in a
kindred service, and to mould even the methods of his philanthropy, a
brief sketch of Francke's career may be helpful.

August H. Francke was Muller's fellow countryman. About 1696, at Halle
in Prussia, he had commenced the largest enterprise for poor children
then existing in the world. He trusted in God, and He whom he trusted
did not fail him, but helped him throughout abundantly.

The institutions, which resembled rather a large street than a building,
were erected, and in them about two thousand orphan children were
housed, fed, clad, and taught. For about thirty years all went on under
Francke's own eyes, until 1727, when it pleased the Master to call the
servant up higher; and after his departure his like-minded son-in-law
became the director. Two hundred years have passed, and these Orphan
Houses are still in existence, serving their noble purpose.

It is needful only to look at these facts and compare with Francke's
work in Halle George Muller's monuments to a prayer-hearing God on
Ashley Down, to see that in the main the latter work so far resembles
the former as to be in not a few respects its counterpart. Mr. Muller
began his orphan work a little more than one hundred years after
Francke's death; ultimately housed, fed, clothed, and taught over two
thousand orphans year by year; personally supervised the work for over
sixty years--twice as long a period as that of Francke's personal
management--and at his decease likewise left his like minded son-in-law
to be his successor as the sole director of the work. It need not be
added that, beginning his enterprise like Francke in dependence on God
alone, the founder of the Bristol Orphan Houses trusted from first to
last only in Him.

It is very noticeable how, when God is preparing a workman for a certain
definite service, He often leads him out of the beaten track into a path
peculiarly His own by means of some striking biography, or by contact
with some other living servant who is doing some such work, and
exhibiting the spirit which must guide if there is to be a true success.
Meditation on Franeke's life and work naturally led this man who was
hungering for a wider usefulness to think more of the poor homeless
waifs about him, and to ask whether he also could not plan under God
some way to provide for them; and as he was musing the fire burned.

As early as June 12, 1833, when not yet twenty-eight years old, the
inward flame began to find vent in a s