General Gordon arrived in England on the 8th November 1882, after the close of the Egyptian war, little thinking how closely that war would affect him. After a short stay at Southampton he left on December 28th for Palestine, and nearly the whole of the year 1883 was spent in Palestine. Writing from Jerusalem he says:—
"Everything looks small and insignificant, but quite meets the idea I had of the worldly position of the Jews and of our Lord. In fact, the Scriptures tell the story without any pretence that either the country, people, or our Lord were of any great importance in the world. They are expositors of how very low the position to which He, the Lord of lords, descended. You can realise the fact as well in England as here, by substituting a Scripture-reader of dubious birth and humble parents, exposing the fallacy of a ceremonial church-going religion, and pointing out how impossible it is to please God by such religious formalities....
"The Temple of Solomon was fine for those days, but, setting aside its Divine significance, it was only about six times as long as the room you are in, and not much wider—60 cubits = 90 feet = 30 yards long, by 20 cubits = 30 feet = 10 yards wide. You could walk round the city in less than an hour; it is not quite three miles round....
"The ravines round Jerusalem are full of the dust of men, for over a million bodies must have been slain there. What a terrific sight the resurrection there will be! I suppose there is no place in the world where so many bodies are concentrated....
"It is nice sauntering about, conjuring up scenes of days gone by—real scenes, actions on the stage of life; all gone! It quiets ambition!
"I came back from Gaza yesterday, after a ten days' sojourn there, returning through Askelon, where there are very fine ruins, enormous columns, marbles, &c, lying in all directions: it is a wonderful place. Like all the coast, it is most dreary, yet one sees that all the country was once thickly populated. Sand from the shore is creeping in steadily, and makes it mournful. Napoleon I., Alexander the Great, Sennacherib, Nebuchadnezzar, and a host of great men passed by this route. Titus came up by Gaza to Jerusalem. Richard Cœur de Lion was years at Askelon. All gone, 'those old familiar faces'!"
The supposed sites of the holy places seem to have had peculiar fascination for his active brain, and he came to the conclusion that most, if not all, of them were wrong. It would, however, occupy too much space to give the reasons which led him to this conclusion. Though we cannot gather it from his own letters, a good deal of his time was more profitably spent than in hunting up old sites. Dr. Cunningham Geikie, who was in Jerusalem when Gordon was killed at Khartoum, tells us:—
"A poor dragoman told me that General Gordon used to come often to his house in Jerusalem when he and his wife lay ill, and that he would take a mat, and put it on the floor as a seat, there being no chairs or furniture, and sit down with his Testament to read and speak to them about Christ. Ascertaining that a doctor's account had been incurred, he went off secretly and paid it. He gave away all he had to the poor in Jerusalem and the villages round, and the people mourn for him as for their father."
He made friends with some of the missionaries of the Church Missionary Society, with whom he found himself much in sympathy. Speaking of the Rev. J. R. L. Hall, he says, "I have found a nice man now here (Jaffa), but his mission is at Gaza. He is a Jew[10 ] by birth, but a man after my own heart. I may drop down there ere long and help him. He belongs to the C.M.S."
This Mr. Hall, in a speech afterwards made at Exeter Hall, told some interesting things about General Gordon at this period of his life, which for want of space, cannot be reproduced at length here. He thoroughly identified himself with mission work, showing how much he valued Christianity over all other religious systems. When he met Mr. Hall he said, "I am very restless; I came here for rest and quiet, to study the Word of God, and at the same time to discover different sacred sites. I am not satisfied; I am restless; I want Christian work. Do you think that if I were to come to Jaffa, you could give me any work to do?" He went to live at Jaffa for eight months. While he was there instructions came from the central society for a mission-house to be built at Nablous. There was no architect nearer than at Jerusalem, and his fee and expenses would have been very high. The missionaries agreed to consult General Gordon about drawing up the plans for the house, but were afraid of presuming too much on his kindness. When the deputation from them arrived, he cut them short in their apology. "I know what you want; you want a contribution," said he. When told that they wanted something much more valuable, he was delighted, and seizing a pencil and paper wrote down exactly all they needed in the way of accommodation. He set to work, and before the day was over he had drawn up admirable plans and calculations. The mission-house was built on those plans, and his estimate proved to be almost exactly the cost of the building. He said to Mr. Hall:—