ho were brought
into most intimate contact with him that he was more than ever before
heavenly-minded, and the beauty of the Lord his God was upon him.

The first period may be passed rapidly by, for it covers only the wasted
years of a sinful and profligate youth and early manhood. It is of
interest mainly as illustrating the sovereignty of that Grace which
abounds even to the chief of sinners. Who can read the story of that
score of years and yet talk of piety as the product of evolution? In his
case, instead of evolution, there was rather a _revolution,_ as marked
and complete as ever was found, perhaps, in the annals of salvation. If
Lord George Lyttelton could account for the conversion of Saul of Tarsus
only by supernatural power, what would he have thought of George
Muller's transformation! Saul had in his favor a conscience, however
misguided, and a morality, however pharisaic. George Muller was a
flagrant sinner against common honesty and decency, and his whole early
career was a revolt, not against God only, but against his own moral
sense. If Saul was a hardened transgressor, how callous must have been
George Muller!

He was a native of Prussia, born at Kroppenstaedt, near Halberstadt,
September 27, 1805. Less than five years later his parents removed to
Heimersleben, some four miles off, where his father was made collector
of the excise, again removing about eleven years later to Schoenebeck,
near Magdeburg, where he had obtained another appointment.

George Muller had no proper parental training. His father's favoritism
toward him was harmful both to himself and to 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, rather, 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 on hand. When his tricks were found out, the punishment
which followed led to no reformation, the only effect being more
ingenious devices of trickery and fraud. Like the Spartan lad, George
Muller reckoned it no fault to steal, but only to have his theft foun