“We are to relieve the distressed, to put the wanderer into his way, and to share our bread with the hungry, which is but the doing good to others.”—Seneca.
Our hero having returned to his native land, and to settle for a little while at the quiet town of Gravesend, refused to be lionized, and he begged that no publication of his deeds of daring and devotion in China, should be recorded. His quiet life here as an engineer was not less remarkable, though of a different kind, than life in China had been. Here, however, he spent the energies of his spare time, to the services of the poor. At this juncture I was privileged to come in contact with this remarkable man, in the great city of Manchester, where for a few months, he was employed on some Governmental Commission. Like his Master Christ—he went about doing good. My position at this time was an agent, or scripture
reader for “The Manchester City Mission.” Gordon found his way to the office and saw the chairman of the mission, and from him got permission to accompany one of the missioners round his district. He expressed his desire to go round one of the poorest districts of the city; as it might afford him an opportunity of seeing for himself some of the social blots and scars in our national life; also of giving some practical help to the deserving poor. My district was such an one as would furnish him with the opportunities to satisfy him in that particular, and I was therefore asked to allow Col. Gordon to accompany me to its squalid scenes, to my Ragged School, cottage and open-air services, and to the sick and suffering, of which I had many on my list. This request was gladly complied with; for the first sight of the stranger made me love and trust him.
And now the hero of so many battles fought for freedom and liberty, was to witness scenes of warfare of a very different kind. War, it is true, but not where there are garments rolled in blood and victims slain; but war with the powers of darkness, war between good and evil,
truth and error, light and darkness. We went together into the lowest slums of the district; walked arm in arm over the ground where misery tells its sad and awful tale, where poverty shelters its shivering frame, and where blasphemy howls its curse. We found out haunts of vice and sin, terrible in their character, and distressing in their consequences. I found he had not hitherto been accustomed to this kind of mission. Once on my entering a den of dangerous characters and lecturing them on their sinful course and warning them in unmistakable words of the consequences, he afterwards said: “I could not have found courage of the kind you show in this work; yet I never was considered lacking in courage on the field of battle. When in the Crimea, I was sent frequently and went on hands and knees through the fall of shells and the whizz of bullets right up to the Russian walls to watch their movements, and I never felt afraid; I confess I need courage to warn men of sin and its dangerous consequences.” He met me, for a time almost daily, well supplied with tracts, which I noticed he used as a text for a few words of
advice, or comfort, or warning as the case required, but he invariably left a silver coin between the leaves; this I think was a proof he was sincere in his efforts to do good. Along Old Millgate, and around the Cathedral, at that time, were numerous courts and alleys, obscure, often filthy, dark and dangerous; down or up these he accompanied me; up old rickety staircases, into old crumbling ruins of garrets he followed without hesitation.
At the bedside of the dying prodigal or prostitute he would sit with intense interest, pointing them to Him who casts out none. In our house to house visitation he would sit down and read of the Saviour’s love, making special reference to those that are poor in this world, assuring them it was for the outcast and the forsaken, and the lost, that Jesus came to die. He would kneel down for prayer by a broken chair or the corner of a slop-stone, or by the wash-tub, and with the simplicity of a child, address in tender and touching petition, the Great Father of all in Heaven, while tears chased each other down his sun-tanned face; his great soul going out with his prayer for Heaven’s blessing on the helpless poor.
His sympathy was tender as a child’s, and his beneficence as liberal as the best of Christian’s can be. He often came and took tea with me in my quiet home, where we had many very interesting interviews, and where we conversed on subjects varied but mostly religious; he rarely referred to his military achievements; when he did so it was with the greatest self abnegation and humility. He would say, “No honour belongs to me, I am only the instrument God uses to accomplish his purpose.” I introduced him to my ragged school; this to him was a most interesting scene of work, and he volunteered to give us some of his time and service; and to see him with 20 or 30 of these ragged lads about him was to say the least, full of interest. He, however, had the happy art of getting at their heart at once; by incidents, stories and experiences, which compelled attention and confidence. In a very short time he won the esteem and the love of every lad in the school. To some of these lads he became specially attached, and for some time after he left Manchester he kept up with me, and with several of the lads, also with some of my
colleagues on the mission—a very interesting correspondence. Happily, I have preserved a good number of these letters, and they show the spirit and motive of that noble soul, more than any poor words of mine can do.