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PREACHING TOURS AND Missionary Labours OF GEORGE M?LLER

MRS. M?LLER.

LONDON: J. NISBET & CO., BERNERS STREET.

TO BE HAD ALSO IN BRISTOL, AT THE BIBLE AND TRACT WAREHOUSE OF THE SCRIPTURAL KNOWLEDGE INSTITUTION FOR HOME AND ABROAD, NO. 34, PARK STREET; AND THROUGH ALL BOOKSELLERS.

DRYDEN PRESS:

J. DAVY AND SONS, 137, LONG ACRE, LONDON.

ENTERED AT STATIONERS' HALL.

INTRODUCTION.

Before the perusal of this book is entered upon, it seems desirable that I should myself state to the reader, what led me to undertake these missionary tours. It may be well to refer also to the objects I had particularly in view in connection with them; to mention how far the desired result has been attained; and to notice a few other points relating to these journeys.

During many years the thought occurred to me again and again, that it might be the will of God I should seek to benefit His children and the unconverted, not through my publications only, but by ministering personally amongst them in other places besides Bristol; but my position as pastor of a large church, and as Director of a great Institution, which seemed to require my constant presence, for a long time put aside the thought. At last, however, when staying in the Isle of Wight in the autumn of 1874, finding that my preaching at Ventnor and Ryde had been unusually blessed and valued, I judged, that, having very efficient fellow labourers in the Church at Bristol, I could be spared, and that my absence would not be particularly felt. With reference to the work on Ashley Down, too, as Mr. Wright had for many years been an able helper in connection with it; as he had by that time been appointed Co-Director of the Institution; and as I had laboured in word and doctrine in Bristol for forty-three years; it was laid upon my heart to go from city to city, and from country to country, in order to benefit both the Church of Christ and the world at large, by my ministry and experience. Accordingly, after much prayer and waiting upon God, I decided upon devoting a very considerable portion of my time habitually to this service, as long as health and strength should be continued to me.

The objects I have in view in undertaking these tours are the following:--

In these nine long missionary tours, I have gladly embraced every opportunity also of having meetings with ministers and pastors of Churches, both for the sake of encouraging them in their service, and that I might benefit them through my own experience of fifty-seven years in the ministry of the Word. I have availed myself too of every opportunity of addressing students in Universities, Theological Seminaries, and Colleges, and have had opportunities likewise of addressing 1,000 or 1,500 Christian workers at a time, and of seeking to benefit them by my experience. This kind of work I have now been able to do in twenty-two different countries; for after having spent a considerable time in such labour in England, Scotland, and Ireland, I was led in the providence of God to Switzerland, Germany, Holland, France, Spain, Italy, Canada, the United States, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor, Turkey, Greece, Austria, Hungary, Bohemia, Russia, and Russian Poland.

It now remains only, that I say a few words regarding the photograph, which is given in this book.

"Nay; disable thine enemy--there is no need to kill him. All the same," Lord Peterborough continued drily, "King William broke you for challenging and almost killing a superior officer."

"King William is dead. Death pays all debts."

"I would it did! There are a-many who will not forgive me when I am dead."

"Queen Anne reigns, the Earl of Marlborough is at the head of the army. My lord, I want employment; I want to be in this campaign. Oh, cousin Mordaunt," Bevill Bracton said, with a break in his voice, "you cannot know how I desire to be a soldier once again, and fighting for my religion, my country, and the Queen. To be moving, to be a living man--not an idler. I have never parted with this," and he touched the hilt of the sword by his side, "help me; give me the right; find me the way to draw it once more as a soldier."

"How to find the way! There's the rub. Marlborough and I are none too much of cater-cousins now. We do not saddle our horses together. And he is--will be--supreme. If you would get a fresh guidon you had best apply to him."

"Even though I may have no guidon nor have any commission, still there will surely be volunteers, and I may go as one."

"There will be volunteers," Lord Peterborough said, still drily, "and I, too, shall go as one."

"You!"

"But when--when?" Bevill Bracton asked eagerly.

"When they have had time to flounder in the mire; when Ginkell--I mean my Lord Athlone--has, good honest Dutchman as he is, fuddled himself with his continual schnapps drinking; or when Jack Churchill, sweet as his temper is and well under control, can bear no more contradictions and cavillings from his brother commanders. Then--then Charles Mordaunt will be looked to again; then--for I can cast my own horoscope as well as any hag can do it for me--I shall be invited to put my hand in my pocket, to stake my life on some almost impossible venture, to give them the advice that, when I attempt to offer it, they never care to take."

"But--but," Bevill said, "the time! The time!"

"'Twill come. Only you are young, impatient, hot-headed. I am almost old, yet I am the same sometimes--but you will not wait. What's to do, therefore?"

"I cannot think nor dream--oh, that I could!"

"Then listen to me. 'Tis not the way of the world to do so until it is too late; in your case you may be willing. Do you know Marlborough?"

"As the subaltern knows the general, not being known by him. But no more."

"That's very true; you must be there. There! there! Let me see for it. Where are the charts?" and Lord Peterborough went towards a great table near the window, which was all littered with maps and plans that made the whole heterogeneous mass look more like a battlefield itself after a battle than aught else.

"Bah!" his lordship went on, picking up first a plan and then a chart, and throwing them down again. "Catalonia, Madrid, Barcelona, Cadiz. No good! no good! Marlborough will not be there. The war may roll, must roll, towards Spain, yet 'tis not in Spain that he will be. But Holland--Brabant--Flanders. Ha!" he cried at the two latter names. "Brabant--Flanders. And--why did I not think of it?--she is there, and there's the chance, and--and, fool that I am! for the moment I had forgotten it."

"Sit down," Lord Peterborough said now, in a marvellously calm, a suddenly calm, voice. "Sit down. I had forgotten my manners when I failed to ask you to do so earlier."

"Ah, cousin Mordaunt, no matter for the manners at such a moment as this. Alas! you set my blood on fire when you speak of where the war will be, of where it must be, and then--then--you pour a douche of chill cold water over me by talking of women--of a woman."

"Or?"

"She may lead to your undoing. Listen again."

Had there been any onlooker or any listener at that interview now taking place in the old house at Parson's Green, either the eyes of the one or the ears of the other could not have failed to be impressed by what they saw or heard.

Above all, no observer could have failed to be impressed by the character of the elder man, Charles Mordaunt, Earl of Peterborough and Monmouth, who, although so outwardly calm, was in truth all fire within.

As still Lord Peterborough foraged among the mass of papers on the table, turning over one after the other, and sometimes half a dozen together, Bevill Bracton recognised that he was seeking for some particular scroll or document amidst the confused heap.

"What is it, my lord?" the young man asked. "Can I assist you?"

"Nay. If I cannot find what I want for myself, 'tis very certain none can do it for me. Ah!" he suddenly exclaimed, pouncing down like an eagle on a large, square piece of paper which was undoubtedly a letter. "Ah! here 'tis. A letter from the woman who is to give you your chance."

"You will do so in time. Bevill," his lordship went on, "do you remember some ten years ago, before you got your colours in the Cuirassiers and, consequently, before you lost them, a little child who played about out there?" and the Earl's eyes were directed towards the great tulip tree on the lawn.

"Neither; her name was Sylvia, and is so still--Sylvia Thorne."

"Sylvia Thorne--ay, that is it. She promised to become passing fair."

"She is passing fair--or was, when I saw her last, two years ago. She is not vastly altered if I may judge by this," and Lord Peterborough went to a cabinet standing by one of the windows and, after opening a drawer, came back holding in his hand a miniature.

"Regard her," he said to Bracton, as he handed him the miniature; "learn to know what Sylvia Thorne is like. Learn to know the form and features of the woman who may lead to restoring you to all you would have, or--you are brave, so I may say it--send you to your doom."

"Why," Bracton exclaimed while looking at the miniature and, in actual fact, scarce hearing Lord Peterborough's words, so occupied was he, "she is beautiful. Tall, stately, queen-like, lovely. Can that little child have grown to this in ten years?"

In absolute fact the encomiums the young man passed upon the form and features that met his eye were well deserved.

The miniature, a large one, displayed a full, or almost full length portrait of a young woman of striking beauty. It depicted a young woman whose head was not yet disfigured by any wig, so that the dark chestnut hair, in which there was now and again a glint of that ruddy gold such as the old Venetians loved to paint, waved free and unconfined above her forehead. And the eyes were as Bevill Bracton recalled them, grey, and shrouded with long dark lashes. Only, now, they were the eyes of a woman, or one who was close on the threshold of womanhood, and not those of a little child; while a straight, small nose and a small mouth on which there lurked a smile that had in it something of gravity, if not of sadness, completed the picture. As for her form, she was indeed "more than common tall," and, since there was no suspicion of hoop beneath the rich black velvet dress she wore, Bracton supposed that it was donned for some ball or festival.

"She is beautiful!" he exclaimed again. "Beautiful!"

"Ay, and good and true," Lord Peterborough said. "Look deep into those eyes and see if any lie is hidden therein; look on those lips and ponder if they are highroads through which falsehood is like to pass."

"It is impossible. If the eyes are the windows of the soul, as poets say, then truth, and naught but truth, shelters behind them. And this is Sylvia Thorne But still--still--I do not comprehend. How shall she bring me before my Lord Marlborough? How advance my hopes and desires? Stands she so high that she has power with him?"

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