George Mueller (Golden Oldies S.) - Softcover

Bailey, Faith Coxe

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802400310 ISBN 13: 9780802400314

Verlag: MOODY PUBL, 1980

Inhaltsangabe

It began with George Mueller—rebellious, absorbed in the world and its pleasures.

It became George Mueller—miraculously transformed by the power of Christ, daring to dream a dream and to trust God to bring it to pass.

Discover the incredible true story of the man of faith who still inspires us today. Taking his biographical details and putting them in novel form, this short volume will stir your heart, move you to greater faith, and lead you to worship the God who answers prayer.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

FAITH COXE BAILEY is the author of D.L. Moody and George Mueller. Faith is now at home with her Lord.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

George Mueller

By Faith Coxe Bailey

Moody Publishers

Copyright © 1958 The Moody Bible Institute of Chicago
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-8024-0031-4

CHAPTER 1

When George Mueller heard the carriage door slam, he knew his father was very angry. George stopped, halfway down the broad stairs, waiting for the oak door to fling open. For two days now, he had been waiting for his father's carriage to race up, spitting the gravel on the Heimersleben Road—waiting more fretfully than fearfully, feeling like a prisoner in his own home.

The door swung back, and his father stamped in. "So, you young jailbird," his father roared up at him. "You don't even have the decency to hide."

George stared straight down into his father's face. "You might have paid my fine a lot faster," he said.

Now his father was at the bottom of the steps, his hand gripping the newel post. "And miss the chance to teach you a lesson in honesty and respect! Nein! Well, what did a month behind bars teach my son?"

George's lips tightened, the corners of his mouth quirked downward. He shrugged. "That the meals in German jails are terrible."

The newel post shuddered in Herr Mueller's hand. "But they're better in the village inns, ja? What did I raise—a common thief? Run up a bill and then sneak off without paying a penny!"

"Somebody didn't give you the facts, Father. One innkeeper took all my best clothes to pay for my room."

"So you try to escape out the window from the next one, eh? What were you thinking of?" "Just a good time. That's all."

"Maybe the police taught you about a good time. Also some respect for authority."

"Police! Ha!"

"You're a no-good at sixteen. If your mother were here—." Herr Mueller broke off. "Ach, she's been saved two years of misery. And where were you the night she died? Carousing around the street—drunk!"

Herr Mueller's arm flailed out, and he grabbed for a cane, hanging on a wall rack. Then he thundered up the stairs, two at a time. "Maybe this'll teach you respect for authority."

George stood stolidly on the stairs, not flinching, but within him a terrible rebellion boiled. Did one man have the right to cane another man? Servant and owner? Father and son? Why was there always someone to say, "Do this"? Father, teacher, innkeeper, police. Would it always be this way? Did it have to be? Then his father jerked him sideways, and he bounced against the wall.

"Show me something to respect!" George shouted. "You're nothing but a second-rate tax collector, grateful for the crumbs off the province table! I should respect you?"

The cane pointed straight up at the beamed ceiling. "I'll teach you!"

Watching it, George thought, "Some day I'll be free. Free of my father, free of every man, free—." The cane cut through the air with a whistle and sudden sharp pain. Again, and again, and again.

Back at school in Nordhausen, the caning and the springtime skirmish with the police were only unpleasant memories. And not entirely unpleasant. They made good telling over a mug of beer.

The next two years and a half slid by, with Latin, Hebrew, Greek, the Classics, and a good deal of beer at the Nordhausen village tavern. When George was nineteen, he was accepted at the University of Halle.

Walking up from the Halle railway station, clattering along over the cobblestones, sniffing the violets and the old books that sold side by side along the main street, he realized he was now officially a student of divinity, properly accepted by the Lutheran Church of Germany. It was his father's wish.

Even so, he felt freer than he ever had. Setting his knapsack on the pavement, he stopped to admire the sturdy old stone wall that cut the city in two, a leftover from medieval fortifications, he guessed. Well, the old wall wouldn't box him in. Divinity student or not, he would do exactly as he pleased.

One night, late that fall, the barmaid served the fourth round of beer to the students at the long table. Right across the road from the university, Der Grüner Tisch did a bustling business with students. The air under the rafters was choked with biting tobacco smoke, and three young men pounded on the long green table in wavering rhythm. Suddenly the door opened.

Somebody shouted, "Here's George Mueller. Now the fun starts. Only divinity student who pawns his watch to pay his card debts more often than he reads his Bible." Everybody laughed, and the table-pounders threatened to splinter the wood. George scraped a chair across the stone floor, squeezing into the crowd at the table.

"Herr Mueller who says he's studying to be a Lutheran minister. Don't listen to him. He's really a jailbird!"

"All right, Emil. They all know me. Where's my beer?" George squinted happily through the smoke along the table. Here were his university friends, his drinking companions since the fall. But at the end sat a stranger—a stranger who looked familiar.

"Emil, do I know everybody here tonight?"

"Ach, stupid me! Here is Beta. Down here. He's new. Beta, this is George Mueller, who just last week drank five quarts of beer at once and—."

Beta ducked his head to peer along the table. His voice had a hurried, eager sound. "I know George Mueller."

George stared back at the fellow, hearing him say, "Don't you remember? We went to school together." Swiftly, George flipped past classrooms in his mind. Halberstadt? Nordhausen? Why did the fellow sound so eager?

Then an unpleasant picture of a hymnbook and a Bible snapped into place. Now he remembered Beta! A goody-goody, if there ever was one. Wouldn't cheat on an exam. Went to church every Sunday. Didn't object to naming off your sins right to your face. Didn't drink! Yet there he was at Der Grüner Tisch with a mug of beer in front of him. George's lips tightened, and he looked the other way.

"Beta, of course, I remember now. Ah, there's my beer. Say, did I interrupt a story when I came in? Let's have the rest of it."

Actually, it was George who told the next story. "... so I just slung things around in my room and made it look like a real robbery. Everybody felt so sorry. Every one of them stopped in to say I didn't have to pay back a penny of my card debts. Besides, they took up a collection for me. So I doubled my money."

When Der Grüner Tisch closed long after midnight, George helped head the three table-pounders toward their lodgings, shouted good night to Emil and the rest, and started down the road alone. But to his surprise, Beta trotted right beside him.

All evening, the sight of the fellow had made George uneasy. He was sure he knew why. Now Beta said, "George, I want to be friends."

"I know." For a minute they clattered along the cobblestones in silence. Then George added, "So—do I." It was something that he hadn't admitted to himself until that minute. Now he knew that he didn't want to take the words back.

Beta grinned. "I'm surprised to hear it. When you knew me before—well, I guess I was a pill."

What was Beta saying?

"But everything's different now."

"Different?"

"Before, back at school, I—I looked up to you."

"Looked up to me? You called me a sinner."

Beta's words spilled out. "I envied you because you were so good at cards. Because you weren't scared of teachers, or police, while I hung around on the fringes. Going off to prayer meeting with my Bible."

George felt baffled, fooled. "You mean now you're through with prayer meetings and all that?"

"No, not through. But I want to live a little too....

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: MOODY PUBL
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1980
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0802400310
• ISBN 13: 9780802400314
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 160
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar