout that summer of 1830, Muller never refused an opportunity to visit Exeter. It was not only the beauty of the journey along the coast from Teignmouth to Starcross and then up the road by the Exe estuary to the county town that he enjoyed. The attraction lay at the end of the journey: Muller had fallen in love. He had never confined his admiration of the Groves family to Anthony, but extended it to the sister who had been left behind in 1829. Mary Groves kept house for a Mrs Hake, an invalid who ran a boarding school at Northernhay House. Muller was sure that it was better for him to be married, and prayed much about the choice of a life’s partner. Miss Groves could hardly have been a more ideal answer to his prayers. She shared her brother’s earnest devotion to her Lord, and fully supported him in his decision to trust in God for material supplies. According to Muller, she played the piano nicely and painted beautifully; and as for providing him with intellectual companionship, she had studied English grammar, geography, history, French, Latin and Hebrew. She could also—should he be interested—teach George a thing or two about astronomy of which she possessed ‘a superior knowledge’. On August 15th he wrote asking her to be his wife; four days later he happened to be in Exeter, and called at Northernhay House. Mary accepted his proposal and they fell to their knees asking God to bless their marriage.
Another housekeeper was found for Mrs Hake, and the couple were married on October 7th. It was a simple wedding. They walked to St David’s Church for the service which was conducted by the Rev. John Abbot. They then returned with their friends to Northern-hay House and ‘commemorated the Lord’s death; and then I drove off in the stage-coach with my beloved bride to Teignmouth, and next day we went to work for the Lord’.
Soon after returning to Teignmouth, the newly married couple decided that it was wrong for George to receive a set salary. His salary had been made up by pew-rents, and, as the better seats were more expensive they now took the view that the system engendered unacceptable social discrimination and was contrary to the spirit of James 2:1-6. Therefore all pew-rents were abandoned and all seats made free. At the end of October Muller announced to the church that from then on he would give up his regular salary; he gave his reasons and read Philippians 4. A box was placed in the chapel with a notice saying that anyone who wanted to support Mr and Mrs Muller might put their offerings therein.
Muller also decided that from that time onwards he would ask no one, not even his fellow Christians in Ebenezer Chapel, to help him financially in any way. There would be no more ‘going to man, instead of going to the Lord’. Muller admitted that this decision ‘required more grace than to give up my salary’. But it was this decision, probably more than anything else, that makes the story of his life from this time so exciting. At this time also they decided to take Luke 12:33 'Sell that ye have, and give alms’ literally and carry out the commandment.
Throughout their married lives the Mullers never disagreed about the principle or practice of these momentous decisions made at the commencement of their life together. Looking back on this period later Muller wrote, ‘this has been the means of letting us see the tender love and care of our God over His children, even in the most minute things, in a way in which we never experimentally knew them before; and it has, in particular, made the Lord known to us more fully than we knew Him before, as a prayer hearing God’.
Bishopsteignton is an attractive village on a hill overlooking the Teign estuary with magnificent views over the river and Dartmoor beyond. A number of the congregation at Ebenezer Chapel lived in the village. From the Norman conquest it had belonged to the bishops of Exeter and traditionally was one of their richest manors. But two visitors to the village on November 18th 1830 were not rich. It was nearly three weeks since the Mullers had given up their salary and they were reduced to about eight shillings. (For most of the nineteenth-century, which was remarkably free from inflation, a farm labourer typically earned about 10/- a week.) That morning they had asked God to give them some money.
They had to visit a lady member of the church who lived in the village. During the conversation, their hostess asked Muller, ‘Do you want any money?’
‘I told the brethren, dear sister, when I gave up my salary, that I would for the future tell the Lord only about my wants.’
She replied, ‘But He has told me to give you some money. About a fortnight ago I asked Him, what I should do for Him, and He told me to give you some money; and last Saturday it came again powerfully to my mind, and has not left me since, and I felt it so forcibly last night, that I could not help speaking of it to Brother P.’
Muller rejoiced when he realised how God had answered their prayers but still thinking it better not to mention their circumstances, he changed the subject to other matters. When they left, the lady gave him two guineas.
The following week at Exmouth, when they were reduced to about nine shillings Muller prayed again for money and within thirty hours they were given £7 10s from three different sources. Muller commented on the first few weeks after their decision to ask God alone for funds ‘... admire the gentleness of the Lord, that He did not try our faith much at the commencement, but gave us first encouragement and allowed us to see His willingness to help us, before He was pleased to try it more fully’.
What some would no doubt call Muller’s fanatical principles on the reception of gifts often led to amusing incidents. In March 1831, while staying at Axminster to preach, he was invited to spend a Sunday at Chard in Somerset. On that sort of occasion he was very reluctant to accept any gifts, as he was afraid to give the impression that he preached for money. After one meeting a brother tried to give him some money wrapped in paper, but Muller refused to accept it. However Somerset people are not easily discouraged: this determined saint forced the paper into Muller’s pocket and ran away. Another Chard brother forced him to accept a sovereign, but only after a tussle.
The brethren at Barnstaple developed some ingenious solutions to the problem of Muller’s reluctance to accept gifts while preaching away from Teignmouth. While Mr and Mrs Muller were there in April 1831 they found a sovereign in Mrs Muller’s handbag which had been put there anonymously. On their return to Teignmouth on May 2nd, when they opened their case, an envelope fell out on to the floor. It contained two sovereigns and threepence. The threepence had obviously been put in to make a noise when the case was emptied.
When Muller gave up his salary he asked the responsible brethren at Teignmouth to open the box in the hall once a week. However, as these gentlemen either forgot to take it out weekly or were ashamed to bring it to Muller in very small sums, it was usually emptied once in three to five weeks. This was a problem for the Mullers; Muller decided, however, to say nothing about the matter, on principle. But for a while the practice led to some narrow financial scrapes. On Saturday June nth 1831 Muller and Henry Craik returned from Torquay where they had been preaching. (Craik recorded in his diary how powerfully Muller had preached on the Friday.) The Mullers had 9d left. Muller prayed ‘that the Lord would be pleased to impress it on brother Y that we wanted money, so that he might open the box’. Next morning at breakfast the Mullers had just enough butter for a friend and relative who were staying with them. They made no mention of their circumstances, of course, so that their visitors should not feel uncomfortable. After the morning meeting, ‘brother Y’ quite unexpectedly opened the box and gave Muller the contents £1 8s 10½ d, i.e. the equivalent of rather more than two weeks’ wages. Poor brother Y, who had evidently learnt his lesson the hard way, told George that he and his wife had been unable to sleep the previous night for worry that the Mullers might be in need. Muller found it hard to conceal a smile.
Henry Craik’s way of living was the same as Muller’s and this often deepened their friendship. On June 18th he called on the Mullers and mentioned that he had only had 1½d left. He later returned to their home having been given a sum of money and gave them 10s. They only had 3s left themselves.
On July 20th a shoulder of mutton and a loaf of bread was sent to the Mullers anonymously. They later discovered that there had been a false rumour spread that they were starving and that therefore an anxious friend had sent these provisions. The truth was that although in the early days they were often brought so low they had not even a penny left, or not enough money to buy more bread when the last of the loaf was on the table, they never ever sat down to a meal without nourishing food on the table. Muller conceded, however, that God sometimes used these false rumours to remind people of their needs.
On September 10th Muller was given £6 and recorded in his diary that in the previous month he had received £40 plus all sorts of gifts in kind. On November 16th, the Mullers were forced to pray for some meat for dinner as they had no money to buy any. After praying, they opened a parcel which had arrived from Exmouth. Among other things it contained a ham which was ample both for them and a friend who was staying with them.
It will be remembered that when Muller arrived in London in 1829 his health broke down so that he thought he would die. Though it was now much improved, he was not a hundred per cent fit. On Saturday afternoon, February 18th 1832, he suffered a haemorrhage in his stomach and lost a good deal of blood. He was not unduly alarmed. Next day on the Sunday morning, two brethren from Ebenezer who had heard of the occurrence called at the house to ask about Muller’s arrangements for the day. Some of the brethren were in the habit of preaching in four neighbouring villages but they presumed that one of them would have to stay at Ebenezer to substitute for Muller while he remained ill. Muller asked them to call again in an hour when he would give them his answer. After they had gone, Muller prayed; and God gave him the faith to get up. He made up his mind to go to the morning meeting. Even walking the short distance to the chapel tired him out but he was able to preach and his voice was as strong and loud as usual. At lunch time, a medical friend called and pleaded with him not to preach in the afternoon as it might seriously injure him. Muller agreed that under normal circumstances it would indeed be foolish, but, he said, God had given him the faith to carry on. He preached again in the afternoon, after which his medical friend called again and begged him not to preach in the evening. But the doctor was no match for the faith of the stubborn Prussian; he preached yet again in the evening. After the meeting, he returned home and went straight to bed; the time had come when even he knew when enough was enough.
Next morning he rose early and spent a normally busy day. On the Wednesday, after attending a meeting in the morning, he walked the six miles with two brethren to Newton Abbot and then rode to Plymouth. Strangely, this odd form of convalescence worked, for on the Thursday, he felt as well as he had before the haemorrhage. He wrote: 1 could not say, that, if such a thing should happen again, I would act in the same way; for when I have been not nearly so weak as when I had broken the blood vessel, having no faith, I did not preach; yet if it were to please the Lord to give me faith, I might be able to do the same, though even still weaker than at the time just spoken of.’
At this time, Muller frequently prayed with sick believers until they were restored. He would ask God, unconditionally, for the blessing of health; later in his life, he gave up the practice of asking unconditionally for this blessing. Nearly always, his prayers were answered, but on some occasions they were not. Muller drew a distinction between the ‘gift’ and ‘grace’ of faith. He believed that at this time of his life he was given in some cases the ‘gift’ of faith so that unconditionally he could ask and expect the answer. With the ‘gift’ of faith, Muller believed that he was able to do something which if he had not done, or had not believed, would not have been sinful. But with the ‘grace’ of faith, Muller believed a man could do something or believe something, respecting which he had the word of God to rest upon, and which if he had not done, or believed, would have been sinful. For instance, it would need the ‘gift’ of faith to believe that a seriously ill person would be restored, for there is no promise that he should be; but it simply needs the ‘grace’ of faith to believe that God will give us the necessities of life if we seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, for this is promised in Matthew 6.
On April 8th 1832 Muller wrote in his diary:
‘I have again felt much this day that Teignmouth is no longer my place, and that I shall leave it.’
Since the previous August he had begun to feel that his work at Teignmouth was done and that he should move. He wondered whether his gift was not more to travel from place to place trying to bring Christians back to the Bible, than to remain in one place as a pastor. Moreover, he found that wherever he went he seemed to preach with more power and enjoyment than at Teignmouth, which was the opposite to his experience in his early days in the town. Also he tended now to attract larger congregations outside Teignmouth than on his home ground.
On April 13th Henry Craik, who was on a working visit to Bristol (attracting large crowds to Gideon Chapel to hear him) wrote to Muller inviting him to come and help him. He replied that he would come if he clearly saw it to be God’s will. After preaching at Ebenezer Chapel on the evening of the 15th April Muller announced to his flock that he might soon leave them. He reminded them of his warning when he had become their pastor that he would stay only as long as he felt it was God’s will so to do. There was a lot of weeping; but Muller was by this time sure he knew God’s will.
On April 19th, Muller preached the last of his regular weekly sermons at Torquay, and the following day left Teignmouth to join Craik at Bristol. Muller and Craik spent ten days together in Bristol, preaching in Gideon and Pithay Chapels and also in a ship called the Clifton Ark which had been made into a place of worship. Their visit was an undoubted success and there were many striking conversions; they felt sure that God was indicating His will for them to work in Bristol. On the evening of April 29th they held a meeting at Gideon Chapel. It was the last service of their visit and Henry Craik preached. The aisles, the pulpit stairs and the vestry were packed, and hundreds were turned away when no further square inches could be found. They left Bristol the following day: dozens of people pressed them to return and several had tears in their eyes. One brother promised that he would rent Bethesda Chapel for them at his own expense.
The 2nd May found them back at Teignmouth.
On the 18th May, while Muller was praying about Bristol, a message arrived for him to visit Henry Craik. Craik told him that the congregation of Gideon Chapel, Bristol, had written accepting an offer the two men had made to work amongst them under certain conditions which they had laid down. These were: that they would preach and work amongst them not according to a fixed pastoral relationship governed by any rules of the congregation, but as they themselves interpreted God’s will; that pew-rents should be abolished; and that they would continue the practice they had established at Teignmouth with regard to their financial support.
On May 21st, Muller began to call in turn on each member of the congregation at Ebenezer to say his farewells. It was a trying day, with a lot more weeping. That night he wrote in his diary: ‘Were I not so fully persuaded that it is the will of God we should go to Bristol, I should have been hardly able to bear it’. The following day was spent in similar fashion and was no less emotional for all concerned.
On 23rd May, Muller left Teignmouth for Exeter with his wife and father-in-law. Henry Craik followed the next day. They arrived in Bristol on the evening of May 25th 1832. Just before they left Teignmouth they had been given £15 without which they could not have afforded to make the journey.
Muller had spent two years and five months at Teignmouth. When he arrived, the congregation of Ebenezer Chapel had numbered eighteen, when he left it numbered fifty-one. Both men had gained invaluable pastoral experience which would be stretched to the full as they worked amongst far larger congregations in Bristol; and both of them, too, had learned to depend on God alone for their needs. Muller was still only twenty-six when he arrived in Bristol and his maturity is perhaps one of the most striking features of the story so far; but he would need sterling character indeed to carry out the work God planned for him.