George Muller was simply another Elijah. Like him, a man subject to all human infirmities, he had his fits of despondency and murmuring, of distrust and waywardness; but he prayed and kept praying. He denied that he was a miracle-worker, in any sense that implies elevation of character and endowment above other fellow disciples, as though he were a specially privileged saint; but in a sense he _was_ a miracle-worker, if by that is meant that he wrought wonders impossible to the natural and carnal man. With God all things are possible, and so are they declared to be to him that believeth. God meant that George Muller, wherever his work was witnessed or his story is read, should be a standing rebuke, to the _practical impotence of the average disciple._ While men are asking whether prayer can accomplish similar wonders as of old, here is a man who answers the question by the indisputable logic of facts. _Powerlessness always means prayerlessness._ It is not necessary for us to be sinlessly perfect, or to be raised to a special dignity of privilege and endowment, in order to wield this wondrous weapon of power with God; but it _is_ necessary that we be men and women of prayer--habitual, believing, importunate prayer.
George Muller considered nothing too small to be a subject of prayer, because nothing is too small to be the subject of God's care. If He numbers our hairs, and notes a sparrow's fall, and clothes the grass in the field, nothing about His children is beneath His tender thought. In every emergency, his one resort was to carry his want to his Father. When, in 1858, a legacy of five hundred pounds was, after fourteen months in chancery, still unpaid, the Lord was besought to cause this money soon to be placed in his hands; and he prayed that legacy out of the bonds of chancery as prayer, long before, brought Peter out of prison. The money was paid contrary to all human likelihood, and with interest at four per cent. When large gifts were proffered, prayer was offered for grace to know whether to accept or decline, that no money might be greedily grasped at for its own sake; and he prayed that, if it could not be accepted without submitting to conditions which were dishonouring to God, it might be declined so graciously, lovingly, humbly, and yet firmly, that the manner of its refusal and return might show that he was acting, not in his own behalf, but as a servant under the authority of a higher Master.
These are graver matters and might well be carried to God for guidance and help. But George Muller did not stop here. In the lesser affairs, even down to the least, he sought and received like aid. His oldest friend, Robert C. Chapman of Barnstaple, gave the writer the following simple incident:
In the early days of his love to Christ, visiting a friend, and seeing him mending a quill pen, he said: "Brother H----, do you pray to God when you mend your pen?" The answer was: "It would be well to do so, but I cannot say that I do pray when mending my pen." Brother Muller replied: "I always do, and so I mend my pen much better."
As we cast this last backward glance at this man of God, seven conspicuous qualities stand out in him, the combination of which made him what he was: Stainless uprightness, child-like simplicity, business-like precision, tenacity of purpose, boldness of faith, habitual prayer, and cheerful self-surrender. His _holy living_ was a necessary condition of his _abundant serving,_ as seems so beautifully hinted in the seventeenth verse of the ninetieth Psalm:
"Let the _beauty of the Lord our God be upon us,_ And _establish Thou the work of our hands upon us."_
How can the work of our hands be truly established by the blessing of our Lord, unless His beauty also is upon us--the beauty of His holiness transforming our lives and witnessing to His work in us?