e in it the
_supernatural_ power of God. Without that the enigma defies solution;
with that all the mystery is at least an open mystery. He himself felt
from first to last that this supernatural factor was the key to the
whole work, and without that it would have been even to himself a
problem inexplicable. How pathetically we find him often comparing
himself and his work for God to "the Burning Bush in the Wilderness"
which, always aflame and always threatened with apparent destruction,
was not consumed, so that not a few turned aside wondering to see this
great sight. And why was it not burnt? Because Jehovah of hosts, who was
in the Bush, dwelt in the man and in his work: or, as Wesley said with
almost his last breath, "Best of all, God is with us."

This simile of the Burning Bush is the more apt when we consider the
_rapid growth of the work._ At first so very small as to seem almost
insignificant, and conducted in one small rented house, accommodating
thirty orphans, then enlarged until other rented premises became
necessary; then one, two, three, four, and even five immense structures
being built, until three hundred, seven hundred, eleven hundred and
fifty, and finally two thousand and fifty inmates could find shelter
within them,--how seldom has the world seen such vast and, at the same
time, rapid enlargement! Then look at the outlay! At first a trifling
expenditure of perhaps five hundred pounds for the first year of the
Scriptural Knowledge Institution, and of five hundred pounds for the
first twelve month of the orphan work, and in the last year of Mr.
Muller's life a grand total of over twenty-seven thousand five hundred,
for all the purposes of the Institution.

The cost of the houses built on Ashley Down might have staggered a man
of large capital, but this poor man only cried and the Lord helped him.
The first house cost fifteen thousand pounds; the second, over
twenty-one thousand; the third, over twenty-three thousand; and the
fourth and fifth, from fifty thousand to sixty thousand more--so that
the total cost reached about one hundred and fifteen thousand. Besides
all this, there was a yearly expenditure which rose as high as
twenty-five thousand for the orphans alone, irrespective of those
occasional outlays made needful for emergencies, such as improved
sanitary precautions, which in one case cost over two thousand pounds.

Here is a burning bush indeed, always in seeming danger of being
consume