brother-in-law gave keen sorrow.

In July following, Mr. and Mrs. Muller went through a yet severer trial.
Lydia, the beloved daughter and only child,--born in 1832 and new-born
in 1846, and at this time twenty years old and a treasure without
price,--was taken ill in the latter part of June, and the ailment
developed into a malignant typhoid which, two weeks later, brought her
to the gates of death. These parents had to face the prospect of being
left childless. But faith triumphed and prayer prevailed. Their darling
Lydia was spared to be, for many years to come, a blessing beyond words,
not only to them and to her future husband, but to many others in a
wider circle of influence. Mr. Muller found, in this trial, a special
proof of God's goodness and mercy, which he gratefully records, in the
growth in grace, evidenced in his entire and joyful acquiescence in the
Father's will, when, with such a loss apparently before him, his
confidence was undisturbed that all things would work together for good.
He could not but contrast with this experience of serenity, that broken
peace and complaining spirit with which he had met a like trial in
August, 1831, twenty-one years before. How, like a magnet among steel
filings, the thankful heart finds the mercies and picks them out of the
black dust of sorrow and suffering!

The second volume of Mr. Muller's Narrative closes with a paragraph in
which he formally disclaims as impudent presumption and pretension all
high rank as a miracle-worker, and records his regret that any work,
based on scriptural promises and built on the simple lines of faith and
prayer, should be accounted either phenomenal or fanatical.

The common ways of accounting for its success would be absurdly
ridiculous and amusing were they not so sadly unbelieving. Those who
knew little or nothing, either of the exercise of faith or the
experience of God's faithfulness, resorted to the most God-dishonouring
explanations of the work. Some said: "Mr. Muller is a foreigner; his
methods are so novel as to attract attention." Others thought that the
"Annual Reports brought in the money," or suggested that he had "a
_secret treasure."_ His quiet reply was, that his being a foreigner
would be more likely to repel than to attract confidence; that the
novelty would scarcely avail him after more than a score of years; that
other institutions which issued reports did not always escape want and
debt; but, as to the secret tr