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 (afterwards Lord Iddesleigh), 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.
This is a material, sceptical age, when many pride themselves on their want of faith, quite forgetting that to believe too little is as clearly an indication of mental weakness as to believe too much. God suddenly raised up a man in our midst who was as strong in faith as he was indifferent to the material things of this world. It was indeed his faith in things eternal and unseen that made him so indifferent to things temporal. Gordon might have lived and died amongst us without being known beyond a limited circle, but that his Master placed him on high so that men should be compelled to hear about his life. Sir William Butler in his interesting book, "The Campaign of the Cataracts," does not at all exaggerate when he says:—
"Who is this far-off figure looming so large between the rifts in the dense leaguer which the Arab has drawn around Khartoum? We cannot save him with all this host and all this piled-up treasure; but, behold! our failure shall be his triumph; for God has raised a colossal pedestal in the midst of this vast desert, and placing upon it His noblest Christian knight, has lighted around the base the torch of Moslem revolt, so that all men through coming time may know the greatness of His soldier."
In spite, however, of the fact that many failed to appreciate him while he was alive, we may be thankful to think that there is much good left in Old England yet; for when the events of his noble career were made public, there was a widespread feeling of regret that we had as a nation failed to value adequately a man of so much true nobility.
In an interesting article in "The Young Man," Mr. William T. Stead hit off the prominent characteristic of the hero's life when he said: "General Gordon taught the world that it is possible to be good without being goody-goody. That it is possible to live like a Christ and to die like a Christ for your fellow-men, without going out of the world or refusing to do your own fair share of the day's work of the world, is one of those truths which need to be revealed anew to each successive generation by the practical demonstration of an actual life." Gordon was essentially a manly man, but with all his courage and bravery he combined the tenderness of a woman. He could be "truest friend and noblest foe." His courage and deeds of daring would have won him that much-coveted distinction the Victoria Cross, had they been performed in an English campaign; yet the sufferings of a child, or even of an animal, caused him the greatest grief. He had a keen sense of humour, and might have cultivated the mere pleasure-seeking part of his nature, and become socially very popular. It has been well said that "Humanity wants more than this; it craves to have its best and noblest powers called into play, and exercised into action that will tend in some way to promote the general good." It is for this reason that his example is such a noble one to set before young men. Most young fellows who are worthy of the name of men have within them a spirit which admires all that is manly, noble, and chivalrous; and for such it is a grand thing to have a high ideal, even if they do not attain to it. As it is true of men that they cannot habitually think mean thoughts without becoming mean, or set before themselves a low ideal without lowering themselves, so is it true that men cannot adopt a high ideal without instinctively cultivating noble and lofty aims.
Frederick Robertson of Brighton once said, "Hate hypocrisy, hate cant, hate intolerance, hate oppression, hate injustice, hate pharisaism, hate them as Christ hated them, with a deep, living, Godlike hatred." It would be difficult to point to one who was more thoroughly influenced by the teaching conveyed in this short sentence than was Gordon. But negative virtues of this kind were not enough for him. One of his most prominent characteristics was his love for that which is good, and his incessant efforts to do good. His career was one long effort to relieve the sufferings of his fellow-creatures, to inculcate Divine truths, and in every way to make the world better. Few labourers have been called to such a variety of work; but it was all one to him. He worked for God in China when fighting to quell a civil war; he served the same Master at Gravesend when he visited the sick and the dying, and rescued little street arabs from lives of sin; and the same motives prompted him when, later on, he devoted all his energies to mitigating and attempting to abolish the horrors of the slave-trade. He is dead, but his noble example still lives.
"Press on, press on! nor doubt, nor fear,