The tender and Almighty care of our loving Father was never more over you, and indeed over all of us, than in your stay at Mrs. ——’s. Mr. —— was quite deranged for two or three days before you left. Without any control, he had been walking about his room for the last two days and nights, with loaded pistols in his hands. Furthermore, he had taken into his head that you were going to kill him. How gracious of God that he spread his wings over you, and over dear Mrs. Müller, so that Satan could not break through the fence, to hurt even a hair of your heads. Speaking after the manner of men, there was nothing to have hindered him coming into the room, where we were all at tea,[19] and of firing amongst us; but the Lord was our refuge and fortress, and preserved us from danger, which we knew not of. He shot himself in the neck and breast, but is not dead. He has a strait-waistcoat on. I assisted in cutting his clothes off, and in other little offices needed at such a time, and told him of Christ’s love in dying for poor sinners. “I know it,” he said. He shot himself the first time about three o’clock in the morning, and again about seven. What a scene his room presented; pistols lying in gore; bloody knives, lancets, and razors strewed about the floor, etc.
I add an extract from a second letter, written by the same Christian brother, because it shows still further how very merciful the Lord was to us at that time, in protecting us.
Mr. —— is still alive, and has been removed by his friends into Yorkshire. It appears, insanity is in his family, his father being at this time in an asylum. It is evident that he had the pistols in his pockets, but of this no one knew until after the occurrence took place. I do not know what time of night you went to bed, but I judge it was about ten. If so, it was at ten o’clock Mr. —— came down from his bedroom, after having been there six hours. It was a mercy you did not meet him, as it is plain that he had loaded pistols on his person.
Dec. 31, 1847. There have been received into fellowship, during this year, 39; and altogether, since Mr. Craik and I began laboring in Bristol, 1,157, besides the 68 whom we found in fellowship. During this year the Lord has been pleased to give me £412, 18s. 8½d. To this is again to be added the free education of my dear daughter, at a boarding school, worth to us at least fifty pounds.
In April, 1848, I was enabled, by the help of the Lord, to complete all the arrangements for the publication of the Narrative of the Lord’s dealings with me, in the French language; and about September of the same year the book appeared, under the following title: “Exposé de quelques-unes des dispensations de Dieu envers Georges Müller. Paris, librairie Protestante, Rue Tronchet, 2.”
FOOTNOTES:
[19] The evening before my departure I had invited a number of believers to tea, to spend some time together in prayer, reading the Holy Scriptures, and in intercourse on spiritual subjects.