George Muller was born in Prussia in the year 1805. His father was the official collector of excise duties, and the early life of the young George Muller serves to display the depravity of human nature, on the one hand, and the sovereignty of God, on the other. “George Muller,” his biographer says, “had no proper parental training. His father’s favouritism towards him was harmful both to himself and his brother, as in the family of Jacob, tending to jealousy and estrangement. Money was put too freely into the hands of these boys, hoping that they might learn how to use it and save it; but the result was careless and vicious waste, for it became the source of many childish sins of indulgence.
Worse still, when called upon to render any account of their stewardship, sins of lying and deception were used to cloak wasteful spending. Young George systematically deceived his father, either by false entries of what he had received, or by false statements of what he had spent or had in hand. When his tricks were found out, the punishment which followed led to no reformation, the only effect being more ingenious devices of trickery or fraud. Like the Spartan lad, George Muller reckoned it no fault to steal, but only to have his theft found out.” At this point, he was around eight years old, and his biography then takes us on various steps of his career along these lines.
“Before he was ten years old,” we are told, “he was a habitual thief and an expert at cheating; even government funds entrusted to his father, were not safe from his hands.” His mother died when he was fourteen, but as she lay on her death-bed, “her boy of fourteen,” we are informed, “was reeling through the streets drunk.” “Even her death failed to arrest his wicked course,” the account says, “and – as one must always be the case when such solemn reminders make one no better – he only grew worse.” So, the conclusion, “The story of this wicked boyhood presents but little variety, except that of sin and crime.” About this time, (aged fourteen, you remember,) he was living in some cheap lodgings, and was brought to such a pitiable state that he stole a crust of bread from an old, hardened soldier who was also lodging in the same house. His comment in later years on that incident was this: “What a bitter thing is the service of Satan, even in this world.”
At sixteen, we still find him on the rampage. “In November 1821, he went to Magdeburg and to Brunswick, to which latter place he was drawn by his passion for a young Roman Catholic girl. There came a week of sin at Magdeburg and a wasting of his father’s means at a costly hotel in Brunswick. His money being gone, he went to the house of an uncle until he was sent away; then, at another expensive hotel, he ran up bills, until, payment being demanded, he had to leave his best clothes as a security, barely escaping arrest. Then, as Wolfenbüttel, he tried the same bold scheme again, until, having nothing for deposit, he ran off; but this time was caught and sent to jail. This boy of sixteen,” the narrative concludes, “was already a liar and thief, a swindler and drunkard, accomplished only in crime, a companion of convicted felons and himself in a felon’s cell.
At this point, Muller’s father comes into the picture once more. Hearing of his son’s plight, he arranged to have him released from prison on undertaking his bail. This he did on the condition That his son would show some measure of reform in his life. It is an interesting sidelight on human nature to discover that the older Muller had already set his heart on putting his son into the Lutheran ministry! Therefore, it was decided that the prescribed theological training for “Holy Orders” was just what was needed. Muller was a diligent student, as far as his work was concerned, but a couple of incidents from this period of his life show that he was as dark and vile as ever he had been.
“Whatsoever a man sows that shall he also reap,” and at the age of twenty, Muller was confined to his quarters in the University for thirteen weeks with one of those sins peculiar to the life of vice. He had some thoughts of reformation during his illness, but no sooner was he back on his feet than he went off the rails, worse than ever before. He spent all the allowance he had for board and books, etc., and in an effort to cover up this state of affairs, he forced the lock of his trunk and then, after practicing the part for some time, burst into the Director’s room, crying out that his room had been ransacked and his money stolen.
A wave of pity went round the University, and a purse was collected to cover his “losses.” The deceit was soon in the open, however, but even though he was openly held up to ridicule, his own testimony is that he felt no sense of shame, or sin whatsoever. The only one pang of conscience he had, if you could call it that, was experienced in having to meet the wife of the Director of the University, who, during that long thirteen weeks illness, had “nursed him like a mother;” but there was nothing more.
Soon after the above-events, George Muller began to take the necessary paths of hypocrisy. “He felt the need for a better life,” we are told, “but it was no godly motive that swayed him.” Indeed no!” “Reformation was a matter purely of expediency; to continue in open sin would bring final exposure, and no parish would have him as pastor.” It was as simple as that. He saw three necessities to procure a valuable parish for himself; “he must make attainments in divinity, pass a good examination, and have at least a decent reputation.” Thus, the new appearance began to emerge, but not without some measure of irony; and ultimately, the Lord’s sovereign hand beginning to appear in grace and mercy.
George Muller concluded that one of the best ways to gain a reputation for piety was to attach himself to someone who already had such a reputation. “Birds of a feather flock together,” people would conclude. The young man that he chose out for his purpose was another divinity student by the name of Beta. Beta was, to all intents and purposes, what john Bunyan would have called “A fair and flourishing professor,” but the tug of the world was beginning to take a firm hold on that young man. Thus, the irony: as Muller was turning to look for a companion that would lead him into a reputation for piety. Beta was turning to look for a companion to show him the ways of vice that his heart was now longing after. Who, in his own estimation, better fitted the bill for Muller than that apparent saint, Beta? Who better fitted the bill for Beta than that complete profligate, Muller? And so, their paths were joined.
The outcome isn’t hard to guess: Beta was straining at the leash to launch out into a course of wildness, and not even Muller’s desire for a holy reputation could restrain him for long; and so, we read that “Sin broke out in unholy indulgence.” “George Muller was adept at the ingenuity of vice,” we are reminded, “What he had left he pawned to get money, and with Beta and two others went on a four day pleasure drive, and they planned a longer tour in the Alps. Barriers were in the way, for both passports and money were lacking; but fertility of invention swept all such barriers aside. Forged letters, purporting to be from their parents, brought passports for the party, and books put in pawn, secured money.” For forty-three days the party lived in drunkenness, and Muller, who had been put in charge of the common purse, ended up virtually robbing the other members of the tour. But out of the whole irony, God was forging His sovereign will and grace, and the very instrument of His choosing was none other than the young man Beta whom Muller had turned to for a reputation of piety in his life.
So evil was that Alpine tour that it cured Beta for ever of any running after the pleasures of sin for a season, and he began to turn more and more to seek after the riches of Christ. Muller, of course, still needed his company for the purpose of reputation, and so, he continued to attach himself to him. One Saturday afternoon, Beta announced that he would be going to a friend’s house that evening, where a small church gathered to “sing, to pray, and to read the Word of God and a printed sermon.” That was in November 1825, and much to Beta’s surprise, Muller announced that he would go along also.
At that simple gathering the work of grace was begun in George Muller’s heart – if it had not already begun; for what also could have induced George Muller to give up a Saturday night of his usual indulgences to go along to a peasant’s home for a service like that but that proceeding grace of God that leads men and women unto redemption ground. Muller knew nothing of that at the time, of course, but he knew that by the time that meeting was finished he must come there again. He never forgot the home, or the small church of Christ that gathered there, or the good brother, Wagner, in whose home the people gathered, nor the final farewell that he had from him as he left; “Come as often as you please,” he was told, “house and heart are open to you.”
And another heart was opened that night, as well – the heart of George Muller himself. “all we say on that journey to Switzerland, and all our former pleasures,” he told his friend Beta on the way home, “are as nothing compared to this evening.” He could never recall if he actually knelt down and prayed that night when he returned to his rooms, but he knew that from that night onwards, “old things had passed away, and all things had become new.”
W. J. Seaton (1983)