posed with much
persistency what is known as the premillennial view, and brought out my
objections, to all of which he made one reply: "My beloved brother, I
have heard all your arguments and objections against this view, but they
have one fatal defect: _not one of them is based upon the word of God._
You will never get at the truth upon any matter of divine revelation
unless you lay aside your prejudices and like a little child ask simply
what is the testimony of Scripture."

With patience and wisdom he unravelled the tangled skein of my
perplexity and difficulty, and helped me to settle upon biblical
principles all matters of so-called expediency. As he left me, about to
visit other cities, his words fixed themselves in my memory. I had
expressed to him my growing conviction that the worship in the churches
had lost its primitive simplicity; that the pew-rent system was
pernicious; that fixed salaries for ministers of the gospel were
unscriptural; that the church of God should be administered only by men
full of the Holy Ghost, and that the duty of Christians to the
non-church-going masses was grossly neglected, etc. He solemnly said to
me: "My beloved brother, the Lord has given you much light upon these
matters, and will hold you correspondingly responsible for its use. If
you obey Him and walk in the light, you will have more; if not, the
light will be withdrawn."

It is a singular lesson on the importance of an anointed tongue, that
forty simple words, spoken over twenty years ago, have had a daily
influence on the life of him to whom they were spoken. Amid subtle
temptations to compromise the claims of duty and hush the voice of
conscience, or of the Spirit of God, and to follow the traditions of men
rather than the word of God, those words of that venerated servant of
God have recurred to mind with ever fresh force. We risk the forfeiture
of privileges which are not employed for God, and of obscuring
convictions which are not carried into action. God's word to us is _"use
or lose."_ "To him that hath shall be given: from him that hath not
shall be taken away even that which he seemeth to have." It is the hope
and the prayer of him who writes this memoir that the reading of these
pages may prove to be an interview with the man whose memorial they are,
and that the witness borne by George Muller may be to many readers a
source of untold and lifelong blessing.

It need not be said that to carry out conviction in