George Müller |
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| (All photographs in this section are used with kind permission ofTthe George Müller Foundation, unless otherwise stated.) | |
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Young George was always in trouble! One day his father became very suspicious that George had been stealing again. He made him empty his pockets and discovered the stolen money hidden in his socks. George Müller was popular with the children in his school in the Prussian town of Heimersleben, where his father was the tax collector, but his friends were not a good influence. He grew worse, lying, stealing, gambling, and frequently getting drunk. When 16 years old, he was caught by the police and spent nearly a month in prison. Nothing changed when he went to Halle University until, when he was 18, he had become sick and tired of the way he was living and decided to become a Christian. The change was dramatic and he was so keen to tell others about this that very soon he decided to become a missionary. |
| He travelled to London for Bible training but after several years became very ill. He was advised to move to the West Country to recover, and it was at Teignmouth that the plans for his life changed yet again: Here he married Mary Groves, and met Henry Craik who was to become a life-long friend. In Devon, both George and Henry served as Pastors of small chapels and, unlike most Pastors, decided not to accept any salary but to ask God to supply their needs without telling anyone else about them. |
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George Müller |
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In 1832, they moved to Bristol to share in the care of two large chapels there, and they followed this same principle there, and did so for the rest of their lives. In 1834, Müller set up the Scriptural Knowledge Institution (S.K.I,) to provide practical support for missionaries.
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George Müller's first church in Bristol |
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