s narrative they should
appear in capitals to mark their prominence. And, of them all, that
'little gospel' in John iii. 16 is the first, for by it he found a full
salvation:

"GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD THAT HE GAVE HIS ONLY-BEGOTTEN SON, THAT
WHOSOEVER BELIEVETH IN HIM SHOULD NOT PERISH, BUT HAVE EVERLASTING
LIFE."

From these words he got his first glimpse of the philosophy of the plan
of salvation--why and how the Lord Jesus Christ bore our sins in His own
body on the tree as our vicarious Substitute and suffering Surety, and
how His sufferings in Gethsemane and Golgotha made it forever needless
that the penitent believing sinner should bear his own iniquity and die
for it.

Truly to grasp this fact is the beginning of a true and saving
faith--what the Spirit calls "laying hold." He who believes and knows
that God so loved him first, finds himself loving God in return, and
faith works by love to purify the heart, transform the life, and
overcome the world.

It was so with George Muller. He found in the word of God _one great
fact:_ the love of God in Christ. Upon that fact faith, not feeling,
laid hold; and then the feeling came naturally without being waited for
or sought after. The love of God in Christ constrained him to a
love--infinitely unworthy, indeed, of that to which it responded, yet
supplying a new impulse unknown before. What all his father's
injunctions, chastisements, entreaties, with all the urgent dictates of
his own conscience, motives of expediency, and repeated resolves of
amendment, utterly failed to effect, the love of God both impelled and
enabled him to do--renounce a life of sinful self-indulgence. Thus early
he learned that double truth, which he afterwards passionately loved to
teach others, that in the blood of God's atoning Lamb is the Fountain of
both forgiveness and cleansing. Whether we seek pardon for sin or power
over sin, the sole source and secret are in Christ's work for us.

The new year 1826 was indeed a _new year_ to this newborn soul. He now
began to read _missionary_ journals, which kindled a new flame in his
heart. He felt a yearning--not very intelligent as yet--to be himself a
messenger to the nations, and frequent praying deepened and confirmed
the impression. As his knowledge of the world-field enlarged, new facts
as to the destitution and the desolation of heathen peoples became as
fuel to feed this flame of the mission spirit.

A carnal attachment, however, for a