: Index of the Project Gutenberg Works of John Stuart Mill by Mill John Stuart Widger David Editor - Indexes

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LIFE OF GORDON

INTRODUCTION

My object in adding to the number of biographies already written of General Gordon is to meet the demand for a popular book for young men and others, which will focus the events of his life into one handy volume, and which shall at the same time give a clear insight into the religious life of this Christian hero. This I have attempted to combine with a sketch of his military, political, and social life, setting forth not only the deeds of the man, but the motive which prompted them. The best writers on Gordon have taken up parts of his life only, so that no one can get a view of it as a whole without wading through a large number of volumes, some of them very ponderous. The best record of his career in China is a work by Mr. Andrew Wilson called "The Ever-Victorious Army." A smaller book by Mr. W. E. Lilley gives an interesting account of Gordon's life at Gravesend. The first part of his life in Africa is given in a larger volume by Dr. G. Birkbeck Hill, called "Colonel Gordon in Central Africa." The late Prebendary Barnes edited a small book, "Reflections in Palestine," and Mr. A. Egmont Hake has published a complete account of the hero's career at Khartoum in "The Journals of General Gordon," which were given to him in manuscript to be edited. In addition to this valuable work, the same writer, who is a distant cousin of Gordon's, has written two large volumes, embracing the whole of his life, under the title "The Story of Chinese Gordon."

In certain points where I have differed from other writers, I have relied on the opinion of a near relative of the late General Gordon, as to the accuracy of the statements put forward.

The late Sir Henry Gordon has also written a biography; but though an able man and very fond of his brother, it is not generally considered that he did full justice to his memory. The brothers were widely separated in age, there being fourteen years between them; and owing to the younger one having spent so much of his life abroad, they had not seen much of each other. Colonel Sir William F. Butler has written the ablest and most interesting of all the biographies which embrace the whole of Gordon's life, but as he is a Roman Catholic, it could not be expected that he would enter largely into the religious views of his hero. The remarks he does make on the subject are, however, excellent and in good taste. Another capital sketch of Gordon has been produced by the celebrated war correspondent Archibald Forbes, who not unnaturally devotes most of his space to the military aspect of Gordon's career, and says but little about his religious life. From the religious standpoint the best information can be got from the "Letters of General Gordon to his Sister," edited by Miss Gordon. There seems to have been a special bond of sympathy between the brother and sister, and she seems to have been made the recipient of all his confidences, religious and otherwise.

Such noble examples are not often seen, for Christian heroes in this world are all too few. It is, then, our bounden duty to take pains that the example set by one who has been termed "the youngest of the saints" shall not be lost on the young men who come after him, and who have not had the privilege of seeing him and knowing him while alive.

"Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footprints in the sands of time."

Goodness in the abstract we are all prepared to admire; but while we do this, how often we are tempted to declare it an impossible thing to live up to a high standard. God, recognising the weakness of human nature, sent His only-begotten Son to reveal the Father, and show us a life of goodness in human form. He has further descended to our weakness by permitting us from time to time to see in our midst living examples of how Christians can follow out the principles of Christ. The Apostle Paul in one of his Epistles urges his readers to follow him even as he followed Christ. Good men have their failings, and these we are to avoid; but while doing so, we should aim at imitating that which is good and noble and Christlike in their characters. It is a great privilege to be permitted to come in contact with living men of the type of Gordon, but that privilege is only for the few. As the great majority of our fellow-creatures are denied it, the next best thing for them is to be able to read about these heroes, and thus endeavour to catch their spirit. Some are inclined to sneer at biographies, and to say that, speaking generally, they set forward only the good part of the character of their subjects, omitting all that is faulty. To a certain extent this is undoubtedly true, owing to the very nature of things; but, on the other hand, it must be remembered that it is only the good that we are to follow, and therefore it is useless to direct attention to a man's failings.

There have been few men who have attained to eminence whose inner life could be closely investigated and betray so few faults as did Gordon's. The late Sir Stafford Northcote , leader of the Conservative Opposition in the House of Commons at the time of Gordon's death, only expressed the literal truth when he said: "General Gordon was a hero, and permit me to say he was still more--he was a hero among heroes. For there have been men who have obtained and deserved the praise of heroism whose heroism was manifested on the field of battle or in other conflicts, and who, when examined in the tenor of their personal lives, were not altogether blameless; but if you take the case of this man, pursue him into privacy, investigate his heart and his mind, you will find that he proposed to himself not any ideal of wealth and power, or even fame, but to do good was the object he proposed to himself in his whole life, and on that one object it was his one desire to spend his existence."

But though Gordon's inner life was so thoroughly open to investigation, there was something about him that made him very human. He had his full share of faults, and a quickness of temper which manifested itself unmistakably on occasions. He had also that kind of hasty impatience to which men are liable who are themselves quick at taking in ideas, or seeing how a thing should be done, when they are brought into contact with others of a slower temperament. He was painfully conscious of his own defects, and judged them far more severely than other people would do.

What made him so really great was the happy combination of so many virtues with a corresponding absence of ordinary defects. There have been Christians as earnest and devout as he; there have been soldiers as brave and capable; there have been men as kind-hearted; but there have been few who, while combining all of these good points and many more, have exhibited so complete an absence of the numerous defects which blemish the characters of most great men. The late Prebendary Barnes, who was very intimate with him, remarks that "there are no popular illusions to be dispelled" as one studies his inner life. Sir John Lubbock in one of his lectures says of Napoleon, that he was a man of genius, but not a hero. Now, while Gordon was essentially a genius, he was even more essentially a hero. True heroism is inseparably associated with self-sacrifice. A man may be as brave as a bulldog, yet be entirely wanting in all that goes to make him a hero. The dictionary definition by no means embraces all that the word implies. Lord Wolseley in a magazine article remarked that he had met but two heroes in his eventful life; one of them was that noble Christian officer General Lee, who commanded the Southerners in the American War, and the other was Gordon. It was his complete forgetfulness of self, his entire willingness to sink his own individuality, his own comfort, his own position, his good name, that made Gordon so Christlike, and lifted him above the level of his fellows. We are accustomed to read of brave men, of original thinkers, of great statesmen, of men of genius in different departments of life, but we seldom read of one who was so entirely free from what Milton calls the last infirmity of great men--the love of fame--that he was willing to be nothing that the cause he had espoused might triumph. When Columbus first saw the River Orinoco, some one remarked to him that he must have discovered an island. His reply was, "No such river as that flows from an island; that mighty torrent must drain the waters of a continent;" and his prediction proved to be correct. When we see the deep stream of true heroism flowing from the heart of such a man as Gordon, we instinctively feel that no mere human heart could produce such a torrent of good works, but that behind the human being there must be something more. It has been my object in this memoir to show that the stream that went forth from Gordon's heart to cheer and bless all with whom he came in contact, sprang from no isolated fountain, but had its origin in the great ocean of Divine love, which has existed in all ages, but was revealed more distinctly on Calvary.

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