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Engraved from a i)ortrait in the London Illustrated News. 
 
CHi^RLES GEORGE GORDON 
 
 A Nineteenth Century Worthy 
 
 OF THE 
 
 ENGLISH CHURCH. 
 
 THEODORE M. RILEY, S. T. D., 
 
 Professor of Ecclesiastical History, Nashotah House; Honorary 
 Canon op All Saints' Cathedral, Milwaukee, Wis. 
 
 The Saints shine like a river of stars, 
 Athwart the Church's firmament.'"— Farrar. 
 
 MILWAUKEE: 
 THE YOUNG CHURCHMAN COMPANY. 
 
 1888. 
 

 KING, rOWLE At KATZ, PRINTERS, 
 MILWAUKEE. 
 
TO 
 
 THE RIGHT REVEREND 
 
 EDWARD RANDOLPH WELLES, S. T. D, 
 
 BISHOP OF MILWAUKEE, 
 
 PRINTED AT HIS SUGGESTION, 
 
 IS 
 
 WITH MOST FILIAL LOVE AND RESPECT 
 
 DEDICATED. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page. 
 
 I. An Uncanonized Saint of the Church of 
 
 England, - - - - 13 
 
 II. Education and Reading, - - - 21 
 
 III. Military Career ; China, - - - 29 
 
 IV. Life at Gravesend, - - - - 39 
 Y. Galatz and Central Africa, - - 53 
 
 yi. India, Ireland, Mauritius, Palestine; Re- 
 turn TO THE Soudan, - - - 63 
 
 yil. The End, 73 
 
 VIII. Person and Manners, - - - 81 
 
 IX. Devotional Habits, - - - - 95 
 
 X. Cast of Mind and Fundamental Religious 
 
 Ideas, ------ 103 
 
 XI. Conclusion, - - - - - 121 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Gordon's Prayer (A), - - - - - 129 
 
 Motto (B), 131 
 
 Maxims (C), ----- 133 
 
PREFACE 
 
 TTHIS little contribution to General Gordon's precious 
 memory was not prepared for publication. It was 
 drawn up to be read before a Parochial Guild. It so 
 happened that it was, however, in the first place read 
 before the Clericas of Milwaukee. It met with so 
 kindly a reception and with so unexpected a request 
 for publication, that notwithstanding its brevity, and 
 from that fact, if from no other, its unsatisfactorinees 
 as a complete portraiture of its great subject, it is gladly 
 given for whatever uses it may serve. It is a very 
 unpretending attempt at a portraiture of the man: 
 nothing else. The military and political career of 
 General Gordon has been, in the compiler's mind, quite 
 secondary to his extraordinary character, which was 
 knightly, heroic and saintly. It may be said respect- 
 ing his saintliness, as Dr. Mahan has said of that of 
 S. Cyprian, another African Saint and Martyr: "His 
 saintliness was of no artificial or conventional type. It 
 was the consecration of a firm will, manly instincts, 
 magnanimous disposition, and of a mind politic and 
 sagacious, as it was earnest and intrepid." There were, 
 
Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 indeed, features of Gordon's character and life which 
 assimilate him to the great family of the Canonized 
 Saints, and betray a share of their specific quality. 
 But he was, nevertheless, a new and unique manifesta- 
 tion of divine grace and power: as, indeed, all great 
 Saints have been. Canon Paget has said: " It is the 
 privilege of saintliness to surprise us with a fresh illus- 
 tration of primary graces." This is Gordon's great 
 charm, and his especial value. He illustrates a new 
 form of the divine life, suited to our day, and to the 
 circumstances of its busy, hot and hurried peculiari- 
 ties. 
 
 One cannot but feel how imperfect any mere sketch 
 is of so unique and many-sided a man. To know him 
 thoroughly, one must read all that has been written 
 about him. The writer of this memoir has availed him- 
 self of both thought and language of several of Gor- 
 don's biographers. He has taken both briefly and at 
 large from their very words, in order that the story may 
 be as well told as possible within the limitations deter- 
 mined upon for this sketch. The authorities quoted 
 are, in the main: "The Story of Chinese Gordon," by 
 A. Egmont Hake; " Three Martyrs of the Nineteenth 
 Century," by the author of " Chronicles of the Schon- 
 berg-Cotta Family;" "General Gordon, the Christian 
 Hero," by the author of " New World Heroes;" " Charles 
 George Gordon: A Sketch," by Reginald H. Barnes, 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 Vicar of Heavitree, and Charles E. Brown, Major R. A.; 
 and " Reflections in Palestine, 1883," by Charles George 
 Gordon. Much valuable information has been derived 
 from an article entitled "Gordon at Gravesend: a Per- 
 sonal Reminiscence," by Arthur Stannard, and pub- 
 lished in the April number of the Nineteenth Century^ 
 1885; also from an article in the Fortnightly Review, 
 of July, 1884, by W. H. Mallock, and entitled, "A Mes- 
 sage from General Gordon. Edited from unpublished 
 papers." 
 
 Dr. Birbeck Hill's " Colonel Gordon in Central 
 Africa;" Gordon's "Journals at Khartoum," and Sir 
 Henry Gordon's " Events in the Life of Charles George 
 Gordon," will also be found full of valuable matter. 
 
 It is greatly to be hoped that eventually a thorough 
 and complete life of Gordon will be given to the world, 
 which shall contain a history of the beginning, no less 
 than of the aftergrowth of his religious career. So 
 great a soul as he is a gift of God to the world: and 
 any detail of so great a life of grace as his, will not be 
 without value and consequence. 
 
 Gordon's Prayer and his Motto have been given as 
 an Appendix, together with some of his less well-known 
 maxims and sayings. The Prayer will not be without 
 its helpfulness to many souls, full though it be of the 
 seemingly exaggerated humility and self-accusation of 
 the Saints. The Motto will be felt to be very charac- 
 teristic. 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 This little sketch is now gratefully sent on its way 
 to do what little service it may be called to. The 
 knowledge of the life of this great soul, fitly termed by 
 the Arabs themselves the "magnanimous," has been 
 and is not only an "education," but an inspiration. 
 May it stimulate many perceiving and receptive souls 
 to lives of generous emulation of Gordon's chivalrous 
 and manly devotion to God and men. 
 
 The writer desires to express his thanks to Oliver 
 Matson, B. A., of Nashotah House, for assisting in the 
 preparation of this manuscript for the press. 
 
 T. M. R. 
 
 Nashotah House, 26 January, 1888. 
 
 Dies Natalis C. G. G. 
 
J^u ®ucatt0ut^cd ^aiiit of tixe ©Ixxtvclx 
 jof gttolaud* 
 
CpLES GEORGE GORDON; 
 
 A Nineteenth Century Worthy of the 
 English Church. 
 
 I. 
 
 AN UNCANONIZED SAINT OF THE CHURCH OF 
 ENGLAND. 
 
 T T is said that whenever men come into the 
 presence of the Apollo Belvedere, they are 
 observed to straighten themselves up to their 
 best and highest proportions. A life of beauty 
 and grandeur has a similar influence upon 
 men. Its contemplation compels to admira- 
 tion and emulation. For this reason it is that 
 the world celebrates its heroes, and the Church 
 her Saints. Great men in every department 
 of life are worthy of remembrance ; great 
 Saints are worthy of the canonization they 
 
 13 
 
14 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 receive, whether it be formal or informal. The 
 higher the t3n3e of man, the higher the quali- 
 ties he represents, the higher the aims and 
 ends his life is devoted to, the more lofty should 
 be the altitude to which his memory is ele- 
 vated. 
 
 The subject of this paper was one of earth's 
 great men, and at the same time one of the 
 Church's Saints. " Saint " and '' Hero '' the late 
 Bishop Wordsworth, of Lincoln^ called him; 
 while a distinguished author has lately re- 
 marked of him: " It is not one of the 'little 
 hills,' it is one of the ' mountains of God ' that 
 has been close to us." Had he lived in the times 
 of the Crusades he would doubtless ere this 
 have been canonized; had he lived or died in 
 the Greek or Latin Communions in our own 
 day, he sooner or later would have been enrolled 
 among the beatified souls whom the Church 
 delights to honour. As things are, he lived 
 and died in the Church of England, which un- 
 happily, in my judgment, has ceased to canon- 
 ize her great children, except so far as the 
 popular mind confers that honour. Canoniza- 
 tion in its true idea is simply enrollment on the 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 15 
 
 list of eminently holy souls whom the Church 
 has deemed fit to be set forth as examples to 
 their fellow men. In the early Church popu- 
 lar veneration first assigned a place among 
 the Saints to persons of transcendent and 
 heroic piety ; then the Bishop of the Diocese 
 performed in time the act of enrollment or 
 canonization, sanctioning with the supreme 
 authority of the Diocese the fiat of the popu- 
 lar heart. All Bishops originally possessed this 
 right of canonization. In the time of Alex- 
 ander III., local canonizations were forbidden^ 
 and thereafter Rome kept in the hands of the 
 Supreme Pontiff a privilege and power which 
 should never have thus been limited or re- 
 served. Si,nce Alexander's time the Church of 
 England has conducted no processes of canoni- 
 zation. She has, indeed, given in her Prayer 
 Book the title of beatification (the second stage 
 of canonization) to Charles, the Royal Martyr, 
 but to no one else. The powers of her Bishops 
 have remained latent and unused in this re- 
 spect. She has raised up most holy souls wor- 
 thy, indeed, of canonization, but she has kept 
 silent respecting their virtues, except so far as 
 
16 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 private biographers, individual preachers or 
 the popular instinct have accorded the title of 
 Saint or Martyr to this or that person. The 
 term " Worthy " is the highest designation she 
 has in her popular vocabulary for her heroes 
 and beatified souls. It is a sad pity that this 
 is so. It is made a reproach sometimes that 
 the Church of England has no post-Reforma- 
 tion Saints, and that she seems to care little 
 for sanctity in its heroic forms; so little, in- 
 deed, as to have excluded its formal recogni- 
 tion from her public acts. Yet she has never 
 been wanting in Saints as a matter of fact, 
 whether sanctity be defined as "the confluence 
 of all the Christian virtues in one and the same 
 soul," or as " the love of God and of men car- 
 ried to a sublime extravagance." One has only 
 to recall the names of Nicholas Ferrar (a true 
 Saint of the old ascetic type). Bishop Andrewes, 
 Bishop Ken, Bishop Wilson, Mrs. Godolphin, 
 and others of a similar type, to realize how 
 true this is. One need not speak of the Royal 
 Martyr, nor of Archbishop Laud, nor of the 
 Martyrs of modern times, McKenzie and Pat- 
 teson and Hannington; nor of Louis Schuyler 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 17 
 
 and his fellow Priests at Memphis who, on our 
 own soil, with Sister Constance and her com- 
 panions, gave up their lives to God amid the 
 fires of pestilence; nor need one speak of Jer- 
 emy Taylor, of Bishop Sanderson, of Arch- 
 bishop Leighton, of Pusey, and JSTeale, and 
 Keble; nor of our own DeKoven; nor of Breck, 
 of Nashotah. The popular heart has enrolled 
 all these, in their several places, in the Sacred 
 Catalogue. Untitled, unbeatified, and uncanon- 
 ized by authority, they yet live in the thought 
 and feeling and devotion of all good Anglicans, 
 and are each an inspiration and a help to their 
 brethren still struggling in the v/orld. 
 
 Among all the Saints and Heroes of An- 
 glican Christianity, the subject of this paper, 
 Charles George Gordon, has no subordinate 
 place. Whether we consider his spirit, his 
 aims, his prayers, his alms-giving, his corporal 
 and spiritual works of mercy, his austerities, 
 his detachment, his unselfishness, his purity, 
 his supreme devotion to the will of God ; to the 
 Blessed Sacrament ; to the Holy Spirit ; — his 
 mental and bodily sufferings, or his cruel death: 
 he is wanting in no one trait which goes to 
 
18 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 make up the Saint. And so I venture to speak 
 of him, not chiefly on the military or worldly 
 side of his career, but as a nineteenth century 
 Worthy of our own Anglican Communion. 
 
II. 
 
 gdttcatioii autli^caditts, 
 
11. 
 
 EDUCATION AND READING. 
 
 /^UR Saint was born at Woolwich on the 28th 
 ^^^ of January, 1833. His father was Lieu- 
 tenant-General Henry William Gordon, of the 
 Royal Artillery, a descendant of the "Gay Gor- 
 dons" of Scotland, and a soldier, it is said, " of 
 the highest type, honourable, kindly, just, and 
 devoted to his profession,'' which had been that 
 of his father, grandfather and ancestors gener- 
 ally. The mother of the "Good Pasha" was 
 an Enderby, the daughter of a great merchant 
 and explorer, from whom a strip of country in 
 the Antarctic Ocean is known by the name of 
 "Enderby's Lands." It is a curious fact of 
 interest to Americans, that Samuel Enderby, 
 fathei- of Mrs. Gordon and grandfather of our 
 subject, was the owner of the two vessels char- 
 tered by the English Government to carry the 
 tea to Boston Harbour which became the occa- 
 
22 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 "^sion of the American Revolution. It is said of 
 Gordon's mother, that she was a woman of re- 
 markable character. '' She possessed a perfect 
 temper; she was always cheerful under the 
 most trying circumstances, and she was always 
 thoughtful of others; she contended with diffi- 
 culties without the slightest display of effort; 
 and she had a genius for making the best of 
 everything." 
 
 As a boy, Gordon is said to have had much 
 energy, but not very great physical strength. 
 He had naturally a quick and generous temper, 
 with some fire. A characteristic story is told 
 of an occurrence during his cadetship at Wool- 
 wich (which he entered upon after a time spent 
 at Taunton, in Somersetshire). '' ' You are in- 
 competent; you will never make an officer,' 
 said his superior in rebuke to him one day; 
 and with flashing eyes and flushed cheeks the 
 lad tore from his shoulders the epaulettes that 
 he wore and cast them down before his re- 
 prover's ' feet." Gordon's education w^as, of 
 course, that of the military academy chiefly, 
 and I take it that the English curriculum 
 is substantially that of our own West Point. 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 23 
 
 This, of course, would secure training in 
 all English branches, notably in mathemat- 
 ics and international law; it would secure in- 
 struction in French and Spanish, at least; be- 
 sides various accomplishments, such as riding, 
 drawing, etc. (General Gordon's Journals show 
 him to have been an accomplished draughts- 
 man.) Gordon, however, as time went on, 
 widened and deepened his reading. He had a 
 most cordial admiration for the old ethical 
 writers. Epictetus he knew intimately. " The 
 Thoughts" of Marcus Aurelius were a sort of 
 vade mecum with him, as was the " Imitation of 
 Christ." He was in the habit of giving copies 
 of these to his friends as mementoes, especially 
 the "Imitation." His friend, Mr. Barnes, of 
 Heavitree, says of him: ''He may not have 
 read a very large number of books — the circum- 
 stances of his life made it almost impossible 
 that he should have done so — but those which 
 he attempted to master, he mastered thorough- 
 ly, and they were, by no means, all of one 
 kind. Of the devotional books which he knew 
 almost by heart, the English Book of Common 
 Prayer and the 'Imitation of Christ' (Hutch- 
 
24 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 ing's translation), may stand as specimens. 
 He made constant use, too, of 'Daily Prayer,' 
 by Dumbleton, and of Dr. Samuel Clarke's 
 'Scripture Promises.'" "Among books of a 
 different class, well known to him in 1883, 
 or before that year, were the works of Jose- 
 phus, Bishop Pearson on the Creed and 
 Bishop Harold Browne on the Thirty-nine Ar- 
 ticles, of which latter treatise he wrote ex- 
 pressly that it was of much use to him. The 
 works of Bishop Wordsworth, of Lincoln, were 
 familiar to him, and he had acquired a con- 
 siderable amount of knowledge of Patristic 
 Literature." He seems to have known some- 
 thing of Greek, Hebrew and Arabic. He recom- 
 mended " Plutarch's Lives '* for the reading of 
 young officers. He seems to have known well 
 Cardinal Newman's "Dream of Grerontius," and 
 I have somewhere seen in some sentence of his 
 a reference to Dickens. It is to be presumed, 
 therefore, that as time and duties j)ermitted he 
 allowed himself an acquaintance with all good 
 literature. Gordon's practical education in 
 the book of man — of humanity — was very gre^t, 
 from his having had a large acquaintance with 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 25 
 
 English, Scotch, Irish, French, Swiss, Chinese, 
 Armenians, Arabs, Russians, Americans, Egyp- 
 tians, Jews and Africans. His knowledge of 
 classes was as extensive as that of races. He 
 knew the courts of Kings ; Leopold, of Bel- 
 gium, was his fast friend. He himself was a 
 Viceroy, a Pasha of Egypt, a Chinese noble of 
 highest rank, a Major-General in Her Majesty's 
 service, a Companion of the Bath, and a Knight 
 of the Legion of Honour ; he was the intimate 
 friend of Priests, Soldiers, Bishops; a visitor of 
 hospitals and bedridden invalids; and a bene- 
 factor and teacher of Gravesend boys. With 
 all these, Sovereigns, Princes, Cabinet Ofiicers, 
 Generals, Ambassadors, Royal Commissioners, 
 Sheiks, Mudirs, Bishops, Priests, Sailors, Sol- 
 diers, good Women, Boys, as his environment, 
 what else needed he to complete his social ex- 
 perience, and to deepen and enlarge the man ? 
 
III. 
 
III. 
 
 MILITARY CAREER IN CHINA. 
 
 /^"^ ORDON'S career was as varied as his ex- 
 perience of men. In December, 1854, he 
 joined the army as Lieutenant of Engineers in 
 the Crimea. In May, 1856, he was ordered to 
 help in laying down the new frontiers of Russia, 
 Turkey and Roumania. Resting afterward for 
 six months in England, he was sent to Armenia 
 on a delimitation commission, to arrange the 
 boundaries of Russia and Turkey, in Asia. 
 Then he spent a year as Instructor of Field 
 Works and as Adjutant at Chatham, and in 
 July, 1860, as Captain Gordon, and at twenty- 
 seven years of age, he left home for service in 
 China. There he remained until November, 
 1864. It was not until January, 1863, that he 
 was called to the great work which gave him 
 the name of "Chinese Gordon." In January 
 of that year, the English Government was 
 
 29 
 
30 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 requested by the Imperial Government of China 
 to give them an English officer to command 
 the Europeans who were engaged in putting 
 down the Tai-Ping Rebellion. The choice fell 
 on Gordon, and in two years he put down 
 an insurrection which had distracted and 
 desolated China for more than twenty years. 
 The head of the Rebellion was known as the 
 Celestial King. He first rallied twenty thou- 
 sand of his clansmen around him, making 
 his kinsmen " Wangs," or subordinate kings. 
 Then, on the pretence of avenging the wrongs 
 of his race, he advanced, plundering the towns 
 and villages on his way, "joining to himself 
 pirates from the coast, and robbers from the 
 hills, until the Rebel army rose to hundreds 
 of thousands, and with these, armed with any 
 weapons available, he laid waste the country, 
 until he had reached Nanking, where he estab- 
 lished his court." 
 
 '^The misery of the country under the devas- 
 tations of these fierce, piratical hordes was 
 frightful; ruin, starvation and cannibalism fol- 
 lowed in their steps." It was to put down this 
 Rebellion that Gordon was summoned when he 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 31 
 
 was not yet thirty years old. "It was a ques- 
 tion of order as against chaos." His first work 
 was to create "a disciplined army out of a 
 troop of adventurers gathered from all coun- 
 tries," and then with it to suppress the Rebel- 
 lion. This suppression was accomplished by 
 his "strong hand and delicate touch." 
 
 The details of this struggle I shall not go into, 
 as they are not within the special purpose of 
 this sketch. I shall only mention a few inci- 
 dents connected with it. First, he never went 
 into battle armed; his only weapon was a cane 
 or a wand. Thus, it has been pointed out, he 
 followed unconsciously in the steps of another 
 great instrument of God, Joan of Arc, who 
 went into battle without sword, carrying only 
 her banner of the fleur-de-lis. Gordon seems 
 to have been absolutely fearless of possibilities, 
 and, indeed, confident with a conviction of 
 safety. This sense of immunity seems never 
 to have left him until he departed from Eng- 
 land for the last time. He seems to have fore- 
 known that he should die at Khartoum, and 
 made all his arrangements for it. But in the 
 Crimea and in China it was otherwise. He 
 
32 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 seemed confident of safety in some strange 
 way. 
 
 During his Chinese experience, Gordon man- 
 ifested that righteous severity which was by 
 no means left out of his composition, gentle 
 and tender and kind as in fitting time it was. 
 There was enough of the spirit of the Hebrew 
 prophet in him to strike when the cause of jus- 
 tice demanded it. On a certain occasion^ the 
 artillery having refused to fall in, and having 
 threatened to shoot their officers, Gordon called 
 the non-commissioned officers together and 
 demanded of them the name of the ringleader 
 of the mutiny. On his demand being refused, 
 he told them with quiet determination that 
 one in every five should then be shot, an an- 
 nouncement received with groans. Gordon 
 then advanced to the ranks, dragged out with 
 his own hand the man who was making the 
 greatest disturbance, and had him shot by 
 some infantry who were standing by. On an- 
 other occasion he secured obedience in an 
 equally vigorous fashion, until within less than 
 a week from the beginning of the mutiny the 
 spirit of the troops was as excellent as before. 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 33 
 
 In return for his splendid services to China, 
 Gordon would only accept the distinction of 
 the two orders of nobility which in China cor- 
 respond to those of the Garter and Bath in 
 England; and these honours he received, not 
 because he in the least valued them himself, 
 but, as he wrote to his mother, '' because you 
 and my father like them." '' The Chinese Gov- 
 ernment twice offered him a fortune. On the 
 first occasion ten thousand taels were actually 
 brought into his room. He drove out the bear- 
 ers of the treasure, and would not even look at 
 it." "On the second occasion the sum was still 
 larger, but this also he declined, and after- 
 wards wrote home: 'I do not want anything, 
 either money or honours, from either the Chi- 
 nese Government or our own. As for the hon- 
 ours, I do not value them at all; I know I shall 
 leave China as poor as I entered it, but with 
 the knowledge that through my weak instru- 
 mentality upwards of eighty thousand to one 
 hundred thousand lives have been spared.' " 
 Mr. Egmont Hake, in his '^ Story of Chinese 
 Gordon," assures us that our hero not only 
 refused two fortunes, but that he spent his pay 
 
34 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 of twelve hundred pounds a year in comforts 
 for his army and in the relief of the victims of 
 the insurgent troops ; and that for these pur- 
 poses he even taxed his private means. 
 
 The Times summed up the work of Gordon 
 in China in these words : " He found the rich- 
 est and most fertile districts of China in the 
 hands of savage brigands. The silk districts 
 were the scenes of their cruelty and riot, and 
 the great historical cities Hangchow and Soo- 
 ohow were rapidly following the fate of Nan- 
 king, and were becoming desolate ruins. Gor- 
 don cut the rebellion in half, recovered the 
 great cities, and utterly discouraged the frag- 
 ments of the brigand power. All this he 
 effected, first, by the power of his arms, and 
 afterward, still more rapidly, by the terror of 
 his name." 
 
 Prince Kung wrote to Sir Frederick Bruce, 
 the English Ambassador, that as Gordon had re- 
 fused the rewards the Chinese Government de- 
 sired to offer him, they now requested the gov- 
 ernment of Her Majesty, the English Queen, to 
 give him some reward for which he would 
 really care. In consequence of this request. 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 35 
 
 Gordon was made a Companion of the Order of 
 the Bath — a rare distinction, it is said, to be 
 given for service under a foreign power. He 
 was also entrusted with the defenses of the 
 Thames at Gravesend, the central point of the 
 Empire. 
 
 It may be here mentioned that fifteen years 
 after Gordon's repression of the Chinese Rebel- 
 lion, the Chinese Government again invoked 
 his mediation in a critical moment, when war 
 seemed about to break out between Russia and 
 China. Gordon went once more to China and 
 succeeded in maintaining peace. And thus 
 having, as one has said, '' simply by the weight 
 of his presence and character reconciled two 
 great empires, he returned * "^ "^ to whatever 
 little place his country would give him in her 
 service, or in the service of mankind, any- 
 where ;" '' refusing to be treated as a hero," 
 " seeking to be forgotten," and so succeeding 
 that he soon ceased to be talked about. 
 
IV. 
 %iU at CSKawesctixV. 
 
IV. 
 
 LIFE AT GRAVESEND. 
 
 \ 1 T'E now come to a period of Gordon's life 
 more full of interest, perhaps, than any 
 other before or after — more full, that is, of 
 moral interest — viz., his six years' retreat, as it 
 were, at Gravesend. As one of his biographers 
 has remarked, " he had shown how, on strange 
 battle-fields, and on high levels, visible to the 
 whole world, the simplest Christian duty means 
 the loftiest heroism. Now he was to show how 
 the most burning enthusiasm, and the highest 
 heroic quality, can find an adequate battle-field 
 in doing on low levels, and in quiet places, the 
 simplest duties open to all, and fighting the 
 common miseries and sins around and within 
 us all." "Those six years," Mr. Egmont Hake 
 writes, '' different from any other period of his 
 career, were perhaps among the happiest of his 
 life. To the world his life at Gravesend was a 
 
 39 
 
40 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 life of self-suppression and self-denial ; to him- 
 self it was one of happiness and true peace. 
 He lived wholly for others. His house was 
 school, and hospital, and alms-house in turn ; 
 was more like the abode of a missionary than 
 of a Colonel of Engineers. The troubles of all 
 interested him alike ; the poor, the sick, the 
 unfortunate, were ever welcome; and never did 
 suppliant knock vainly at his door. He always 
 took great delight in children, but especially in 
 boys employed on the river, or sea. Many he 
 rescued from the gutter, cleansed them and 
 clothed them, and kept them for weeks in his 
 house. For their benefit he established even- 
 ing classes, over which he himself presided, 
 reading to, and teaching the lads, with as much 
 ardour as if he were leading them to victory. 
 He called them his ''kings,'" and for many of 
 them he got berths on board ship. In their 
 voyages he prayed day by day for them as they 
 went. His classes at last became so full that the 
 house could not hold them, and so had to be 
 given up." Then it was that he attended and 
 taught at the Ragged schools, where it was 
 pleasant, as his biographer has remarked, to 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 41 
 
 watch the attention with which his wild schol- 
 ars listened to his words. The Work-house and 
 the Infirmary were his constant haunts. He 
 began his working day at 8 in the morning and 
 ended it at 2. '' Before and after those hours," 
 one of his friends has said, '^ he was as inaccess- 
 ible as if he had been on the other side of the 
 globe." His early hours were doubtless given 
 to God, and his afternoons to the sick and 
 poor. Two afternoons in the week he went to 
 the Infirmary; other afternoons were given to 
 old and bedridden people living outside the 
 town and in the country districts, who had few 
 to look after them. '' To these old people he 
 was more genial and communicative than to 
 any one else, and would tell them long stories 
 of his doings in Russia and in China, which it 
 was simply impossible for any well-to-do per- 
 son to extract from him." Among these he 
 had countless pensioners^ even up to the time 
 of his death. His own life was simple and 
 austere to the point of asceticism. His house 
 was large^ but his bed-room contained only 
 a bed, a chair, and a box. He made the bed- 
 chambers of the poor and sick, however, radiant 
 
42 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 with exquisite flowers and fruits. His grounds 
 were large, and these he apportioned to a num- 
 ber of poor people for little vegetable gardens. 
 His own food was simple, to the point of dis- 
 tastefulness ; all eating and drinking he seems 
 to have been indifferent to. One of his friends 
 writes, that going to his house, in Gravesend, 
 one afternoon late, Gordon's tea was found 
 waiting for him. It was a most unappetizing 
 stale loaf and a pot of tea. His friend re- 
 marked upon the dryness of the bread, where- 
 upon Gordon took the whole loaf (a small one), 
 crammed it into the slop basin, and poured all 
 the tea in upon it, saying that it would soon 
 be ready for him to eat, and that in a half an 
 hour it would not matter what he had eaten. 
 Notwithstanding his austere and saintly 
 simplicity, as evinced by details of this kind, 
 Gordon was utterly free from cant. He never 
 sought to press religion indiscriminately upon 
 the notice of those with whom he came in 
 contact ; he confined himself in that way very 
 much to those who were sick, to boys, and to 
 old people. He was, however, as his friend 
 Stannard writes, aa assiduous tract distributer 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 48 
 
 in a quiet way. ''Any one who next trod the 
 same path which the Colonel had walked, 
 from one fort to another, as he sometimes did, 
 would generally find a sprinkling of tracts on 
 the way, all so placed that they could not be 
 mistaken for stray paper deposited by wind or 
 chance; If there was a stile to get over, a 
 tract would be on the top bar, kept in place by 
 a heavy stone ; if the footpath were narrow, 
 another tract would be found in the middle of 
 it, secured in the same way ; others would be 
 seen hung on any nails that might project from 
 the fence or the wall, or wrapped around gate- 
 handles or bars — all so ingeniously^ placed that 
 no one could fail to see that they had been put 
 there purposely. At one fort a powerful tele- 
 scope was kept, through which the actions of 
 those at the next fort, a mile and a half dis- 
 tant, could be watched:" and this was very 
 frequently used, Stannard says, to count up 
 the tracts he disposed of on the way. "All the 
 world knows now," Stannard goes on to ob- 
 serve, '' how powerfully Gordon was swayed by 
 his religious feelings. Nothing has been writ- 
 ten on that head which exceeds the truth." 
 
44 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 ''When one realized what he did day by day, 
 and all with such absolute indifference to 
 praise or blame, one could not fail to compre- 
 hend that Gordon did live for his God and not 
 for himself. All he did was done without a 
 thought of man's approbation or regard : he 
 spared himself no exertion that could add to 
 the comfort of those who were sick or miser- 
 able ; his purse was never well stocked, for his 
 gifts were onlj'' limited by his means. When 
 he left Gravesend for Galatz in 1871, he made 
 arrangements to have the old and disabled 
 persons, whom he regularly relieved up till 
 then, still provided with regular pensions at 
 his expense, in amounts varying from one to 
 ten shillings a week ; and even at the time of 
 his death some of these were living and bene- 
 fitting from his purse." "When we heard of 
 his appointment '' at Galatz, "we were one and 
 all distressed, * ■'' * for we felt * ^^ * 
 that we were not likely to see again a man 
 whose whole life was such a lesson in modesty, 
 energy, capacity and godliness. I think it was 
 not until he was really gone that we fully realized 
 how great a man had passed from our midst." 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 45 
 
 Another, writing of him in these days, says: 
 " We used to say he had no self, in that, follow- 
 ing his Divine Master, he never would talk of 
 himself and his doings. Therefore, his life 
 never can and never will be written. * ^ -^ 
 He used to say, 'No man has a right to he 
 proud of anything, inasmuch as he has no na- 
 tive good in him; he has received it all;* and 
 he maintained there was deep cause of humilia- 
 tion on the part of every one; that all wear- 
 ing of medals, adorning of the body, or any 
 form of self-glorification was quite out of 
 place. Also, he said, he had no right to pos- 
 sess anything, having once given himself to 
 God. What was he to keep back ? He knew 
 no limit. He said to me, 'You, who profess 
 the same, have no right to the gold chain you 
 wear. It ought to be sold for the poor.' But 
 he acknowledged the difficulty of others re- 
 garding all earthly things in the same light as 
 he did. He told us that the silver tea service 
 that he kept (a present from Sir William Gor- 
 don) would be sufficient to pay for his burial, 
 without troubling his family. But though he 
 would never speak of his own acts, he would 
 
46 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 talk freely of his thoughts, and long and in- 
 tensely interesting conversations we had with 
 him. His mystical turn of mind lent a great 
 charm to his words, and we learned a great 
 deal from him. I have often wished I had re- 
 corded at the time many of his aphorisms. We 
 saw him very frequentl5^ but there was a tacit 
 understanding that we never were to invite 
 him nor ask him to stay longer when he rose 
 to go. To ask him to dinner would have been 
 a great offense. He would say, 'Ask the poor 
 and sick; don't ask me who have enough !' " 
 
 As an illustration of his self-denial and in- 
 difference to human respect, I must relate an 
 incident associated with this period of his life, 
 which strikingly reminds one of S. Martin, of 
 Tours, just as his indifference to pleasant food 
 reminds one of S. Chrysostom, and, indeed, of 
 all the Saints. The story is, that on a cold, 
 bleak, drizzling day, Gordon found on the dock 
 at Gravesend an old sailor, who stood waiting, 
 without a coat (which, it seems, he had pawned 
 for grog) for the vessel on which he was out- 
 ward bound. Gordon, in his compassion, at 
 once removed his own coat, and gave it to the 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 47 
 
 improvident but suffering man, and, coatless 
 himself, returned to his quarters in the fort. 
 
 So our Saint spent six years of his life ^'in 
 slums, hospitals and work-house, or knee-deep 
 in the river at v^ork on the Thames defense." 
 His friend and biographer, the Vicar of Heavi- 
 tree, may well exclaim : ''What a living like- 
 ness this seems to be of the life of the God- 
 Man, the Lord Jesus Christ, during His short 
 residence on this earth ! What sympathy and 
 even love for his poorer brethren ! How the 
 light, the true light, shines ! What a single 
 eye ! A lover of God, a despiser of Mammon. 
 In this he outshines Peter the Hermit. Savon- 
 arola and Havelock." 
 
 Mr. Arnold White writes of him : "Fourteen 
 years have passed since he left Gravesend ; but 
 he has left, especially among the poor, so pas- 
 sionate a clinging to his memory, that his loss 
 is to them a reality which cannot be observed 
 without sharing the pain. He never taught 
 them that the language of religion is a panacea 
 for hunger and despair. Hot-house grapes, car- 
 ried nightly to the bedside of a fevered and im- 
 provident waterman, and placed one by one in 
 
48 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 his mouth, were the sort of religious message 
 he favoured. A man whose intelligence made 
 him fretful on a sick-bed, found by Gordon's 
 thought a Daily News delivered every morning 
 at his door. In other cases, wines and delicacies 
 recommended by physicians, and above all, the 
 kindest personal nursing, manifested his care 
 for the bodies of suffering men no less than for 
 their souls. Three or four boys who were 
 taken with scarlet-fever he cared for in his 
 own house, nursing them far into the night, 
 talking to them and soothing them until they 
 fell asleep. He entered into all their concerns, 
 caring nothing for himself. He only cared to 
 make such happy and industrious, while his 
 chief aim, said one who knew, was to lead them 
 to the Saviour." He would enter houses in- 
 fected with fever when others feared to do so. 
 He would often go to the work-house and walk 
 with the old men in the yard. With him^ out 
 of sight was not out of mind. He was known 
 to send a photograph to an old washerwoman. 
 So a writer remarks, "he lived a life which 
 shows that the most literal following of Christ 
 is never an impossibility, or an anachronism. 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 49 
 
 He had made for all around him a rift in the 
 clouds through which had shone on all the Sun 
 of Righteousness, whose light is at once a con- 
 suming fire, and healing as a mother-bird's 
 brooding wings. Consciously or unconsciously, 
 when he went away, children and men and 
 women felt they had seen one who had seen 
 into Heaven and belonged to it." 
 
V. 
 CSalatx atttl ®«tttval 3^ft;ica. 
 
GALATZ AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
 r^OLONEL GORDON'S duties at Gravesend 
 ^^ terminated on the 30th of September, 
 1871. His next mission was to Galatz, in Tur- 
 key, as British Commissioner to the European 
 "Commission of the Danube. This was not a 
 post new to him, inasmuch as he laboured there 
 in former years, as we have already seen. He left 
 Galatz toward the end of 1873. Early in the next 
 year he took service with the Khedive of Egypt 
 and succeeded Sir Samuel Baker as Governor 
 of the tribes in Upper Egypt. While at Con- 
 stantinople, in the summer of 1872, he had 
 been asked by Nubar Pasha, whom he had 
 greatly impressed during the sitting of the 
 Danubian Commission, to recommend some 
 officer of Engineers to nil the post. A year 
 later, Gordon tendered his own services, sub- 
 ject to the conditions of an application from 
 
 53 
 
54 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 the Khedive to the English Government for 
 them, and the approval of his own Govern- 
 ment. No objection being raised, he went to 
 London, made his preparations, and started at 
 once for Central Africa, calling at Cairo for 
 final instructions. The Khedive proposed to 
 give him a salary of £10,000 a year. This Gor- 
 don would not hear of or accept, declining to 
 be paid more than £2,000. He refused this 
 magnificent provision partly because, as he had 
 only received £2,000 a year from his own Gov- 
 ernment as English Commissioner at Galatz, 
 he '' thought it neither patriotic nor honourable 
 to accept a larger stipend from a foreign govern- 
 ment than he had been receiving from his own." 
 " He knew, moreover, that the larger sum would 
 have been blood money," wrung from the poor 
 people subject to him. He refused, there- 
 fore, anything more than a stipend sufficient 
 for the expenses of his position. The special 
 purpose of this mission was the suppression of 
 slave hunting and the establishment of post- 
 communication. An account of this period of 
 Gordon's life may be found in Hake's '' Story 
 of Chinese Gordon," and in Hill's ^'Colonel 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 55 
 
 Gordon in Central Africa." In this latter book 
 may be found the letters written home by Gor- 
 don; and it has been remarked that '4t may 
 be questioned whether any man's letters have 
 been better worth publishing." It is not pro- 
 posed here to discuss or enlarge upon this 
 period of General Gordon's career. His title 
 now was: ''His Excellency General Colonel 
 Gordon, Governor-General of the Equator 
 under the Khedive of Egypt." "An extraor- 
 dinary mixture of titles," he writes. His spe- 
 cific instructions were " to put down brigand- 
 age, and to break up the slave-trading fac- 
 tories, giving compensation to the owners ; to 
 restore the captive slaves to their homes, or, 
 where this was not possible, to settle them 
 upon lands in the provinces." As an Egyptian 
 Pasha he had also to see that the Egyptian 
 Government got its revenue. Gordon started 
 out in this enterprise hopefully. It did not 
 take him long, however, to discover that the 
 Khedive's horror of the slave trade had been 
 awakened merely by the fear of Zebehr Pasha's 
 setting up an Empire of his own in the slave 
 country. Gordon soon came into conflict with 
 
56 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 Nubar Pasha, who had rather expected to 
 make use of him. As the General wrote his 
 sister: ''Nubar Pasha thought he had a rash 
 fellow to deal with, one who could be per- 
 suaded to cut a dash, and found he had one of 
 the Gordon race ; this latter thought the thing 
 real and found it. a sham, and felt like a Gor- 
 don who had been humbugged.'' ^'If God 
 wills," writes he, ^'I will shake all this in some 
 way not clear to me now.'' His account of 
 his journey along the Nile to his capital, 
 Gondokoro, is full of vivid bits of descrip- 
 tion. As time went on, and he saw more 
 and more of his Province, his heart became 
 filled with compassion for his people. " Poor 
 people," he writes, "they are very badly fed 
 and appear to be in very much sufi'ering. 
 What a mystery, is it not? Why are they 
 created ? A life of fear and misery night and 
 day ! One does not wonder at their not fearing 
 death." '' But I like the work, for I believe I 
 can do a great deal to ameliorate the lot of the 
 people." He writes to his sister many sad ac- 
 counts of the suffering which came before his 
 eyes ; yet full as his great heart was of com- 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 57 
 
 passion, his letters are not without a touch 
 of the humour which always sparkled in his 
 thought and speech. " T took," he writes to 
 Miss Gordon, '^a poor old bag of bones into my 
 camp a month ago, and have been feeding her 
 up, but yesterday she was quietly taken off, 
 and now knows all things. She had her tobacco 
 to the last, and died quite quietly. What a 
 change from her misery ! " 
 
 Again : "A wretched sister of yours is 
 struggling up the road, but she is such a wasp 
 of bones, that, the wind threatening to over- 
 throw her, I have sent her some Dhoora and 
 will produce a spark of joy in her." 
 
 Next day: ''I am bound to give you the 
 sequel of the Rag helped yesterday in the gale 
 of wind. I had told my man to see her into 
 one of the huts, and thought he had done so. 
 The night was stormy and rainy, and when I 
 awoke I heard the crying of a child near my 
 hut. When I got up I went to see what it was, 
 and passing through the gateway, I saw your 
 and my sister lying in a pool of mud : her 
 black brothers had been passing, and had taken 
 no notice of her. To my surprise, she was not 
 
58 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 dead. After considerable trouble I got three 
 black brothers to lift her out of the mud, 
 poured some brandy down her throat, and got 
 her into a hut with a fire ; having the mud 
 washed out of her sightless eyes. She was not 
 more than sixteen. There she now lies. T 
 cannot help hoping she is floating down with 
 the tide to the haven of rest. I dare say you 
 will see — in fact, I am sure you will see — your 
 black sister some day, and she will tell you all 
 about it, and how Infinite Wisdom directed 
 the whole affair. I know this is a tough mor- 
 sel to believe, hut it is true. I prefer life 
 amidst sorrows, if those sorrows are inevit- 
 able, to life spent in inaction. Turn where 
 you will, there are sorrows. Many a rich per- 
 son is as unhappy as this rag of mortality. 
 ^This mustard is very badly made,' was the 
 remark of one of my staff some time ago, when 
 some of our brothers were stalking about, 
 showing every bone of their poor bodies." 
 Again : " The Rag is still alive." And at 
 last : ''Your black sister departed this life at 
 4 p. M., deeply lamented by me ; not so by her 
 black brothers, who considered her a nuisance." 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 59 
 
 Space will not allow further extracts from 
 Gordon's letters, nor further incidents of this 
 touching period of his life. I must go on 
 to relate that "the Governors and local offi- 
 cials in his rear were all against him in the 
 task he had most at heart, the suppres- 
 sion of the slave trade. Even at Cairo he 
 found no support. No notice was taken of his 
 reports on that head. In fact, neither the 
 Khedive nor his Ministers cared a straw for 
 the slave trade, so long as the other objects of 
 his mission were accomplished. Gordon ac- 
 cordingly went back to Cairo, and threw up 
 his appointment in December, 1876, refusing to 
 go back unless the Khedive would guarantee 
 the removal of obstacles. His demands were 
 conceded and in February, 1877, Gordon again, 
 full of hope, turned his face southward : this 
 time as Governor-General of the whole of the 
 Soudan, the Equator and the littoral of the 
 Red Sea — a territory of 2,000 miles in length 
 by 1,000 in breadth. So he writes : " There 
 is an end of slavery, if God wills." "Three 
 years of incessant labour were spent in sup- 
 pressing the slave trade, pacifying hostile 
 
60 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 tribes, punishing corrupt officials, and every- 
 where introducing administrative reforms, and 
 everywhere winning the love of the nations by 
 his unswerving justice. But the strain told, 
 and even Gordon's iron endurance had to yield 
 to life in such a climate. He was forced by 
 physical signs and warnings not to be neg- 
 lected, to think of change." 
 
VI. 
 mxA ^ztnxxx to tUz Momlmx. 
 
VI. 
 
 INDIA, IRELAND, MAURITIUS, PALESTINE, AND 
 RETURN TO THE SOUDAN. 
 
 T N December, 1879, Gordon left Egypt. '' Not 
 a day too soon," his physicians said. '*At 
 forty-six his strong frame, sustained as it was 
 by all his strength of faith and will and buoy- 
 ancy of spirit, was all but failing under the 
 strain of that burden of war and rule, of cares 
 and thwartings and sleepless nights, and days 
 of weary travel in desert lands, and sights of 
 misery." ''Poor sheath,'' he said of his own 
 body, ''it is much worn." 
 
 He was now commanded to rest for months. 
 On his return to England, a few weeks were 
 spent in London and Southampton. In May, 
 1880, he was appointed Secretary to the 
 new Viceroy of India, Lord Ripon. He soon 
 found, however, that his great experience 
 as a ruler had unfitted him for such a post ; 
 
 63 
 
64 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 and it has been hinted that he found diplo- 
 matic ^wess^ unsuited to his nature. He made 
 no delay, when he saw how misplaced he was, 
 and resigned promptly in June. Just at this 
 juncture he was summoned to China on the 
 mission of peace already spoken of. He re- 
 turned to London in 1881, and soon afterward 
 visited Ireland, where, as Hake remarks, " he 
 gave his whole soul to her troubles. A friend, 
 to whom he addressed his views, published 
 them. They were daring, they were new, they 
 were thorough, but they were not such views 
 as the majority could approve, and they met 
 with some adverse criticism and a little ridi- 
 cule. Gordon cared as much for one as for the 
 other." He soon after went to Brussels to 
 visit the King of the Belgians, thence to Lau- 
 sanne. (There his brother, Enderby Gordon, 
 who had lately died, had passed part of his 
 illness, and there the Vicar of Heavitree, Mr. 
 Barnes, first met General Gordon in company 
 with his nephew, Mr. Charles H. Gordon, who 
 now, as all American admirers of his uncle 
 will be glad to know, has made his home on 
 this side the water.) Soon after, he was ordered 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 65 
 
 to Mauritius as commanding Royal Engineer. 
 On the 6th of March, 1881, he was made a 
 Major-General, and on the 4th of April, 1882, 
 left Mauritius for the Cape. A little more 
 than five months afterwards he went to the 
 Holy Land, where at last he could rest. '' He 
 could depart for Mount Carmel," as Hake says, 
 "and be alone." He took up his residence out- 
 side Jerusalem, where he spent a few quiet 
 months in the survey of the Holy City, to 
 establish, if possible, certain convictions he 
 had as to the mystic relationships of the sitOj 
 the whole treatment of which may be found 
 in his book "Reflections in Palestine." Here 
 he lived, " winning, as usual, love and enthusi- 
 astic reverence ; receiving, as often as possible, 
 the Blessed Sacrament," and, in short, as one 
 of his biographers writes, passed "a quiet 
 Retreat in the Holy Land ; led, perhaps, apart 
 into a desert place to rest awhile, by the Voice 
 he always sought to follow, in preparation for 
 the final conflict and the last sacrifice." 
 
 Whilst our Saint was in Retreat at Jerusa- 
 lem, the King of the Belgians summoned him 
 to Brussels, in accordance with a promise Gor- 
 
66 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 don had made him that he would go to the 
 Congo to help on the King's philanthropic 
 plans for founding a Free State, to be a centre 
 of civilization in that region. He at once 
 sailed from Jaffa by the first ship. It was a 
 wretched vessel, on which he was almost ship- 
 wrecked, being driven in a storm a hundred 
 miles out of its course. He was willing to ac- 
 cept the commission of the King, and at once 
 sought the consent of his own government, 
 which, after making some difficulties, finally 
 yielded. The General at once set out from 
 Brussels for the Congo, via Southampton. H 
 has been said that it was only this happy acci- 
 dent, as we call such things, of the recall of 
 Gordon by King Leopold that brought, at this 
 critical moment, the General within reach of 
 the British Government, '' in an hour of dire 
 perplexity." 
 
 Whilst Gordon was in Palestine, a Prophet 
 or Pretender, the Mahdi, had arisen in the 
 Soudan, claiming a divine mission and pro- 
 claiming the establishment of "an universal 
 equality, an universal law and a community 
 of goods." "There was enough misery in the 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 67 
 
 Soudan to draw the wretched people the Mahdi 
 promised to rescue, to the standard of any de- 
 liverer/' Eleven thousand troops under Hicks 
 Pasha, an English officer, had been entrapped 
 into an ambush and annihilated. At that mo- 
 ment there were between Dongola and Gondo- 
 koro, the capital of General Gordon's former 
 Government, 21,000 Egyptian troops scattered 
 in various garrisons, and a whole population 
 of civilians, loyal to the Egyptian Government. 
 The Mahdi's power had rapidly increased, and 
 many important places were besieged by his 
 hordes. Meanwhile, as we have seen, Gordon 
 had reached England, en route for the Congo. 
 He had spent a night at Heavitree Vicarage 
 with his friend, the Vicar, and on Friday morn- 
 ing, January 11th, had received the Blessed 
 Sacrament in the Parish Church. This was 
 the last Communion he made in England, save 
 on the Sunday before his departure, of which 
 more hereafter. That same morning he had 
 visited Bishop Temple, and later in the day 
 had gone on to Sandford Orleigh, Sir Samuel 
 Baker's house. While driving to the house, 
 Sir Samuel pressed on Gordon the expediency 
 
68 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 of his again going to the Soudan as Governor- 
 General, if Her Majesty's Government should 
 require it. On the next day, January 12th, 
 Gordon received a telegram from Lord Wolse- 
 ley, asking him to come to London. Gordon 
 ooeyed, and on the 15th had an interview with 
 him. Their conversation led to nothing defi- 
 nite and Gordon, on the 16th, departed for 
 Brussels. Lord Wolseley again summoned 
 him to London and Gordon submitted the mat- 
 ter to his friend, the Belgian King. As the 
 result, Gordon left Brussels, and on the 18th 
 was at Lord Wolseley's office. Later in the 
 day he saw Lord Granville, Lord Hartington, 
 Lord Northbrook and Sir Charles Dilke, and it 
 was decided that he was to proceed to the Sou- 
 dan as the representative of the British Gov- 
 ernment, but in no way responsible to the 
 Khedive. His mission was to superintend the 
 evacuation of the Soudan. He was to with- 
 draw the Egyptian garrisons, the civil officials, 
 and as many of the inhabitants as might wish 
 to be taken away. Taking with him Colonel 
 Stewart, who, like himself^ eventually fell a 
 martyr, he started for Khartoum that same 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 69 
 
 evening (the 18th), at 8 o'clock. He was ac- 
 companied to the station by the Duke of Cam- 
 bridge, Lord Wolseley and others. Lord Wolse- 
 ley^ it may be here remarked, was Gordon's 
 comrade in the Crimea, and he declared some 
 time ago that Gordon was one of the only two 
 heroes he had ever known, the other being 
 General Robert E. Lee. 
 
VII. 
 site lurt, 
 
VII. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 'T^HE rest is well-known matter of history. 
 Gordon arrived at Khartoum after a most 
 wonderful and rapid journey across the desert, 
 making the distance in exactly thirty days 
 after his leaving London. The people received 
 him with rapture, kissing his hands and feet. 
 ^'I come," he said, ''without soldiers, but with 
 God on my side, to redress the evils of the Sou- 
 dan. I will not fight with any weapons but 
 justice. There shall be no more Bashi-Bazouks; 
 I will hold the balance level." " He then held 
 a levee, at which the poorest might pour out 
 their grievances. The people appeared in thou- 
 sands ; with the aid of Colonel Stewart he 
 inquired into their grievances, remitted public 
 debts, publicly burnt instruments of torture, 
 and delivered prisoners of all ages, old men 
 and boys, who had been unjustly imprisoned 
 
 73 
 
74 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 for years." At the same time he issued a 
 proclamation, declaring the independence of 
 the Soudan, granting an amnestj^ and taking 
 various other measures in the best interests of 
 the country, as it stood. He proceeded to send 
 down sick men, women and children into 
 Egypt ; but it was impossible to remove the 
 garrisons until he had taken steps for the 
 establishment of a stable government. He de- 
 sired that Zebehr Pasha, a man of great influ- 
 ence in the Soudan, should be made Governor- 
 General after the evacuation, and that the 
 native Sultans should be reinstated in their 
 privileges. The British Government peremp- 
 torily refused to sanction Zebehr's appoint- 
 ment. Gordon then asked for troops from 
 Cairo and the Red Sea. Meantime relief did 
 not come, and little by little he was environed 
 by the forces of the False Prophet. Khartoum 
 was besieged on the 12th of March, and from 
 that time until the following January, when 
 he died, Gordon was engaged in defending the 
 city against its assailants. "The record of his 
 achievements and heroism in this memorable 
 siege will form one of the most heart-stirring 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 75 
 
 pages in English history. Nothing could ex- 
 ceed his military efficiency, inventiveness, re- 
 source ; nothing could exceed his moral influ- 
 ence in the city over troops and people." " He 
 built steamers, defended his exterior lines by 
 means of wire entanglements with live shells 
 as mines." The authorities in England re- 
 mained strangely and unpardonably indifferent 
 to the situation. Gordon implored that troops 
 should be sent, not for his own rescue, but for 
 the sake of redeeming the pledges he had made 
 to his people. In September, Colonel Stewart 
 and the French and English Consuls started on 
 the homeward journey, which ended so fatally, 
 in order that the English Government might 
 learn the whole truth. In August, England at 
 last aroused herself, and Lord Wolseley was 
 appointed to conduct an expedition for the 
 relief of Khartoum. But it was too late. 
 After various vicissitudes and delays. Sir 
 Charles Wilson, with several of Gordon's own 
 steamers (sent to meet him), full of troops, 
 reached the city on the 28th of January, only 
 to find it in possession of the'Mahdi, and Gor- 
 don — dead. On the 26th of January he had 
 
76 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 been betrayed ; the gates of the city had been 
 opened to the enemy and by the knife of an 
 assassin the soul of our matchless hero ascended 
 to God. He had yielded up his life for Eng- 
 land and humanity. So perished, through the 
 supineness of the English Ministry, ''Gordon, 
 the Magnanimous." "^ 
 
 * Note.— Since the above was written, the attention of 
 the writer has been called to the following extract from the 
 London Telegraph of the 27th of January: 
 
 THE GORDON ANNIVERSARY. 
 A special funeral service in commemoration of General Gordon's death 
 was held yesterday afternoon at St. Paul's, Eaton square, at 5 p. m. There 
 were present about 200 persons, mostly friends of the deceased officer. The 
 Rev. H. Waller, an old personal friend of General Gordon, preached the 
 sermon, and during the discourse read the following sworn testimony of one 
 of the loyal sergeants who was present at General Gordon's death, and 
 which was communicated to Lieutenant Gordon, nephew of the late General. 
 The sergeant said he was formerly in the garrison of Berber, but escaped at 
 its fall to Khartoum, where he was one of four sergeants orderlies to Gor- 
 don. He was on duty on January 26, and was with Gordon, on the "look- 
 out " on the top of the palace. Gordon, the evening before, warned the 
 people that he had seen a great deal of extra excitement going on in the 
 rebel camp, and that unless a good resistance were made that night the town 
 would fall. As the morning star rose the rebels made a feint at a portion of 
 the defenses, under Ferag Pasha with the black troops; but at the same time 
 they directed their full attack at the defense commanded by Hassan Bey Ben 
 Assereh, with the 5th Regiment of Fellaheen, and succeeded in getting into 
 the town. When Gordon heard the rebels in the town he said, "• It is all 
 finished; to-day Gordon will be killed," and went down stairs, followed by 
 the four sergeants, who took their rifles with them. He took a chair, and 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 77 
 
 ''Thus ended," says the Vicar of Heavitree, 
 '' a career as romantic and as noble as any that 
 the modern world has seen. When the terrible 
 tidings were made known, England mourned 
 for Gordon as she has seldom mourned even 
 for her heroes. His unworldly temper, his 
 ardent faith, his magnificent energy, his sub- 
 lime unselfishness : in all this there was some- 
 thing which captivated the heart of the nation, 
 and it needed but the crowning glory of his 
 death to evoke an expression of love and 
 reverence to w^hich there is hardly a parallel 
 in history. They who knew him best knew 
 that his countrymen had obeyed a true instinct 
 
 eat down on the right of the palace door, the four sergeants standing on hie 
 left. All at once a Sheikh galloped up with some Bagaree Arabs. The ser- 
 geants were on the point of firing when Gordon, seizing one of their rifles, 
 said, " No need of rifles to-day; Gordon is to be killed " (as before). The 
 Sheikh told Gordon that he had been ordered by the Mahdi to bring him 
 alive. Gordon refused to go, saying he would die where he was, adding that 
 no harm was to be done to the four sergeants, who had not fired on the rebels. 
 The Sheikh repeated the order three times, and each time Gordon gave the 
 same answer. After a few words the Sheikh drew his sword, and, rushing up 
 to Gordon, cut him over the left shoulder, Gordon looking him straight in the 
 face and offering no resistance. His head was cut off and taken to the 
 Mahdi at Omdurman, and his body was buried close to the door of the palace 
 and a tomb built over it. The tomb is treated with respect. The letter was 
 handed to Mr. Waller a few days since by General Sir Gerald Graham, V. C, 
 who commanded the troops at Suakin. 
 
78 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 in placing him, even while he lived, beside 
 those whose names are 'on fame's eternal 
 bead-roll worthy to be filed.' With regard to 
 Gordon's character, there are no popular illu- 
 sions to be dispelled. The more closely it is 
 studied, the deeper will be the admiration 
 excited by his strength, his tenderness, his 
 purity and his honour." 
 
VIII. 
 gevsou ami pXauuevs. 
 
VIII. 
 
 PERSON AND MANNERS. 
 
 " I "HE grateful duty yet remains of describing 
 the man : his appearance, manners, hab- 
 its, cast of mind, special devotions and ultimate 
 aims. 
 
 The pictures commonly seen of General Gor- 
 don are very unsatisfactory. The one which, 
 on the whole, seems the most vraisemhlahle, is 
 that which appeared in the London Illustrated 
 News not long after his death. The likenesses 
 prefixed to Hake's "Story of Chinese Gordon" 
 and to Forbes' sketch of him seem very expres- 
 sionless and characterless ; nor can much be 
 said of that prefixed to his ''Journals," al- 
 though, artistically, this last has much merit. 
 The last picture for which he sat was that 
 taken for the King of the Belgians, but being 
 taken in civilian's dress, it does not express the 
 
 whole idea of the man. In the portrait pub- 
 si 
 
82 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 lishecl by the London Illustrated Neivs, one sees 
 the soldier, knight, the gray-haired man of 
 fifty: strong, determined, with a smile playing 
 about the mouth, and with eyes drawn by sor- 
 row and tears. A representation of him, which 
 appeared in the London Graphic in March, 1885, 
 has a softer expression, looks less robust, but 
 has more of the suggestion of faith, and love, 
 and prayer. Doubtless this protean man, like 
 many others of his temperament and consti- 
 tution, at different times looked differently^ 
 Some portraits, however, tell the whole story, 
 or the deepest secrets, of a man's nature, and 
 so with the likenesses above specified as most 
 satisfactory. 
 
 Hake says of him that he was ''slightly 
 built, somewhat below the middle height. His 
 face was almost boyish in its youthful ness, his 
 step as light and his movements as lithe as 
 those of a leopard." His friend, the Reverend 
 Mr. Barnes, of Heavitree, says of him : " He was 
 of the middle height and very strongly built ; 
 his face was furrowed with deep lines ; his fine, 
 broad brow and most determined chin indi- 
 cated a remarkable power of grave and practi- 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 88 
 
 cal thought. He appeared to be as gentle as 
 he was strong, for there was a certain tender- 
 ness in the tones of his rich, unworn voice and 
 in the ghmce of his delicately expressive bine 
 eyes." Mr. Arthur Stannard, one of Colonel 
 Gordon's subordinates at Gravesend, says of 
 those eyes : '' What eyes they w^ere ! Keen 
 and clear, filled with the beauty of holiness ; 
 bright, with an unnatural brightness, * ^ * 
 their colour blue -grey. '■' '^' '^ I know not 
 what effect those eyes had on all whom he 
 came in contact with, though from the unfail- 
 ing and willing obedience with which his orders 
 were carried out, I fancy that, to some extent, 
 he unconsciously mesmerized nine out of ten 
 to do his will ; but I know that upon me theii* 
 effect was to raise a wild longing, a desperate 
 desire to do something, anything at his bid- 
 ding. It was not that any evil thought or sus- 
 picion lurked within the windows of his brave 
 and pure soul ; his power was the power of 
 resolute goodness, and it was strong — so strong 
 that, I am sure, had he told me to stand on my 
 head, or to perform some impossible feat, I 
 should certainly have tried my utmost to ac- 
 
84 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 complisli it without giving a moment for re- 
 flection as to whether the order was reasonable 
 or not." Colonel Chaille-Long, by no means a 
 friendly commentator, says of him : " His flfty 
 years sit very lightly upon him. An active 
 body and mind, ruddy complexion and almost 
 boyish manner, make him appear younger than 
 he is. His step is light, and his movements 
 are quick." I may add, that his head was a 
 very noble one; brow and chin square and 
 strong ; hair white and stiff, crisp and curly; 
 side whiskers trimmed ; moustache strong and 
 close to the lip. 
 
 Thus we see in our hero certain of the char- 
 acteristics of wdiat has been called " the physi- 
 ognomy of the Saints ": that supernatural light 
 in the expression, which Stannard calls unnat- 
 ural ; that singular power in the eye, which 
 S. Gregory and S. Bernard are said to have had, 
 together with that alertness of movement and 
 gaiety of manner so remarkable in S. Philip 
 Neri. 
 
 Gordon's manners were singularly engag- 
 ing : sincere, impulsive, stern, when the mo- 
 ment needed sternness ; thoughtful, and con- 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 85 
 
 siderate, and merciful, when gentleness was 
 the rule of duty. He was singularly free from 
 all affectations, full of humour, and with a turn 
 of expression now and then worthy of Ruskin 
 or Caiiyle. Indeed, Chaille-Long says of him : 
 " He is a strange composition of a Cromwell, a 
 Havelock, a Carlyle and a Livingstone." I add, 
 a combination with the above, of S. Louis of 
 France, the Chevalier Bayard, S. Martin of 
 Tours, and S. Philip Neri. 
 
 "A very real and human man he was," says 
 Stannard ; "as great, as good, and as true as 
 any have described him — not a colourless Saint 
 without a flaw or fault to retrieve his goodness 
 from monotony, as some would have us con- 
 ceive him, but a man whose genius was too 
 brilliant, and whose parts were too strong, to 
 be without corresponding weaknesses and pre- 
 judices almost as marked as his talents. * * * 
 In spite of the beautiful goodness of his heart 
 and the great breadth of his charity, Gordon 
 was far from possessing a placid temperament, 
 or from being patient over small things. His 
 very energy and his singlemindedness tended 
 to make him impatient." " His strength and 
 
86 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 weakness were most fantastically mingled. 
 There was no trace of timidity in him, or he 
 never could have occupied his unique position 
 in the world, "^^ * '^ but '=' "^ * he was 
 extremely sensitive to the feelings of others 
 who might be affected by his doings." '^ * * 
 When he believed any course to be right, and 
 that it was his duty to follow it, he was abso- 
 lutely indifferent to all dissuading or moderat- 
 ing influences. But ''his desire to efface him- 
 self amounted almost to a disease.*' The Vicar 
 of Heavitree says of him: "I have never 
 known anyone who had the same faculty of 
 winning the confidence, love, and reverence of 
 those who happened to be brought into rela- 
 tion with him. He had a kind of spiritual 
 power which exercised a singular fascination 
 when one talked with him about the subjects 
 on which he most frequently and most deeply 
 meditated. * ''^ * The seriousness of Gor- 
 don'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 on which 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 87 
 
 he cared to form an opinion he spoke clearly 
 and decisively." 
 
 (Hake relates an instance of his humour. 
 During his first Governor-Generalship, to his 
 disgust, he had to live in a palace as large as 
 Marlborough House. "Some two hundred ser- 
 vants and orderlies were in attendance ; they 
 added to his discomfort by obliging him to live 
 according to the niceties of an inflexible code 
 of etiquette. He was sternly forbidden to rise 
 to receive a guest, or to offer a chair; if he 
 *rose, everyone else did the same. He was 
 'guarded like an ingot of gold.' This formality 
 was detestable to him, but he made a good deal 
 of fan of it, and more than once, while certain 
 solemnities were proceeding, he would delight 
 the great chiefs, his visitors, by remarking in 
 English (of which they knew nothing), 'Now, 
 old bird, it's time for you to go.' ") 
 
 "Although he was quick to perceive the 
 passing moods of his friends, and to give them 
 his sympathy in their troubles, there was 
 always a tone of self-restraint in his ordinary 
 conversation. Perhaps his manner may be 
 most accurately described as that of a pro- 
 
88 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 fessed and accomplished diplomatist, using the 
 word diplomatist in its best sense. His educa- 
 tional experience, his study of the weight 
 which might be attached to each of his words, 
 his long, unbroken silence in the Soudan— all 
 this had helped to make him not sententious, 
 but habitually impressive toward those whom 
 he addressed. * * * Grordon was much less 
 at ease in talking to women than in talking to 
 men. While conversing with women he seemed 
 to exercise more than his usual self-control in 
 the expression of his thought and feeling. His^ 
 sympathy, geniality and attractiveness became, 
 as it were, veiled ; and he was ' himself again ' 
 only when the restraint was removed. He 
 was seen at his best in the society of young 
 children, his keen interest in whom had not 
 been dulled either by solitude, or by the neces- 
 sity — which had often been imposed upon him 
 in other relations — for strictly guarded inter- 
 course. With children he was quite at home, 
 and they instinctively felt that in him they 
 had a friend who understood them and whom 
 they could trust and love." 
 
 The author of the " Schonberg-Cotta Fam- 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 89 
 
 ily," writing of Gordon, says : "We feel in him, 
 amidst all the naturalness as of a little child, 
 the strangeness also as of childhood that has 
 not yet learned our poor earthly values, or 
 quite learned our low, earthly language. It is 
 not that he tries to renounce the poor prizes of 
 this world ; he, like Joan of Arc, and the rest 
 of that highest society, simply does not value 
 them." " He was simply awake in a world of 
 dreamers ; the walls of the cells of self which 
 imprison us, were broken ; he was under the 
 open sky. He saw tha wrongs and sufferings 
 of other men, of weaker races, as an angel 
 from another world may see them, not dimly 
 or vaguely, but with the widest, keenest and 
 most acute vision. From the first we see m 
 him the same combination : the keen eye and 
 quick resource of the soldier, with the vision 
 into the spiritual combat always underlying 
 all external troubles, and the ceaseless waging 
 of the true warfare there." "The high-bred 
 modesty and reticence of his nature, which 
 belong to the true knights of all ages, made 
 * * * publicity a vulgarity to him, and the 
 
90 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 high mj^stical faith in the indwelling presence 
 of God made it a profanation." 
 
 At Khartoum we see additional traits man- 
 ifesting themselves. Mr. Frank Power, a com- 
 IDanion for a time at Khartoum, but murdered 
 with Colonel Stewart, writes : " Gordon is a 
 most lovable character: quiet, mild, gentle and 
 strong. He is humble, too. The way in which 
 he pats 5"ou on the shoulder when he says, 
 ^Look here, dear fellow, now what do you ad- 
 vise?' would make you love him. When he 
 goes out of doors there are always crowds of 
 Arab men and women at the gate to kiss his 
 feet, and twice to-day the furious women, wish- 
 ing to lift his feet to kiss them, threw him 
 over. He appears to like me, and already calls 
 me 'Frank.' He likes my going so much 
 among the natives. Not to do so is a mortal 
 sin in his eyes. He is Dictator here ; the Mahdi 
 has gone down before him and to-day sent him 
 a ' salaam,' or message of welcome. It is won- 
 derful that one man should have such influence 
 over 200,000 people. Numbers of women flock 
 here every day, to ask him to touch their chil- 
 dren to cure them. They call him the Father 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 91 
 
 and the Saviour of the Soudan. He has found 
 me badly up in Thomas a Kempis, which he 
 reads every day, and has given me an ^Imita- 
 tion of Christ.' '• Again Power writes : '' I 
 like Gordon more and more every day ; he has 
 a most lovable manner and disposition, and is 
 so kind to me. He is glad if you show the 
 smallest desire to help him in his great trouble. 
 How one man could have dared to attempt his 
 task, I wonder. One day of his work and 
 bother would kill another man, yet he is cheer- 
 ful at breakfast, lunch and dinner ; but I know 
 he suffers dreadfully from low spirits. I hear 
 him walking up and down his room all night 
 (it is next to mine). It is only his great piety 
 which carries him through." 
 
 I may remark just here a circumstance 
 which gave a remarkable heroism to Gordon's 
 energy and activity. He had been long a vic- 
 tim to that most cruel and painful form of 
 heart disease, angina pectoris, than which there 
 is probably no ailment of the body more dread- 
 ful and more agonizing. It requires quiet, both 
 of body and of mind, to keep it under; yet, 
 though the incredible statement had been 
 
92 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 made that he had over one hundred attacks of 
 its paroxysms before leaving England, Gordon 
 undertook his wonderful camel-ride across the 
 desert, and his year of dreadful anxiety and 
 worry in the Soudan. One cannot but recall 
 an expression used by him long before in a 
 letter written at Jerusalem : '' I have now a 
 sense of very great weariness; not discontent, 
 but a desire to put off the burden. God gives 
 me comforting thoughts, but — one's body is 
 tired of it." 
 
 In the book sent home, which he gave to 
 Power (Cardinal Newman's " Dream of Geron- 
 tius ") are underlined passages which give deep 
 glimpses into Gordon's heart: "Pray for me, 
 my friend!" '''Tis death, loving friends, 
 your prayers, 'tis he !" " So pray for me, my 
 friends, who have not strength to pray r 
 
IX. 
 
IX. 
 
 DEVOTIONAL HABITS. 
 
 A LREADY we have touched upon points 
 ^^^ connected with the habits of our Saint, 
 e. g., his devotion of the early hours of the day 
 to God, and of the later hours to works of char- 
 ity. We shall further on saj^ a word in refer- 
 ence to his devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. 
 It may be remarked, however, just here (quot- 
 ing from an editorial in the Church Pi^ess of.. 
 March 7, 1885), that ''he had a fixed belief that 
 only from Christ In the Blessed Sacrament 
 could flow the strength of high resolve and the 
 grace to carry through to an end his lofty pur- 
 poses. Hence he was a constant and a devout 
 communicant, never missing an opportunity of 
 receiving at the Altar the soul-strengthening 
 food on which he rested for help, nor when cut 
 off from the Sacred Banquet did he ever neglect 
 to hold daily spiritual communion with his 
 
 95 
 
96 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 Lord as Giver of that Actual Food.'' A curious 
 story is told of him in connection with the last 
 Sunday he spent in England (which, however, 
 I find it difficult to reconcile with the dates). 
 He had a fixed presentiment that he should 
 never return from the Soudan. He distributed 
 little trinkets and mementos among his friends 
 as remembrances, and then prepared himself 
 for his Viaticum. It is said that on the last 
 Saturday in which he was in London, he care- 
 fully ascertained the churches and hours at 
 which the Blessed Sacrament would be attain- 
 able on the following day ; and then begin- 
 ning early in the morning of Sunday, he went 
 from church to church until noon, assisting 
 at the Holy Sacrifice and communicating at 
 each Altar. This, of course, was most unu- 
 sual. I only know of two modern precedents for 
 duplication, or multiplication, of Communions 
 in one day. Certain of the early Jesuits, it is 
 said, in the first fervour of their love, commu- 
 nicated more than once daily, and in Caven- 
 dish's '' Life of Wolsey," the Cardinal is said, 
 on one occasion, first to have said his own Mass 
 and then to have assisted at a Pontifical Cele- 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 97 
 
 bration in the presence of the King of France, 
 and to have, with the King, received the Host 
 divided between them. The Saints, however, 
 such as Gordon was, are not expected to con- 
 form to ordinary measures and standards of 
 things. It was the last day on which our 
 Saint could ever meet his Lord on His Altar 
 Throne. He wished to fill himself up full, as 
 it were, of that Bread of Life, before, as one 
 touchingly says, he went into the ''darkness.'^ 
 The whole passage I shall give from Dean 
 Bradley's sermon at Westminster Abbey : '' We 
 know the story," says he ; " he passes, single- 
 handed, or with one chosen comrade, Colonel 
 Stewart, whose name will be dear to England 
 — passes into the growing darkness, into a ris- 
 ing tide of turbulence and fanaticism, and dark- 
 faced African men kiss his hands and feet as 
 he rides into the doomed city." 
 
 From that city he ascended to that place 
 and to that Friend, of both which he had long 
 before touchingly written : '' Oh ! for that 
 home, where the wicked cease from troubling 
 and the weary have rest ; where the good fight 
 will have been fought, the dusty labour fin- 
 
98 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 ished, and a crown of life given ; when our 
 eyes will behold the only One that ever knew 
 our sorrows and trials, and has borne with us 
 in them all, soothing and comforting our weary 
 souls. No New Friend to be made then, but 
 an Old Friend." To that Friend, indeed, he 
 went. But on that last Sunday in London, he 
 pressed to his lips for the last time that Pre- 
 cious Sacrament of Life, and Joy, and Light, 
 so dear to his detached and heavenly soul. 
 
 A habit of his older African days is thus 
 described by Colonel Chaille-Long : " In the 
 short interval of my stay in camp, going or 
 returning from expeditions, I had occasion to 
 remark the singular habit which Gordon had 
 of retiring to his hut, where he would remain, 
 for days at a time, engaged in the perusal and 
 meditation of his ever-present Bible and Prayer 
 Book. When in this retirement his orders 
 were that he should not be disturbed for any 
 reason of service whatever ; a hatchet and flag 
 were placed at his door as a sign that he was 
 unapproachable. When they were removed, 
 Gordon would re-appear in full dress, cleanly 
 shaven, and the ill-humour which he had suf- 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 99 
 
 fered had vanished, to give place to cheerful- 
 ness. On such occasions he would come into 
 my hut in almost boyish glee and say, 'Come 
 now, Long, old fellow, let's have a good break- 
 fast.' " 
 
 Another of the General's habits was that of 
 intercessory prayer. One of his biographers 
 remarks : "Among the things most character- 
 istic of him is the number of people remem- 
 bered day by day in intercession, in his hours 
 of communion with God." Hake writes : " The 
 Oross's true soldier, a mystic and a leader of 
 men, he fights and conquers much as Columbus 
 voyaged and as Cromwell ruled." ''Praying 
 for the people ahead of me whom I am about 
 to visit," he says, " gives me much strength ; 
 and it is wonderful how something seems al- 
 ready to have passed between us when I meet 
 a chief for whom I have prayed, for the first 
 time. On this I base my hopes of a triumphal 
 march. * * * I have really no troops with 
 me, but I have the Shekinah, and I do like 
 trusting to Him, and not to man." "These 
 extracts," says Barnes, "show how Gordon 
 quieted all earthly anxiety by making every 
 
100 CHAELES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 request known unto God. In his endeavours 
 after the Christian life he looked far beyond 
 that which has become in England a usual but 
 dangerous limit. He never let himself rest 
 short of the hope of complete union with 
 Christ. * * * Gordon desired progress and 
 found our sanctification through union with 
 God in Christ. Hence he approached and 
 understood the Sacraments as a part of that 
 which has been ordained from the first, even 
 before the world began." Hake writes : " The 
 ^Imitation of Christ' is his favourite book. 
 ' This is my book, and although I shall never 
 be able to attain to a hundredth part of the 
 perfection of that Saint, I strive toward it. 
 The ideal is here.' He (Gordon) carries the 
 saintly ideal of the cloister into the turmoil of 
 the camp, and his selfless abnegation and hu- 
 mility are only broken by a horror of public 
 praise." 
 
©ast of plltitl auxX ^xxntlamjetxtal 
 ^tlxQions Ideas. 
 
X. 
 
 CAST OF MIND AND FUNDAMENTAL RELIGIOUS 
 IDEAS. 
 
 /^ENERAL GORDON'S cast of mind and 
 ^"^ feeling may have been already largely 
 deduced from what has thus far been said. 
 Four fundamental points, stated by himself, 
 lay at the basis of his character : First, entire 
 self-forgetfulness ; secondly, simplicity, or the 
 absence of all pretension ; thirdly, refusal to ac- 
 cept, as a motive, the world's praise or disap- 
 proval ; fourthly, the following in all things the 
 will of God. His favourite motto was : " Be 
 not moved;" or, ''Be not thou greatly moved." 
 ''The main point," he writes, "is to be just and 
 straightforward ; to fear no one, or no one's 
 sayings ; and to avoid all tergiversation or 
 twisting, even if you lose by it." " Hoist your 
 flag and abide by it." He had a great horror 
 of evil speaking. " The tongue," he says, " is a 
 
 103 
 
104 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 sure barometei- of the heart, and it is one we 
 can see, and others see at once. Is it not to us 
 a great preventive against evil speaking to 
 communicate worthily ? * * * It is pos- 
 sible for men to communicate worthily, though 
 this is not possible while they continue their 
 fearfully treacherous words against one an- 
 other. I speak of the common parlance of 
 life, where we are all so apt to err. We could 
 not keep repeating that unkind, amusing story 
 of X or Y. If we were often communicating, 
 it would choke us ! There is a close analogy 
 in the remedy and the sickness, as shown by 
 the tongue, the first member to touch the for- 
 bidden fruit. We can tell how we are pro- 
 gressing by the tongue quicker than by any 
 other way. * * * We become very stupid 
 to the world, but poor, wounded souls come to 
 us ; they know that he who keeps his tongue 
 will not plant bitter words, like barbed stings, 
 in their wounds. Christ is the corner of defense 
 to that man. If we look into our past life, we 
 can see that a few years ago we should not 
 have given a thought about saying things 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 105 
 
 which now we can not say without a twinge 
 of conscience." 
 
 Gordon's most memorable sayings may be 
 found in a little compendium known as "Chi- 
 nese Gordon, the Uncrowned King," by L. C. 
 Holloway ; also, in the Gordon Birthday Book. 
 This sketch has already grown so lengthy that I 
 dare not indulge myself in detailing them. 1 
 go on to say that three great ideas filled the 
 mind of General Gordon, over and above the 
 general principles we have been speaking of : 
 First, the sovereignty of God over men's lives in 
 general and in detail; secondly, the reality of the 
 gift of our Lord's Body and Blood in the Blessed 
 Sacrament ; thirdly^ the indwelling of the Holy 
 Ghost in each baptized man. Belief in the first 
 of these has gained him the name of a fatalist, 
 but as he explains himself, no one can call him 
 such in any objectionable way. "If," says he, 
 ^'we could take all things as ordained and for 
 the best, we should, indeed, be conquerors of 
 the world. Nothing has ever happened to man 
 so bad as he has anticipated it to be. If we 
 should be quiet under our troubles, they would- 
 not be so painful to bear. I cannot separate 
 
106 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 the existence of a God from his preordination 
 and direction of all things, good and evil ; the 
 latter he permits, but still controls.'' And 
 again: "I have become what people call a 
 fatalist, namely, I trust God w^ill pull me 
 through every difficulty. The solitary grand- 
 eur of the desert makes one feel how^ vain is 
 the effort of man. This carries me through 
 my troubles and enables me to look on death 
 as a coming relief, when it is His will. * * * 
 It is only my firm conviction that I am only an 
 instrument put in use for a time — (' the chisel 
 in the hands of the carpenter,' as he elsewhere 
 says) — that enables me to bear up, and in my 
 present state, during my long, hot, weary rides, 
 I think my thoughts better and clearer than I 
 should with a companion." " It will be seen," 
 Hake remarks, "that Gordon's fatalism was 
 not a belief in Unchanging Destiny independ- 
 ent of a Controlling Cause, but a deep faith in 
 a Controlling Cause which guides the erring 
 and props the weak." "Here are some of the 
 maxims which he has made himself, and by 
 which his spiritual life is governed : ' It is a 
 delightful thing to be a fatalist^ not as that 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 107 
 
 word is generally employed, but to accept that, 
 when things happen and not before, God has, for 
 soDie wise reason, so ordained them to happen 
 — all things, nob only the great things, but all 
 the circumstances of life': that is what is meant 
 to me by the words, ^ ye are dead,' in S. Paul to 
 the Colossians." Again : "We have nothing 
 further to do when the scroll of events is un- 
 rolled than to accept them as being for the 
 best. Before it is imrolled, is another matter : 
 "and you could not say I sat still, and let things 
 happen with this belief. All I can say is, that 
 amidst troubles and worries no one can have 
 peace till he thus stays upon his God ; it gives 
 a man superhuman strength." 
 
 "I gave you," he writes, "'Watson on Con- 
 tentment;' it is this true exposition of how 
 happiness is to be obtained, /. e., submission to 
 the will of God, whatever that will may be. 
 He who can say he realizes this, has overcome 
 the world and its trials. Everything that hap- 
 pens to-day, good or evil, is settled and fixed, 
 and it is no use fretting over it. The quiet, 
 peaceful life of our Lord was solely due to His 
 submission to God's will. There will be times 
 
108 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 when a strain will come on one : and as the 
 strain, so will your strength be." 
 
 This is, I may say, the language of all the 
 Saints, of all the Masters of the Spiritual Life. 
 There is nothing they more insist upon than 
 conformity to the will of God in what one 
 calls the '' sacrament of the present moment.'' 
 No trait of Gordon's character or mind seems 
 to me more distinctly saintly than this, as his 
 words quoted above reveal it. Arbitrary pre- 
 destination to heaven or hell, men rightly feel 
 to be contrary to God's justness and fairness. 
 The predestination of the course and com- 
 plexion of a man's life, is a different thing. 
 "Every soul," Monseigneur Dupanloup has said^ 
 ''is a thought of God (ijensee de Dieu)^ Just 
 as it has been said of the Saints, " Chaciin des 
 Saints est tin mot dhin discours infinij une note 
 d^une symiohonie immense^ It is the life which 
 makes and trains the man, and which indicates 
 him. The life, therefore, with its details — 
 especially when men consciously put them- 
 selves into the hands of God to be led — is the 
 work of God : part of His thought or concep- 
 tion of the man. And it is the undermost 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 109 
 
 foundation of a calm and peaceful soul that it 
 reposes itself upon the omniscient and omnip- 
 otent will of God. 
 
 We pass now to a word respecting General 
 Gordon's Eucharistic beliefs. One finds the 
 subject largely drawn out in his "Reflections 
 in Palestine," a book singularly mystic, and 
 above the interest of general readers, or even 
 of the average theologian. In an article in 
 the Fortnightly Revieiv of July, 1884, by Mr. W. 
 H. Mallock, one may find his views in larger 
 detail. They are much mingled with his mys- 
 tic speculations, and the first feeling one has 
 on reading them is that of criticism. One may 
 be guarded against this impulse, however, by 
 the words of Dr. Alexander, the Bishop of Ber- 
 ry, and of Dr. Wordsworth, the late Bishop of 
 Lincoln. The Bishop of Derry writes : " The 
 General is not a professional theologian, but 
 he is something far higher and better, and I 
 dare not criticise one so immeasurably above 
 me, even if I were not intellectually convinced 
 by his arguments. He is an example of faith 
 in the Living God." While General Gordon 
 was in Palestine, Bishop Wordsworth, of Lin- 
 
110 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 coin, wrote of him: ''I should be greatly 
 obliged to you, if you would express to him 
 my deep interest in his investigations and 
 thoughts. I am glad to know that the very 
 interesting subject (Biblical investigation) has 
 the benefit of an enquirer like General Gor- 
 don, who sees divine things and places, not 
 with the natural organ only, but with the eye 
 of faith." It may be remarked just here that 
 this great Bishop had a profound respect for 
 Gordon, and strikingly said of him that he had 
 ''the faults of a Saint and the courage of a 
 Hero." The present Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury wTote to Mr. Barnes : " My Dear Prebend- 
 ary : Accept my thanks for your kindness in 
 sending me General Gordon's 'Reflections in 
 Palestine,' and for your kind letter. The 
 former is a wonderful expression of a devout 
 soul with deep resources, and full of faithful 
 life towards God." 
 
 And now to discover the General's views 
 themselves. Starting from the statement of 
 S. Paul that " the Prince of the power of the 
 air worketh the children of disobedience in 
 disobedience," he would urge that Satan be 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. Ill 
 
 gan to work in man when our first parents 
 disobeyed God by eating the forbidden fruit. 
 "Had Eve never eaten what was forbidden, 
 she never could have been worked in by the 
 spirit of disobedience, Satan." "If the Prince 
 of the power of the air works in the chil- 
 dren of disobedience, he must at one time 
 have worked in every one, for all have sinned, 
 and he must have worked at some definite 
 period subsequent to the creation of man ; and 
 it is manifest that he did so when Eve dis- 
 obeyed. Therefore it is thus he worked in 
 her, and he worked in her because she ate of 
 the forbidden fruit." "There is no necessity," 
 Gordon remarks, "to believe that he, Satan, 
 was the fruit, but he was in the fruit." " The 
 trees were sacramental trees, mystic trees — 
 natural trees endued for a time with mystic 
 properties." By partaking of the tree of the 
 knowledge of good and evil (which Gordon 
 paraphrases as the tree of learning what is to 
 be known of good and evil). Eve, the mother 
 of us all, was poisoned, as it were — poisoned 
 by evil introduced into her very body ; but the 
 eating of a substance which, naturally good 
 
112 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 {" all the trees were blessed "), was to her en- 
 dued with evil, inasmuch as it was forbidden 
 to her by God. The fruit she ate was the 
 vehicle of the virus of evil. Gordon opposed 
 to this bodily reception of evil the bodily 
 reception of Him Who is the source and sum 
 of all good. The Blessed Sacrament, in other 
 words, is the antidote of the evil fruit of Eden. 
 ''In the first eating the body offered up the 
 soul ; in the second eating, the soul offers up 
 the body as a sacrifice. In the first eating, the 
 body ruled ; in the second eating, the soul 
 rules." 
 
 His whole Eucharistic theory was but the 
 development of these fundamental ideas. In- 
 cidentally to the discussion of the fall, Gordon 
 makes one or two striking observations. First, 
 in respect to what is sometimes faulted, viz., 
 the apparently trivial character of Eve's temp- 
 tation, he remarks: "If examined, was it trivial? 
 Eve was adamant against any desire for hon- 
 ours, carriages, horses, jewels, fine clothes; 
 these things would not tempt her curiosity. 
 But animal desire to eat could do so." Again : 
 " She ate in trust in herself, and in distrust of 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 113 
 
 God ; she ate after reasoning with herself. She 
 was in union with God and she broke away 
 from her union. '^ 
 
 Another observation apropos is this : ''It 
 is necessary to bear in mind that the cessation 
 of man's communion with God is the cause of 
 man's misery, and that the evil of this world 
 is the result of the absence of God and the 
 presence of Satan. It is not, so to speak, a 
 sentence ; it is the sequel of God's absence. 
 It is dark, because light is absent." 
 
 Gordon saw the intimate connection be- 
 tween the Blessed Sacrament and the Eesur- 
 rection of the body. '''Whosoever eateth My 
 Flesh and drinketh My Blood, I will raise him 
 up at the last day.' And we feel this : that if 
 we actually participate worthily in His Sacra- 
 ment, we do, by spiritually eating that bread 
 and drinking that wine, receive His Body into 
 our bodies, and His Blood into our blood, 
 cleansing us wholly ; and is it possible to think 
 that these bodies can ever perish after such an 
 intimate union with the Godhead, as the eat- 
 ing and drinking of His Body and Blood im- 
 plies?" 
 
114 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 The General's conceptions of the Church 
 and of the Heavenly Life may be interesting 
 just here, before we pass on to the considera- 
 tion of his devotion to the Indwelling Si3irit. 
 Mallock has remarked that Gordon has no- 
 where laid down the expression of his beliefs 
 as to the Church. As far as they can be gath- 
 ered, however, his definition of the Church 
 would be this : The Church consists of those 
 baptized persons who, by the act of feeding on 
 the Body of Christ, establish an identity be- 
 tween their flesh and His. Such identity, Gor- 
 don would teach us, " is not perfect here and 
 will not be until after the Resurrection, when 
 the bodies of the saved will be in all points 
 like the Body of Christ." 
 
 "Meanwhile the souls of the saved are 
 being congregated in Paradise which is above 
 the firmament around the Throne of God. 
 There they are being marshalled in their 
 proper places, so as to build up the Church 
 Triumphant ; and when their number is made 
 perfect, their souls will be clothed again with 
 their bodies purified. * * * When the 
 number of the elect is made perfect, a Spiritual 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 115 
 
 City — that is, a city which is material, but 
 with its material substance purified — will de- 
 scend to earth from its present position above 
 the firmament, and occupy the spot on which 
 Jerusalem now stands. * * * The sea will 
 disappear into the centre of the earth. * * * 
 Meanwhile the river which once flowed in 
 Eden, but which is now above the firmament, 
 will rain its waters down upon the earth peren- 
 nially and * * * from it will flow a terres- 
 trial stream which will encircle the earth with 
 a girdle of living waters." (Mallock further 
 states that one of General Gordon's concep- 
 tions was that "everything in the Garden of 
 Eden that was of exceptional beauty and that 
 distinguished it from the rest of the world, was 
 raised up bodily after the fall, and still exists 
 near the Throne of God, above the firmament, 
 ready to descend again at the coming of the 
 New Jerusalem. Among the things thus lifted 
 up was the river which originally fed the four 
 streams mentioned in the Book of Genesis.") 
 
 And now for his third and remaining great 
 belief, viz., that of the personal indwelling in 
 the baptized, of the Divine Spirit. Gordon was 
 
116 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 as devoted to the Holy Ghost and His offices 
 as to our Lord and the Blessed Sacrament. 
 He directly associates His indwelling with 
 Holy Baptism, in respect to which he says : 
 *' Believers go into the font as sons of Adam, 
 and emerge as sons of God." He held that 
 Baptism communicates life, as the Eucharist 
 sustains it. Moreover, he believed faith to be 
 the direct effect of the indwelling of the Holy 
 Ghost. "There can be no faith," he says, 
 "where the Holy Ghost is not indwelling ;'' 
 nor did he believe in any way of becoming 
 holy or like Christ without seeking and nour- 
 ishing the Holy Ghost's presence in the soul. 
 "As for the sequences," he says, "to deny that 
 they will follow, is to deny the Godhead of the 
 Holy Ghost." "Seek," he says, "the realiza- 
 tion of the Holy Ghost's presence in you, and 
 leave the rest." The Holy Ghost is, in a true 
 sense, incarnated in each member of Christ. 
 "Thus," he says "in Revelation we see God 
 the Father ; we see God the Son incarnated in 
 Christ Jesus ; we see God the Holy Ghost in- 
 carnated in the Bride of Christ Jesus." This 
 doctrine of the indwellincf of God he insists 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 117 
 
 upon as a distinguishing feature of Christian- 
 ity as a religion ; no other religion ever taught 
 such a thing. To that indwelling he attributed 
 all fine intuition. Mr. Barnes says : "All 
 spiritual insight, every good, great and truly 
 beautiful thing in human life, Gordon attribu- 
 ted directly to this indwelling, and hence, as 
 he was never tired of reminding himself, the 
 necessity for complete self-abnegation, since 
 God can find in us a fit home only in propor- 
 tion as our will makes way for the Divine 
 Will." 
 
 One other opinion of Gordon's I must, in a 
 word, mention, which has its interest theolog- 
 ically as connected with traducianism and 
 creationism. lie believed that as all bodies 
 were in the loins of Adam, so all souls were in 
 his soul, and that "his soul and all other souls 
 were breathed into Adam by God at his crea- 
 tion ; in a word, they were all incarnated in 
 Adam, to be developed in due time." 
 
XI. 
 
XL 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 1VT0W the task I have assigned myself is 
 ^ ^ done — ill done, indeed, but undertaken 
 through a great love of and gratitude to this 
 heroic soul whose career, personality^ spirit, and 
 faith I have attempted to portray. I may truly 
 say with Hake, his biographer, that "to have 
 known the story of his life has been an educa- 
 tion." We all of us long for men of our own 
 century and era to help us on our way to God 
 for Saints of our own day whom we may fol- 
 low under the special conditions of our time. 
 To me, this is General Gordon's great claim 
 upon our attention and veneration. He was a 
 Nineteenth Centiirjj Saint, and not a man of 
 another era whose conditions of life were un- 
 like our own. The author of the "Schonberg- 
 Cotta Family " says of him : " His life has some- 
 times been considered an anachronism. But 
 
 121 
 
122 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 surely no life of sacrifice and self-denying ser- 
 vice can ever be an anachronism in the ever- 
 living Church of the everliving Christ. From 
 S. Paul, who fought with beasts, to the monk 
 Telemachus, who died beneath the swords of 
 the gladiators in the Colosseum, and dying, 
 stopped forever the gladiatorial games, to S. 
 Francis, Joan of Arc, Livingstone, Gordon, Pat- 
 teson, the form of service may vary, but the 
 service, its command and the inspiration are 
 the same." "And moreover," she adds, " if we 
 look closer, surely Gordon, lik6 all the true 
 Saints and Heroes, not only rises above his 
 age by virtue of the heavenly birth, but is also 
 steeped in all that is nobly characteristic of 
 his age. Gordon could not, as Telemachus of 
 the Thebaid, and S. Francis of Assisi could, 
 and did, spend half a life in the solitudes of 
 the Thebaid, or found an order. The spirit of 
 mercy, 'the enthusiasm of humanity,' which 
 glows through the scepticism of the nineteenth 
 century, as well as in its faith, burned in him 
 through those solitary months in Palestine, so 
 as to tire his body in a way he seldom com- 
 plains of when strained to the utmost by thou- 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 123 
 
 sands of miles of camel-riding over the deserts 
 of the Soudan." 
 
 It may be interesting, before closing this 
 sketch, to record the opinion of Gordon ex- 
 pressed by Zebehr Pasha, whose son, Suleiman, 
 the General had f^und it necessary to put to 
 death. The author of the "Story of Zebehr 
 Pasha " (in LittelVs Living Age for October 29, 
 1887), says: " Zebehr himself estimated Gordon 
 as one of those men of whom there are few 
 in every age and nation; — a character (using 
 Zebehr's own words), which is the character 
 we reverence in the Saints of our religion, as 
 no doubt you reverence it in yours ; one whom 
 I found by all report and by my knowledge of 
 him to have no fear of those in authority, and 
 to care more for the poor than for the rich. 
 He was a man who could govern the Soudan 
 for that reason, that he cared for the poor. 
 But two things misled him : he imagined that 
 everyone was as good as himself, and acted 
 often rashly, from the heart trusting those who 
 were unworthy ; also, he did not speak the lan- 
 guage well, and was therefore liable to be both 
 deceived and distrusted." Zebehr further said : 
 
124 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 ''I count it as a great personal misfortune that 
 he was killed. Had he lived, I should have had 
 a very valuable friend." (This was the Zebehr 
 Pasha whom Gordon, after having acquired a 
 better knowledge of him than he had had at 
 first, desired to have made his successor as 
 Governor-General of the Soudan.) 
 
 And now we must leave our hero, the dear 
 and good Pasha, in his far-off grave in Africa 
 and his soul with God. The world will ever 
 see him as he ''stood on the broken ram- 
 part, a solitary English sentry, refusing to de- 
 sert those who had trusted in him, and awaiting 
 an army of rescuers which never came." "And 
 there," one writes " he will remain in the 
 memory of the nation, a sublime figure, never 
 to be forgotten ; his heroism, fortitude, chival- 
 rous loyalty and Christian faith understood at 
 last." His tomb stands, awaiting his sometime 
 to be recovered body, in great S. Paul's in 
 London, where he will sleep near the dust of 
 Wellington and Nelson. Schools for boys 
 have already been built to commemorate his 
 name, in London and in Egypt. His well-used 
 pocket-Bible, by the command, and by the very 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 125 
 
 hands of his Queen, has been laid, like the 
 relics of a Saint, in the treasure-house of 
 Windsor Castle, within a casket of crystal 
 and gold, the most precious in the collection 
 of her Majesty. 
 
 We ourselves await the day wdien we shall 
 meet him in his well-earned glory in the King- 
 dom, and by the side of the dear Christ he loved 
 so well. On his grave Paul Hamilton Hayne has 
 laid the following verses, among others, worthy 
 of their subject and of their author : 
 
 " The splendid sum of a hero's years, 
 Death rounded in dark Khartum. 
 
 "He carried the banner of England high 
 In the flash of the Orient skies, 
 And the fervors of antique chivah-y 
 Outflashed from his warrior eyes. 
 
 " 'Twas a Coeur de Lion's hand once more, 
 AVhich the Lion flag led on ; 
 But the soul of the dauntless Hero bore 
 The chrism of pure S. John. 
 
 " O hand of iron ! but heart as sweet 
 As the rose's spring-tide breath, 
 We dream that its pulses of pity beat 
 In the very grasp of death. 
 
126 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 " He was left to die by steel or shot 
 In the core of the savage lands, 
 And be thrust away in a desert spot 
 On the bald Egyptian sands. 
 
 " But the reckless at home, and the traitor abroad, 
 What matters it now to one 
 Who is resting at last— in the peace of his God, 
 Beyond the stars and the sun !" 
 
APPENDICES, 
 
APPENDIX A. 
 
 GORDON^S PRATER. 
 
 /^ GOD, '' Thou hast moulded me out of the 
 ^^^ dust, every fibre ; therefore Thou know- 
 est every fibre. Thou gavest me Thy own 
 life. Thou didst mould me in Thine exact 
 image and likeness (for none but Thou couldest 
 make me) by Thyself. Thou gavest me free 
 v^ill to be altogether like Thyself. 
 
 " I have abased and defiled Thy sacred image. 
 Though I was Thy chief work, yet so low have 
 I debased Thy image, that all creatures turn 
 with horror from me, and I am a horror to my- 
 self. Though I had Thy life in me, though by 
 Thy life I exist, though Thou couldest have 
 made myriads with no trouble, yet Thou didst 
 so love me that Thou camest in my form, and 
 did so suffer every conceivable injury that I 
 
 129 
 
130 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 could commit against Thee. Yet I hindered 
 Thee by every possible cruelty and contempt. 
 
 " Thou didst set Thy face as a flint, and bore 
 the imputation and the punishment of every 
 sin I ever committed— sins which, even in my 
 fellow creatures, I abhor and hate. Thou wast 
 so pure as to cause angels to veil their faces 
 before Thee. Yet Thou bore the guilt as en- 
 tirely Thine — as if Thou hadst done those sins. 
 
 ''Surely now Thou hast routed Thine ene- 
 mies, Thou wilt not permit them to trample 
 and scoff at Thee. Remember Thy sufferings, 
 for they were beyond conception. Are those 
 sufferings to go for naught, as they do, if Thou 
 permit these unconquered enemies to prevail 
 against me. Thy own flesh and bone ? Thy 
 member ? " 
 
APPENDIX B. 
 
 GOEDON'S MOTTO. 
 
 ^'^e not tlxcrtx gteatXtj moued/^ 
 
APPENDIX C 
 
 MEMORABLE SAYINGS OF 
 GORDON. 
 
 I. 
 
 " The longer one lives, the more one has to 
 feel that our Lord will have no half-measures 
 in our surrender of self." 
 
 II. 
 
 **A man is religious one day, and the reverse 
 the next ; v^e are often sorry for the effects of 
 our sin, more than for the sin ; yet we put our 
 sorrow down, as if it was for our sinsr 
 
 . III. 
 
 ^' I ask God for the following things : * * * 
 
 133 
 
134 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 Not to have anything of the world come be- 
 tween Him and me ; and not to fear death, or 
 to feel regret if it came before I had completed 
 what I may think my programme." 
 
 IV. 
 
 "If you are misjudged, why trouble your- 
 self to put yourself right ? You have no idea 
 what a deal of trouble it saves you." 
 
 V. 
 
 "Is your love repelled, and does the world 
 not care for you ? Neither did it for Him. 
 He has graciously taken a lower place than 
 any of his people." 
 
 YI. 
 
 " The future world has been somehow paint- 
 ed to our minds as a place of continuous praise, 
 and though we may not say it, yet one cannot 
 help feeling that, if thus, it would prove mo- 
 notonous. It cannot be thus. It must be a 
 life of activity." 
 
MEMORABLE SAYINGS. 135 
 
 VII. 
 
 " He prunes us down and sanctifies us for 
 that union (with Himself). He hews and cuts 
 the stones of His temple, casting out the evil 
 
 in us." 
 
 YIII. 
 
 "To the black man the same shrouded Be- 
 ing presents Himself, and we do not know how 
 He reveals Himself, and perhaps the black man 
 could not say himself ; but it is the same God- 
 head and has the same attributes, whether 
 known or unknown." 
 
 IX. 
 
 '' I am sure that it is the secret of true hap- 
 piness to be content with what we actually 
 
 have." 
 
 X. 
 
 "I believe when we begin life we are far 
 more capable of accepting these truths than 
 afterward ; when we have imbibed man's doc- 
 trines, we must unlearn, and then learn again. 
 With a child, he has only to learn." 
 
136 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 XI. 
 
 "There would be no one so unwelcome 
 to come and reside in this world as our Sav- 
 iour, while the world is in* the state it now is. 
 He would be dead against nearly all our pur- 
 suits, and altogether outrSr 
 
 XII. 
 
 "Nothing can be more abject and miserable 
 than the usual conception of God." 
 
 XIII. 
 
 " If I fail, it is His will ; if I succeed, it is 
 His work." 
 
 XIV. 
 
 "Increase of light is clear perception of 
 imperfection. That is why those who are 
 given light care not for things that other peo- 
 ple prize. It is not merit on their part." 
 
 XY. 
 
 " Christ never invited us to His table to hurt 
 us. He invites us to heal us." 
 
MEMORABLE SAYINGS. 137 
 
 XVI. 
 
 '^Why are people hearses and look like the 
 pictures of misery ? It must be from discon- 
 tent with the government of God, for all things 
 are directed by Him." 
 
 XVIL 
 
 "If we fence any tree, fence the tree ot 
 knowledge of good and evil, for it is still here. 
 Do not let us fence the tree of life. God gives 
 us the way to it in Christ." 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 "To be free from suffering in the flesh 
 would be impossible for any member of Christ's 
 Body." 
 
 XIX. 
 
 "The more one lives, the more one learns 
 to act towards people as if they were inani; 
 mate objects, viz., to do what you can for them, 
 and to utterly disregard whether they are grate- 
 ful or not." 
 
138 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 XX. 
 
 ''We throw away the best years of our 
 existence in trying for a time, which will 
 never come, when we shall have enough to 
 content us." 
 
 XXL 
 
 "We shall, I think, be far more perfect in 
 the future life, and, indeed, go on towards per- 
 fection, but never attain it." 
 
 XXII. 
 
 '' The sand is flowing out of the glass day 
 and night, night and day ; shake it not. You 
 have a work here to suffer, even as He suf- 
 fered." 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 "Want of money is the great sore, and yet 
 it only needs us to lower our flag a little to 
 have enough." 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 " The cruet-stand expression of countenance 
 ought to be taxed among us." 
 
MEMORABLE SAYINGS. 139 
 
 XXV. 
 
 "Nothing Satan likes better than to creep 
 
 in quietly, not to be detected. * * =i^ The 
 
 power of Satan is from his insidious friends in 
 
 us/' 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 " I think our life is one progressive series of 
 finding out Satan. As we grow in grace we 
 are constantly finding out that he is a traitor ; 
 he is continually being unmasked." 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 ''lam sure we are starved, spiritually, by 
 our shepherds ; I do not know one who feeds 
 his people. It is always the same thing — if 
 you do well, you will be saved ; if you do ill, 
 you will be damned. No comfort, for the law 
 tells us that." 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 "He has given me the joy of not regarding 
 the honours of this world, and to value my 
 union with Him above all things. May I be 
 humbled to the dust and fail, so that He may 
 glorify Himself." 
 
140 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 ''We raise our own goblins, and as soon as 
 one is laid, we raise another." 
 
 XXX. 
 
 ''By suffering and trials the veil is rent to 
 man's mind, and he accepts sincerely, to the 
 degree the veil is rent, what he has before 
 accepted by his intellect." 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 "Interminable deserts and arid mountains 
 fill the heart with far different thoughts than 
 civilized lands would do. It was for this that 
 the Israelites were led through them." 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 " We can keep a continual telegraphic com- 
 munion with Him ; that is our strength." 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 " Every time the spirit is foiled by the flesh, 
 so often does the veil fall again." 
 
MEMORABLE SAYINGS. 141 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 ''Men desire light without the Light of 
 lights. They would take the things of dark- 
 ness together with light, when the presence of 
 light destroys those things.'' 
 
 XXXY. 
 
 ''In following the Divine direction you have 
 not to consider difficulties. Keep your eyes on 
 the cloud by day and the pillar by night, and 
 never mind your steps." 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 " We are all lepers. Some have their lep- 
 rosy covered with silk, some with tattered 
 rags. Take off the silk, and take oft' the rags. 
 There are the lepers. Cover the face and say : 
 'Unclean, Unclean ! ' " 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 "Imagine what our Lord went through, 
 with the imputations on Him, in the midst of 
 His terrible pain, before the face of the whole 
 universe. Try and realize the catalogue." 
 
142 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 "I do not care for the praise of the world. 
 If one truly has been given the sense of God 
 indwelling in us, and of our natural depravity, 
 it is quite impossible to relish even the slight- 
 est taste of man's praise." 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 "Roll your burthen on Him, and He will 
 make straight your mistakes." 
 
 XL. 
 
 "The best servant I have ever had is my- 
 self ; he always does what I like." 
 
 XLI. 
 
 "If you are content with His government, 
 
 and if you believe that the future world is 
 
 better than this, there is no cause for any 
 
 melancholy about it ; and the same with every 
 
 event." 
 
 XLII. 
 
 " Death is nothing in God's sight, and should 
 
MEMORABLE SAYINGS. 143 
 
 be nothing in ours, if we recognized that our 
 life is only a pilgrimage." 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 ^'If things do not go well after the flesh, He 
 still is faithful; He will do all in love and 
 mercy to me." 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 "Christ, God the Son, assumed human na- 
 ture to Himself, not for a time, but for eterfiity, 
 never to be put off." 
 
 XLV. 
 
 "I cannot be removed unless it be God's 
 will ; so I rest on a rock, and can be content." 
 
 XLVI. 
 
 "In all the events of this world there is the 
 harrowing of the ground and plowing, then 
 the seed-time — all painful work — and then 
 comes the harvest." 
 
 XLYII. 
 
 "The future world must be more amusing, 
 
144 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 more enticing, more to be desired than this 
 world, putting aside its absence of sorrow and 
 sin." 
 
 XLVIIL 
 
 "The union in Christ, by the indwelling of 
 the Holy Ghost, is the Alpha and Omega of all 
 life." 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 "I am trying, in firm belief, if God will not 
 suffice for me in this world without external 
 things. He ought to be able to fill our little 
 cups as he fills all the earth. It is the giving 
 up of all we shrink from." 
 
 L. 
 
 '' Try, oh try, to be no longer a slave to the 
 world ; you can have little idea of the com- 
 fort of freedom from it— it is bliss !" 
 
 LI. 
 
 "The highest intellect cannot fathom the 
 depths of either the first sacrament with 
 Satan, or the last sacrament with Christ." 
 
MEMORABLE SAYINGS. 145 
 
 LII. 
 
 " When women speak good, how well they 
 speak out ! They are, in this point, the salt of 
 the earth." 
 
 LIII. 
 
 "Here I am, a lump of clay ; Thou art the 
 Potter. Mould me as Thou in Thy wisdom 
 wilt. Never mind my cries. Cut my life off — 
 so be it ; prolong it — so be it." 
 
 LIV. 
 
 " You ought never to think of the morrow, 
 except that it shall pass as God wills." 
 
 LV. 
 
 " The varnish of civilized life is very thin, 
 and only superficial." 
 
 LVL 
 
 '^The Christianity of the masses is a vapid, 
 tasteless thing of no use to any one." 
 
 LVII. 
 
 " The heathen religions were permitted ; 
 
146 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 and it is remarkable in history that men who 
 were guilty of sacrilege were generally over- 
 taken by Divine vengeance, though the religion 
 was false." 
 
 LVIII. 
 
 ''If we believe, we ought to show it, and to 
 acknowledge openly that we agree to God's 
 government." 
 
 LIX. 
 
 "The whole of religion consists in looking 
 at Grod as the true Ruler, and looking above 
 the agents he uses ; no one can be at rest who 
 regards the latter." 
 
 LX. 
 
 " He would have us to be His ' friends,' not 
 servants." 
 
 LXI. 
 
 "We have a lesson to learn that nothing, 
 with Him, will suffice our wants, while every- 
 thing, without Him, is a waste and void. When 
 we have learnt that, our course is finished and 
 the race will be over." 
 
MEMORABLE SAYINGS. 147 
 
 LXII. 
 
 " One feels that, enticing as evil is, it is not 
 to be compared to the peace one derives from 
 being in accord with Him/' 
 
 . ' LXIII. 
 
 '' He does help me, but in so slow a way 
 that I forget it. It is a daily gathering of 
 manna, and only a little every day." 
 
 LXIV. 
 
 '^ I want no alliance beyond the Almighty. 
 Act up to your religion, and then you will 
 enjoy it." 
 
 LXY. 
 
 ''The procuring and boiling of potatoes is 
 as much to a poor woman as the reorganization 
 of the Army is to Cardwell." 
 
 LXVI. 
 
 " We are, as it were, blind ; and by degrees 
 He opens our eyes, and enables us by dint of 
 sore trouble to know Him little by little," 
 
148 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 LXVIL 
 
 "God has explained Himself to us as the 
 Truth, Love, Wisdom and All Might. * ''^' * 
 It matters not in the long run whether we sin- 
 cerely accept what he states. He is what He 
 says to each of us, and we shall know it event- 
 ually." 
 
 LXVIII. 
 
 "We may be quite certain that Jones cares 
 more for where he is going to dine, or what he 
 has got for dinner, than he does for what Smith 
 has done ; so we need not fret ourselves for 
 what the world says." 
 
 LXIX. 
 
 " There is no doubt but that whosoever acts 
 after the true precepts of our Lord will be con- 
 sidered a madman." 
 
 LXX. 
 
 " Happy, as far as we can see, are those men 
 who swing in small arcs." 
 
 LXXL 
 
 "I like to take things in a light-hearted 
 way." 
 
MEMORABLE SAYINGS. 149 
 
 LXXIL 
 
 ^'Life is a veiy leaden business, and if any 
 one can lighten it so much the better." 
 
 LXXIIL 
 
 '' The yearly milestones quickly slip by ; 
 and as our days, so will our strength be." 
 
 LXXIV. 
 
 '' Perhaps before another milestone is 
 reached, the wayfarer may be in that Glori- 
 ous Home, by the side of the River of Life, 
 where there is no more care, or sorrow, or 
 crying, and rest forever with that kind and 
 well-known Friend." 
 
 LXXY. 
 
 " I will carry things with a high hand to the 
 last, and whatever the world may say, I will 
 content myself with what God may say." 
 
 LXXVI. 
 
 "When the inevitable event — death — oc- 
 curs, then the veil is rent altogether, and no 
 mystery remains." 
 
150 CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 
 
 LXXYII. 
 
 "I heard a voice from heaven saying unto 
 me : Write, happy are the dead that die in 
 the Lord, even so saith the spirit, for they rest 
 from their labours— rest from their troubles, 
 rest from works of weariness, from sorrow, 
 tears, from hunger and thirst, and sad sights 
 of poor, despairing bodies, and sighing hearts, 
 who find no peace in their prisons from wars, 
 and strifes, and words, and judgments." 
 
 C 219 89-1 
 

 
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 .^ AUG 89 
 
 N. MANCHESTER. 
 INDIANA 46962