George Muller
1805 – 1898
George Muller was born and raised in Prussia, and lived in sin and crime even while studying for the ministry of the state church. He was converted at a prayer meeting in a private home, and from that time his life was changed. Muller moved to England and there sought acceptance by the London Missionary Society as a missionary to the Orient. After his rejection he began preaching and ministering wherever the door was opened.
His preaching led him to Bristol, where in 1834 he founded the Scriptural Knowledge Institution for Home and Abroad. One year later he opened his first orphans’ home for twenty-six girls, even though he had no financial assistance. By 1870 he had built five large orphans’ homes and was feeding 2,100 orphans daily. He solicited no financial help and told only the Lord of the daily needs. Only born-again Christians were accepted for service in the institutions. Many children were won to Christ each year.
The Scriptural Knowledge Institution also was instrumental in sending missionaries, Bibles, and Gospel literature around the world. The various schools operated by the institution matriculated over 121,000 students, with thousands of them receiving Christ while in the schools. The institution distributed almost three hundred thousand Bibles in different languages in addition to one and one-half million New Testaments. One hundred and sixty-three missionaries were sent out and/or supported, and over 111 million tracts distributed. In all, in a period of sixty-three years God poured out in response to the faith and prayers of George Müller over seven and one-half million dollars for the spreading of the Gospel.
Muller read the Bible through over two hundred times, half of that on his knees, where he claimed the promise, “Open wide thy mouth and I will fill it.” He spent his last seventeen years touring the world, telling of the blessing of a life of faith. Müller died at the age of ninety-three, leaving an estate valued at less than one thousand dollars. He had given back to the Institute almost one-half million dollars of personal gifts received during seventy years of ministry.