Page:Neatby - A history of the Plymouth Brethren.djvu/66

54 Müller (1805-1898) is too well known through his own narrative to require to be told again in detail. He was of Prussian birth, and after a youth of precocious wickedness became the subject of a profound spiritual change. Desiring to devote himself to mission work among the Jews, he came as a very young man to London for training. But his mind was independently moving in the common direction of the early Brethren, and connexion with an organised society soon became impossible to him. Groves’ early pamphlet on Christian Devotedness fell into his hands, and influenced him powerfully. In 1830 Müller accepted a call to the pastorate of a church at Teignmouth, at a stipend of £55 a year; and it was here that the principles soon to be known as those of “the Brethren” began to take definite shape in his mind.

He became extremely suspicious of “human direction” in “the things of God”. His reading was almost confined to the letter of the Bible itself, and bore fruit, as he believed, in several measures that he took at this time. These were (1) his own baptism by immersion; (2) his adoption of weekly communion, and (to a certain extent) of open ministry; (3) his abandonment of pew rents and a stated salary; and (4) his relinquishment of all attempt to save money. His adoption of Baptist principles threatened to be rather a serious matter for him, as £50 of his salary was at stake. He confesses that, “at least for a few minutes,” he found this a temptation (Narrative, p. 68).

It was in the summer of 1830 that he began to adopt a measure of open ministry. “At certain meetings any of the brethren had an opportunity to exhort or teach the rest, if they considered that they had anything to say which might be beneficial to the hearers.” It was