General Gordon's Text (F W Boreham)

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General Gordon’s Text (F W Boreham)

By Rowland Croucher and others ⋅ January 5, 2003 ⋅ Post a comment

F.W. Boreham, A Temple Of Topaz (Epworth press, London, 1928) pages 154-164

GENERAL GORDON’S TEXT

Gordon, as The Times finely said, is one of Plutarch’s men. He ranks with the heroes of antiquity, with the warriors of renown, with the knights of romance, the men who never die. A hero of heroes, Mr. Gladstone calls him. “He was,” says Lord Morley, “a soldier of infinite personal courage and daring; of striking military energy, initiative, and resource; a high, pure, and single character dwelling much in the region of the unseen.” His photograph is imprinted upon all our minds. We seem strangely familiar with his short and unimpressive stature; with his fine head, that always seemed a size too large for him; with his well-moulded face, lively and rich in eloquent expressiveness; with the short, curly hair that had once been raven black; and, above all, with his clear blue eye, full of merriment, yet capable of startling gravity- the eye that seemed to look you through and through.

He was never created a knight or called to the peerage; yet his contemporaries smothered him with popular titles that expressed the honour and affection in which everybody held him. They called him the Swordless Conqueror, the Ever-Victorious General, the Uncrowned King.

“With celestial vigour armed, and plain heroic magnitude of mind,” he lived his glorious life, and wove about his name a lustre that can never fade. “History,” as Lord Cromer justly observes, “History has recorded few incidents more calculated to stir the imagination than that presented by this brave man, who, strong in the faith which sustained him, stood undismayed amidst dangers which might well have appalled the stoutest heart.” Nobody can saunter along the stately aisles of St. Paul’s without being touched by the simple yet exquisite tribute that adorns the Gordon monument. “At all times and everywhere,” it affirms, “He gave his strength to the weak, his substance to the poor, his sympathy to the suffering, and his heart to God.” Was ever so pacific a record inscribed on the memorial of an illustrious soldier?

II

He gave his heart to God, says that inscription. There lies the secret! It is natural that the ponderous biographies of Gordon-and their name is Legion- should deal primarily, almost exclusively, with the military exploits and administrative triumphs that won for him an honourable and deathless renown. The distinguished services that he rendered to the Empire in China, in Egypt, and in the Sudan will never be forgotten by a grateful nation. Yet, as his innumerable biographers confess, the grandeur of his record is based on the sublimity of his character; and the sublimity of his character is based on the simplicity of his faith. His faith is quite easily the biggest thing about him. “No soldier,” says Lord Cromer, in augmenting the tribute that I have already quoted, “no soldier about to lead a forlorn hope, no Christian martyr tied to the stake or thrown to the wild beasts of ancient Rome, ever faced death with more unconcern than General Gordon. His faith was sublime. Strong in that faith, he could meet the savage who plunged a spear into his breast with a gesture of scorn, and with the sure and certain hope of immortality which has been promised by the Master in whose footsteps he endeavoured to tread.”

That robust but simple faith took possession of his heart whilst he was yet in his teens. Originally intended for the Artillery, he was sent to the Academy at Woolwich. But here his high and untamed spirit proved his undoing. In the course of one escapade he threw an officer downstairs; in the course of another he hit a recruit over the head with a clothes-brush. Determined to suppress such horse-play, the authorities told the young madcap that they must withhold his commission for six months. In disgust, Gordon turned his back on the Artil1ery and sought refuge with the Royal Engineers. The change involved his transfer from the Academy at Woolwich to the forts at Pembroke. And, at Pembroke, Gordon came face to face with destiny.

For at Pembroke the impetuous youth fell under the influence of a certain Captain Drew. Drew was a particularly attractive fellow, but he had one amazing foible. He insisted on talking to Gordon in quiet moments about the grace of God, about the redeeming love of Christ, and about the forgiveness of sins! He even took from his pocket a New Testament and directed Gordon’s attention to the great evangelistic promises! “Why,” exclaimed Gordon, in astonishment, “you talk just as my Sister writes. In every letter Augusta begs me to turn to the Saviour!”

Between two fires, he soon surrendered. He tells his sister of the joy with which he has yielded his life to Christ. The Bible is a new book to him; and in every other respect his tastes have radically changed. He finds special pleasure in reading The Remains of Murray McCheyne and Scott’s Commentaries. “No novels,” he tells his sister, “can compare with the Commentaries of Scott. I well remember when you used to get them in monthly parts and I used to laugh at them; but, thank God, it is different with me now. I feel much happier and more contented than I used to do.” In the rough and tumble of the Crimean War, in which he is commended for conspicuous gallantry, and in his earliest experiences in China, his faith becomes slightly obscured. But an attack of small-pox at Tientsin recalls him to his better self. “I am glad to say,” he tells Augusta, “that this disease has brought me back to my Saviour, and I trust in future to be a better Christian than I have been hitherto.” From that hour he never looked back. He preserved the simplicity of his faith to the end.

III

Gordon never married. He formed no close ties or intimate friendships. How could he? The roving nature of his commissions sentenced him to solitude. He lived a lonely life and died a lonely death. But he cherished one sublime companionship. His Bible and he were inseparable. He was a man of one book, as Mr. Lytton Strachey points out, but he read and re-read that book with an untiring, an unending, assiduity. In all his Odysseys, in all his strange and agitated adventures, a day never passed on which he neglected the voice of eternal wisdom as it spoke through the words of Paul or Solomon, of Jonah or Habakkuk. The doubts of philosophers, the investigations of commentators, the smiles of men of the world, the dogmas of Churches-these meant nothing to him. Two facts alone were evident; there was the Bible and there was himself; and all that remained to be done was for him to discover what were the Bible’s instructions, and to act accordingly. That being so, it was only necessary for him to read the Bible over and over and over again; and, therefore, for the rest of his life he did so.” When Lord Cromer wrote to Gordon urging him to take some startling step that would precipitate a decisive issue, Gordon replied that he would consult the prophet Isaiah about it.

Few people felt the tragic death of Gordon more than Queen Victoria. Her Majesty’s letters to Miss Gordon throb with passionate emotion and profoundest sympathy. In response. Miss Gordon presented the Queen with her brother’s Bible; and it is still one of the most honoured treasures preserved at Windsor Castle.

In March 1885 [says the Archbishop of Canterbury] I was brought into vital touch with the springs of that extraordinary life of adventure and leadership which had closed in dark tragedy two months before. For I was entrusted with the interesting task of examining the little Bible which had been for so many long and dusty years General Gordon’s daily companion and guide, and which has now an honoured resting-place in the corridor of Windsor Castle. It would not be easy to describe that little book-worn and thumbed from cover to cover and scored and annotated with different coloured inks and pencils in pursuance of separate lines of thought. But one trait throughout its pages he that runs might read. It is the thought of the man’s steady, unswerving confidence in the daily guidance of his God, finding that guidance after his own fashion in proverb and story, in psalm and prophecy, in gospel and vision. That little book, carefully mended with fine whip-cord by his own hand, had been his all-sufficient solace and unerring guide on Chinese marches, in Danubian fields, amidst the solitudes of the African desert, and in the camps of the slave-traders.

When Gordon left England for the last time he presented every member of the British Cabinet with a copy of Dr. Samuel Clarke’s Scripture Promises. He would fain infect the mightiest in the land with his own unwavering confidence in the Scriptures.

IV

But, in that well-worn Bible of his, there is one passage to which he turned more fondly and more frequently than to any other. He regarded that golden sentence as the key to the entire volume. In his correspondence he quotes it again and again.

“Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.”

“The indwelling of God!” he writes. “The Bible is a sealed book until you realize this truth. It is sure and certain; God lives and works in those who fearlessly confess His Son.”

And again, in a leaflet which he had printed both in English and French, he says: “You really believe in your heart that Jesus is the Son of God? Then God dwells within you. For “whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.” And if you say to Him: 0 Lord, I believe that Jesus is the Son of God; show me, for His sake, that Thou livest in me. He will make you feel His presence in your heart.”

And once more, in his Reflections in Palestine, he says: “My comfort is that, if we believe in Jesus, He dwells in us, and we become members of His body. This is my prayer-the prayer that the simplest of us can make- “O Lord, who dost live in all who believe that Jesus is Thy Son, make me to feel Thy presence more and more!”

“The believing heart!

The witnessing lips!

The indwelling God!”

“Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.”

Here, in a word, is the essence of the faith to which our martial-mystic, our soldier-saint, so implicitly and persistently clung.

V

“Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.”

By far the best exposition of General Gordon’s text is Martin Luther’s. “If,” says Luther, “If you had knocked at the door of my heart any time before my conversion and had asked. Who dwells in here? I would have answered that no one dwells here but Martin Luther! And if I had opened the door, and you had come in, you would have seen a raw-headed monk, with a shaven crown and a hair shirt, with two tables of stone under his pillow and a knotted scourge hanging beside his bed. But if you were to knock at the door of my heart tonight, I would answer that Martin Luther no longer lives here; Jesus Christ alone lives here!” So it was with Gordon. At Pembroke, as he listened to the voice of Captain Drew and read the letters of his sister, he seemed to hear the Saviour of the World knocking, ever knocking, at the portals of his soul.

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him”

“I will come in to him!” Gordon opened the door, welcomed the divine Guest, and experienced that wondrous indwelling for the rest of his days. Through- out his illustrious but lonely life that Inner Presence meant everything to him. By its mystic virtue he slew everything base that lurked within his soul. A man of like passions with ourselves, he was subject to severe besetments. For one thing, he was plagued with a particularly explosive temper ; and, for another, he discovered, during one stage of his career, the insidious fascination of alcohol. Mr. Strachey shows how, under a fierce tropical sun, his Bible found an ugly rival in his flask. The fiery liquors inflamed the fiery temper; the outbursts of passion were followed by fits of moodiness and depression, in the course of which Gordon again sought solace in the bottle; and so the two evils acted and reacted upon each other. Fortified by the Inner Presence, however, he eventually trod these temptations underfoot and tasted the joy that only conquerors know.

Still impelled by that Inner Presence, Gordon spent the little time he had in England in reading his Bible to the aged poor, and in imparting its sacred truths to the ragged boys that he gathered around him. Prompted by the monitions of that Inner Presence, he poured out his money as if it had been water. He gave away all that he had, and sometimes more than all.

“The silver tea-set at home,” he used to say, “can be sold to pay my funeral expenses!” His funeral expenses! The tragedy was that, in his case, there were none!

Strong in the sense of that Divine Indwelling he knew no fear-even at the last. The Mahdi sent him an Eastern costume. “Put it on,” he said, “as a sign that you renounce your faith, and no harm shall come to you!” Gordon flung the clothes to the ground and trampled upon them in the sight of everybody. “Then, alone, he went up to the roof of his high palace and turned the telescope, almost mechanically, to the north! He looked-but looked in vain-for the relieving columns that never arrived. “I am quite happy,” he says, in his last letter to his sister, “I am quite happy, thank God; and, like Lawrence, I have tried to do my duty!” A few hours later his head was fixed on a tree beside the public highway, and every passer-by threw stones at it. But what did that matter to him? With heroic fortitude he had presented his breast to the spears of his enemies; and his journals show that the Abiding Guest was with him to the end.