Psalm 81:10, Psalm 68:5 and James 1:27 · Story · Faith
George Müller and the Orphans of Bristol
George Müller, a pastor born in Prussia, cared for the orphans of Bristol for nearly sixty-two years, until his death.
Two days after Müller read the promise of Psalm 81 and asked God for premises, a thousand pounds and helpers for an orphan house, he received its first shilling.
I am the LORD your God, who brought you up out of Egypt. Open wide your mouth, and I will fill it.
- When
- 1836 to 1898 AD
Summary
When Müller opened his orphan house, he resolved to make its needs known to God in prayer, to ask no person for money, and to publish an account of what came in. He meant the work to strengthen the faith of believers who doubted that God would provide for those who rely on Him alone.
- Born in Prussia, Müller came to faith at Halle and served as a pastor in Bristol from 1832.
- The first orphan house opened in Wilson Street, and the orphans moved to the first of the new houses on 18 June 1849.
- His Narrative came out in four Parts, and its First Part reached a ninth edition by 1865.
Why He Founded the Orphan Houses
Müller gave his reasons twice, briefly in his journal and at length in his Narrative.
The orphan houses of Bristol belong to the value of faith because George Müller staked the food and shelter of the children in his care on the promises of God. His story matters to any reader who trusts God for salvation and finds it harder to trust Him for rent and bread.
It answers two questions: what Müller himself said the work was meant to show, and how much of what is told of him stands in his own record. His reasons come first in his own words, then his life in dates and in narrative, two tellings set beside his entries, his published record, and the totals of the work.
His journal entry of 25 November 1835 lists "The three chief reasons for establishing an Orphan-House". The first was "That God may be glorified ... in its being seen that it is not a vain thing to trust in Him". The second and third were the children's spiritual and temporal welfare.
Writing at more length in the First Part of his Narrative, he called the first reason "the first and primary object of the work". It was "that God might be magnified by the fact, that the orphans under my care are provided, with all they need, only by prayer and faith". This was to be done "without any one being asked by me or my fellow-labourers, whereby it may be seen, that God is FAITHFUL STILL, and HEARS PRAYER STILL."
He wrote it for believers he knew in Bristol and by letter who were "harassed and distressed in mind" for not trusting the Lord in their work and their living. He judged himself bound to serve the church in the one point on which he had obtained mercy, "in being able to take God by His word and to rely upon it". A proof for such believers, he wrote, "needed to be something which could be seen, even by the natural eye".
Müller's Life and the Five Houses in Dates
Thirty-four years passed between the first rented house and the fifth new house.
Müller was thirty when the first orphan house opened and ninety-two when he died.
To scale: 12 of 12 stops dated; a mark that would lie on another stands in a lane under the axis.
- Birth in Prussia27 September 1805 ADFixed by Müller's Narrative and Pierson, page 18
- ConversionNovember 1825 ADFixed by the Narrative, about the middle of the month
- Arrival in Bristol25 May 1832 ADFixed by the Narrative, entry of that date
- Müller's prayer for the orphan house5 December 1835 ADFixed by the Narrative, entry of that date
- The first orphan house opens21 April 1836 ADFixed by the Narrative, in a statement dated the next month, and Pierson, page 126
- The move to the first new house18 June 1849 ADFixed by Pierson, page 205
- The second house opens12 November 1857 ADFixed by Pierson, page 209
- The third house opens12 March 1862 ADFixed by Pierson, page 209
- The fourth house opens5 November 1868 ADFixed by Pierson, page 211
- The fifth house opens6 January 1870 ADFixed by Pierson, page 211
- The preaching tours begin1875 ADFixed by Pierson, page 246, who dates the tours 1875 to 1892
- Death in Bristol10 March 1898 ADFixed by Pierson, page 285
A timeline of twelve dated events, each row naming the record that fixes its date.
The second house opens, The third house opens, The fourth house opens, The fifth house opens, The preaching tours begin, Death in Bristol
From Prussia to Ashley Down
Müller's Narrative and Pierson's biography give the course of his life.
Müller's Narrative begins at Kroppenstaedt, near Halberstadt in Prussia, and at Heimersleben, where his father was a collector of the excise. He describes his youth as dishonest and careless, and he was a student of divinity at Halle without faith. He dates the change to a walk he took "One Saturday afternoon, about the middle of November 1825" with his friend Beta, who brought him that evening to a meeting in a Christian's house. There they read the Bible, sang, prayed and read a printed sermon, and from that evening he counted his conversion.
He came to England to prepare for mission work and preached at Teignmouth before he moved to Bristol.
For the first orphan house he rented the house No. 6 in Wilson Street for a year and began to take in girls bereaved of both parents. He opened it with a day set apart "for prayer and thanksgiving".
A father of the fatherless, and a defender of the widows, is God in His holy habitation.The psalm names God the father of the fatherless, the title in which Müller trusted for the children he took in.
Neighbours in Wilson Street, where the work had grown to four rented houses, complained of the noise, and Müller built on open land at Ashley Down, on the edge of Bristol. Four more houses followed, until there stood, in Pierson's words, "five large buildings on Ashley Down with accommodations for two thousand orphans and for all needed teachers and assistants."
The Five New Orphan Houses, Ashley Down, Bristol, an engraving in Arthur T. Pierson, George Müller of Bristol, 1899. Public domain, as Wikimedia Commons states its licence. Wikimedia Commons, File:Orphan-Houses-Ashley-Down.jpg.
The engraving shows the five orphan houses that Müller built on Ashley Down in Bristol, numbered in the order they were opened.
Pierson writes that "from his seventieth to his eighty-seventh year" Müller "had travelled in forty-two countries and over two hundred thousand miles", preaching as he went. He led the orphan-house prayer meeting on the evening of 9 March 1898 and was found dead beside his bed early the next morning.
What Is Told of Him and What He Wrote
Stories told of Müller can be checked against the dated entries of his Narrative.
The breakfast, the baker and the milk cartA later telling, its first printing not found
In a story often told of Müller, the children sit before empty plates while he gives thanks for food they do not have. A baker comes to the door with bread baked in the night, and a milk cart breaks down outside. The story is in none of the four Parts of Müller's Narrative and not in Pierson's biography of 1899, and its first printing has not been found. Pierson's appendix (pages 409 to 410) prints the nearest documented accounts, which a Mr. Perry heard Müller tell at a meeting at Huntly. Once a friend met Müller on an early walk and gave him five pounds when there was nothing for breakfast. Once a gentleman turned back twice on his way to his office and left a gift that paid for the children's breakfast.
Want kept quiet, and meetings fixed in advanceThe Narrative, Second Part, 1838 and 1839
In November 1839 he closed what he called "of all the weeks the most trying". Twice no stock of bread could be taken in, "yet there has been nourishing food at every meal, and neither the children nor any other person can have perceived our poverty."
He also held public meetings about the work. In December 1838 he prayed for enough in hand to speak of abundance at the coming meetings. Their dates had been fixed "without any reference to the state of the funds". A meeting held in a time of want, he wrote, "might have had the appearance, that we had convened the brethren for the sake of telling them about our poverty". It would then have looked like a way "to induce them to give."
The Narrative and the Reports
Müller's own record of the work was printed and read widely in his lifetime.
Müller's Narrative is largely a diary of each day's need, the prayer made over it, and each gift with its amount and the hour it came. Its full title is A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Müller, Written by Himself. The preface to the Second Part says that it gathers the yearly Reports, of which 2,500 copies of one year and 3,000 of the next had been printed and were nearly all gone.
Arthur T. Pierson published George Müller of Bristol in 1899, the year after Müller's death. Pierson draws on the Narrative and the Reports and adds the record of the last years.
More Than Ten Thousand Children
The totals come from the Fifty-ninth Report, the first issued after Müller's death.
Pierson prints the figures of that Report, issued on 26 May of the year he died, in which Müller's successor, James Wright, summed up the work from its beginning. By then 10,024 orphans had been received since the work began, and the money spent on the orphan houses from the beginning came to £988,829.
Pure and undefiled religion before our God and Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.James counts the care of orphans in their distress as pure religion before God, and the Report's figures count the orphans received into Müller's houses.
The Promise He Lived By
Müller trusted God for his own daily bread years before the orphan houses opened.
In December 1829, when he resolved to give up his connection with the missionary society in London, the question of his own support caused him no anxiety. He wrote that promises such as Matthew 7:7 to 8, John 14:13 to 14 and Matthew 6:25 to 34 "were the stay of my soul concerning this point". In his Narrative he called it the grace of faith "to believe that the Lord will give me the necessaries of life, if I first seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness". The ground he gave was that "there is a promise to that effect".
Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles strive after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.Jesus says here that the heavenly Father knows what His disciples need, and Müller rested his own support on that word.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- George Müller, A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Müller, Written by Himself, First Part, ninth edition (London: J. Nisbet, 1865), located by its dated entries.
- George Müller, A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Müller, Written by Himself, Second Part (London: J. Nisbet), located by its dated entries.
- George Müller, A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Müller, Written by Himself, Third and Fourth Parts.
- Arthur T. Pierson, George Müller of Bristol and His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God (New York: Baker and Taylor, 1899), pages 18, 126, 196, 205, 209, 211, 212, 243, 246, 257, 285, 293, 301, 409 to 410.