he himself, with very rare
hindrance through illness, was permitted to preach and labour with
health and vigour both of mind and body; over a thousand believers were
already under his pastoral oversight, meeting in three different
chapels, and over three thousand had been admitted into fellowship.

It was the writer's privilege to hear Mr. Muller preach on the morning
of March 22, 1896, in Bethesda Chapel. He was in his ninety-first year,
but there was a freshness, vigour, and terseness in his preaching that
gave no indication of failing powers; in fact, he had never seemed more
fitted to express and impress the thoughts of God.

His theme was the seventy-seventh psalm, and it afforded him abundant
scope for his favourite subject--prayer. He expounded the psalm verse by
verse, clearly, sympathetically, effectively, and the outline of his
treatment strongly engraved itself on my memory and is here reproduced.

"I cried unto God with my voice." Prayer seeks a voice--to utter itself
in words: the effort to clothe our desires in language gives
definiteness to our desires and keeps the attention on the objects of
prayer.

"In the day of my trouble." The Psalmist was in trouble; some distress
was upon him, perhaps physical as well as mental, and it was an
unceasing burden night and day.

"My soul refused to be comforted." The words, "my sore ran in the
night," may be rendered, "my hand reached out"--that is in prayer. But
unbelief triumphed, and his soul refused all comfort--even the comfort
of God's promises. His trouble overshadowed his faith and shut out the
vision of God.

"I remembered, or thought of God, and was troubled." Even the thought of
God, instead of bringing peace, brought distress; instead of silencing
his complaint, it increased it, and his spirit was overwhelmed--the sure
sign, again, of unbelief. If in trouble God's promises and the thought
of God bring no relief, they will only become an additional burden.

"Thou holdest mine eyes waking." There was no sleep because there was no
rest or peace. Care makes wakeful. Anxiety is the foe of repose. His
spirit was unbelieving and therefore rebellious. He would not take God
at His word.

"I have considered the days of old." Memory now is at work. He calls to
remembrance former experiences of trouble and of deliverance. He had
often sought God and been heard and helped, and why not now? As he made
diligent search among the records of his experience and rec