#and d) it's been at least 14 years since his daughter became an adult and even in the case of divorce his wife couldn't have taken her away

[darkpoisonouslove]

"I loved [the mother of my children] since I met her"

Then why the fuck did you marry another woman?!?!?!?!

[corkcitylibraries]

Frederick Douglass Series | Part 2

Frederick Douglass escaped slavery as a young adult in 1838 and became an influential leader in the struggle for abolition and women’s suffrage. His dedication to and passion for the protection of human rights brought about transformations in the US constitution.

This year marks the 175th anniversary of Frederick Douglass’ visit to Ireland.

Douglass Week, which runs from 8-14 February 2021, coinciding with Frederick Douglass’ assumed birthday, commemorates this revolutionary man’s visit to Cork.

Cork City Libraries will publish a four-part series, during Douglass Week. This series will chronicle Frederick Douglass’ childhood, his experience as a slave and escape from slavery, his time in Ireland and, in particular, Cork, his two wives, his meeting with Daniel O’Connell and his achievements as an abolitionist, orator and suffragist.

  Frederick Douglass in Ireland

by Mary Horgan

 Frederick Douglass, 1845 – a whole-plate daguerreotype, which he had taken shortly before his visit to Ireland (from Picturing Frederick Douglass:  An Illustrated Biography of the Nineteenth Century’s Most Photographed American)

 In 1845, shortly after the publication of Frederick Douglass’ first autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written By Himself, the American Anti-Slavery Society sent the 27-year-old, as a lecturing agent, on a very successful two-year tour of Great Britain and Ireland to forge stronger links with their anti-slavery movements and to attract new supporters to the abolition cause. Also, he was advised to leave America for his own safety. As Douglass was still considered a fugitive slave under the Constitution of the United States, he lived in the constant knowledge that he could be returned to bondage at any time.  Anti-slavery societies in various parts of Great Britain and Ireland were working to enlighten the public mind on the subject of slavery as well as raising funds to aid fugitive slaves as they tried to make good their escape north on the Underground Railroad – a network of secret routes and safe houses - to free states and to Canada.

Soon after his arrival in Dublin on 31 August 1845, Douglass wrote to friends in America: “I am safe in old Ireland, in the beautiful city of Dublin.”   He began his four-month visit to Ireland at the home of James Webb and his family, near Trinity College.  James’ brother, the Quaker anti-slavery activist, Richard Davis Webb was a friend of American abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison and an important link between British, Irish and American anti-slavery activists.  Webb was a founding member of the Hibernian Anti-Slavery Society in 1837 and had founded a printing company in Dublin, in 1828, publishing works from various philanthropic, social and political organisations.  In late September 1845, Webb published the first Irish edition of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass with a print run of 2000, which would be sold at Douglass’ various speaking engagements throughout the country.  It contained the following notice of recommendation for Douglass from the Hibernian Anti-Slavery Society.  

  A notice of recommendation for Douglass from the Hibernian Anti-Slavery Society, Richard D. Webb, Secretary (from Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written By Himself.  Dublin: Webb and Chapman, 1845, Special Collections, UCC Library).

 After a month in Dublin where he gave a number of lectures and met Daniel O’Connell, whom he greatly admired, Douglass travelled onto Wexford and Waterford before arriving in Cork.  Though Cork’s 18th/early 19th century economy had benefited through trade links from the existence of slavery in the West Indies, Cork also had a committed Anti-Slavery Society (CASS).  It was formed on 6 January 1826, by the Quaker, Joshua Beale, at the Assembly Rooms in George’s Street (now Oliver Plunkett Street).   CASS was ecumenical in its membership; as well as Quakers and other protestant dissenters including Unitarian Presbyterians and Methodists, it also attracted members of the Established Church of Ireland as well as Roman Catholics.  After the abolition of slavery in the West Indies in 1833, CASS turned its attention to working for the abolition of slavery in the American South.  Its auxiliary branch, the Cork Ladies Anti-Slavery Society (CLASS) collected contributions for Bazaars organised by the American Anti-Slavery Society.  The following is an appeal from Cork Ladies Anti-Slavery Society for contributions for the Twelfth Annual Bazaar in 1845.

 Appeal from Cork Ladies Anti-Slavery Society

A visit by Douglass to Cork was organized by the Cork Anti-Slavery Society (CASS) and its auxiliary branch, the Cork Ladies Anti-Slavery Society (CLASS). On arrival in Cork on 10 October 1845, Douglass went to stay with Thomas and Ann Jennings and their eight children at 9 Brown Street, where he enjoyed the lively family atmosphere and stimulating discussions which helped to make his time in Cork such a personal highlight of his two year tour of Great Britain and Ireland.  Thomas owned the Jennings Soda-Water Factory at 11/12 Brown Street.  Brown Street is no longer in existence but at the time of Frederick’s visit, it ran through what is now the Paul Street Shopping Centre down towards the River Lee.  One of the daughters of the family, 32-year-old Isabel, was Secretary of the Cork Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society and her sisters Charlotte and Hannah also attended its weekly meetings.  Isabel arranged Douglass’ speaking engagements, so she was soon able to report to Maria Weston Chapman of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society that his lectures in Cork had been such a success that:

“There never was a person who made a greater sensation in Cork amongst all religious bodies  . . . He feels like a friend whom we had long known, and I think before he goes we will quite understand one another”.

Her sister Jane was equally impressed writing to Mrs Chapman:

“We are a large family, my mother, three brothers and five sisters, generally considered not easily pleased – but Frederick won the affection of every one of us.”

(Letters from the Jennings family to Maria Weston Chapman held at Boston Public Library)

 During Douglass’ time in Cork, nearly 250 copies of the Narrative of Frederick Douglass were sold in the city, which were on sale in bookshops such as Purcell & Co and Bradford & Co on Patrick Street. So successful was the first Irish edition that a second was published in early 1846.  Douglass’ busy schedule in Cork involved at least thirteen lectures with people turning out in droves to hear him.  In a series of lectures at the Wesleyan Chapel, the Court House, the Temperance Institute, Lloyd’s Hotel, the Imperial Hotel and the Independent Chapel, Douglass’ powerful oratorical skills drew a wide cross-section of Cork society.  He spoke at temperance meetings as well as abolitionist meetings, where he would leave his audiences in no uncertainty about the evils of slavery. On Tuesday 14 October, he gave a breakfast speech at Lloyd’s Hotel, George’s Street, (now Casey’s, Oliver Plunkett Street) where he reminded his audience:

“You will remember that I was a slave . . . that I am still a slave according to the law of the State from which I ran, and according to the General Government of the States of North America”.  

(from Cork Examiner, 15 October, 1845).

One of his Cork speeches was reprinted in an American abolitionist newspaper with the following warning:

“Southern slaveholders read the following proceeding, if you wish to know what are the feelings of the People of Ireland, in reference to your nefarious slave system.”

(from The Liberator newspaper).

During Douglass’ time in Cork, he became friendly with the then Mayor of Cork, 51-year-old Richard Dowden, a Unitarian, philanthropist and member of the Cork Anti-Slavery Society. Dowden later ran the Jennings Soda-Water Factory after the death of Thomas Jennings.  

  Richard Dowden, Mayor of Cork, 1845 (JCHAS, 1992)

Douglass attended the Unitarian Church, Princes Street with Richard Dowden. This church is listed as the oldest place of continuous worship in the city since it was opened in 1717.  Dowden was closely associated with Father Theobald Mathew, often fundraising for the ’Apostle of Temperance’ and it was in this church that Father Mathew signed the Temperance Agreement in 1839.  Fr Mathew attained national and international prominence for his temperance crusade of the 1830s and 1840s and Douglass was already a great admirer of Fr Mathew when he came to Ireland. Soon after his arrival in Cork, he attended a Temperance soirée with music, dancing and fireworks at the Cork Temperance Institute, Academy Street, to mark Fr Mathew’s fifty-fifth birthday.

Opening of the Cork Temperance Institute, London Illustrated News, 1845 www.corkpastandpresent.ie  

Shortly after this, Fr Mathew invited him to breakfast at his home at 7 Cove Street, which Douglass described as being of “all of a very plain order . . . too plain, for so great a man”.  Though Douglass had been teetotal for eight years, he was moved to renew his pledge to abstain from alcohol from Fr Mathew, writing:

“So entirely charmed by the goodness of this truly good man was I, that I besought him to administer the pledge to me . . . “

On 20 October, Douglass spoke at Cork Temperance Institute, on ‘Intemperance and Slavery’.   Only a few years later, Douglass would be greatly disappointed in Fr Mathew.  Though he was a supporter of the anti-slavery cause, Fr Mathew refused to attend anti-slavery rallies or to speak out against slavery when on tour of the United States in 1849.   In Douglass’ newspaper, The North Star, he wrote: “We had fondly hoped, from an acquaintance with Fr Mathew . . . that he would not change his morality by changing his location . . . We are however grieved, humbled and mortified to know that HE too, has fallen”.   Fr Mathew felt he had to prioritize his temperance crusade and that to condemn slave owners during his visit to the United States would lose his campaign much support.  

 Cork Examiner, 13 October 1845

This is an advertisement for a lecture titled, ‘I am Here to Spread Light on American Slavery’ at the Court House, Great George’s Street, (now Washington Street), on the following afternoon.  The Cork Examiner, 15 October 1845, reported that “The Grand Jury Gallery was thronged with ladies, who seemed to take the liveliest interest in the proceedings” and went on to praise the two-hour lecture as being “one of the most eloquent and impressive discourses we ever heard”.      

On Friday 17 October, Douglass delivered a two-hour lecture at the Wesleyan Chapel, St Patrick’s Street,  titled ‘Slavery Corrupts American Society and Religion’  in which he was critical of different Protestant groups in America for their lack of support for the anti-slavery cause.  In Ireland, he drew people from diverse backgrounds to hear him, cutting across social, religious and political divides.  As well as those from the more affluent sections of Cork society, “the suffering poor”, as they were referred to by the Cork Examiner, also came in great numbers.  Douglass was adept at being able to tailor his speeches to the different audiences.  For instance, when speaking at the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, he refrained from mentioning Daniel O’Connell at all, but at the Court House, where many in the audience were from the Roman Catholic working class, he extolled the man they called ‘The Liberator’, saying that they felt “more sympathy with the slave than did the other sects”.

(Cork Examiner, 15 October 1845).

 Cork Constitution, 21 October 1845

Douglass’ final public appearance in Cork was at the Independent Chapel, George’s Street (now Oliver Plunkett Street) on 3 November 1845.  This chapel which was built between 1826 and 1831, on the site of the old Assembly Rooms, was the chapel of the Congregationalists, who were also known as Independents because they believed in liberty of conscience and the independence of each congregation.

 The remains of the Independent Chapel today behind Euro Giant , Oliver Plunkett St.,  www.corkpastandpresent.ie

 A number of placards including one which read Céad Míle Fáilte decorated the room.  Ralph Varian, the secretary of the Cork Anti-Slavery Society read an Address to Frederick Douglass:

“ . . . In the happy hours of social intercourse which we have enjoyed in your society, a further opportunity has been afforded us of becoming acquainted with the details of that abominable system of savage law, and degraded public sentiment by which three millions of human beings are held in bodily and menial bondage yoked to the oar of American Freedom.  Never were we so impressed with the horrors of the system, as while listening to one, who was himself born subject to the lash and fetter  . . .  yet who is so gifted, as he to whom we dedicate this Address, with high [ ], intellectual, and spiritual power, together with so much refinement of mind and manners.

Allow us to say that in estimating the pleasures and advantages which your visit has conferred upon us – we value highly those derivable from your excellent Anti-Slavery work – the unpretending memoir of your escape from chattled bondage to the liberty and light of a moral and intellectual being. While perusing it, we have been charmed to the end by the power of simple truth, and warm and genuine feeling . . . “

Extract from an ‘Address to Frederick Douglass from the Anti-Slavery Society of Cork’

Cork Examiner, 7 November 1845

 A verse, ‘Céad Míle Fáilte to the Stranger’ was composed for the occasion by local poet, Daniel Casey, and sung by those in attendance:

 “Stranger from a distant nation

We welcome thee with acclamation

And, as a brother warmly greet thee –

Rejoiced in Erin’s Isle to meet thee

Then Cead Mille Failthe to the stranger,

Free from bondage, chains and danger.

 Who could have heard thy hapless story,

Of tyrants – canting, base and gory;

Whose heart throbbed not with deep

pulsation

 Oh! Why should different hue or feature

Prevent the sacred laws of Nature,

And every tie of feeling sever? –

The voice of Nature thunders ‘Never!’

 Then borne o’er the Atlantic waters

The cry of Erin’s sons and daughters

For freedom shall henceforth be blended

Till Slavery’s hellish reign be ended.”

 (by Daniel Casey)

 In return, Douglass was moved to sing an old abolition song.  In his reply to the Address, he thanked the Cork press for reporting his words, saying:

“I did not expect the high position that I enjoy during my stay in the City of Cork . . .  I want the Americans to know that in the good city of Cork, I ridiculed their nation - I attempted to excite the utter contempt of the people here upon them”.

(Cork Examiner, 7 November 1845)

Mayor Richard Dowden gave Douglass a signet ring, on behalf of the city, to symbolize the relationship between Frederick and people of Cork.   On the next leg of his Irish tour, Douglass sent a letter of heartfelt thanks to Dowden on 11 November 1845.

Letter from Frederick Douglass to Richard Dowden (part) (Courtesy of Cork City and County Archives)

 The following is a transcription of part of the letter which is now held at Cork City and County Archives.  

              “I speak just what I feel – and what all who are acquainted with the facts will confess to be true, when I say that to yours and the deep interest which the Miss Jennings took in me and my mission, I am almost entirely indebted for the success which attended my humble efforts while in the good City of Cork.  I shall ever remember my visit with pleasure, and never shall I think of Cork without remembering that yourself and the kind friends just named constituted the source from whence flowed much of the light, life and warmth of humanity which I found in that good City . . .

. . . I received the token of your esteem which you sent, I have it on the little finger of my right hand, I never wore one- or had the disposition to do so before, I shall wear this, and prize it as the representative of the holy feelings with which you espoused and advocated my humble cause”.

Douglass wrote of his time in Ireland as being transformative.  As he was about to leave Ireland, he wrote from Belfast the following to William Lloyd Garrison:

“I have been here a little more than four months . . . I can truly say, I have spent some of the happiest moments of my life since landing in this country.  I seem to have undergone a transformation, I live a new life”.

(Letter of 1 January 1846, The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass).

 Douglass continued his anti-slavery lectures in England and Wales throughout the rest of 1846 and early 1847.  On his return to the U.S in April 1847, he published newspapers and further autobiographies.  He provided aid for fugitive slaves.  During the Civil War, he campaigned for the rights of African Americans to enlist in the Union Army.   He was consulted by President Lincoln and later presidents, from whom he received several political appointments.   Throughout his life, Douglass was also a great supporter of equal rights for women.  

 In 1887, Douglass made a short return trip to Dublin to “once more look into the faces and hear the voices of the few remaining friends who gave me sympathy and support during my visit 41 years ago”.  He visited the family of Richard Webb, the abolitionist and publisher, who had died in 1872.

Frederick Douglass in Killiney, Co. Dublin, 1887, when he visited the Webb family. (from Picturing Frederick Douglass: An Illustrated Biography of the Nineteenth Century’s Most Photographed American)

On return to Washington D.C., Douglass spoke in favour of Irish Home Rule.  

Frederick Douglass died of a heart attack near Washington D.C. on 20 February 1895 after attending a meeting of the Women’s National Council.

 Bibliography:

Douglass, F.,  Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself, Webb & Chapman, Dublin, 1845. (Special Collections, UCC)

Douglass, F.,  Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An  American Slave, Written by Himself, Norton & Co., New York, 1997.

Fenton, L., Frederick Douglass in Ireland: ‘The Black O’Connell’. Ulverscroft, Leicester, 2015.

Foner, P. ed), The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglas, International Publishers, New York, 1987.

Kinealy, C., Frederick Douglass and Ireland: In His Own Words, Vol. 1, Routledge, New York, 2018.

Stauffer, J., Trodd, Z., Bernier, C., Picturing Frederick Douglass:  An Illustrated Biography of the Nineteenth Century’s Most Photographed American, Norton & Co., New York, 2018.

 Ferreira, Patricia J., ‘Frederick Douglass in Ireland: The Dublin Edition of His “Narrative”’, New Hibernia Review, Vol. 5, No. 1, Spring, 2001.

Harrison, Richard S., ‘The Cork Anti-Slavery Society, its Antecedents and Quaker Background 1755-1859’, JCHAS, 1992.  

Jenkins, Lee, ‘Beyond the Pale: Frederick Douglass in Cork’, The Irish Review, No. 24, Autumn, 1999.

Quinn, John F., “Safe in Old Ireland”: Frederick Douglass’s Tour, 1845-1846’, The Historian, Vol. 64, Spring/Summer, 2002.

Cork Constitution

Cork Examiner

The North Star

www.corkpastandpresent.ie

Follow us here on Tumblr or follow us on Facebook and Twitter to keep up to date.

[billgavemeextrachips]

How's about 14 for Chummy and Fred?

Excellent request, @nunonabun! Ask and ye shall receive. :-)

Also, @callthemoonbeam, I am brainstorming a reply to your ask as well. I love how I reblog a list of friendship prompts and get nothing but Chummy-and-Fred requests. Truly, this is my wheelhouse. :-D

That’s Not How I Remember It

After he didn’t make the cut for grammar school, Freddiehad started helping Mr. Buckle with repairs around Nonnatus House. The oldfamily friend became more than just Freddie’s mentor in plumbing, woodworkingand gardening. The pair were soon good friends in their own right.

In June 1974, overa busted pipe, the elder Fred admitted to the younger that the upcoming AnnualBuckle-Gee-Jackson-Smart-Dooley-Foster Multi-Generational Weekend CampingExtravaganza was… not shaping up to be extravagant.

“Vi’s back can’t take a night on an RV pull-out sofa. Marlene and her crew ‘aven’t turned up since ’68, no matter‘ow many times I ask. Vi’s grandkids all say they can’t come, they got summerjobs. Betcha ‘alf of ‘em are slinkin’ off to the woods that same weekend wivfriends, smokin’ all sorts a things and listenin’ to sumfink anarchist, like…”he shrugged. 

“Like Pink Floyd,” Freddie volunteered eagerly. “OrJethro Tull, or-” 

“Righ’, yeah,” the older Fred grunted from behind hiscigar. “All vem, I reckon. Anyways, it’s jus’ me and Reggie, and your AuntieDolly and ‘er four.” He sighed. “But we’ll make a good show of it. For the youngertwo’s sakes, at least.”

“I feel bad for him,” Freddie told his family oversupper that evening. “You should hear how he talks about the trips a few yearsback. They had twenty-two people in 1968! And now it’s down to seven. It bums himout, I think. He really likes planning big, fun events for lots of people.” 

But Freddie knew of someone else with a tendencytowards grand plans. After the dishes were cleared, Dad and the other kidssettled in front of the telly. Freddie went into the dining room, and sat downacross from Mum and her trusty old Singer.

Chummy stopped the sewing machine. She could sense heroldest had something to say. She looked up, blinking as her eyes adjusted tothe other half of her thick bifocals.

“Freddie, is everything alright?”

“I thought it might be nice if we went with them,” heblurted. “The Buckles. Camping. We all get on well, and I think they’d like thecompany.”

“I rather agree,” she said.

“But the thing is, Mr. Buckle’s too proud to inviteus, and we can’t just invite ourselves…”

“Quite right,” his mother smiled. “I shall speak toMrs. Buckle. If she approves of your plan, she can nudge old Fred into it. She’llprobably have him thinking it was his idea all along!”

This is precisely what happened. Two weeks later, theypacked Fred’s RV with supplies, and the Smart and Noakes kids piled into theback of a rented van. Peter couldn’t get off work that weekend, and Dolly andher husband had separated years ago. That left four adults- Fred, Reggie,Chummy and Dolly- in charge of seven children between the ages of twelve and sixteen.

“It’ll be like Scouts all over again. Akela andBagheera, reining in the chaos,” Peter teased his wife. They drew close,holding hands, and he gave her a peck on the cheek. He would have liked to giveher a grander send-off, but they were both mindful of their adolescentaudience.

It was a two-hour drive to the campsite in Sussex. (Notcounting the half hour at the petrol station, picking out snacks and makingsure everyone had a chance to use the loo.) Fred drove the RV, with Dolly ashis “co-pilot.” If Chummy had to guess, Fred was taking their time alone to tryand assess what sort of help, both practical and financial, he could give Dollyand her children. It was a fraught ritual that occurred periodically between all caring fathers and their grown daughters. Particularly if the daughter had gottenless in life than the father thought she deserved.

The van was much livelier. Chummy drove, Reggie wasthe keeper of the radio, and behind them the children practically bounced off thewalls. The Smart children were remarkably nonchalant about Bea’s arms. PerhapsDolly had briefed them ahead of time, or they were open-minded towardsdisability because of their cousin Reggie. Either way, Bea was still putting onsome of her new-crowd bravado, trying to prove the “thalidomide girl” was notjust normal, but great fun too.

The van crept down the tree-shaded dirt roadinto the campsite. Even as they parked, Bea continued leading the others in a radio sing-along.Chummy switched off the ignition but left the radio on.

“Ah, Mater! WantJet to always love me. Ah, Mater! Much later…”

“That’s a weird name.” Jackie Smart, the youngest,wrinkled her nose. “You reckon Paul’s got a friend called Mater, or did he make it up?”

“Mater’s not a name, silly!” said her older sister,Sam. “It’s what posh people say instead of ‘Mum’!”

“That’s not true! You’re puttin’ us on!”

Fred had disembarked the RV and was approachingChummy’s open window when he overheard this. He broke into a crooked grin.

“It is true, Jackie. Why, Mrs. Noakes ‘ere ‘ad a‘Mater’, God rest her soul. I met her when Mrs. Noakes and Mr. Noakes gotmarried, I did.”

“Tell ‘em about the sandwiches, Mr. Buckle,” Freddiepiped up. “And the bridesmaids in nurses’ uniforms!”

“Bridesmaids in what?”squealed Diane, the middle Smart girl.

The four girls dissolved into their umpteenth gigglefit today. Tony Smart groaned, rolled his eyes, then shoved his way to the vandoor. Chummy’s middle son Davey followed suit. As the girls began peltingChummy with questions, her son Freddie caught her eye in the rearview mirror.He looked apologetic. So did her old friend Fred, for that matter.

Yes, there was a time when she would have been bashful-but that was many years ago. Before she’d explained Bea’s disability tocountless gawking strangers, and advocated her daughter’s needs to dozens ofdoctors. Before she’d taken Freddie’s teachers aside year after year, managingto persuade only some of them: He’s reallyquite bright. And he’s not hard of hearing- well, not exactly. He just needspeace and quiet to understand. Or if you could just write everything down…

A trip down Memory Lane would be a cakewalk comparedto that. Chummy smiled as she tuckedher salt-and-pepper hair behind her ears, got out of the van and stretched herlong legs.

“What are camping trips for, if not for old stories? Butwe must set up the pup tents first. Once that’s done and dusted, Grandpa Bucklecan tell you all about my wedding.” She grinned wickedly. “And then I’ll tell you all about Evie, GrandpaBuckle’s beloved pet pig.”

The kids cackled. Reggie beamed. “I’ll tell them aboutthe flowers in your garden!” he said.

“Ooh I’ve got one!” cried Dolly as she hopped downfrom the RV. “Do they know the story of the day Sam and Freddie were born?”

“Or how her Grandpa initially mistook poor Samanthafor a little boy?” Chummy teased.

“That’s not how I remember it!” Fred shook his head,chuckling. “I’ll go and get the tents.”

[sincerelyensouled]

1-10 w mozzy!

So many questions! this is gonna be a long post, thank you

Oh yeah, Mozzy’s a D&D character, I don’t think I mentioned that before. She’s a elf/tiefling Ranger

1. What’s their full name? Why was that chosen? Does it mean anything?

!!! Yes I was hoping to be asked this because I’m really proud of this!

Mozaic “Mozzy” Denova Kamajd

Her first name is an alternative spelling of the word “mosaic,” a word her mother often uses to fondly refer to their family. Mozzy was the first (and only) child to be born into the family after her mother and her father married and brought all the kids together so in a way she’s kind of seen as the glue that brought them all together. Her middle name has no special meaning.

Her last name is interesting too. She’s the only child of both her mother and her father and neither of her parents have a last name (Her father had to abandon his for safety and her mother …. I haven’t decided why her mother doesn’t have one) and all her siblings used the last names of either or both of their other parents (some are half-siblings, some are fully adopted.) So Mozzy’s last name is a re-jumble of all her siblings’ names. 

2. Do they have any titles? How did they get them?

A nickname most, if not all, of her siblings call her is “Tiny” because she’s the baby of the family.

Tornado - because she’s a wurlwind, kinda messy, always moving forward and quickly

Sharp Shooter - she shoots good

3. Did they have a good childhood? What are fond memories they have of it? What’s a bad memory? 

Mozzy had a really good childhood! Hi-lights for her are probably the way the family celebrates birthdays. The entire family goes to the same local restaurant, and when I say entire I mean entire, those who have moved out will come back and visit for birthday celebrations (no one has missed one yet). A couple of tables have to be pushed together and the family has a nice meal together, it’s really sweet. And then the birthday-haver gets their head shoved into the cake.

But until the family found a good place to live, which was when Mozzy was 12, they moved around a lot. They got thrown out of a couple of towns. Mozzy was made fun of a lot and she hated it.

4. What is their relationship with their parents? What’s a good and bad memory with them? Did they know both parents? 

She’s really close to both of her parents. 

Her father is a tiefling and is out of the house quite a bit for work but Mozzy gets super excited when he comes home! She probably still does that thing where you wrap yourself around your dad’s leg?? Or if she doesn’t she does it emotionally. Her dad is the person who cheers her on the most at sporting events. A good dad and a good daughter

Her mother is a elf who always seems to be in the kitchen and Mozzy loves to annoy the hell out of her but it’s done with love. She’ll ask her the dumbest theoretical questions, lean over her back/shoulders and insist she can help cooking in some way even though she’s the absolute worst at cooking and will burn anything to a crisp. Mozzy just loves to hang around with her mom.

5. Do they have any siblings? What’s their names? What is their relationship with them? Has their relationship changed since they were kids to adults?

Mozzy doesn’t have any full siblings but she has a ton of half and adopted siblings, 6 to be exact. She’s the 7th child and the youngest. So this bit is gonna be real long… (ordered from oldest to youngest)

Ashel is a tiefling who left the house when Mozzy was pretty young, she was probably 10. He’s the trademark adult and is runs his own small business. He���s lowkey intimidating and unfortunately visits home the least out of everyone but he loves to share hot drinks around the fire when he does make it back. 

Dayla is a dragonborn fighter with a desire to own and use at least once every weapon imaginable. She is the one who taught Mozzy how to fight and introduced her to bows and crossbows. Dayla is probably the one who moved out that comes home the most (mostly to add more weapons to her hoard that she discovered on adventures) and every time Mozzy excitedly waits to stay up all night hearing about the adventures she’s been on with her consistent adventuring party. Dayla acts as Mozzy’s inspiration to leave home one day and become an adventurer herself.

Kaffe is a half-orc who prefers spending most of his time alone or with his tiger, Lily and Mozzy respect him for that. When Kaffe is into hanging out with people and hangs out with Mozzy the two are a terrifying unstoppable whirlwind that can’t be stopped. 

Akili is an elf druid and is almost like a second mom to Mozzy. One time when they were little she accidentally magically wrapped a poisonous plant around Mozzy’s arm and Mozzy still has a scar. Akili runs a flower shop in town and speaks much more Elvish than Common so she has kind of a strange accent. Akili is the sibling Mozzy turns to when she’s feeling sad and they go out to a coffee shop to get something and talk it out. 

Melody is a tiefling bard who probably put all of his points into charisma. He changed his name when he was roughly 14 but still fully identifies as a cis male. You know that motherfucker, what a tool, plays Wonder Wall at every party? That’s Melody and Mozzy LOVES to rag on him for it. They’re the type of siblings that fight all the time but as soon as someone outside their family makes fun of the other even once they become [other person] fan club president founder number 1 and will stick up and fight to the death for their sibling. They also share the horse and is probably 5 years older than Mozzy.

Jacey is a half-orc and she’s the closest in age to Mozzy, the age difference being about 2 years. They’re pretty close, what I’d call a normal sibling relationship, but the two aren’t as close as Mozzy is with some of her other siblings. They have opposite interests in school but that’s ok.

6. What were they like at school? Did they enjoy it? Did they finish? What level of higher education did they reach? What subjects did they enjoy? Which did they hate?

Mozzy loves school and just graduated high school. She’s a star student, kind of to an annoying degree because she asks too many questions and argues with teachers for marks and stuff. She’s also really into extracurriculars and sports stuff. Her favorite class is biology but dislikes English.

7. Did they have lots of friends as a child? Did they keep any of their childhood friends into adulthood? 

It’s kinda bullshit that she didn’t have a lot of friends as a child because she was the type of person who wanted to make a ton of friends, she was nice, outgoing and smart but honestly, kids were scared of her because she’s half elf half tiefling and her family situation was really weird (Is that too Mary Sue?? idk). She made a couple of friends and called their group “The Misfit Trio” and stuck with that group for a really long time. 

In high school people became much more accepting of her and I geuss she would be considered popular but she still loved and hung out with the rest of the misfit trio a lot. She just graduated high school and is slowly losing those connections which is sad but she’s doing her best to keep her friends. 

8. Did they have pets as a child? Do they have pets as an adult? Do they like animals? 

Mozzy co-owns a grey horse with Melody. She calls him Bubbah as an affectionate nickname even though Melody calls him Adagio. She rides the horse in some ride and shoot sports she does. She can also borrow a tiger from her brother

9. Do animals like them? Do they get on well with animals?

Neutral. Animals don’t hate her but animals don’t go out of their way to listen to her either. Animals actually kinda ignore her a lot, she just wants to pet that dog that’s across the room at a party, the dog isn’t coming for pets, dog please let Mozzy pet you.

10. Do they like children? Do children like them? Do they have or want any children? What would they be like as a parent? Or as a godparent/babysitter/ect?

Children don’t particularly like Mozzy and she wouldn’t go out of her way to hang out with kids nor does she have any real desire to become a parent but she has a lot of respect for kids. Like “hey you tiny person, you have wants and desires. Cool, keep doing you.”

This is really long! Sorry about that, probably more information than you wanted. It took me all day (on and off) to answer. Thank you Callie! :D

[deepfriedtwinkie]

could you do 38-41 and b, c, and d for oc asks?

oh gosh, bless you, kind human; I genuinely thought nobody was gonna ask anything ^^

I’m gonna answer using my favorite OC, Jake, b/c I’ve had him for over 4 years and at this point he’s the loudest voice in my head 24/7

.

38—What memory do they revisit the most often?

His favorite memory is the night of November 10th, 2033 (I use him in a timeline that’s 20 years ahead of rl present day, so right now “present day” is 2037, so this was a few years ago). He was eighteen, a freshman at NYADA, and that was the night that he debuted on Broadway, and also confessed to his best friend that he’d fallen in love with her, and she shocked him with the revelation that it was mutual, and they kissed for the first time/have been together ever since. That’s the one he voluntarily revisits most often, but there are a few INvoluntary ones too. It’s pretty often that he thinks back to his 36-hour abduction in January ’34, and to the day he almost died, June 6th, 2034, when his great (times a billion) aunt Hélene drove a knife through his heart and his great (times a billion and one) uncle Thomas came within seconds of being too late to destroy the doppelganger curse and save him. Occasionally he thinks of those in a PTSD way, like nightmares and flashbacks, but mostly it’s in gratitude that he’s even still alive. It gave him a unique relationship with mortality, and it shapes how he lives his life. Makes him appreciate everything that much more.

39—How easy is it for them to ignore flaws in other people?

Pretty damn easy actually. He’s one of the sweetest, most empathetic human beings ever to skip the earth, even BEFORE the curse gave him even more perspective, and he was raised super liberally and conscientiously. He’s always trying to put himself in other people’s shoes, cut them slack, understand their motives and/or limitations, etc. To the point where, in cases where he falls short on that (because he IS, in fact, human), he feels goddamn terrible about it. But it’s just the status quo for him to be sensitive to others, and his patience level is through the roof, so flaws in others don’t even tend to bother him in the first place unless they’re like….the “drowns babies” kinds of flaws.

40—How sensitive are they to their own flaws?

Extremely. He got his mother’s martyr complex, so when he gets something wrong and it hurts someone else, it hits him hard. He holds himself super accountable for things he’s done wrong, including things that the curse, while it was still around, MADE him do against his will, AND things that he just plain didn’t mean to do/realize he was doing, like inadvertently overshadowing his sister and half-brother. He ends up reaming himself for shit like that, begging forgiveness to the point of tears, and forcing himself to remember it all the time so that he never does anything like that again. Plus he also judges himself for his attention issues brought on by his ADHD, and his tendency to be the highest-energy person in the room. He even scolds himself for accidentally guilting people with puppy eyes when he didn’t even know he was making puppy eyes. Basically he judges himself so much more harshly than he’d ever judge anyone else, EVEN having grown up in a family that doted on him and bombarded him with the idea that he was pretty much the ideal Golden Boy. (If anything, he feels guiltier /polices his own flaws more BECAUSE of that. He was already favored, so the least he can do is make sure he makes it up to everyone who wasn’t by being his best to them.)

41—How do they feel about children?

He and Lisa (the girlfriend mentioned above) are gonna have three, but they won’t be born until 2042 (a son, Sean), 2047 (a daughter, Sierra), and 2049 (another son, Ryan). But right now, he and Lisa are only 22 and 24, they’re only living together at this point and just enjoying that the universe is no longer actively trying to murder either of them, so they’re SOOOO not ready for kids yet. But he loves them wherever he finds them. His littlest cousin Gabe is three years old now, and he adores babysitting him…. He’s ALWAYS loved kids, basically. He loves their imaginations, and their fascination with everything, and how strongly they love you, and how easily they believe; how you can make anything into something magical for them…. He’s known since he was about 14 that he definitely wanted to be a father someday. Lisa comes first, of course (she’s a real part of his life NOW, whereas his kids still only exist in the hypothetical at this point), so if she told him tomorrow that she didn’t want children, he’d just think of another way to be around them on a regular basis. Maybe he’d join Big Brothers/Big Sisters or something. But Jas (@faeriviera, Lisa’s creator) and I have the godlike advantage (muahaha) of knowing in advance she’s gonna be onboard. So yeah. He’s gonna have three loud, happy, unique, incredible kids within the next 5-12 years, and he’s gonna be an active, doting, amazing father, and absolutely adore every second with them.

B—What inspired you to create them?

Honestly? Aaron Tveit did. Because originally, Jake was a very, VERY minor character in our overall plot. Back when Jas and I were still playing mostly with his PARENTS’ gen in the ACTUAL present day, he was just sort of an NPC child, the impish kid brother of Gia, the established daughter of one of our ships. He’d never even had lines. But then one day, after I’d gotten obsessed with the Les Mis movie and “discovered” Aaron’s other work, I had this huge moment of revelation where I realized he looked EXACTLY like the lovechild of his parents’ faceclaims. I told Jas I’d found adult!Jake, and suddenly everything just started filling in from there. His career changed from failure as an aspiring actor to success onstage. I borrowed some traits that felt natural from what we know of Aaron’s personality (the sweetness, the exuberance, the drive), and then other things started to develop on their own from there (his ADHD, his lack of talent at sports, his fear of birds, his insane appetite, the time he broke his leg, the doppelganger curse, etc.)….I kind of feel like I owe Aaron thanks for that someday, which is obviously kind of comically unnecessary, but still. He was the jumping-off point that inspired the most thoroughly detailed OC I’ve ever created.

C—Did you have trouble figuring out where they fit in their own story?

Not at all. He sort of evolved specifically into the space we needed filled, and then his story evolved around him. The entire doppelganger curse grew into what it became purely because of a throwaway joke about Jake looking too much like Enjolras, who had appeared in our ‘verse already, and then we (mostly Jas) went “wait, what if…?” So if anything, he solved our central storyline indecision problems. 

D—Have they always had the same physical appearance, or have you had to edit how they look?

Not since the eureka moment, no, I haven’t changed a thing. Although I’ve needed his younger self for a couple of flashback plots, so now I use kid pics of Austin Kane for reference for that. And for anything where he’s a baby, I just picture this one stock photo I found. The best examples are compiled on his Charahub; I’ll just screencap that and share it ‘cause yeah.

.

here is the ask post for reference in case anyone’s intrigued/bored enough to want to know anything else 

.

[newstfionline]

Thousands of Vietnamese could be deported under tough Trump policy

By Simon Denyer, Washington Post, August 31, 2018

Robert Huynh is the son of an American serviceman, although he never knew his father. His mother is Vietnamese, and he was conceived during the Vietnam War. In 1984, nine years after the last American troops left the country, 14-year-old Huynh moved to Louisville with his mother, half brother and half sisters under a U.S. government program to bring Amerasians and others to the United States.

Today, at 48, with a son and two young grandsons in Kentucky, he faces the prospect of being sent back to Vietnam, a country he has not visited since he left and where he has no relatives or friends.

Huynh is one of about 8,000 Vietnamese potentially caught up in a tough new immigration policy adopted by the Trump administration, significantly escalating deportation proceedings against immigrants who have green cards but never became U.S. citizens, and who have violated U.S. law.

Huynh, who helps out these days in his family’s nail salons, has had some run-ins with the law. In his 20s, he served nearly three years behind bars for dealing in the recreational drug ecstasy; more recently, he served a year’s probation for driving under the influence and was given another period of probation for running illegal slot-machine “game rooms” with his girlfriend in Texas, where he now lives.

He acknowledges that he made mistakes but says he accepted his punishments and tried to build a life here. Now he risks losing it all.

“My mother is 83 years old right now, and I want to be here when she passes away,” he said by telephone from Houston. “I don’t have anybody in Vietnam. My life is here in the United States.”

Nearly 1.3 million Vietnamese citizens have immigrated to the United States since the communist takeover of South Vietnam in 1975. Many came in the wave of “boat people” who made headlines in the late 1970s as they fled Vietnam in overcrowded and unsafe vessels.

The new arrivals were given green cards when they reached the United States, but many--Huynh among them--lacked the education, language skills or legal help needed to negotiate the complex bureaucratic process of acquiring citizenship.

Many came as children, attended schools and colleges in the United States, worked, paid taxes and raised families. Decades on, their lives and families could be ripped apart again.

The Trump administration, in a policy shaped by senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, has reinterpreted a 2008 agreement reached with Vietnam by the George W. Bush administration--that Vietnamese citizens who arrived before the two countries established diplomatic relations in 1995 would not be “subject to return.” Now, the White House says, there is no such immunity to deportation for any noncitizen found guilty of a crime.

Critics of the shift accuse the administration of reneging on the 2008 agreement. The State Department disputes that, citing a line in the agreement noting that both sides “maintain their respective legal positions” regarding the pre-1995 arrivals.

“The U.S. position is that every country has an international legal obligation to accept its nationals that another country seeks to remove, expel, or deport,” the State Department said in a statement, declining to respond on the record specifically on the issue of Vietnam.

The Trump administration’s view is that the 2008 agreement was not aimed at protecting a certain population of immigrants from political persecution if they were returned to Vietnam.

Rather, the administration asserts that the deal was reached after a “stalemate” between the United States and Vietnam over the pre-1995 immigrants that has not been resolved, said one senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

“We were in a situation in which for a long time they were accepting zero people back,” the official said. “The theory [in 2008] was, ‘Let’s try to create a functioning system and try to get them to take back at least some portion of the convicted criminal population.’ “

Immigration and Customs Enforcement public affairs officer Brendan Raedy said enforcement resources are focused “on individuals who pose a threat to national security, public safety and border security.”

Opponents of the new policy say the Vietnamese in question were refugees from a communist regime and deserving of a haven in the United States.

At least 57 people who arrived before 1995 were in ICE detention in mid-June, according to figures supplied by ICE to attorneys. An additional 11 have been sent back to Vietnam, where they are certain to face suspicion from the security services for their perceived loyalty to the defunct South Vietnamese state. Several are struggling to obtain the identity cards they need to work, or even drive, attorneys say.

Vietnam does not want them back, said former U.S. ambassador to Vietnam Ted Osius, who was appointed by President Barack Obama.

“The majority targeted for deportation--sometimes for minor infractions--were war refugees who had sided with the United States,” he wrote in an essay for the American Foreign Service Association’s Foreign Service Journal after leaving office. “And they were to be ‘returned’ decades later to a nation ruled by a communist regime with which they had never reconciled.”

Some committed violent crimes but have served their prison terms. Others were convicted of various nonviolent crimes, including possession of marijuana, passing counterfeit money or driving under the influence, attorneys say.

“Some of the crimes took place in the nineties when people were initially being resettled here, growing up in poor neighborhoods and often being bullied,” said Phi Nguyen, litigation director at the Atlanta chapter of Asian Americans Advancing Justice, who has filed a class-action lawsuit in California requesting a stay on the detentions.

Huynh was served a deportation order after being released from prison in 2006 and was kept for four more months in immigration detention before the authorities acknowledged that Vietnam would not take him back.

In 2017, after his conviction for running unlicensed gambling, he was ordered to report to a probation officer every month.

“The first month I went to report, it was Obama as president and it was okay,” he said. “The second month it was still Obama, and it was still okay. But the third time when I went to report, Donald Trump had taken over. It was February 2017, Donald Trump had only taken over 17 days before. ICE picked me up outside the probation office.”

He was to spend another year in immigration detention.

Tung Nguyen came to the United States in 1991 as a 13-year-old: His parents had adopted an Amerasian daughter, and the whole family was allowed to immigrate under the Amerasian Homecoming Act. But with his parents working long hours in low-paid jobs just to put food on the table, he was often left alone and struggled to adapt.

“I was young, I didn’t speak English, and I was bullied at school, so I took refuge in people who had a similar identity, to give me a sense of belonging,” he said by telephone from Santa Ana, Calif. That meant a group of Vietnamese boys who were living a “gangster-like” existence, he said.

In 1994, when he was 16, he was involved in a fatal stabbing stemming from an argument over “respect.” Tung held a knife but didn’t carry out the stabbing; nevertheless, he was tried as an adult and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. But after Tung served 18 years, California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) reviewed his case and released him on parole on the basis of “exceptional rehabilitation.”

Tung has since dedicated himself to helping crime victims and offenders in the Vietnamese American community and working for juvenile justice reform. In 2014, he got married. In 2018, the Open Society Foundations awarded him a Soros Justice Fellowship, recognizing him as an “outstanding individual” working to improve the U.S. criminal justice system.

“I don’t have a child of my own, because I can’t live with the fact that any day they can come and take me,” he said. “This is my life; this is my home.”

Former ambassador Osius calls the new policy “repulsive” and racist.

“To me it is very tragic, and very un-American,” he said in an interview. “That we would treat people in this way, people who sided with us in the war and the children of our soldiers.”

Huynh finally reunited with the American side of his family in 2016, after a DNA test led him to a cousin who was trying to find his own father--the younger brother of Huynh’s father.

There was bad news and good news. Huynh found out that the man he had wondered about all his life had died when Huynh was just 4, in a car accident in the United States in 1974. But he also found an older half brother and a half sister, and his father’s two younger sisters, who live near him in Houston. “Both my aunties really love me,” he said. He can’t imagine leaving his entire family behind now.

“For years America was a country that used to help people escape communist repression in Vietnam,” said Tom Malinowski, who served as assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor in the Obama administration. “Now here we are forcing people to go back to it, and asking the government of Vietnam to be complicit in that.”

[thejoydaily-blog]

George Mueller's Strategy for Showing God

Simplicity of Faith, Sacred Scripture, and Satisfaction in God

George Mueller's Strategy for Showing God

Simplicity of Faith, Sacred Scripture, and Satisfaction in God

2004 Bethlehem Conference for Pastors

Resource by John Piper

Topic: Biography

George Mueller was a native German (a Prussian). He was born in Kroppenstaedt on September 27, 1805 and lived almost the entire nineteenth century. He died March 10, 1898 at the age of 92. He saw the great awakening of 1859 which he said “led to the conversion of hundreds of thousands.”1 He did follow up work for D. L. Moody,2 preached for Charles Spurgeon,3 and inspired the missionary faith of Hudson Taylor.4

He spent most of his life in Bristol, England and pastored the same church there for over sixty-six years—a kind of independent, premillennial,5Calvinistic6 Baptist7 church that celebrated the Lord's supper weekly8 and admitted non-baptized people into membership.9 If this sounds unconventional, that would be accurate. He was a maverick not only in his church life but in almost all the areas of his life. But his eccentricities were almost all large-hearted and directed outward for the good of others. A. T. Pierson, who wrote the biography that Mueller's son-in-law endorsed as authoritative,10 captured the focus of this big-hearted eccentricity when he said, George Mueller “devised large and liberal things for the Lord's cause.”11

In 1834 (when he was 28) he founded The Scripture Knowledge Institute for Home and Abroad,12 because he was disillusioned with the post-millennialism, the liberalism, and the worldly strategies (like going into debt13) of existing mission organizations.14 Five branches of this Institute developed: 1) Schools for children and adults to teach Bible knowledge, 2) Bible distribution, 3) missionary support, 4) tract and book distribution, and 5) “to board, clothe and Scripturally educate destitute children who have lost both parents by death.”15

The accomplishments of all five branches were significant,16 but the one he was known for around the world in his own lifetime, and still today, was the orphan ministry. He built five large orphan houses and cared for 10,024 orphans in his life. When he started in 1834 there were accommodations for 3,600 orphans in all of England and twice that many children under eight were in prison.17 One of the great effects of Mueller's ministry was to inspire others so that “fifty years after Mr. Mueller began his work, at least one hundred thousand orphans were cared for in England alone.”18

He did all this while he was preaching three times a week from 1830 to 1898, at least 10,000 times.19 And when he turned 70 he fulfilled a life-long dream of missionary work for the next 17 years until he was 87. He traveled to 42 countries,20 preaching on average of once a day,21 and addressing some three million people.22 He preached nine times here in Minneapolis in 1880 (nine years after the founding of Bethlehem Baptist Church).

From the end of his travels in 1892 (when he was 87) until his death in March of 1898 he preached in his church and worked for the Scripture Knowledge Institute. At age 92, not long before he died, he wrote, “I have been able, every day and all the day to work, and that with ease, as seventy years since.”23 He led a prayer meeting at his church on the evening of Wednesday, March 9, 1898. The next day a cup of tea was taken to him at seven in the morning but no answer came to the knock on the door. He was found dead on the floor beside his bed. 24

The funeral was held the following Monday in Bristol, where he had served for sixty-six years. “Tens of thousands of people reverently stood along the route of the simple procession; men left their workshops and offices, women left their elegant homes or humble kitchens, all seeking to pay a last token of respect.”25 A thousand children gathered for a service at the Orphan House No. 3. They had now “for a second time lost a ‘father'.”26

He had read his Bible from end to end almost 200 times.27 He had prayed in millions of dollars (in today's currency28) for the Orphans and never asked anyone directly for money. He never took a salary in the last 68 years of his ministry, but trusted God to put in people's hearts to send him what he needed. He never took out a loan or went into debt.29 And neither he nor the orphans were ever hungry. The eccentric pastor and orphan-lover was gone.

He had been married twice: to Mary Groves when he was 25, and to Susannah Sangar when he was 66. Mary bore him four children. Two were stillborn. One son Elijah died when he was a year old. His daughter Lydia married James Wright who succeeded Mueller as the head of the Institute. But she died in 1890 at 57 years old. Five years later Mueller lost his second wife, just three years before he died. And so he outlived his family and was left alone with his Savior, his church, and two thousand children. He had been married to Mary for 39 years and to Susannah for 23 years. He preached Mary's funeral sermon when he was 64,30 and he preached Susannah's funeral sermon when he was 90.31 It's what he said in the face of this loss and pain that gives us the key to his life.

Mary's Death and the Key to His Life

We have the full text of the message at Mary's funeral and we have his own recollections of this loss. To feel the force of what he says, we have to know that they loved each other deeply and enjoyed each other in the work they shared.

Were we happy? Verily we were. With every year our happiness increased more and more. I never saw my beloved wife at any time, when I met her unexpectedly anywhere in Bristol, without being delighted so to do. I never met her even in the Orphan Houses, without my heart being delighted so to do. Day by day, as we met in our dressing room, at the Orphan Houses, to wash our hands before dinner and tea, I was delighted to meet her, and she was equally pleased to seeme. Thousands of times I told her—“My darling, I never saw you at any time, since you became my wife, without my being delighted to see you.”32

Then came the diagnosis: “When I heard what Mr. Pritchard's judgment was, viz., that the malady was rheumatic fever, I naturally expected the worst. . . . My heart was nigh to be broken on account of the depth of my affection.”33The one who had seen God answer 10,000 prayers for the support of the orphan, this time did not get what he asked. Or did he?

Twenty minutes after four, Lord's Day, February 6, 1870, Mary died. “I fell on my knees and thanked God for her release, and for having taken her to Himself, and asked the Lord to help and support us.”34 He recalled later how he strengthened himself during these hours. And here we see the key to his life.

The last portion of scripture which I read to my precious wife was this: “The Lord God is a sun and shield, the Lord will give grace and glory, no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.” Now, if we have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, we have received grace, we are partakers of grace, and to all such he will give glory also. I said to myself, with regard to the latter part, “no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly”—I am in myself a poor worthless sinner, but I have been saved by the blood of Christ; and I do not live in sin, I walk uprightly before God. Therefore, if it is really good for me, my darling wife will be raised up again; sick as she is. God will restore her again. But if she is not restored again, then it would not be a good thing for me. And so my heart was at rest. I was satisfied with God. And all this springs, as I have often said before, from taking God at his word, believing what he says.35

Here is the cluster of unshakable convictions and experiences that are the key to this remarkable life. “I am in myself a poor worthless sinner.”I have been saved by the blood of Christ.” “I do not live in sin.”God is sovereign over life and death. If it is good for her and for me, she will be restored again. If not she won't.”My heart is at rest.”I am satisfied with God.” All this comes from taking God at his word. There you see the innermost being of George Mueller and the key to his life. The word of God, revealing his sin, revealing his Savior, revealing God's sovereignty, revealing God's goodness, revealing God's promise, awakening his faith, satisfying his soul. “I was satisfied with God.”

The Gift of Faith vs. the Grace of Faith

So were his prayers for Mary answered? To understand how Mueller himself would answer this question, we have to see the way he distinguished between the extraordinary gift of faith and the more ordinary grace of faith. He constantly insisted that he did not have the gift of faith when people put him on a pedestal just because he would pray for his own needs and the needs of the orphans, and the money would arrive in remarkable ways.

Think not, dear reader, that Ihave the gift of faith, that is, that gift of which we read in 1 Corinthians 12:9, and which is mentioned along with “the gifts of healing,” “the working of miracles,”prophecy,” and that on that account I am able to trust in the Lord. It is true that the faith, which I am enabled to exercise, is altogether God's own gift; it is true that He alone supports it, and that He alone can increase it; it is true that, moment by moment, I depend upon Him for it, and that, if I were only one moment left to myself, my faith would utterly fail; but it is not true that my faith is that gift of faith which is spoken of in 1 Corinthians 12:9.36

The reason he is so adamant about this is that his whole life—especially in the way he supported the orphans by faith and prayer without asking anyone but God for money—was consciously planned to encourage Christians that God could really be trusted to meet their needs. We will never understand George Mueller's passion for the orphan ministry if we don't see that the good of the orphans was second to this.

The three chief reasons for establishing an Orphan-House are: 1. That God may be glorified, should He be pleased to furnish me with the means, in its being seen that it is not a vain thing to trust in Him; and that thus the faith of His children may be strengthened. 2. The spiritual welfare of fatherless and motherless children. 3. Their temporal welfare.37

And make no mistake about it: the order of those three goals is intentional. He makes that explicit over and over in his Narrative. The orphan houses exist to display that God can be trusted and to encourage believers to take him at his word. This was a deep sense of calling with Mueller. He said that God had given him the mercy in “being able to take God by His word and to rely upon it.”38 He was grieved that “so many believers . . . were harassed and distressed in mind, or brought guilt on their consciences, on account of not trusting in the Lord.” This grace that he had to trust God's promises, and this grief that so many believers didn't trust his promises, shaped Mueller's entire life. This was his supreme passion: to display with open proofs that God could be trusted with the practical affairs of life. This was the higher aim of building the orphan houses and supporting them by asking God, not people, for money.

It seemed to me best done, by the establishing of an Orphan-House. It needed to be something which could be seen, even by the natural eye. Now, if I, a poor man, simply by prayer and faith, obtained, without asking any individual, the means for establishing and carrying on an Orphan-House: there would be something which, with the Lord's blessing, might be instrumental in strengthening the faith of the children of God besides being a testimony to the consciences of the unconverted, of the reality of the things of God. This, then, was the primary reason, for establishing the Orphan-House. . . The first and primary object of the work was, (and still is) that God might be magnified by the fact, that the orphans under my care are provided, with all they need, only by prayer and faith, without any one being asked by me or my fellow-laborers, whereby it may be seen, that God is FAITHFUL STILL, and HEARS PRAYER STILL.39

That was the chief passion and unifying aim of Mueller's ministry: live a life and lead a ministry in a way that proves God is real, God is trustworthy, God answers prayer. He built orphanages the way he did to help Christians trust God. He says it over and over again.40

Now we see why he is so adamant that his faith is not the gift of faith in 1 Corinthians 12:9 that only some people have, but was the grace of faith that all Christians should have.41 Now we are ready to see this crucial distinction he made between the gift of faith and the grace of faith. His entire aim in life hung on this. If Christians simply said: “Mueller is in a class by himself. He has the gift of faith,” then we are all off the hook and he is no longer a prod and proof and inspiration for how we ought to live. Here is what he says

The difference between the gift and the grace of faith seems to me this. According to the gift of faith I am able to do a thing, or believe that a thing will come to pass, the not doing of which, or the not believing of which would not be sin; according to the grace of faith I am able to do a thing, or believe that a thing will come to pass, respecting which I have the word of God as the ground to rest upon, and, therefore, the not doing it, or the not believing it would be sin. For instance, the gift of faith would be needed, to believe that a sick person should be restored again though there is no human probability: for there is no promise to that effect; the grace of faith is needed to believe that the Lord will give me the necessaries of life, if I first seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness: for there is a promise to that effect. Matthew 6:33.42

Mueller did not think he had any biblical ground for being certain that God would spare his wife Mary. He admits that a few times in his life he was given “something like the gift (not grace) of faith so that unconditionally I could ask and look for an answer,”43 but he did not have that rare gift in Mary's case. And so he prayed for her healing conditionally—namely, if it would be good for them and for God's glory. But most deeply he prayed that they would be satisfied in God whatever he did. And God did answer that prayer by helping Mueller believe Psalm 84:11. No good thing will God withhold. God withheld no good thing from him, and he was satisfied with God's sovereign will. All this, he says, “springs from taking God at his word, believing what he says.”

How Did Mueller Get to this Position?

Let's go back and let him tell the story—essential parts of which are omitted from all the biographies I have looked at.

His father was an unbeliever and George grew up a liar and a thief, by his own testimony.44 His mother died when he was 14, and he records no impact that this loss had on him except that while she was dying he was roving the streets with his friends “half intoxicated.”45 He went on living a bawdy life, and then found himself in prison for stealing when he was 16 years old. His father paid to get him out, beat him, and took him to live in another town (Schoenbeck). Mueller used his academic skills to make money by tutoring in Latin, French, and mathematics. Finally his father sent him to the University of Halle to study divinity and prepare for the ministry because that would be a good living. Neither he nor George had any spiritual aspirations. Of the 900 divinity students in Halle, Mueller later estimated that maybe nine feared the Lord. 46

Then on a Saturday afternoon in the middle of November, 1825, when Mueller was 20 years old, he was invited to a Bible study and, by the grace of God, felt the desire to go. “It was to me as if I had found something after which I had been seeking all my life long. I immediately wished to go.”47 “They read the Bible, sang, prayed, and read a printed sermon.”48 To his amazement Mueller said, “The whole made a deep impression on me. I was happy; though, if I had been asked, why I was happy I could not have clearly explained it. “I have not the least doubt, that on that evening, [God] began a work of grace in me. . . . That evening was the turning point in my life.”49

That's true. But there was another turning point four years later that the biographies do not open for the reader, but which for Mueller was absolutely decisive in shaping the way he viewed God and the way he did ministry.

A Decisive Turning Point: Confidence in the Sovereign Goodness of God

He came to England in the hope of being a missionary with the London Missionary Society. Soon he found his theology and ministry convictions turning away from the LMS, until there was a break. In the meantime, a momentous encounter happened.

Mueller became sick (thank God for providential sickness!) and in the summer of 1829 he went for recovery to a town called Teignmouth. There in a little chapel called Ebenezer at least two crucial discoveries were made: the preciousness of reading and meditating on the word of God,50 and the truth of the doctrines of grace.51 For ten days Mueller lived with a nameless man who change his life forever: “Through the instrumentality of this brother the Lord bestowed a great blessing upon me, for which I shall have cause to thank Him throughout eternity.”52

Before this period I had been much opposed to the doctrines of election, particular redemption, and final persevering grace; so much so that, a few days after my arrival at Teignmouth, I called election a devilish doctrine. . . I knew nothing about the choice of God's people, and did not believe that the child of God, when once made so, was safe for ever. . . . But now I was brought to examine these precious truths by the word of God.53

He was led to embrace the doctrines of grace—the robust, mission-minded, soul-winning, orphan-loving Calvinism that marked William Carey, who died in 1834, and that would mark Charles Spurgeon, who was born in 1834.54About forty years later, in 1870, Mueller spoke to some young believers about the importance of what had happened to him at Teignmouth. He said that his preaching had been fruitless for four years from 1825 to 1829 in Germany, but then he came to England and was taught the doctrines of grace.

In the course of time I came to this country, and it pleased God then to show to me the doctrines of grace in a way in which I had not seen them before. At first I hated them, “If this were true I could do nothing at all in the conversion of sinners, as all would depend upon God and the working of His Spirit.” But when it pleased God to reveal these truths to me, and my heart was brought to such a state that I could say, “I am not only content simply to be a hammer, an axe, or a saw, in God's hands; but I shall count it an honor to be taken up and used by Him in any way; and if sinners are converted through my instrumentality, from my inmost soul I will give Him all the glory; the Lord gave me to see fruit; the Lord gave me to see fruit in abundance; sinners were converted by scores; and ever since God has used me in one way or other in His service.”55

This discovery of the all-encompassing sovereignty of God became the foundation of Mueller's confidence in God to answer his prayers for money. He gave up his regular salary.56 He refused to ask people directly for money.57 He prayed and published his reports about the goodness of God and the answers to his prayer.58 These yearly reports were circulated around the world, and they clearly had a huge effect in motivating people to give to the orphan work.59 Mueller knew that God used means. In fact, he loved to say, “Work with all your might; but trust not in the least in your work.”60 But he also insisted that his hope was in God alone, not his exertions and not the published reports. These means could not account for the remarkable answers that he received.

Mueller's faith that his prayers for money would be answered was rooted in the sovereignty of God. When faced with a crisis in having the means to pay a bill he would say, “How the means are to come, I know not; but I know that God is almighty, that the hearts of all are in His hands, and that, if He pleaseth to influence persons, they will send help.”61 That is the root of his confidence: God is almighty, the hearts of all men are in his hands,62 and when God chooses to influence their hearts they will give.

He had come to know and love this absolute sovereignty of God in the context of the doctrines of grace, and therefore he cherished it mainly as sovereign goodness.63 This gave him a way to maintain a personal peace beyond human understanding in the midst of tremendous stress and occasional tragedy. “The Lord never lays more on us,” he said, “in the way of chastisement, than our state of heart makes needful; so that whilst He smites with the one hand, He supports with the other.”64 In the face of painful circumstances he says, “I bow, I am satisfied with the will of my Heavenly Father, I seek by perfect submission to His holy will to glorify Him, I kiss continually the hand that has thus afflicted me.”65

And when he is about to lose a piece of property that he wants for the next orphan house, he says, “If the Lord were to take this piece of land from me, it would be only for the purpose of giving me a still better one; for our Heavenly Father never takes any earthly thing from His children except He means to give them something better instead.”66 This is what I mean by confidence in God's sovereign goodness. This is the root of Mueller's faith and ministry.

The Aroma of Mueller's Calvinism: Satisfaction and Glad Self-Denial

But there was an aroma about Mueller's Calvinism that was different from many stereotypes. For him the sovereign goodness of God served, first and foremost, the satisfaction of the soul. And then the satisfied soul was freed to sacrifice and live a life of simplicity and risk and self-denial and love. But everything flowed from the soul that is first satisfied in the gracious, sovereign God. Mueller is clearer on this than anyone I have ever read. He is unashamed to sound almost childishly simple:

According to my judgement the most important point to be attended to is this: above all things see to it that your souls are happy in the Lord. Other things may press upon you, the Lord's work may even have urgent claims upon your attention, but I deliberately repeat, it is of supreme and paramount importance that you should seek above all things to have your souls truly happy in God Himself! Day by day seek to make this the most important business of your life. This has been my firm and settled condition for the last five and thirty years. For the first four years after my conversion I knew not its vast importance, but now after much experience I specially commend this point to the notice of my younger brethren and sisters in Christ: the secret of all true effectual service is joy in God, having experimental acquaintance and fellowship with God Himself.67

Why is this “the most important thing”? Why is daily happiness in God “of supreme and paramount importance”? One answer he gives is that it glorifies God. After telling about one of his wife's illnesses when he almost lost her, he says, “I have . . . stated this case so fully, to show the deep importance to be satisfied with the will of God, not only for the sake of glorifying Him, but as the best way, in the end, of having given to us the desire of our hearts.”68Being satisfied in God is “of supreme and paramount importance” because it glorifies God. It shows that God is gloriously satisfying.

But there is another answer: namely, that happiness in God is the only source of durable and God-honoring self-denial and sacrifice and love. In reference to life-style changes and simplicity he says:

We should begin the thing in a right way, i.e. aim after the right state of heart; begin inwardly instead of outwardly. If otherwise, it will not last. We shall look back, or even get into a worse state than we were before. But oh! how different if joy in God leads us to any little act of self denial. How gladly do we do it then!69

“Glad self-denial” is the aroma of Mueller's Calvinism. How can there be such a thing? He answers: “Self-denial is not so much an impoverishment as a postponement: we make a sacrifice of a present good for the sake of a future and greater good.”70 Therefore, happiness in God is of “supreme importance” because it is the key to love that sacrifices and takes risks. “Whatever be done . . . in the way of giving up, or self-denial, or deadness to the world, should result from the joy we have in God.”71

A well-to-do woman visited him once to discuss a possible gift to the Institute. He did not ask her for the money. But when she was gone he asked God for it. And the way he did reveals his understanding of how the heart human works.

After she was gone, I asked the Lord, that He would be pleased to make this dear sister so happy in Himself and enable her so to realize her true riches and inheritance in the Lord Jesus, and the reality of her heavenly calling, that she might be constrained by the love of Christ, cheerfully to lay down this 500 [pounds] at His feet.72

How Do We Get and Keep Our Happiness in God?

If happiness in God is “of supreme and paramount importance” because it is the spring of sacrificial love that honors God, then the crucial question becomes how do we get it and keep it?

But in what way shall we attain to this settled happiness of soul? How shall we learn to enjoy God? How obtain such an all-sufficient soul-satisfying portion in him as shall enable us to let go the things of this world as vain and worthless in comparison? I answer, This happiness is to be obtained through the study of the Holy Scriptures. God has therein revealed Himself unto us in the face of Jesus Christ.73

Happiness in God comes from seeing God revealed to us in the face of Jesus Christ through the Scriptures. “In them . . . we become acquainted with the character of God. Our eyes are divinely opened to see what a lovely Being God is! And this good, gracious, loving, heavenly Father is ours, our portion for time and for eternity.”74 Knowing God is the key to being happy in God.

The more we know of God, the happier we are. . . . When we became a little acquainted with God . . . our true happiness . . . commenced; and the more we become acquainted with him, the more truly happy we become. What will make us so exceedingly happy in heaven? It will be the fuller knowledge of God.75

Therefore the most crucial means of fighting for joy in God is to immerse oneself in the Scriptures where we see God in Christ most clearly. When he was 71 years old, Mueller spoke to younger believers:

Now in brotherly love and affection I would give a few hints to my younger fellow-believers as to the way in which to keep up spiritual enjoyment. It is absolutely needful in order that happiness in the Lord may continue, that the Scriptures be regularly read. These are God's appointed means for the nourishment of the inner man. . . .Consider it, and ponder over it. . . . Especially we should read regularly through the Scriptures, consecutively, and not pick out here and there a chapter. If we do, we remain spiritual dwarfs. I tell you so affectionately. For the first four years after my conversion I made no progress, because I neglected the Bible. But when I regularly read on through the whole with reference to my own heart and soul, I directly made progress. Then my peace and joy continued more and more. Now I have been doing this for 47 years. I have read through the whole Bible about 100 times and I always find it fresh when I begin again. Thus my peace and joy have increased more and more.76

He was seventy-one and he would live and read on for another twenty-one years. But he never changed his strategy for satisfaction in God. When he was seventy-six he wrote the same thing he did when he was sixty, “I saw more clearly than ever, that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord.”77 And the means stayed the same:

I saw that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the word of God, and to meditation on it. . . . What is the food of the inner man? Not prayer, but the word of God; and . . . not the simple reading of the word of God, so that it only passes through our minds, just as water runs through a pipe, but considering what we read, pondering over it, and applying it to our hearts.78

Which brings us back now the satisfaction of Mueller's soul at the death of his wife, Mary. Remember, he said, “My heart was at rest. I was satisfied with God. And all this springs, as I have often said before, from taking God at his word, believing what he says.” 79

The aim of George Mueller's life was to glorify God by helping people take God at his word.80 To that end he saturated his soul with the word of God. At one point he said that he reads the Bible five or ten times more than he reads any other books.81 His aim was to see God in Jesus Christ crucified and risen from the dead in order that he might maintain the happiness of his soul in God. By this deep satisfaction in God George Mueller was set free from the fears and lusts of the world. And in this freedom of love he chose a strategy of ministry and style of life that put the reality and trustworthiness and beauty of God on display. To use his own words, his life became a “visible proof to the unchangeable faithfulness of the Lord.”82

He was sustained in this extraordinary life by his deep convictions that God is sovereign over the human heart and can turn it where he wills in answer to prayer; and that God is sovereign over life and death; and that God is good in his sovereignty and withholds no good thing from those who walk uprightly. He strengthened himself continually in his wife's final illness with the hymn:

Best of blessings he'll provide us Nought but good shall e'er betide us, Safe to glory He will guide us, Oh how He loves!83

An Exhortation and Plea from Mueller

I will let him have the closing word of exhortation and plea for us to join him in the path of radical, joyful faith:

My dear Christian reader, will you not try this way? Will you not know for yourself . . . the preciousness and the happiness of this way of casting all your cares and burdens and necessities upon God? This way is as open to you as to me. . . . Every one is invited and commanded to trust in the Lord, to trust in Him with all his heart, and to cast his burden upon Him, and to call upon Him in the day of trouble. Will you not do this, my dear brethren in Christ? I long that you may do so. I desire that you may taste the sweetness of that state of heart, in which, while surrounded by difficulties and necessities, you can yet be at peace, because you know that the living God, your Father in heaven, cares for you.84

Timeline of George Mueller's Life

1805–1825Birth to conversion

1825–1835Conversion to entrance on his life work

1835–1875His chief life's work

1875–1892Time of his “missionary tours”

1892–1898Close of his life

September 27, 1805Born in Kroppenstaedt near Halberstadt, Prussia.

1819Death of mother when he was 14

1821Short imprisonment for theft at age 16

1827Student at the University of Halle in divinity

November 1825The Bible study that turned his life to Christ

August 27, 1826First sermon

August-September 1826Two months in A. H. Franke's Orphan House

June 13, 1828Accepted provisionally by London Missionary Society

March 19, 1829Arrived in London to study with LMS

August 1829Stay in Teignmouth where he learned of the doctrines of grace

January, 1830His connection with the LMS was dissolved

1830-1832The stated preacher at Ebenezer Chapel, Teignmouth

1830Baptized by immersion

October 7, 1830Married to Mary Groves

October, 1830Gave up salary at his church and for the rest of his life.

August 9, 1831A stillborn child.

May, 1832Left Teignmouth to take up ministry in Bristol

July 6, 1832Began preaching at Bethesda Chapel with Henry Craik in Bristol

September 17, 1832Daughter Lydia is born

February 20, 1834Founded Scripture Knowledge Institute

March 19, 1834Son Elijah born

June 26, 1835Son Elijah died

November 28, 1836First infant orphan house opened

June 13, 1838Second stillborn child

October 7, 1838His only brother died

March 30, 1840Father died

January 22, 1866Henry Craik died

February 6, 1870Wife Mary died

November 16, 1871James Wright (Mueller's eventual successor) married Mueller's daughter

November 30, 1871Mueller himself married Susannah Grace Sangar

1890death of daughter Lydia in her 58

th

year

January 13, 1895His second wife died. At 90 he conducts her service

March 10, 1898 (Thursday)George Mueller died, having led prayer meeting night before

March 14, 1898 (Monday)Mueller buried with his wives

A Note on Sources

I am not aware of any scholarly biography that puts Mueller in the context of his religious and social context with careful, documented attention to his own writings. A. T. Pierson's George Mueller of Bristol: His Life of Prayer and Faith(1889; reprint, Grand Rapids, Mich.: Kregel, 1999), was written by one who knew and admired Mueller and was endorsed by Mueller's son-in-law, James Wright. I think Pierson's assessment of Mueller's personality is perceptive, but neither here nor in the other popular biographies that I am aware of will the reader meet a deep and accurate portrayal of Mueller's doctrine which powerfully governed his life. Therefore, any serious study of Mueller will want to put most effort into the newly republished George Mueller, A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealing with George Muller, Written by Himself, Jehovah Magnified. Addresses by George Muller Complete and Unabridged, 2 vols. (Muskegon, Mich.: Dust and Ashes Publications, 2003). A shorter access to Mueller's life and writings is also newly republished: George Mueller, Autobiography of George Mueller, or A Million and a Half in Answer to Prayer, compiled by G. Fred Bergin (Denton, Tex.: Westminster Literature Resources, 2003).

1 George Mueller, A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealing with George Muller, Written by Himself, Jehovah Magnified. Addresses by George Muller Complete and Unabridged, 2 vols. (Muskegon, Mich.: Dust and Ashes, 2003), 1:646.

2 Ibid., 2:675.

3 Arthur T. Pierson, George Mueller of Bristol and His Witness to A Prayer-Hearing God (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Kregel, 1999), 248. Originally published as “Authorized Memoir” (Old Tappan, N.J.: Fleming H. Revell, 1899).

4 Pierson, George Mueller, 354.

5 Mueller, Narrative, 1:41.

6 Ibid., 1:39-40.

7 Ibid., 1:53.

8 Ibid., 1:191

9 Ibid., 1:140.

10 Pierson, George Mueller, 13.

11 Ibid., 264.

12 Mueller, Narrative, 1:80.

13 “Are you in debt? Then make confession of sin respecting it. Sincerely confess to the Lord that you have sinned against Rom. xiii. 8. And if you are resolved no more to contract debt, whatever may be the result, and you are waiting on the Lord, and truly trust in Him, your present debts will soon be paid. Are you out of debt? then whatever your future want may be, be resolved, in the strength of Jesus, rather to suffer the greatest privation, whilst waiting upon God for help, than to use unscriptural means, such as borrowing, taking goods on credit, etc., to deliver yourselves. This way needs but to be tried, in order that its excellency may be enjoyed.” Mueller, Narrative, 1:251.

14 Ibid., 1:80-81.

15 Ibid., 2:365-375.

16 In his own words here is a summary of accomplishments up to May, 1868: “Above Sixteen Thousand Five Hundred children or grown up persons were taught in the various Schools, entirely supported by the Institution; more than Forty-Four Thousand and Five Hundred Copies of the Bible, and above Forty Thousand and Six Hundred New Testaments, and above Twenty Thousand other smaller portions of the Holy Scriptures, in various languages, were circulated from the formation of the Institution up to May 26, 1868; and about Thirty-one Millions of Tracts and Books, likewise in several languages, were circulated. There were, likewise, from the commencement, Missionaries assisted by the funds of the Institution, and of late years more than One Hundred and Twenty in number. On this Object alone Seventy six Thousand One Hundred and Thirty-seven Pounds were expended from the beginning, up to May 26, 1868. Also 2,412 Orphans were under our care, and five large houses, at an expense of above One Hundred and Ten Thousand Pounds were erected, for the accommodation of 2,050 Orphans. With regard to the spiritual results, eternity alone can unfold them; yet even in so far as we have already seen fruit, we have abundant cause for praise and thanksgiving.” Mueller, Narrative, 2:314.

17 Pierson, George Mueller, 274.

18 Ibid.

19 Ibid., 305.

20 George Mueller, Autobiography of George Mueller, or A Million and a Half in Answer to Prayer, compiled by G. Fred Bergin (Denton, Tex.: Westminster Literature Resources, 2003), ix.

21 Pierson, George Mueller, 305.

22 Ibid., 257.

23 Ibid., 283.

24 Ibid., 285.

25 Ibid., 285-286.

26 Ibid., 286.

27 Ibid., 287. By his own testimony he had read the Bible 100 times by the time he was 71. Mueller, Narrative, 2:834.

28 One estimate is that Mueller collected about $150 million in today's currency. Thanks to Coty Pinckney for the reference and calculations, using John J. McCusker, “Comparing the Purchasing Power of Money in Great Britain from 1264 to Any Other Year Including the Present,” Economic History Services, 2001 (http://www.eh.net/hmit/ppowerbp/).

29 “In looking back upon the Thirty One years, during which this Institution had been in operation, I had, as will be seen, by the Grace of God, kept to the original principles, on which, for His honour, it was established on March 5, 1834. For 1, during the whole of this time I had avoided going in debt; and never had a period been brought to a close, but I had some money in hand. Great as my trials of faith might have been, I never contracted debt; for I judged, that, if God's time was come for any enlargement, He would also give the means, and that, until He supplied them, I had quietly to wait His time, and not to act before His time was fully come. Mueller, Narrative, 2:291. On his view of debt, see also 1:25, 62, 83, 169, 172, 213, 251, 259, 316-317, 403.

30 Mueller, Narrative, 2:389-401.

31 Pierson, George Mueller, 279.

32 Mueller, Narrative, 2:392-393.

33 Ibid., 2:398.

34 Ibid., 2:400.

35 Ibid., 2:745. In the actual funeral sermon itself Mueller took as a text Psalm 119:68, “Thou art good and doest good.” He opened it like this: “‘The Lord is good, and doeth good,' all will be according to His own blessed character. Nothing but that, which is good, like Himself, can proceed from Him. If he pleases to take my dearest wife, it will be good, like Himself. What I have to do, as His child, is to be satisfied with what my Father does, that I may glorify Him. After this my soul not only aimed, but this, my soul, by God's grace, attained to. I was satisfied with God.” Ibid., 2:398-399.

36 Ibid., 1:302.

37 Ibid., 1:103.

38 Ibid., 1:105.

39 Ibid. Italics added. The capital letters are his.

40 Ibid., 1:131, 250, 285, 317, 443, 486, 548, 558, etc.

41 “All believers are called upon, in the simple confidence of faith, to cast all their burdens upon Him, to trust in him for every thing, and not only to make every thing a subject of prayer, but to expect answers to their petitions which they have asked according to His will, and in the name of the Lord Jesus.” Ibid., 1:302.

42 Ibid., 1:65.

43 Ibid.

44 Ibid., 1:10.

45 Ibid.

46 Ibid., 1:16.

47 Ibid., 1:17.

48 Ibid., 1:16.

49 Ibid., 1:17.

50 “For when it pleased the Lord in August, 1829, to bring me really to the Scriptures, my life and walk became very different.” Ibid., 1:28-29.

51 “Between July, 1829, and January, 1830, I had seen the leading truths connected with the second coming of our Lord Jesus; I had apprehended the all-sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures as our rule, and the Holy Spirit as or teacher; I had seen clearly the precious doctrines of the grace of God, about which I had been uninstructed for nearly four years after my conversion.” Ibid., 2:720.

52 Ibid., 1:39.

53 Ibid., 1:46. “Thus, I say, the electing love of God in Christ (when I have been able to realize it) has often been the means of producing holiness, instead of leading me into sin.” Ibid., 1:40.

54 “Being made willing to have no glory of my own in the conversion of sinners, but to consider myself merely as an instrument; and being made willing to receive what the Scriptures said; I went to the Word, reading the New Testament from the beginning, with a particular reference to these truths. To my great astonishment I found that the passages which speak decidedly for election and persevering grace, were about four times as many as those which speak apparently against these truths; and even those few, shortly after, when I had examined and understood them, served to confirm me in the above doctrines. As to the effect which my belief in these doctrines had on me, I am constrained to state, for God's glory, that though I am still exceedingly weak, and by no means so dead to the lusts of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, as I might and as I ought to be, yet, by the grace of God, I have walked more closely with Him since that period. My life has not been so variable, and I may say that I have lived much more for God than before.” Ibid., 1:46. “Thus, I say, the electing love of God in Christ (when I have been able to realize it) has often been the means of producing holiness, instead of leading me into sin.” Ibid., 1:40.

55 Ibid., 1:752.

56 “Upon our first coming to Bristol we declined accepting anything in the shape of regular salary. . . . We did not act thus because we thought it wrong that those who were ministered unto in spiritual things should minister unto us in temporal things; but 1. because we would not have the liberality of the brethren to be a matter of constraint, but willingly.” Ibid., 1:275.

57 The gifts have been given to me “without one single individual having been asked by me for any thing. The reason why I have refrained altogether from soliciting any one for help is, that the hand of God evidently might be seen in the matter, that thus my fellow-believers might be encouraged more and more to trust in Him, and that also those who know not the Lord, may have a fresh proof that, indeed, it is not a vain thing to pray to God.” Ibid., 1:132.

58 Mueller walked a narrow line: On the one hand, he wanted to give God all the credit for answering prayer for meeting all this needs, and so he did not ask people directly for help. But on the other hand he wanted this work of God to be known so that Christians would be encouraged to trust God for answered prayer. But in the very publication of the work of God he was making known how much he depended on the generosity of God's people, and thus motivating them by human means to give.

59 “I do not mean to say that God does not use the Reports as instruments in procuring us means. They are written in order that I may thus give an account of my stewardship, but particularly, in order that, by these printed accounts of the work, the chief end of this Institution may be answered, which is to raise another public testimony to an unbelieving world, that in these last days the Living God is still the Living God, listening to the prayers of His children, and helping those who put their trust in Him; and in order that believers generally may be benefited and especially be encouraged to trust in God for everything they may need, and be stirred up to deal in greater simplicity with God respecting everything connected with their own particular position and circumstances; in short, that the children of God maybe brought to the practical use of the Holy Scriptures, as the word of the Living God. — But while these are the primary reasons for publishing these Reports, we doubt not that the Lord has again and again used them as instruments in leading persons to help us with their means.” Ibid., 1:662.

60 Ibid., 1:611. “This is one of the great secrets in connexion with successful service for the Lord; to work as if everything depended upon our diligence, and yet not to rest in the least upon our exertions, but upon the blessing of the Lord.” Ibid., 2:290. “Speak also for the Lord, as if everything depended on your exertions; yet trust not in the least in your exertions, but in the Lord, who alone can cause your efforts to be made effectual.” Ibid., 2:279.

61 Ibid., 1:594.

62 “There is scarcely a country, from whence I have not received donations; yet all come unsolicited, often anonymously, and in by far the greater number of cases from entire strangers, who are led by God, in answer to our prayers, to help on this work which was commenced, and is carried on, only in dependence on the Living God, in whose hands are the hearts of all men.” Ibid., 2:387. “Our Heavenly Father has the hearts of all men at His disposal, and we give ourselves to prayer to Him, and He, in answer to our prayers, lays the necessities of this work on the hearts of his stewards.” Ibid., 2:498. “We should not trust in the Reports, and expect that they would bring in something, but trust in the Living God, who has the hearts of all in His hands, and to whom all the gold and silver belongs.” Ibid., 2:80.

63 “Remember also, that God delights to bestow blessing, but, generally, as the result of earnest, believing prayer.” Ibid., 2:279.

64 Ibid., 1:61.

65 Ibid., 2:401.

66 Ibid., 1:505.

67 Ibid., 2:730-731. “I saw more clearly than ever, that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not, how much I might serve the Lord, how I might glorify the Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished.” Ibid., 1:271.

68 Ibid., 2:406.

69 Ibid., 1:355.

70 Pierson, George Mueller, 374.

71 Mueller, Narrative, 1:355.

72 Ibid., 1:326.

73 Ibid., 2:731.

74Ibid., 2:732.

75 Ibid., 2:740.

76 Ibid., 2:834.

77 Ibid., 1:271.

78 Ibid., 1:272-273.

79 Ibid., 2:745.

80 “I have not served a hard Master, and that is what I delight to show. For, to speak well of His name, that thus my beloved fellow-pilgrims, who may read this, may be encouraged to trust in Him, is the chief purpose of my writing.” Ibid., 1:63.

81 Ibid., 1:101.

82 Ibid., 1:105.

83 Ibid., 2:399.

84 Ibid., 1:521.

[helloworlddemo1122-yahoopar-blog]

Rose McGowan Tells All in New Memoir ‘Brave’: 14 Shocking Allegations

Rose McGowan isn’t afraid to speak her truth.

In her new memoir, Brave, which was released on Tuesday, the 44-year-old actress and activist lays it all out in print – outlining her childhood, her unlikely start in show business, her A-list relationships and the alleged sexual assault she endured at the hands of producer Harvey Weinstein, whom she refers to in the book only as "the Monster." Weinstein continues to deny McGowan's allegations of non-consensual sexual contact.

McGowan writes about the arc of her career in Hollywood, and professional and personal interactions with Quentin Tarantino, Ben Affleck, and director Robert Rodriguez. She also calls out those who worked closely with her – agents, publicists, lawyers, and more.

She touches on her internal struggles, from growing up in the Children of God cult to battling an eating disorder to living on the street as a preteen.

Though McGowan has been plenty vocal on social media and in the New York Times expose that ultimately led to Weinstein’s downfall, the claims she makes in Brave don't hold anything back.

We belong to no one and no one belongs to us. Your body, your body rules. #RoseArmy #WomensMarch

A post shared by Rose McGowan (@rosemcgowan) on Jan 20, 2018 at 8:50am PST

Here are her most shocking revelations:

1. Why She Shaved Her Head

Getty Images

Noting that the two periods of time she had long hair were “the hardest in my life,” McGowan writes that her lengthy tresses made it easier for people to objectify her.

“My hairdressers were gay males, and I was their Barbie come to life; at least that’s what they told me. I didn’t think I looked like Barbie. I thought I looked more like a blow-up sex doll, the kind with the hole for the mouth. I had been turned into the ultimate fantasy f**k toy by the Hollywood machine,” she explains. “When I shaved my head, it was a battle cry, but more than that it gave me an answer to the question I so hated. Did I break up with someone? Yes, I broke up with the world.”

2. Growing Up in The Children of God

McGowan says she was born in a barn in Italy and was raised as a member of the Children of God, alongside her parents and siblings. While she doesn't specify how old she was while in the cult, she alleges her father told her mother that he was going to take another wife. McGowan also alleges that during her family's time in the cult, she was physically abused and claims leaders of The Children of God “started advocating child-adult sex.”

“I saw an 11-year-old girl being forced to sit next to a naked man, with his floppy d**k on his leg. They made her sit between his legs so he could ‘massage’ her back,” she alleges. “I saw her tears. Even then I knew none of it was ‘normal,’ whatever normal was.”

Her father left the cult with McGowan, she alleges, his other children and his other wife, leaving her mother behind. After her mother left the cult, she lived with McGowan’s new stepfather, Lawrence. She describes him as a mean man and alleges that his daughter, Mary, later claimed he was sexually molesting her and brought charges against him.

“Mary, who was about fourteen at the time, and I were forced to take baths together while Lawrence watched… Apparently Lawrence liked blondes, and thank God I had dark hair," she alleges. 

3. The Alleged Harvey Weinstein incident

Getty Images

McGowan recalls her first interaction with Weinstein was at a screening of her movie, Going All the Way, at the 1997 Sundance Film Festival, where he sat behind her in the theater. 

The film had a topless scene in it, and McGowan writes that it humiliated her at the time. Shortly after, Weinstein, referred to as “the Monster” in the book, requested a meeting with her in a hotel in Park City, Utah.

“I was repulsed immediately,” she writes, alleging that as she was leaving the hotel suite, she was stopped her outside of a room that held a Jacuzzi.

“It all happens so fast. My clothes are getting peeled off me,” she writes of the alleged encounter. “I back into the wall, but there’s nowhere to go. I freeze, like a statue. I don’t know what’s happening; my sweater is being pulled over my head and his hands pull my pants down. He bends over and pulls my shoes off. I am now naked. This all happened in the space of about thirty second, it feels like.”

McGowan write that Weinstein allegedly picked her up and placed her on the edge of the hot tub, and pried her legs open began performing oral sex on her while he masturbated inside the Jacuzzi.

“My brain starts to scramble. Survival instinct kicks in and I am desperately trying to figure out how to get the f**k away and make it stop,” she writes about the alleged incident. “I don’t know how else to get out of this situation, so I remember the When Harry Met Sally movie with its big fake orgasm scene. So I did that.”

That same day, McGowan says that she went to a press event for her film, Phantoms, and claims that she told her co-star, Ben Affleck, about the alleged ordeal.

“I am shaking and my eyes fill with tears; I say where I’ve just come from, and my costar says, ‘Goddamn it. I told him to stop doing that,’” she alleges. This repeats a claim McGowan has made on Twitter; Affleck has not directly responded. ET has reached out to a representative for Affleck for comment.

The actress also alleges that Weinstein tried calling her several times, saying she was his new “special friend” and that other big actresses who had worked with him and won Oscars were also his "special friends."

McGowan writes that her manager told her to look at this as a step forward in her career and one lawyer advised her against taking legal action. A higher-up at her management agency allegedly said, "'Goddamn it, I just had an expose about him killed in the LA Times; he owes it to me not to do this.'"

In a settlement, she was allegedly given $100,000 for her silence, saying, “That money felt dirty, anyway. I largely gave it away. It brought me no solace.” McGowan claims she was blacklisted from most other studios in the time following the alleged incident.

On Tuesday morning Weinstein's attorney, Ben Brafman, released a statement to ET, saying, “Mr. Weinstein denies Rose McGowan’s allegations of non-consensual sexual contact. It is erroneous and irresponsible to conflate claims of inappropriate behavior and consensual sexual contact later regretted, with an untrue claim of rape.”

4. Rehab Stint and Life on the Streets

McGowan writes she was sent to rehab after trying LSD one time during junior high dance. Unhappy there, she ran away several times until she eventually lived on the streets. She ultimately did turn to drugs, and almost drowned after taking acid. 

“I remember being out there on acid, sitting on a log and looking at the ocean. The next thing I knew, the tide had come in,” she says. “The water got as high as my chest, at the height of winter, because I realized I was practically submerged. The problem with acid is sometimes you lose track of things, like, say, the sea level.”

When she finally went to live with her aunt, she realized she had contracted crabs and ringworm. 

5. Alleged Experiences With On-set Sexual Assault

YouTube

As an extra on the set of the 1990 movie, Class of 1999, McGowan -- who was still a minor at the time -- recalls being invited out with other extras by a guy she knew. However, when she went to his hotel room, she says she was alone.

“The door opened and I got pulled in right into his chest. Awww, f**k. His beard scratched me as he jammed his tongue down my throat,” she writes of the alleged incident. “It all happened so fast. He promptly pulled down my shirt and fondled my breasts. Of course, it was me who felt dirty and ashamed… It didn’t occur to me to say anything. For years I thought of the incident as a sexual experience versus sexual assault. Later, when I became an adult, I realized that it actually was assault.”

In 1995's The Doom Generation she further alleges that she was asked to lie on top of another actor for her audition when he had an erection. She also allegedly experienced assault during the filming of one scene in a car. 

“All of a sudden I felt something wet under my skirt, and an insistent pushing pressure on my vagina,” she alleges. “The actor had taken a bottle of water under my skirt to spray and push onto my privates. I froze. Then I snapped. I went to lunge for him, but the camera was in the way. Gregg Araki just said, ‘Oh children.’ “

She writes that director Araki has since denied knowing exactly what happened in that moment and has defended his response. ET has reached out to a representative of Araki for comment.

“If he did not see what happened he should not defend it. To me that’s the height of misogyny and victim blaming. Gaslighting. Don’t gaslight me, mother**ker. My vagina remembers. My body remembers,” she writes of the alleged incident, adding that the unnamed male star involved has since apologized. “It is an apology I completely accept. There is no bad blood between him and me. I think he’s great.”

6. Battling an Eating Disorder

Getty Images

After a boyfriend -- who she met when she was 15 and he was 20 -- commented on her legs, McGowan notes that she became “obsessed” with losing weight, and worked out constantly, eating very little.

“About once every three days I allowed myself to eat something, usually a big pot of pasta. I never was able to get below ninety-two pounds. For some reason that was my cutoff point,” she writes. “Because I had read about girls who were eighty-four pounds, I felt like a failure… It got so bad I was hallucinating. I tried never to sit down. I was sure people could see fat dripping off me. Starving made me feel a fuzzed kind of high. I remember thinking that at least I was superior to heroin addicts because I was high for free.”

7.Personal Tragedy

In 1992, when she was just 19, McGowan met a man named Brett Cantor who she says helped her get out of an abusive relationship. After getting some money and driving away, she tried calling Cantor but he never answered.

“I was starting to panic about having no place to stay. I hung up and called again,” she says. “A man answered the phone, it wasn’t Brett. The voice identified himself as LAPD and said, ‘Brett has been murdered.’ My blood ran cold and I remember nothing after that. I found out later Brett was stabbed twenty-three times and almost decapitated. My world, my hope, went black… The case is still unsolved, but I have been trying for years to remedy that.”

8. Allegedly Losing Out on Her Scream Salary and Going Blonde

YouTube

McGowan’s first major role was as Tatum Riley in the 1996 horror movie Scream, but even after she earned the part, the actress says she almost lost out on the role after an alleged misstep on the part of her lawyer.

“I got a call from my agent and was offered $50,000 for the part. Holy cow! That was the most money I had ever heard of coming my way. Protocol would have been for my lawyer to counteroffer $100,000 and then I’d wind up getting $75,000, but my lawyer went back at $250,000. This so infuriated the head of the studio, he made me retest (a filmed audition) for the role three more times, even though I’d already had an offer,” she alleges. “To me it felt like that studio head want to humiliate me and penalize me for my lawyer’s p***ing contest move.”

While this was going on, they cast Neve Campbell in her role, which greatly concerned McGowan as she was a fellow brunette. Noting that Hollywood rarely casts multiple females of the same hair color in main roles, she told the producers that she was thinking about going blonde.

“I had no desire to be blond, but I knew that was the only way I’d get hired… my plan worked," she writes of the alleged incident. "I was officially offered the part, but for less than all my counterparts because of said money-p***ing contest, after paying my agent, manager, and lawyer, I would up probably with $12,500.”

 9. Her Life With Marilyn Manson -- and Why They Broke Up

Getty Images

McGowan mostly praises her three-and-a-half-year romance from 1998 to 2001 with Manson (she said no one called him Marilyn), noting that he showed her true kindness at a dark time in her life.

“Manson patched me back together after the assault,” she writes, adding that their life together wasn’t nearly as strange or dramatic as people thought. “The truth was that at the time when he wasn’t creating electrifying music, Manson was painting watercolors of my Boston terriers while I was ordering glassware from Martha Stewart’s online store.”

She continues, “It was a pretty legendary relationship, not just in the media. It was a pretty legendary relationship behind the scenes, too. We had a whole lot of amazing.”

In the end, McGowan said they split because she "grew exhausted," recalling, "I really was in love with Manson, I just couldn't do the lifestyle anymore. I was too tired." 

10. Her 1998 MTV VMAs look

Sygma

McGowan certainly turned heads in 1998 at the MTV Video Music Awards, attending as Mason’s date. She claims the X-rated look was her way of getting back at those who had sexually objectified her.

“I thought: You know what? F**k you. You want to objectify me? You want to see a body? This is what you want? All you media men, all you photographers, you vultures, this is what you want to see? I’ll f**king show you a body. And so I did. Wearing the ‘naked dress,’ as I call it, was a big middle finger to pretty much everybody. It was a reclamation of my own body after my assault,” she writes. “It was, of course, misinterpreted and sexualized, which was the exact opposite point I was trying to make. That’s the thing that other women who have copied me have gotten wrong through the years; when they copy the dress, they do it to be sexy and turn society on. I didn’t do it to be sexy. I did it with power, not to titillate or turn on the boys and men of the world. I did it as a big middle finger, and there’s the difference.”

11. On her experience with Charmed

Getty Images

McGowan opened up about the pressures of replacing Shannen Doherty on Charmed from 2001 to 2006.

“Everyone was hoping I’d keep the show on the air and get them to their ultimate moneymaking goal, the Holy Grail known as syndication,” she writes. “That’s a hell of a lot of pressure for someone who had only been in indie films.”

Though she seems to take mostly positives away from the experience, she did note that she often thinks of a female director, the only one the show had in the five years she was on it.

“The crew sank her,” she says. “I feel horribly about not fighting for her more, but I didn’t fully understand the dynamics of what was happening. My character was too busy talking to leprechauns to have the time.”

12. Her Allegations Against Quentin Tarantino

The actress, who starred in Tarantino’s 2007 film Death Proof, alleges that Tarantino had a “known foot fetish” and frequently referenced the scene where she paints her toenails in the film Jawbreaker. She also alleges that Tarantino “knew” about her alleged settlement with Weinstein before she was cast in his film.

Tarantino has admitted to The New York Times that he knew some of what Weinstein had been accused of, saying, “There was more to it than just the normal rumors, the normal gossip. It wasn’t secondhand. I knew he did a couple of these things. I wish I had taken responsibility for what I heard. If I had done the work I should have done then, I would have had to not work with him.” ET has reached out to a representative of Tarantino for comment.

13. Her Relationship with Director Robert Rodriguez

Getty Images

While she was filming Death Proof, McGowan was also filming Planet Terror with director Robert Rodriguez. She alleges that she began dating him while he was still married and they were even briefly engaged. She says he had a hold over her more so than any man in her life, including her father.

After she told him she wanted to have a daughter named Cherry Darling, she alleges that he took the name and made it her character’s name so she could never have that child with another man.

“Knowing what happened with the Monster, RR wrote a scene where Quentin tries to rape my character,” she alleges about the episode. “I didn’t even know how to articulate the wrongness, so I didn’t. Maybe RR thought it was cathartic for me? I did enjoy stabbing Quentin Tarantino in the eye with my broken wooden leg.”

In her eyes, Rodriguez's biggest transgression was selling their film to Weinstein – which she detailed in early tweets prior to the New York Times Weinstein expose.

“I can’t tell you what it was like to be sold into the hands of the man who had assaulted me and scarred me for life,” she alleges. “I had to do press events with the Monster and see photos of us together, his big fat paw pulling me in to his body. In the end the film was a box office flop, I think largely because they promoted it horribly, but to tell you the truth, I was happy it failed.”

ET has reached out to a representative for Rodriguez for comment.

14. The Truth Behind Those Plastic Surgery Rumors

McGowan writes she went in for a sinus surgery she’d been putting off but does not specify when this took place. Unfortunately, the surgery went wrong and a puncture was made through her skin. The hole didn’t heal and she went to a plastic surgeon.

“He immediately performed a surgery to make the hole a thin line. I had to get reconstructive surgery on that eye, and then, because the procedure pinched the eye a tiny bit higher, I had to get my other eye slightly done to match it, by one millimeter,” she says. “I told my publicists what had happened and they said to say it was a car accident. Looking back, I don’t know why it mattered, but I took their advice.”

McGowan's biography isn't the first time she's spoken out. Here's a look at what she had to say about the presence of the anti-harassment movement Time's Up at this year's Golden Globes:

RELATED CONTENT:

Rose McGowan Details Being Allegedly Sexually Assaulted by Harvey Weinstein in New Book

Rose McGowan Continues to Speak Out Against Sexual Misconduct in Hollywood in New Docuseries: Watch

Rose McGowan Calls Time's Up a 'Band-Aid' to Make Hollywood 'Feel Better'