the establishment of schools in which
over a hundred and twenty-one thousand youthful and adult pupils were
taught. In the course of this work Mr. Muller received and administered
nearly a million and a half of pounds sterling, and traveled over two
hundred thousand miles of sea and land.[310] During the sixty-eight
years of his ministry, he never owned any property except his clothes
and furniture, and cash in hand; and he left, at the age of eighty-six,
an estate worth only a hundred and sixty pounds.

[310] My authority for these statistics is the little work on Muller,
by Frederic G. Warne, New York, 1898.

His method was to let his general wants be publicly known, but not to
acquaint other people with the details of his temporary necessities.
For the relief of the latter, he prayed directly to the Lord, believing
that sooner or later prayers are always answered if one have trust
enough. "When I lose such a thing as a key," he writes, "I ask the
Lord to direct me to it, and I look for an answer to my prayer; when a
person with whom I have made an appointment does not come, according to
the fixed time, and I begin to be inconvenienced by it, I ask the Lord
to be pleased to hasten him to me, and I look for an answer; when I do
not understand a passage of the word of God, I lift up my heart to the
Lord that he would be pleased by his Holy Spirit to instruct me, and I
expect to be taught, though I do not fix the time when, and the manner
how it should be; when I am going to minister in the Word, I seek help
from the Lord, and ... am not cast down, but of good cheer because I
look for his assistance."

Muller's custom was to never run up bills, not even for a week. "As
the Lord deals out to us by the day, ... the week's payment might
become due and we have no money to meet it; and thus those with whom we
deal might be inconvenienced by us, and we be found acting against the
commandment of the Lord: 'Owe no man anything.' From this day and
henceforward whilst the Lord gives to us our supplies by the day, we
purpose to pay at once for every article as it is purchased, and never
to buy anything except we can pay for it at once, however much it may
seem to be needed, and however much those with whom we deal may wish to
be paid only by the week."

The articles needed of which Muller speaks were the food, fuel, etc.,
of his orphanages. Somehow, near as they often come to going without a
meal, they hardly ever see