nerally neither caused
the church life to be neglected nor any one department of duty to suffer
declension--a very noticeable fact in this history.

The point to which we have now come is one of double interest and
importance, as at once a point of arrival and of departure. The work of
God's chosen servant may be considered as fairly if not fully
inaugurated _in all its main forms of service._ He himself is in his
thirtieth year, the age when his divine Master began to be fully
manifest to the world and to go about doing good. Through the
preparatory steps and stages leading up to his complete mission and
ministry to the church and the world, Christ's humble disciple has
likewise been brought, and his fuller career of usefulness now begins,
with the various agencies in operation whereby for more than threescore
years he was to show both proof and example of what God can do through
one man who is willing to be simply the instrument for Him to work with.
Nothing is more marked in George Muller, to the very day of his death,
than this, that he so looked to God and leaned on God that he felt
himself to be nothing, and God everything. He sought to be always and in
all things surrendered as a passive tool to the will and hand of the
Master Workman.

This point of arrival and of departure is also a point of _prospect._
Here, halting and looking backward, we may take in at a glance the
various successive steps and stages of preparation whereby the Lord had
made His servant ready for the sphere of service to which He called, and
for which He fitted him. One has only, from this height, to look over
the ten years that were past, to see beyond dispute or doubt the divine
design that lay back of George Mullers life, and to feel an awe of the
God who thus chooses and shapes, and then uses, His vessels of service.

It will be well, even if it involves some repetition, to pass in review
the more important steps in the process by which the divine Potter had
shaped His vessel for His purpose, educating and preparing George Muller
for His work.

1. First of all, his _conversion._ In the most unforeseen manner and at
the most unexpected time God led him to turn from the error of his way,
and brought him to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

2. Next, his _missionary spirit._ That consuming flame was kindled
within him which, when it is fanned by the Spirit and fed by the fuel of
facts, inclines to unselfish service and makes one will