The original congregation has proved a tree whose seed is in itself after its kind. At the time of Mr. Muller's decease it was nearly sixty-six years since that memorable evening in 1832 when those seven believers met to form a church; and the original body of disciples meeting in Bethesda had increased to ten, six of which are now independent of the mother church, and four of which still remain in close affiliation and really constitute one church, though meeting in Bethesda, Alma Road, Stokes Croft, and Totterdown chapels. The names of the other churches which have been in a sense offshoots from Bethesda are as follows: Unity, Bishopston, Cumberland Hall, Charleton Hall, Nicholas Road, and Bedminster.
At the date of Mr. Muller's decease the total membership of the four affiliated congregations was upwards of twelve hundred.
In this brief compass no complete outline could be given of the church life and work so dear to him, and over which he so long watched and prayed. This church has been and is a missionary church. When on March 1, 1836, Mr. and Mrs. Groves, with ten helpers, left Bristol to carry on mission work in the East Indies, Mr. Muller felt deeply moved to pray that the body of disciples to whom he ministered might send out from their own members labourers for the wide world-field. That prayer was not forgotten before God, and has already been answered exceeding abundantly above all he then asked or thought. Since that time some sixty have gone forth to lands afar to labour in the gospel, and at the period of Mr. Muller's death there were at work, in various parts of the world, at least twenty, who are aided by the free-will offerings of their Bristol brethren.
When, in 1874, Mr. Muller closed the third volume of his Narrative, he recorded the interesting fact that, of the many nonconformist ministers of the gospel resident in Bristol when he took up work there more than forty-two years before, _not one remained,_ all having been removed elsewhere or having died; and that, of all the Evangelical clergy of the establishment, only _one_ survived. Yet he himself, with very rare hindrance through illness, was permitted to preach and labour with health and vigour both of mind and body; over a thousand believers were already under his pastoral oversight, meeting in three different chapels, and over three thousand had been admitted into fellowship.
It was the writer's privilege to hear Mr. Muller preach on the morning of March 22, 1896, in Bethesda Chapel. He was in his ninety-first year, but there was a freshness, vigour, and terseness in his preaching that gave no indication of failing powers; in fact, he had never seemed more fitted to express and impress the thoughts of God.
His theme was the seventy-seventh psalm, and it afforded him abundant scope for his favourite subject--prayer. He expounded the psalm verse by verse, clearly, sympathetically, effectively, and the outline of his treatment strongly engraved itself on my memory and is here reproduced.
"I cried unto God with my voice." Prayer seeks a voice--to utter itself in words: the effort to clothe our desires in language gives definiteness to our desires and keeps the attention on the objects of prayer.
"In the day of my trouble." The Psalmist was in trouble; some distress was upon him, perhaps physical as well as mental, and it was an unceasing burden night and day.
"My soul refused to be comforted." The words, "my sore ran in the night," may be rendered, "my hand reached out"--that is in prayer. But unbelief triumphed, and his soul refused all comfort--even the comfort of God's promises. His trouble overshadowed his faith and shut out the vision of God.
"I remembered, or thought of God, and was troubled." Even the thought of God, instead of bringing peace, brought distress; instead of silencing his complaint, it increased it, and his spirit was overwhelmed--the sure sign, again, of unbelief. If in trouble God's promises and the thought of God bring no relief, they will only become an additional burden.