Lord Wolseley, on hearing an officer
say that General Gordon was mad, remarked, in language
similar to that used by George II. to the Duke of
Newcastle about General Wolfe, that it was a great
pity Gordon had not bitten more Generals, so that
they might have been infected with some of his madness.
Nor is there any reason why the motive power which
could make a man do such noble deeds and lead such
a splendid life should be confined to Generals.
There are thousands of young men in this country who
may be helped to live better lives by the study of
such a Christian hero as Charles George Gordon undoubtedly
was, and it is with that end in view that I have endeavoured
to write a popular sketch of his life and character.
My object in adding to the number of biographies already written of General Gordon
is to meet the demand for a popular book for young
men and others, which will focus the events of his
life into one handy volume, and which shall at the
same time give a clear insight into the religious
life of this Christian hero. This I have attempted
to combine with a sketch of his military, political,
and social life, setting forth not only the deeds
of the man, but the motive which prompted them.
The best writers on Gordon have taken up parts of his
life only, so that no one can get a view of it as
a whole without wading through a large number of volumes,
some of them very ponderous. The best record
of his career in China is a work by Mr. Andrew Wilson
called “The Ever-Victorious Army.”
A smaller book by Mr. W. E. Lilley gives an interesting
account of Gordon’s life at Gravesend. The
first part of his life in Africa is given in a larger
volume by Dr. G. Birkbeck Hill, called “Colonel
Gordon in Central Africa.” The late Prebendary
Barnes edited a small book, “Reflections in
Palestine,” and Mr. A. Egmont Hake has published
a complete account of the hero’s career at Khartoum
in “The Journals of General Gordon,” which
were given to him in manuscript to be edited.
In addition to this valuable work, the same writer,
who is a distant cousin of Gordon’s, has written
two large volumes, embracing the whole of his life,
under the title “The Story of Chinese Gordon.”
The late Sir Henry Gordon has also
written a biography; but though an able man and very
fond of his brother, it is not generally considered
that he did full justice to his memory. The brothers
were widely separated in age, there being fourteen
years between them; and owing to the younger one having
spent so much of his life abroad, they had not seen
much of each other. Colonel Sir William F. Butler
has written the ablest and most interesting of all
the biographies which embrace the whole of Gordon’s
life, but as he is a Roman Catholic, it could not be
expected that he would enter largely into the religious
views of his hero. The remarks he does make on
the subject are, however, excellent and in good taste.
Another capital sketch of Gordon has been produced
by the celebrated war correspondent Archibald Forbes,
who not unnaturally devotes most of his space to the
military aspect of Gordon’s career, and says
but little about his religious life. From the
religious standpoint the best information can be got
from the “Letters of General Gordon to his Sister,”
edited by Miss Gordon. There seems to have been
a special bond of sympathy between the brother and
sister, and she seems to have been made the recipient
of all his confidences, religious and otherwise.
In order to get a clear and accurate
conception of Gordon’s many-sided character,
I have made myself acquainted with all these authorities
on the subject. There is another little book
to which I am indebted “Letters from
Khartoum,” written by the late Frank Power, correspondent
of the Times at Khartoum during the siege.
It gives a good insight into Gordon’s life in
the beleaguered city. I have further had the advantage
of hearing many anecdotes and incidents that throw
a light upon the personality of one who undeniably
ranks amongst the great men of the century. Nevertheless
I feel that to represent the religious and professional
life of a man like Gordon, who was so essentially original
and unlike other people, is a very difficult task,
so I have, as far as possible, quoted his own words
in giving expression to his views.
The play of “Hamlet” without
its leading character could not be more deficient
than a sketch of the life of General Gordon without
a careful setting-forth of his religious views.
It would be impossible to point to one in this nineteenth
century who was a more complete living embodiment
of the truth contained in the text, “This is
the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.”
He was a man of faith, a man of prayer, a devout student
of the Word of God; and though he was in the
world, and took far more than his share of the ordinary
duties of life, he was not of the world.
Mr. Gladstone was right when he said from his seat
in the House of Commons, “Such examples are fruitful
in the future, and I trust that there will grow from
the contemplation of that character and those deeds
other men who in future time may emulate his noble
and most Christian example.” Gordon must
ever remain a mystery to those who have not got the
key to his character, and my desire is simply to place
that key in the hands of young men, so that they may
study him for themselves, and may learn to turn to
the same source whence he derived his wisdom and his
force of character.
Such noble examples are not often
seen, for Christian heroes in this world are all too
few. It is, then, our bounden duty to take pains
that the example set by one who has been termed “the
youngest of the saints” shall not be lost on
the young men who come after him, and who have not
had the privilege of seeing him and knowing him while
alive.
“Lives of great men
all remind us
We can make our
lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind
us
Footprints in
the sands of time.”
Goodness in the abstract we are all
prepared to admire; but while we do this, how often
we are tempted to declare it an impossible thing to
live up to a high standard. God, recognising the
weakness of human nature, sent His only-begotten Son
to reveal the Father, and show us a life of goodness
in human form. He has further descended to our
weakness by permitting us from time to time to see
in our midst living examples of how Christians can
follow out the principles of Christ. The Apostle
Paul in one of his Epistles urges his readers to follow
him even as he followed Christ. Good men have
their failings, and these we are to avoid; but while
doing so, we should aim at imitating that which is
good and noble and Christlike in their characters.
It is a great privilege to be permitted to come in
contact with living men of the type of Gordon, but
that privilege is only for the few. As the great
majority of our fellow-creatures are denied it, the
next best thing for them is to be able to read about
these heroes, and thus endeavour to catch their spirit.
Some are inclined to sneer at biographies, and to
say that, speaking generally, they set forward only
the good part of the character of their subjects,
omitting all that is faulty. To a certain extent
this is undoubtedly true, owing to the very nature
of things; but, on the other hand, it must be remembered
that it is only the good that we are to follow, and
therefore it is useless to direct attention to a man’s
failings.
There have been few men who have attained
to eminence whose inner life could be closely investigated
and betray so few faults as did Gordon’s.
The late Sir Stafford Northcote (afterwards Lord Iddesleigh),
leader of the Conservative Opposition in the House
of Commons at the time of Gordon’s death, only
expressed the literal truth when he said: “General
Gordon was a hero, and permit me to say he was still
more he was a hero among heroes. For
there have been men who have obtained and deserved
the praise of heroism whose heroism was manifested
on the field of battle or in other conflicts, and
who, when examined in the tenor of their personal
lives, were not altogether blameless; but if you take
the case of this man, pursue him into privacy, investigate
his heart and his mind, you will find that he proposed
to himself not any ideal of wealth and power, or even
fame, but to do good was the object he proposed to
himself in his whole life, and on that one object it
was his one desire to spend his existence.”
But though Gordon’s inner life
was so thoroughly open to investigation, there was
something about him that made him very human.
He had his full share of faults, and a quickness of
temper which manifested itself unmistakably on occasions.
He had also that kind of hasty impatience to which
men are liable who are themselves quick at taking in
ideas, or seeing how a thing should be done, when
they are brought into contact with others of a slower
temperament. He was painfully conscious of his
own defects, and judged them far more severely than
other people would do.
What made him so really great was
the happy combination of so many virtues with a corresponding
absence of ordinary defects. There have been
Christians as earnest and devout as he; there have
been soldiers as brave and capable; there have been
men as kind-hearted; but there have been few who,
while combining all of these good points and many
more, have exhibited so complete an absence of the
numerous defects which blemish the characters of most
great men. The late Prebendary Barnes, who was
very intimate with him, remarks that “there are
no popular illusions to be dispelled” as one
studies his inner life. Sir John Lubbock in one
of his lectures says of Napoleon, that he was a man
of genius, but not a hero. Now, while Gordon was
essentially a genius, he was even more essentially
a hero. True heroism is inseparably associated
with self-sacrifice. A man may be as brave as
a bulldog, yet be entirely wanting in all that goes
to make him a hero. The dictionary definition
by no means embraces all that the word implies.
Lord Wolseley in a magazine article remarked that
he had met but two heroes in his eventful life; one
of them was that noble Christian officer General Lee,
who commanded the Southerners in the American War,
and the other was Gordon. It was his complete
forgetfulness of self, his entire willingness to sink
his own individuality, his own comfort, his own position,
his good name, that made Gordon so Christlike, and
lifted him above the level of his fellows. We
are accustomed to read of brave men, of original thinkers,
of great statesmen, of men of genius in different
departments of life, but we seldom read of one who
was so entirely free from what Milton calls the last
infirmity of great men the love of fame that
he was willing to be nothing that the cause he had
espoused might triumph. When Columbus first saw
the River Orinoco, some one remarked to him that he
must have discovered an island. His reply was,
“No such river as that flows from an island;
that mighty torrent must drain the waters of a continent;”
and his prediction proved to be correct. When
we see the deep stream of true heroism flowing from
the heart of such a man as Gordon, we instinctively
feel that no mere human heart could produce such a
torrent of good works, but that behind the human being
there must be something more. It has been my object
in this memoir to show that the stream that went forth
from Gordon’s heart to cheer and bless all with
whom he came in contact, sprang from no isolated fountain,
but had its origin in the great ocean of Divine love,
which has existed in all ages, but was revealed more
distinctly on Calvary.
This is a material, sceptical age,
when many pride themselves on their want of faith,
quite forgetting that to believe too little is as
clearly an indication of mental weakness as to believe
too much. God suddenly raised up a man in our
midst who was as strong in faith as he was indifferent
to the material things of this world. It was indeed
his faith in things eternal and unseen that made him
so indifferent to things temporal. Gordon might
have lived and died amongst us without being known
beyond a limited circle, but that his Master placed
him on high so that men should be compelled to hear
about his life. Sir William Butler in his interesting
book, “The Campaign of the Cataracts,”
does not at all exaggerate when he says:
“Who is this far-off figure looming
so large between the rifts in the dense leaguer
which the Arab has drawn around Khartoum? We
cannot save him with all this host and all this
piled-up treasure; but, behold! our failure shall
be his triumph; for God has raised a colossal
pedestal in the midst of this vast desert, and placing
upon it His noblest Christian knight, has lighted
around the base the torch of Moslem revolt, so
that all men through coming time may know the
greatness of His soldier.”
In spite, however, of the fact that
many failed to appreciate him while he was alive,
we may be thankful to think that there is much good
left in Old England yet; for when the events of his
noble career were made public, there was a widespread
feeling of regret that we had as a nation failed to
value adequately a man of so much true nobility.
In an interesting article in “The
Young Man,” Mr. William T. Stead hit off the
prominent characteristic of the hero’s life when
he said: “General Gordon taught the world
that it is possible to be good without being goody-goody.
That it is possible to live like a Christ and to die
like a Christ for your fellow-men, without going out
of the world or refusing to do your own fair share
of the day’s work of the world, is one of those
truths which need to be revealed anew to each successive
generation by the practical demonstration of an actual
life.” Gordon was essentially a manly man,
but with all his courage and bravery he combined the
tenderness of a woman. He could be “truest
friend and noblest foe.” His courage and
deeds of daring would have won him that much-coveted
distinction the Victoria Cross, had they been performed
in an English campaign; yet the sufferings of a child,
or even of an animal, caused him the greatest grief.
He had a keen sense of humour, and might have cultivated
the mere pleasure-seeking part of his nature, and
become socially very popular. It has been well
said that “Humanity wants more than this; it
craves to have its best and noblest powers called
into play, and exercised into action that will tend
in some way to promote the general good.”
It is for this reason that his example is such a noble
one to set before young men. Most young fellows
who are worthy of the name of men have within them
a spirit which admires all that is manly, noble, and
chivalrous; and for such it is a grand thing to have
a high ideal, even if they do not attain to it.
As it is true of men that they cannot habitually think
mean thoughts without becoming mean, or set before
themselves a low ideal without lowering themselves,
so is it true that men cannot adopt a high ideal without
instinctively cultivating noble and lofty aims.
Frederick Robertson of Brighton once
said, “Hate hypocrisy, hate cant, hate intolerance,
hate oppression, hate injustice, hate pharisaism,
hate them as Christ hated them, with a deep, living,
Godlike hatred.” It would be difficult
to point to one who was more thoroughly influenced
by the teaching conveyed in this short sentence than
was Gordon. But negative virtues of this kind
were not enough for him. One of his most prominent
characteristics was his love for that which is good,
and his incessant efforts to do good. His career
was one long effort to relieve the sufferings of his
fellow-creatures, to inculcate Divine truths, and
in every way to make the world better. Few labourers
have been called to such a variety of work; but it
was all one to him. He worked for God in China
when fighting to quell a civil war; he served the
same Master at Gravesend when he visited the sick and
the dying, and rescued little street arabs from lives
of sin; and the same motives prompted him when, later
on, he devoted all his energies to mitigating and
attempting to abolish the horrors of the slave-trade.
He is dead, but his noble example still lives.
“Press on, press on!
nor doubt, nor fear,
From age to age, this voice
shall cheer;
Whate’er may die and
be forgot,
Work done for God it
dieth not.”