That funeral sermon was a noble tribute to the goodness of the Lord even in the great affliction of his life. The text was:
_"Thou art good and doest good."_ (Psalm cxix. 68.)
Its three divisions were: "The Lord was good and did good: first, in giving her to me; second in so long leaving her to me; and third, in taking her from me." It is happily preserved in Mr. Muller's journal, and must be read to be appreciated.*
* Narrative, III. 575-594.
This union, begun in prayer, was in prayer sanctified to the end. Mrs. Muller's chief excellence lay in her devoted piety. She wore that one ornament which is in the sight of God of great price--the meek and quiet spirit; the beauty of the Lord her God was upon her. She had sympathetically shared her husband's prayers and tears during all the long trial-time of faith and patience, and partaken of all the joys and rewards of the triumph hours. Mr. Muller's own witness to her leaves nothing more to be added, for it is the tribute of him who knew her longest and best. He writes:
"She was God's own gift, exquisitely suited to me even in natural temperament. Thousands of times I said to her, 'My darling, God Himself singled you out for me, as the most suitable wife I could possibly wish to have had.'"
As to culture, she had a basis of sensible practical education, surmounted and adorned by ladylike accomplishments which she had neither time nor inclination to indulge in her married life. Not only was she skilled in the languages and in such higher studies as astronomy, but in mathematics also; and this last qualification made her for thirty-four years an invaluable help to her husband, as month by month she examined all the account-books, and the hundreds of bills of the matrons of the orphan houses, and with the eye of an expert detected the least mistake.
All her training and natural fitness indicated a providential adaptation to her work, like "the round peg in the round hole." Her practical education in needlework, and her knowledge of the material most serviceable for various household uses, made her competent to direct both in the purchase and manufacture of cloths and other fabrics for garments, bed-linen, etc. She moved about those orphan houses like an angel of Love, taking unselfish delight in such humble ministries as preparing neat, clean beds to rest the little ones, and covering them with warm blankets in cold weather. For the sake of Him who took little children in His arms, she became to these thousands of destitute orphans a nursing mother.
Shortly after her death, a letter was received from a believing orphan some seventeen years before sent out to service, asking, in behalf also of others formerly in the houses, permission to erect a stone over Mrs. Muller's grave as an expression of love and grateful remembrance. Consent being given, hundreds of little offerings came in from orphans who during the twenty-five years previous had been under her motherly oversight--a beautiful tribute to her worth and a touching offering from those who had been to her as her larger family.
The dear daughter Lydia had, two years before Mrs. Muller's departure, found in one of her mother's pocketbooks a sacred memorandum in her own writing, which she brought to her bereaved father's notice two days after his wife had departed. It belongs among the precious relics of her history. It reads as follows:
"Should it please the Lord to remove M. M. [Mary Muller] by a sudden dismissal, let none of the beloved survivors consider that it is in the way of judgment, either to her or to them. She has so often, when enjoying conscious nearness to the Lord, felt how sweet it would be now to depart and to be _forever_ with Jesus, that nothing but the shock it would be to her beloved husband and child, etc. has checked in her the longing desire that _thus_ her happy spirit might take its flight. Precious Jesus! Thy will in this as in everything else, and not hers, be done!"