Gen. Gordon's Views of Death

Auckland Star, Volume XXVI, Issue 85, 18 April 1885, Page 5

Gen. Gordon's Views of Death

" Gon knows what my anxiety was. Not for my life, for I died years ago to all ties in this world, and to all itscomforts, honours,

and glories." It was on September 11, 1877, whon on his expedition to Shaka, '560 miles southwest of Khartoum, with four companies of in'liflerent troops, to break the neck of slave .-aiding in its very-don, that Gordon wrote these characteristic words, which may be fitly quoted at a timo when there is too much reason to fear he has actually laid down his life for those whom he had vainly striven lo save. Thoy brcatho precisely the spirit with which Cordon always regarded life and death. "(rod has given you," ho says, writing to his friends, " ties and anchors on this earth : you have wives and families. I, thank (lod, have nono of them, and am free. . . You aro only called on at intervals to rely on your God. I urn obliged continually to do so. 1 .-".in by this that you have only great trials, shell a. the illness of a child, when you feel yourself utterly weak, now and then. lam constantly in anxiety. Tho body rebels against this constant leaning on Chid ;itis a heavy strain on it; it causes appetite to cease. Find mc the man -and I will tako him as my holp-w erly despises money, name, .glory, honour— ono Who ncv.er wishes to see his home again, one who looks fo God as tho source of good and controller of evil, onfc'-.bo h». a healthy body and an energetic spirit, and one who looks on death as a release from misery. If you cannot find him, then leave mc alone." That instinctive clinging to life which i. natural to .-ill men, Gordon seems to

mvc overcome as completely as Ignatius -oyola, or John Wesley, or Cromwell's 'uritans. When his poor Soudanese lambs iresscd him on every side with their coinilainls, he wrote : ""I must not complain f they have no thought of what I have .Ire.-uly gone through. There is only one ssue to It, ami that is death, and I often

feel I wish it would come and relieve me." Ono can hardly doubt that if Gordon was in fact stabbed as ho left tho palace ho had so bravely held for twelve months, ho saw in the dagger only an instrument of deliverance, in every reference to death, it was with him the great "release." "I valuo my life as naught, ijnd should onlt leave 'weariness for perfect peace."—" London Tclcgmph,"