The Fundamentals (1910), Vol.1

82

The Fundamentals. the Three Kingdoms. By a large number of religious people he was more spoken of than were Gladstone and Disraeli, and accordingly it is not miraculous that, although he said he had never once solicited aid on behalf of his charitable enterprise, money in a continuous stream flowed into his treasury. Even to non-religious persons in Great Britain his name was quite as familiar as that of Moody. “Doubtless Müller was quite sincere in his convictions, but, by the very peculiarity of his method, his wants were advertised throughout the world most conspicuously, thus receiving the benefit of a far larger publicity than would otherwise have obtained, and it being known that he was praying for money, money, of course, came in to him. “But were Müller’s prayers answered invariably? Ac­ cording to a memoir by a personal friend, which has lately been published, this was far from having been the case, and he often felt aggrieved at what he considered a slight on the part of the Almighty, one of whose ‘pets’ (to quote Mr. Savage) he evidently imagined himself to be. For example, he prayed for two of his ‘unconverted’ friends for nearly fifty years without avail. There was absolutely nothing in his career which could not be accounted for as the result of purely natural causes. “I f it was possible to admit that what he looked upon as answers to his prayers were due to special interventions of Providence in his behalf (in other words, to favoritism), the question would inevitably arise, Why have the prayers of thousands of other Christian people, whose faith is quite as strong as Müller’s, been disregarded ? What are we to think of the little band of enthusiasts who left this country for Jerusalem a few months ago to see Christ ‘appear in the clouds,’ and who, at last accounts, were reported to be starving, with no immediate prospect of a return to their homes ?” “L ector .” “Lector” takes an easy way to evade the force of Mr. Müller’s life witness. He contends that “the peculiarity” of his method, and the great “publicity” thus obtained, made him the “best advertised man in the Three Kingdoms,” and so money poured in upon him from all quarters. Thus the

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