ained its meaning; and it is very helpful to our faith to
observe Mr. Muller's witness concerning all these trying and
disappointing experiences of his life, that, without one exception, he
had found already in this life that they worked together for his good;
so that he had reason to praise God for them all. In the ninetieth psalm
we read:

"Make us glad according to the days wherein Thou hast afflicted us
And the years wherein we have seen evil."
(Psalm xc. 15.)

This is an inspired prayer, and such prayer is a prophecy. Not a few
saints have found, this side of heaven, a divine gladness for every year
and day of sadness, when their afflictions and adversities have been
patiently borne.

Faith is the secret of both peace and steadfastness, amid all tendencies
to discouragement and discontinuance in well-doing. James was led by the
Spirit of God to write that the unstable and unbelieving man is like the
"wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed." There are two motions
of the waves--one up and down, which we call undulation, the other to
and fro, which we call fluctuation. How appropriately both are referred
to--"tossed" up and down, "driven" to and fro! The double-minded man
lacks steadiness in both respects: his faith has no uniformity of
experience, for he is now at the crest of the wave and now in the trough
of the sea; it has no uniformity of progress, for whatever he gains
to-day he loses to-morrow.

Fluctuations in income and apparent prosperity did not take George
Muller by surprise. He expected them, for if there were no crises and
critical emergencies how could there be critical deliverances? His trust
was in God, not in donors or human friends or worldly circumstances: and
because he trusted in the Living God who says of Himself, "I am the
Lord, I change not," amid all other changes, his feet were upon the one
Rock of Ages that no earthquake shock can move from its eternal
foundations.

Two facts Mr. Muller gratefully records at this period of his life:
(Narrative, IV. 411, 418.)

First. "For above fifty years I have now walked, by His grace, in a path
of complete reliance upon Him who is the faithful one, for everything I
have needed; and yet I am increasingly convinced that it is by His help
alone I am enabled to continue in this course; for, if left to myself,
even after the precious enjoyment so long experienced of walking thus in
fellowship