A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Müller. Part 4

by George Müller

Reasons for establishing another Orphan House for Seven Hundred
Orphans.

1. The many applications for the admission of destitute Orphans, which continue to be made, I consider as a call from God upon me, to do all that is in my power to provide a Home and Scriptural Education for a still greater number of Orphans. Nothing but positive inability to go forward ought to keep me standing still, whilst I have almost daily fresh entreaties to receive Orphans. Since I began writings on this subject in my journal, thirty more Orphans have been applied for, from two years old and upwards. I cannot refuse to help, as long as I see a door open, and opened by God, as I consider, to help them.

2. The moral state of the Poorhouses greatly influences me to go forward. I have heard it again and again, from good authority, that children, placed in the Unions, are corrupted, on account of the children of vagrants, and other very bad young people who are in such places; so that many poor relatives of Orphans, though unable to provide for them, cannot bear the idea of their going there, lest they should be corrupted. I therefore judge that, even for the sake of keeping Orphans of poor yet respectable people from being obliged to mix with the children of vagabonds, I ought to do, to my utmost power, all I can to help them. For this reason, then, I purpose, in dependence upon the living God, to go forward and to establish another Orphan House for seven hundred destitute children, who are bereaved of both parents. When writing thus about the Poorhouses, I do not wish it to be understood in the way of reproof; for I know not how these matters could be altered; but simply state the fact that thus it is.

3. In this purpose I am the more confirmed, since it is a fact, that the Orphan Houses already in existence in the kingdom are by no means sufficient to admit even the most deserving and distressing cases, and far less all that it would be well to provide for. Moreover, there is great difficulty connected with the admission of Orphans into most of the ordinary Orphan Establishments, on account of the votes which must be obtained, so that really needy persons have neither time nor money to obtain them. Does not the fact that there were six thousand young Orphans in the prisons of England about five years ago, call aloud for an extension of Orphan Institutions? By God's help, I will do what I can, to keep poor Orphans from prison.

4. In this purpose I am still further encouraged by the great help which the Lord has hitherto given me in this blessed service. When I look at the small beginning, and consider how the Lord has helped me now for more than fifteen years in the Orphan work; and when I consider how He has been pleased to help me through one great difficulty after another; and when I consider, especially, how, as with an unseen hand, almost against my will and former desires and thoughts, He has led me on from one step to another, and has enlarged the work more and more: I say, when I review all this, and compare with it my present exercise of mind, I find the great help, the uninterrupted help, which the Lord has given me for more than fifteen years, a great reason for going forward in this work. And this, trusting in Him, I am resolved to do.

5. A further reason for going forward in this service I see in the experience which I have had in it. From the smallest commencement up to the present state of the establishment, with its 300 Orphans, all has gone through my own hands. In the work itself I obtained the experience. It has grown with the work. I have been the sole director of the work, under God, from its smallest commencement. Now this is not an every day case. No committee member of a society, no president or vice-president of an institution, except they had been situated as myself, could have this experience. Coupled with this is the measure of gift which the Lord has been pleased to give me for such work, and for the exercise of which I am responsible to Him. These things, in connexion with the former reasons, it appears to me, are a call from God to go forward in a greater degree than ever in this work.

6. The spiritual benefit of still more Orphans is another especial reason, why I feel called to go forward. The Orphans, who have been under my care hitherto, were almost all the children of parents who were naturally weak in body, if not consumptive. The very fact of a child being deprived of both parents when four, five, six, or seven years old, shows that, except the parents lost their lives by casualty, they were constitutionally weak. On this account young Orphans, generally speaking, require particular care as to their health. In this respect I desire to care for them; but there is more than that to be attended to. I further heartily desire to keep them from the corrupting and demoralizing effect of the lowest sort of children in the streets, courts and Unions; but I desire more for them than mere decency and morality. I desire that they should be useful members of society, and that the prisons of the United Kingdom should not be filled with poor, destitute, and homeless Orphans. We bring them up therefore in habits of industry, and seek to instruct them in those things which are useful for the life that now is; but I desire more than this for the Orphans. I cannot be satisfied with anything concerning them short of this, that their souls be won for the Lord. For this reason I long to have them from their earliest days, yea, the younger the better, under my care, that thus, under godly nurses and teachers, they may be brought up in the fear of the Lord. Now as this is the chief and primary aim concerning the dear Orphans, even the salvation of their souls through faith in the Lord Jesus, I long to be more extensively used than hitherto, even that I may have a thousand of them instead of three hundred under my care.

7. But there is one point which weighs more strongly with me than even the last mentioned one. It is this. When I began the Orphan Work more than fifteen years ago, it was for the definite and especial purpose, that, by means of it, the unconverted might see, through the answers of prayer that I received in connection with it, that there is verily reality in the things of God; and that the children of God might have their faith strengthened by means of it, and be encouraged, in all simplicity to deal with God under every circumstance, and trust in Him at all times. But if this would be answered in a measure by the state in which the Orphan Work has been in former times, and more so by what it has been since the erection of the New Orphan House, it would be still more so, by the blessing of God, by my going forward in it to a far greater degree than before. This point, even the glory of God in the manifestation of His readiness to hear prayer, has weighed especially and supremely with me in purposing to enlarge the Orphan Work.

8. Lastly, I am peaceful and happy, spiritually, in the prospect of enlarging the work, as on former occasions when I had to do so. This weighs particularly with me as a reason for going forward. After all the calm, quiet, prayerful consideration of the subject for about eight weeks, I am peaceful and happy, spiritually, in the purpose of enlarging the field. This, after all the heart searching which I have had, and the daily prayer to be kept from delusion and mistake in this thing, and the be-taking myself to the Word of God, would not be the case, I judge, had not the Lord purposed to condescend to use me more than ever in this service.

I, therefore, on the ground of the objections answered, and these eight reasons for enlarging the work, come to the conclusion that it is the will of the blessed God, that His poor and most unworthy servant should yet more extensively serve Him in this work, which he is quite willing to do.