a worker _with_ God: he
must have power with God and must prevail with Him in prayer, if he is
to have power with men and prevail with men in preaching or in any form
of witnessing and serving. At all costs let us make sure of that highest
preparation for our work--the preparation of our own souls; and for this
we must _take time_ to be alone with His word and His Spirit, that we
may truly meet God, and understand His will and the revelation of
Himself.

If we seek the secrets of the life George Muller lived and the work he
did, this is the very key to the whole mystery, and with that key any
believer can unlock the doors to a prosperous growth in grace and power
in service. God's word is His WORD--the expression of His thought, the
revealing of His mind and heart. The supreme end of life is to know God
and make Him known; and how is this possible so long as we neglect the
very means He has chosen for conveying to us that knowledge! Even
Christ, the Living Word, is to be found enshrined in the written word.
Our knowledge of Christ is dependent upon our acquaintance with the Holy
Scriptures, which are the reflection of His character and glory--the
firmament across the expanse of which He moves as the Sun of
righteousness.

On April 22, 1832, George Muller first stood in the pulpit of Gideon
Chapel. The fact and the date are to be carefully marked as the new
turning-point in a career of great usefulness. Henceforth, for almost
exactly sixty-six years, Bristol is to be inseparably associated with
his name. Could he have foreseen, on that Lord's day, what a work the
Lord would do through him in that city; how from it as a centre his
influence would radiate to the earth's ends, and how, even after his
departure, he should continue to bear witness by the works which should
follow him, how his heart would have swelled and burst with holy
gratitude and praise,--while in humility he shrank back in awe and
wonder from a responsibility and an opportunity so vast and
overwhelming!

In the afternoon of this first Sabbath he preached at Pithay Chapel a
sermon conspicuously owned of God. Among others converted by it was a
young man, a notorious drunkard. And, before the sun had set, Mr.
Muller, who in the evening heard Mr. Craik preach, was fully persuaded
that the Lord had brought him to Bristol for a purpose, and that for a
while, at least, there he was to labour. Both he and his brother Craik
felt, however, that Bristol was not