eat
Provider showed Himself able and willing to send help accordingly.* The
ways of divine dealing which he had thus found true of the early years
of his life of trust were marked and magnified in all his
after-experience, and the lessons learned in these first four years
prepared him for others taught in the same school of God and under the
same Teacher.

* Vol. I. 105.

Thus God had brought His servant by a way which he knew not to the very
place and sphere of his life's widest and most enduring work. He had
moulded and shaped His chosen vessel, and we are now to see to what
purposes of world-wide usefulness that earthen vessel was to be put, and
how conspicuously the excellency of the power was to be of God and not
of man.

CHAPTER VIII

A TREE OF GOD'S OWN PLANTING

THE time was now fully come when the divine Husbandman was to glorify
Himself by a product of His own husbandry in the soil of Bristol.

On February 20, 1834, George Muller was led of God to sow the seed of
what ultimately developed into a great means of good, known as "The
Scriptural Knowledge Institution, for Home and Abroad." As in all other
steps of his life, this was the result of much prayer, meditation on the
Word, searching of his own heart, and patient waiting to know the mind
of God.

A brief statement of the reasons for founding such an institution, and
the principles on which it was based, will be helpful at this point.
Motives of conscience controlled Mr. Muller and Mr. Craik in starting a
new work rather than in uniting with existing societies already
established for missionary purposes, Bible and tract distribution, and
for the promotion of Christian schools. As they had sought to conform
personal life and church conduct wholly to the scriptural pattern, they
felt that all work for God should be carefully carried on in exact
accordance with His known will, in order to have His fullest blessing.
Many features of the existing societies seemed to them extra-scriptural,
if not decidedly anti-scriptural, and these they felt constrained to
avoid.

For example, they felt that the _end proposed_ by such organizations,
namely, _the conversion of the world_ in this dispensation, was not
justified by the Word, which everywhere represents this as the age of
the _outgathering of the church_ from the world, and not the
_ingathering of the world_ into the church. To set such an end before
themselves as the world's conversion would therefore