end in view which prove that He whose mind and
plan span the ages had a supreme purpose to which all human agents were
unconsciously tributary. The awe of this vision of God's workmanship
will grow upon us as we look beneath and behind the mere human
occurrences to see the divine Hand shaping and building together all
these seemingly disconnected events and experiences into one life-work.

For example, what have we found to be the initial step and stage in
George Muller's spiritual history? In a little gathering of believers,
where for the first time he saw a child of God pray on his knees, he
found his first approach to a pardoning God. Let us observe: this man
was henceforth to be singularly and peculiarly identified with simple
scriptural assemblies of believers after the most primitive and
apostolic pattern--meetings for prayer and praise, reading and
expounding of the Word, such as doubtless were held at the house of Mary
the mother of John Mark--assemblies mainly and primarily for believers,
held wherever a place could be found, with no stress laid on consecrated
buildings and with absolutely no secular or aesthetic attractions. Such
assemblies were to be so linked with the whole life, work, and witness
of George Muller as to be inseparable from his name, and it was in such
an assembly that the night before he died he gave out his last hymn and
offered his last prayer.

Not only so, but _prayer, on the knees, both in secret and in such
companionship of believers,_ was henceforth to be the one great central
secret of his holy living and holy serving. Upon this corner-stone of
prayer all his life-work was to be built. Of Sir Henry Lawrence the
native soldiers during the Lucknow mutiny were wont to say that, "when
he looked twice up to heaven, once down to earth, and then stroked his
beard, he knew what to do." And of George Muller it may well be said
that he was to be, for more than seventy years, the man who
conspicuously looked up to heaven to learn what he was to do. Prayer for
direct divine guidance in every crisis, great or small, was to be the
secret of his whole career. Is there any accident in the exact way in
which he was first led to God, and in the precise character of the
scenes which were thus stamped with such lasting interest and
importance?

The thought of a divine plan which is thus emphasized at this point we
are to see singularly illustrated as we mark how stone after stone and
timber after ti