the aggregate sum from
this "servant" reaches, up to March 1, 1898, a total of _eighty-one
thousand four hundred and ninety pounds eighteen shillings and
eightpence._ Mr. Wright, now that this "servant of the Lord Jesus" is
with his Master, who promised, "Where I am there shall also My servant
be," feels free to make known that this donor was no other than _George
Muller himself_ who thus gave out of his own money--money given to him
for his own use or left to him by legacies--the total sum of about
sixty-four thousand five hundred pounds to the Scriptural Knowledge
Institution, and, in other directions, seventeen thousand more.

This is a record of personal gifts to which we know no parallel. It
reminds us of the career of John Wesley, whose simplicity and frugality
of habits enabled him not only to limit his own expenditure to a very
small sum, but whose Christian liberality and unselfishness prompted him
to give all that he could thus save to purely benevolent
objects. While he had but thirty pounds a year, he lived on twenty-eight
and gave away forty shillings. Receiving twice as much the next year, he
still kept his living expenses down to the twenty-eight pounds and had
thirty-two to bestow on the needy; and when the third year his income
rose to ninety pounds, he spent no more than before and gave away
sixty-two. The fourth year brought one hundred and twenty, and he
disbursed still but the same sum for his own needs, having ninety-two to
spare. It is calculated that in the course of his life he thus gave away
at least thirty thousand pounds, and four silver spoons comprised all
the silver plate that he possessed when the collectors of taxes called
upon him. Such economy on the one hand and such generosity on the other
have seldom been known in human history. But George Muller's record will
compare favourably with this or any other of modern days. His frugality,
simplicity, and economy were equal to Wesley's, and his gifts aggregated
eighty-one thousand pounds. Mr. Muller had received increasingly large
sums from the Lord which he _invested_ well and most profitably, so that
for over sixty years he never lost a penny through a bad speculation!
But his investments were not in lands or banks or railways, but in the
_work of God._ He made friends out of the mammon of unrighteousness that
when he failed received him into everlasting habitations. He continued,
year after year, to make provision for himself, his belove