"Dear Miss Gordon,—How shall I write to you, or how shall I attempt to express what I feel! To think of your dear, noble, heroic Brother, who served his Country and his Queen so truly, so heroically, with a self-sacrifice so edifying to the World, not having been rescued. That the promises of support were not fulfilled—which I so frequently and constantly pressed on those who asked him to go—is to me grief inexpressible! indeed, it has made me ill! My heart bleeds for you, his Sister, who have gone through so many anxieties on his account, and who loved the dear Brother as he deserved to be. You are all so good and trustful, and have such strong faith, that you will be sustained even now, when real absolute evidence of your dear Brother's death does not exist—but I fear there cannot be much doubt of it. Some day I hope to see you again, to tell you all I cannot express. My daughter Beatrice, who has felt quite as I do, wishes me to express her deepest sympathy with you. I hear so many expressions of sorrow and sympathy from abroad: from my eldest daughter, the Crown Princess, and from my Cousin, the King of the Belgians,—the very warmest. Would you express to your other Sisters and your elder Brother my true sympathy, and what I do so keenly feel, the stain left upon England for your dear Brother's cruel, though heroic fate?—Ever, dear Miss Gordon, yours sincerely and sympathisingly,
"V. R. I."
Parliament at once voted £20,000, the sum usually given to a successful general on the completion of a campaign, to be set apart for the sisters, nephew, and nieces of General Gordon, and an In Memoriam service was conducted in every cathedral, and in nearly all the large churches of England. A statue was in course of time erected in Trafalgar Square,[16 ] and another has recently been unveiled at Chatham. A monument was erected in St. Paul's Cathedral, and it was decided to place another in Westminster Abbey, the national mausoleum of England. But better still, we know that his memory is enshrined in the hearts of many left behind, and that the record of his noble saintly life is still teaching many of our countrymen valuable lessons.
Few men have done more than General Gordon to elevate the tone of the soldier. The old-fashioned notion still survives that soldiers love war for its own sake, and for the honours it brings to those who take part in it; but Gordon showed us a higher ideal, that the true soldier should study his profession with the idea of mastering it, so as the better to enable him to maintain peace. If good men were all to abstain from studying the science of war, evildoers would very soon have a monopoly of it, and would become aggressors. There are plenty of bullies, who, like Napoleon, would soon upset the peace of Europe were it not that they fear to do so. Such men can only be kept in order by brute force, and brute force is absolutely of no avail, unless it is organised and directed by a brain that has studied the art and science of directing and controlling physical force. It need hardly be said that a knowledge of this kind is not acquired in a day, and although there have been some splendid soldiers of the type of Cromwell, Warren Hastings, and Washington, who have never had a military training, it is unquestionable that a knowledge of the science of war gives a general a very great advantage over one who has not had such training. Exceptions there are to every rule, and the names mentioned must be placed amongst them. It is doubtful if some of the generals named would have ever attained celebrity had their opponents been well trained. Gordon loved his profession, but he took a high view of it. Soldiering with him was not a mere profession for slaughtering his fellow-creatures, but for the prevention of that bullying and bloodshed which would be ever going on in this world, were it not for those who train themselves in order to be able to stop it. The Taiping rebellion, which caused the death of millions of innocent creatures, is but a specimen of what might go on throughout the world did not skilful, well-trained soldiers throw in their lot with the side of law and order. Had the Chinese Government only possessed an able general, and a proper army, that rebellion would never have made such headway as it did. And had they not received the services of such an able soldier as Gordon proved to be, the rebellion might have been indefinitely prolonged, and might have broken up the Empire of China.
In less civilised days the percentage of persons who loved fighting for its own sake was undoubtedly larger than it is now. The more civilised we become, the more we learn to value peace and to dislike war. But even in a civilised nation like the English, there is a certain percentage who really love fighting for its own sake; and besides these, there are many who do not actually love it, but think they ought to do so, as they are in the army, and so they cultivate a style of talking as if they really liked it, and thus they mislead others. In the case of Gordon there was an entire absence of either the one or the other spirit. He did not love fighting for its own sake, and he would probably have looked upon a person who did as a survival of a former age. As for the latter class he had an utter abhorrence of all shams, and he took every opportunity of speaking out of the honesty of his heart. "People have little idea how far from 'glorious' war is. It is organised murder, pillage, and cruelty, and it is seldom that the weight falls on the fighting men—it is on the women, children, and old people. Consider it how we may, war is a brutal, cruel affair." Speaking of some of his men killed and wounded in a skirmish, he says, "I wish people could see what the suffering of human creatures is—I mean those who wish for war. I am a fool, I daresay, but I cannot see the sufferings of any of these people without tears in my eyes."
It is worthy of note that some of the ablest generals who have lived and died in the latter half of this century have held similar views. The great Duke of Wellington remarked, as he crossed the field of Waterloo, the evening after the battle, that "nothing exceeds the horror of victory except a defeat;" and such men as Sir Henry Havelock, Sir Hope Grant, Sir Henry Lawrence, and the heroic General Lee of America, used expressions of similar purport. Gordon was a living illustration of the saying that "the gentlest men are ever the bravest when enlightened consciousness tells them that they have a just cause to support."
Gordon's courage was unquestioned, but, though he possessed more natural courage than most men, he never made a wanton display of it merely with a view of impressing others. In China he exposed himself almost recklessly, in order to encourage his officers and men; but in the Soudan, where he felt so much depended on his life, he carefully refrained from exposing himself, though it must at times have been a great trial to him to see his men so badly handled by their leaders.
It is not unnatural that, in the case of the death of a man like General Gordon, people should like to know his views on that event which must in due course happen to all of us, unless our Lord Himself shall come to terminate this dispensation. Apparently he sometimes wished for this, though he did not appear to think the Second Advent near at hand. In one of his letters he says:—
"I wish, I wish the King would come again and put things right on earth; but His coming is far off, for the whole world must long for Him ere He comes, and I really believe that there are but very, very few who would wish Him to appear, for to do so is to desire death, and how few do this! Not that we really ever die: we only change our sheaths."
But though he longed for the return of the Heavenly Bridegroom during his life, he also looked upon death as a welcome release from the trials and troubles of life. He frequently alluded to this subject, and dozens of extracts might be made from his letters, all more or less similar to the two following, which were written at different dates:—