"Rescue the perishing, care for the dying,
Snatch them in pity from sin and the grave;
Weep o'er the erring ones, lift up the fallen,
Tell them of Jesus, the Mighty to save."
Gordon was never allowed to carry on any work for any great length of time, and the six years at Gravesend passed very quickly. In 1871 he was appointed British representative on the European Commission to superintend the improvement of the mouth of the Danube, so that it might be made more navigable for ships. He was engaged in this work for two years, with his headquarters at Galatz; and the eminent war correspondent, Archibald Forbes, says that he "found his memory still green there in the early years of the Russo-Turkish war, fourteen years after he had exchanged the mosquitoes of the Lower Danube for the not less venomous insects of the Upper Nile."
Apart from the testimony of Archibald Forbes, we may be quite sure that he did some good work at Galatz, for it would be difficult to imagine him doing nothing but the ordinary routine of official duties. He always discovered an opening of some sort by which he could help his fellow-creatures, and his active mind and sympathetic nature were, in the words of Jean Ingelow, always asking the question of those with whom he came in contact—
"Are there no briers across thy pathway thrust?
Are there no thorns that compass it about?
Nor any stones that thou wilt deign to trust
My hand to gather out?"