The news of Gordon’s death startled
not England only, but the whole of the civilised world.
Every eye had been watching the relief column slowly
wending its way up the Nile, and over the desert route.
One war correspondent had actually used the words
in his telegram, “To-morrow the lonely and weary
hero will joyfully grasp the hand of an Englishman.”
People would not at first believe the sad reality,
and for a time every one hoped against hope.
The news reached the War Office on February 4th, and
was communicated to the public during the following
day. No better proof exists of the tenacity with
which many clung to the hope that Gordon might possibly
have survived, than the fact that the Queen, whose
womanly heart always prompted her to be one of the
first to send expressions of sympathy to the relatives
of those who fall at the post of duty, did not date
her letter to Miss Gordon till February 17th, and
even then used the sentence, “I fear there cannot
be much doubt of it,” in alluding to the hero’s
death. The Queen’s letter, which did but
give expression to the feelings of the country on the
subject, was as follows:
“OSBORNE, 17th February
1885.
“DEAR MISS GORDON, How
shall I write to you, or how shall I attempt to
express what I feel! To think of
your dear, noble, heroic Brother, who served his
Country and his Queen so truly, so heroically,
with a self-sacrifice so edifying to the World, not
having been rescued. That the promises of
support were not fulfilled which I
so frequently and constantly pressed on those who
asked him to go is to me grief inexpressible!
indeed, it has made me ill! My heart bleeds
for you, his Sister, who have gone through so
many anxieties on his account, and who loved the dear
Brother as he deserved to be. You are all
so good and trustful, and have such strong faith,
that you will be sustained even now, when real
absolute evidence of your dear Brother’s death
does not exist but I fear there cannot
be much doubt of it. Some day I hope to see
you again, to tell you all I cannot express. My
daughter Beatrice, who has felt quite as I do,
wishes me to express her deepest sympathy with
you. I hear so many expressions of sorrow and
sympathy from abroad: from my eldest
daughter, the Crown Princess, and from my Cousin,
the King of the Belgians, the very warmest.
Would you express to your other Sisters and your elder
Brother my true sympathy, and what I do so keenly
feel, the stain left upon England for your
dear Brother’s cruel, though heroic fate? Ever,
dear Miss Gordon, yours sincerely and sympathisingly,
“V. R. I.”
Parliament at once voted L20,000,
the sum usually given to a successful general on the
completion of a campaign, to be set apart for the
sisters, nephew, and nieces of General Gordon, and
an In Memoriam service was conducted in every
cathedral, and in nearly all the large churches of
England. A statue was in course of time erected
in Trafalgar Square, and another has recently
been unveiled at Chatham. A monument was erected
in St. Paul’s Cathedral, and it was decided
to place another in Westminster Abbey, the national
mausoleum of England. But better still, we know
that his memory is enshrined in the hearts of many
left behind, and that the record of his noble saintly
life is still teaching many of our countrymen valuable
lessons.
Few men have done more than General
Gordon to elevate the tone of the soldier. The
old-fashioned notion still survives that soldiers love
war for its own sake, and for the honours it brings
to those who take part in it; but Gordon showed us
a higher ideal, that the true soldier should study
his profession with the idea of mastering it, so as
the better to enable him to maintain peace. If
good men were all to abstain from studying the science
of war, evildoers would very soon have a monopoly
of it, and would become aggressors. There are
plenty of bullies, who, like Napoleon, would soon
upset the peace of Europe were it not that they fear
to do so. Such men can only be kept in order by
brute force, and brute force is absolutely of no avail,
unless it is organised and directed by a brain that
has studied the art and science of directing and controlling
physical force. It need hardly be said that a
knowledge of this kind is not acquired in a day, and
although there have been some splendid soldiers of
the type of Cromwell, Warren Hastings, and Washington,
who have never had a military training, it is unquestionable
that a knowledge of the science of war gives a general
a very great advantage over one who has not had such
training. Exceptions there are to every rule,
and the names mentioned must be placed amongst them.
It is doubtful if some of the generals named would
have ever attained celebrity had their opponents been
well trained. Gordon loved his profession, but
he took a high view of it. Soldiering with him
was not a mere profession for slaughtering his fellow-creatures,
but for the prevention of that bullying and bloodshed
which would be ever going on in this world, were it
not for those who train themselves in order to be
able to stop it. The Taiping rebellion, which
caused the death of millions of innocent creatures,
is but a specimen of what might go on throughout the
world did not skilful, well-trained soldiers throw
in their lot with the side of law and order.
Had the Chinese Government only possessed an able
general, and a proper army, that rebellion would never
have made such headway as it did. And had they
not received the services of such an able soldier
as Gordon proved to be, the rebellion might have been
indefinitely prolonged, and might have broken up the
Empire of China.
In less civilised days the percentage
of persons who loved fighting for its own sake was
undoubtedly larger than it is now. The more civilised
we become, the more we learn to value peace and to
dislike war. But even in a civilised nation like
the English, there is a certain percentage who really
love fighting for its own sake; and besides these,
there are many who do not actually love it, but think
they ought to do so, as they are in the army, and
so they cultivate a style of talking as if they really
liked it, and thus they mislead others. In the
case of Gordon there was an entire absence of either
the one or the other spirit. He did not love
fighting for its own sake, and he would probably have
looked upon a person who did as a survival of a former
age. As for the latter class he had an utter abhorrence
of all shams, and he took every opportunity of speaking
out of the honesty of his heart. “People
have little idea how far from ‘glorious’
war is. It is organised murder, pillage, and
cruelty, and it is seldom that the weight falls on
the fighting men it is on the women, children,
and old people. Consider it how we may, war is
a brutal, cruel affair.” Speaking of some
of his men killed and wounded in a skirmish, he says,
“I wish people could see what the suffering of
human creatures is I mean those who wish
for war. I am a fool, I daresay, but I cannot
see the sufferings of any of these people without
tears in my eyes.”
It is worthy of note that some of
the ablest generals who have lived and died in the
latter half of this century have held similar views.
The great Duke of Wellington remarked, as he crossed
the field of Waterloo, the evening after the battle,
that “nothing exceeds the horror of victory
except a defeat;” and such men as Sir Henry Havelock,
Sir Hope Grant, Sir Henry Lawrence, and the heroic
General Lee of America, used expressions of similar
purport. Gordon was a living illustration of
the saying that “the gentlest men are ever the
bravest when enlightened consciousness tells them
that they have a just cause to support.”
Gordon’s courage was unquestioned,
but, though he possessed more natural courage than
most men, he never made a wanton display of it merely
with a view of impressing others. In China he
exposed himself almost recklessly, in order to encourage
his officers and men; but in the Soudan, where he
felt so much depended on his life, he carefully refrained
from exposing himself, though it must at times have
been a great trial to him to see his men so badly
handled by their leaders.
It is not unnatural that, in the case
of the death of a man like General Gordon, people
should like to know his views on that event which
must in due course happen to all of us, unless our
Lord Himself shall come to terminate this dispensation.
Apparently he sometimes wished for this, though he
did not appear to think the Second Advent near at
hand. In one of his letters he says:
“I wish, I wish the King would
come again and put things right on earth; but
His coming is far off, for the whole world must long
for Him ere He comes, and I really believe that
there are but very, very few who would wish Him
to appear, for to do so is to desire death, and
how few do this! Not that we really ever die:
we only change our sheaths.”
But though he longed for the return
of the Heavenly Bridegroom during his life, he also
looked upon death as a welcome release from the trials
and troubles of life. He frequently alluded to
this subject, and dozens of extracts might be made
from his letters, all more or less similar to the
two following, which were written at different dates:
“I would that all could look on
death as a cheerful friend, who takes us from
a world of trial to our true home. All our sorrows
come from a forgetfulness of this great truth.
I desire to look on the departure of my friends
as a promotion to another and a higher sphere,
as I do believe that to be the case with all.
“Any one, to whom God
gives to be much with Him, cannot even suffer
a pang at death. For
what is death to a believer? It is a closer
approach to Him, whom, even
through the veil, he is ever with.”
There is one point on which we ought
specially to dwell in considering the lessons to be
learnt from the life of General Gordon, and that is
the moral courage he always exhibited.
His physical courage has already been touched on,
but great as it was, his moral courage was far greater.
There are plenty of men possessing physical courage
who fail to exhibit moral courage when put to the
test. Man being a gregarious animal, and accustomed
to go in flocks, is led by his fellows to evil as
well as to good. No man can be a true leader of
men who is not prepared to stand alone, if need be,
against overwhelming majorities. Gordon had the
courage of his convictions, and no amount of pressure,
no weight of public opinion, could deter him when once
the path of duty was clear. The time-server does
not ask, What is right? What is my duty? but,
What will pay? What will public opinion think?
For such an one Gordon had a supreme contempt.
It has been well said by Dr. Ryle, the Bishop of Liverpool,
“It is not overwhelming majorities that shake
and influence the world. Small minorities have
ever had more influence than large majorities.
All great men have had their seasons of loneliness.
See Napoleon, Mahomet, Luther, John Wesley, and Christ
Himself.” To this list we may add the name
of General Gordon; few men so often found themselves
so much in opposition in fashionable circles and in
the official world.
Among the false reports that have
been circulated about General Gordon is one that he
was very unsociable and morose, shunning society in
general, and ladies’ society in particular.
It is true that he shunned a certain class of society;
there was also a certain set of women that he fought
shy of; but it is quite untrue to say that he was unsociable.
He greatly enjoyed the society of ordinary cultivated
women, who were in sympathy with his efforts to do
good, and with them he was neither shy nor reserved.
He could talk pleasantly for hours together, and as
his own mind was a very cultivated one, he was a great
element of attraction to society of a certain kind.
What he did dislike intensely was the society of that
class of ladies who think of little beyond the fashions
of the day, the latest style of dress, and the newest
forms of amusement. Such persons he used to find
had no minds to think, and no hearts to feel for suffering
humanity. Many of them attempted to lionise him,
while others paid him the most fulsome compliments,
both being things that he particularly disliked.
The ordinary conventional dinner-party, where a man
is condemned to take in a lady with whom he has nothing
in common, and next to whom he must sit for a couple
of hours or so eating and drinking things which do
not agree with him, was to Gordon a special object
of antipathy. Writing from Cairo on March 15,
1878, he says:
“I am much bothered,
but I get to bed at 8 P.M., which is a
comfort, for I do not dine
out, and consequently do not drink wine.
Every one laughs at me; but
I do not care.”
Again, when in South Africa, he writes:
“How I hate society; how society
hates me! I never tell you the sort of life
I lead, it is not worth it; for it is simply the life
I led at home, being asked out, and refusing when
it is possible; when I go, getting
humiliated, or being foolish. This latter
is better than not being exposed keeping
one’s self in cotton wool, for that brings
out no knowledge of self, such as is brought out
by being with others. At the same time, I think
it is not right to be much in society, indeed
I fight against it truly, and have only dined
out about seven times since I have been here.”
On October 24th, 1884, when he had
made up his mind not to return to England, even if
he should get away from Khartoum, he says:
“I dwell on the joy of never seeing
Great Britain again, with its horrid, wearisome
dinner-parties and miseries. How we can put up
with those things passes my imagination! It
is a perfect bondage. At those dinner-parties
we are all in masks, saying what we do not believe,
eating and drinking things we do not want, and then
abusing one another. I would sooner live like
a Dervish with the Mahdi, than go out to dinner
every night in London. I hope, if any English
general comes to Khartoum, he will not ask me to dinner.
Why men cannot be friends without bringing the
wretched stomachs in, is astounding.”
But though Gordon did not like the
artificial conventional society one meets at ordinary
dinner-parties, it must not be supposed that he was
in any way gloomy. His friend, Prebendary Barnes,
says about him: “The seriousness of Gordon’s
temper did not prevent him from being a bright and
agreeable companion, especially when those with whom
he talked could join him in smoking a cigarette.
He had a keen sense of humour, and on every matter
about which he cared to form an opinion he spoke clearly
and decisively.” And his old brother officer,
Sir Gerald Graham, thus speaks of him:
“Pictures have been drawn of Gordon
as a gloomy ascetic, wrapped up in mystic thoughts,
retiring from all communion with the world, and inspiring
fear rather than affection. I can only describe
him as he appeared to me. Far from being
a gloomy ascetic, he always seemed to me to retain
a boyish frankness, and to long to share his ideas
with others. Our intimacy began when we were
thrown together in mining the docks of Sebastopol
during the winter of 1855-56 a period
Gordon always delighted in referring to whenever we
met, by calling up old scenes, and even our old
jokes of that time. Like all men of action,
more especially soldiers, Gordon disliked argument
with subordinates when once he had resolved on his
course of action; otherwise he invited discussion,
and I always found him most tolerant in listening
to arguments against his own views, even on subjects
in which he, of course, possessed a knowledge far
exceeding any I could pretend to. To show
the impression he made upon me at the time of
my last seeing him, in 1884, I will quote from
a letter which I wrote shortly after: ’Charlie
Gordon’s character is a very fascinating
one; he has so much of the natural man about him.
To his friends and he treats all as friends
whom he knows and trusts his charm
of manner is irresistible. It is utterly
unlike the charm of a polished man of the world; it
is the charm of a perfectly open mind, giving
and demanding confidence, sometimes playfully,
sometimes earnestly, and sometimes with touching
humility.”
There were various reasons which made
him avoid worldly society; one was the incessant grumbling
in which many indulge, who have little cause to complain.
Writing from the Soudan, he says:
“I have not patience with the
groans of half the world, and declare there is
more happiness among these miserable blacks, who have
not a meal from day to day, than among our own
middle classes. The blacks are glad of a
little handful of maize, and live in the greatest
discomfort. They have not a strip to cover them;
but you do not see them grunting and groaning
all day long, as you see scores and scores in
England, with their wretched dinner-parties, and
attempts at gaiety, where all is hollow and miserable.”
Then there was a higher reason.
He found that such society interfered with his spiritual
life. He says, in three distinct letters:
“Getting quiet does one good;
it is impossible to hear God’s voice in
a whirl of visits. You must be more or less in
the desert, to use the scales of the Sanctuary,
to see and weigh the true value of things and
sayings.”
“We have no conception or idea
of what God will show us, if we persevere in seeking
Him; and it is He who puts this wish into our hearts.
All I can say to you is: Persevere; avoid the
world and its poor wretched little talk about
others; never mind being thought stupid; look
on everything with regard to the great day, and trust
Him implicitly.”
“Christ must actually die,
not come very near death; and so must we,
if we would rise. I once thought it possible to
bargain with Christ; to say, I will give up half
of my desire of the world, and gain, in the gap,
a corresponding measure of Christ. It was no
good: I lost the half, but did not get the
measure filled. Then I tried to give up a
little more, but with the same result; now I think
God has shown me that it is not the least use trying
these subtle bargains; that the giving up little
by little is more wearisome and trying than one
surrender, and that I trust He will give
me power to make.”
Another reason, doubtless, why he
shunned fashionable society was his extreme sensitiveness
to praise. His honest, straightforward nature
could not tolerate the praise that so often is showered
upon great men. He used to say:
“If a man speaks well of me, divide
it by millions and then it will be millions of
times too favourable. If a man speaks evil of
me, multiply it by millions and it will be millions
of times too favourable. Man is disguised,
as far as his neighbour is concerned; this disguise
is his outward goodness. Some have it in a slight
measure torn off in this life, and are judged accordingly
by those whose disguise of goodness is more intact;
the revelation of the evil by this partial tearing
off is but the manifestation of what exists.
Whether the disguise is torn or intact, the interior
and true state (known to God quite clearly) is
the same corrupt thing; the eye of the Spirit
discerns through the disguise.
“Who could bear to have this disguise
quite rent off, and the evil exposed to the eyes
of the world? How would the world receive me,
if they knew what I really was, and what God knows
that I am at this minute? Yet, how hardly
I judge another whose disguise, slightly rent,
shows a little of the corruption I know exists in
me. Nothing evil was ever said of any man
which was not true, his worst enemies could not
say a thousandth part of the evil that is in him.
“Praise now humbles
me, it does not elate me; did the world praise
Jesus? and what right have
we to take this praise of men, when it
is due to Him?
“When one knows the little one
does of oneself, and any one praises you, I, at
any rate, have a rising, which is a suppressed ’You
lie.’ There are several nice bits in
our Lord’s life, when He replied with some
unpalatable truth to those men who would follow Him,
and would make much of Him, but afterwards they entirely
changed their demeanour.”
At one time he used, for the same
reason, to avoid reading all newspapers, as they contained
so much praise of him. Writing in 1882, when
he was Governor-General of the Soudan, he says:
“I have come to a conclusion;
may God give me strength to keep it! Stop all
the newspapers. It is no use mincing the matter;
as the disease is dire, so also must be the remedy....
Newspapers feed a passion I have for giving
my opinion; therefore, as we have no right to
judge and have nothing to do with this world (of which
we are not), this feeding must be cut short.
“The giving up the papers may
cause the starvation of my passion for politics,
and that scab may drop off. God has shown me what
the scabs are: Evil-speaking, lying,
slandering, back-biting, scoffing, self-conceit,
boasting, silly talking, and some few more.
“I wish friends would
not send me papers, &c. I pass them on to
, who
is my waste-paper basket!”
Not only did he combat that part of
his nature which loved the praise of men, he also
sternly resisted the temptation of ambition. For
instance, he writes:
“I wonder if I look ambitious
in your eyes. Do you think I sought this
place? You should know better than most people,
for you have all my thoughts in my letters.
Judging myself, I fear it was so when I took the
work in hand; not that I cared for the money or the
honours to come from it. I think, however,
my main idea was the Quixotic one to
help the Khedive, mixed with the feeling that I could,
with God’s direction, accomplish this work.
“... There is death in the
seeking of high posts on this earth for the purpose
of what the world calls doing great things; the
mightiest of men are flies on a wheel; a kind word
to a crossing-sweeper delights Christ in him,
as much as it would delight Christ in a
queen.”
He was conscious, too, of a natural
tendency to judge his neighbours. Like many reformers,
he had a critical nature, and often found himself
led into temptation through it. He never screened
this failing, and did his utmost to fight against
it. There are several extracts from his letters
on this besetting sin. Witness these two:
“What troubles me immensely is
the way in which circumstances force me into society,
for in it is the great evil of judging others, picking
them to pieces behind their backs, so entirely mean
and contrary to our Lord’s will. All
this tends to make a cloud between Him and us;
and yet I declare I cannot see how I can avoid it.”
“This is one great reason
why I never desire to enter social life,
for there is very great difficulty
in knowing people and not
discussing others.”
Considering how thorough Gordon himself
was, and how intensely he hated shams of every kind,
it is not surprising to find that, with his naturally
critical temperament, he used most relentlessly to
expose the unreality of many who, acknowledging the
truth of Christianity, practically denied its power.
“As a rule, Christians are really
more inconsistent than ‘worldlings.’
They talk truths, and do not act on them. They
allow that ‘God is the God of the widows
and orphans,’ yet they look in trouble to
the gods of silver and gold: either He can help
altogether, or not at all. He will not be
served in conjunction with idols of any sort....
“How unlike in acts are most of
so-called Christians to their Founder! You
see in them no resemblance to Him. Hard, proud,
‘holier than thou,’ is their uniform.
They have the truth, no one else, it is
their monopoly.”
But though he avoided Christians of
this type, he had a great yearning for the society
of those who were real, and had more sympathy with
the weaknesses of those who were true, in spite of
their failings, than most men. He was fully conscious
of the natural depravity of his own heart, and so
was ever tender to those who fell. Nobody was
more willing than he to act to a fellow Christian
on the principle laid down in the lines
“Help a poor and weary
brother
Pulling hard against the stream.”
He loved Christian society of the
right sort, and, under its influence, his whole nature
would expand, and he would converse for hours together.
Writing from Galatz, where he went after the pleasant
time spent at Gravesend, he says, “I feel much
also the want of some religious talk,” thereby
adding another illustration to the truth of that text,
“They that love the Lord spake often one to another.”
General Gordon’s temperament
was not that of the monk who shuns his fellow-creatures,
and it must therefore have been all the greater trial
for him to cut himself off from his friends for so
many years at a time as he used to do. Indeed
he used to speak of it as “a living death.”
But the great lesson of his life was that of self-sacrifice
for the good of others. Speaking to the editor
of a journal, to which reference has already been
made, he once said, “When I was in the Soudan,
I used to pray every day, ’O Lord, let me be
crushed. Lay the punishment of their sins upon
me.’” Then, as if he was afraid of being
misunderstood, he said, “It was a strange prayer,
was it not? As if I had not enough of my own
sins to bear!” Few men have learned better than
he the great lesson taught from the Cross of Calvary,
and few have practised that lesson more completely.
As we so often see greatness associated
with success in life, it is well that now and then
we witness greatness, which has not been associated
with what the world calls success, for the two are
far from being inseparably connected. General
Gordon frequently emphasised the distinctions between
honours and honour. The former he cared very
little about, but the latter he ever valued highly,
and he used to say that often men attain the former
at the expense of the latter. No titles precede
his name, nor do any decorations of importance follow
it, but his simple and yet heroic self-sacrificing
life have fascinated his countrymen, and helped to
make the world better by setting before it a higher
ideal. On the monument in St. Paul’s Cathedral
his life is briefly summed up in the few following
words: “To Major-General Charles George
Gordon, C.B., who at all times and everywhere gave
his strength to the weak, his substance to the poor,
his sympathy to the suffering, his heart to God.
He saved an empire by his warlike genius, he ruled
vast provinces with justice, wisdom, and power, and
lastly, obedient to his Sovereign’s command,
he died in the heroic attempt to save men, women,
and children, from imminent and deadly peril.”
The nation felt that their Poet Laureate, Lord Tennyson,
did but speak the simple truth when he penned the
following lines:
“Warrior of God, man’s
friend, not laid below,
But somewhere dead far in
the waste Soudan,
Thou livest in all hearts,
for all men know
This earth has borne no simpler,
nobler man.”