CHAPTER XVIII WILBERFORCE AND HIS FELLOW-WORKERS

The desire of Abou Ben Adhem that his name might be handed on as one "who loved his fellow-men" would form a fitting epitaph not only to those great-hearted workers in the cause of humanity whom the Abbey has delighted to honour—William Wilberforce, the liberator of the slave, and David Livingstone, the missionary and explorer in Darkest Africa—but also to those others who toiled with them in the same great cause of freedom, and whose claims to the grateful recollection of the nation are recorded only by monuments—Granville Sharp, Jonas Hanway, Zachary Macaulay, Fowell Buxton, and Anthony Astley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury. A few words first about one of these latter, Granville Sharp, for he it was who became the pioneer of that noble band who never ceased from their labours till they had freed the slave on British territory.

He was only a linen-draper's assistant, afterwards becoming a clerk in the Ordnance Office; but the monotony of his work never allowed monotony or narrowness to enter his life. His heart was responsive to every high claim, and difficulties only meant to him obstacles to be overcome. Courage, energy, and determination were his watchwords. His brother was a doctor in Mincing Lane, who saw poor people free of charge, and among his patients was a negro called Jonathan Strong, who had been brought to London by his master, a lawyer, from Barbadoes, only to be turned out into the streets friendless and homeless when he fell ill. Dr. Sharp treated him so successfully that he became quite well, and Granville Sharp found him a situation with a chemist, which he kept for some years, until one day he was seen and recognised by his old employer, who finding him well and active had him seized, and kept in custody until he could be shipped off to the West Indies. Jonathan, in despair, thought of Granville Sharp, and appealed to him for protection. Sharp at once went to the Lord Mayor, who gave judgment that the man had been wrongfully seized and held without a warrant, and ordered him to be at once set at liberty. But then arose an unlooked-for difficulty. Jonathan's late master had sold him, and his new owner appeared with the bill of sale, claiming his property and declaring he had been robbed. Then came the question as to whether the traffic in slaves which went on openly, especially in London and Liverpool, was lawful or not. Was a slave free when he reached England, or could he be seized and compelled to go back? The lawyers declared that no English law protected the slave. Granville Sharp refused to believe it. During the next few years he spent every hour of his spare time in studying the law; in wading through masses of dry Acts; in sorting, sifting, verifying, and quoting, though more than one friendly lawyer assured him that all his work was a useless waste of time. But the result of his labours surprised them as much as it cheered the heart of Granville Sharp, for it proved that "there was nothing in any English law or statute which could justify the enslaving of others." He at once published a plain, clear pamphlet which he called "The Injustice of Tolerating Slavery in England;" and further than that, certain in the justice of his cause, he went down, armed with a writ of Habeas Corpus, to Gravesend, where he had been told of a captured negro who was being taken back by force. He found the wretched man chained to the mainmast, but after a fierce struggle he got possession of him and returned with him in triumph to London. He did much the same in the case of another negro called James Somerset, whose owner promptly brought the matter before Lord Chief-Justice Mansfield, who declared the question to be so important and doubtful a one that he must take the opinion of the judges upon it. A very lengthy trial followed. At last the court gave the opinion, that every man in England had a right to his liberty unless he had broken the law; that the power to seize or claim a slave in England had never been acknowledged by the law, and that therefore Somerset was free. It was the first great step towards a more far-reaching freedom, and it was mainly won by the careful, devoted study of Granville Sharp, whose pamphlet had made a great impression on the Lord Chief-Justice. The next step was to found a society for the Abolition of Slavery, and to this flocked a number of men, chiefly Quakers, who banded themselves together with most steadfast determination never to cease from their labours until Parliament had declared all traffic in slaves to be illegal in every part of the British Empire. This was a gigantic undertaking, for British merchants dealt largely in slaves, and they were so powerful a body that it was certain the Government would shrink from opposing them. But this little band of religious, earnest, chivalrous men had the strength which comes from the conviction that theirs was a righteous cause destined in the end to triumph over every obstacle. One of their number was William Wilberforce, a young and a delicate-looking man, who when only twenty years of age had been elected as member for Hull, with no powerful support except what he derived from his own personal influence and his independent character. In London he soon made his mark. Pitt became his greatest friend, and in society he was made much of, so full was he of wit and charm; while in addition to his many other gifts, he was an excellent singer. But fascinating and absorbing as was the life into which he was then thrown, it did not satisfy him. Even while he stood on a height, he caught the glimpse of the height that is higher, the which having once seen, no true man can rest until he has attained it. As the vision unfolded itself before his eyes Wilberforce became a changed man, so much so that for a time it was believed by his friends that he would leave public life and go quietly to the country. But his vision, instead of narrowing down his conception of duty, broadened it out. "To shut myself up," he said to his mother, "would merit no better name than desertion. It would be flying from the post in which I have been placed, and I could not look for the blessing of God upon my retirement."

Just at this crisis he came under the influence of two or three people who felt intensely on the slavery question, and in him they saw the very Parliamentary champion they needed. With his great influence, his powers of speech, his many friends, his independent character, and his high enthusiasms, Wilberforce seemed destined for this work, and he eagerly grasped it. Here was a direct call from God, and to him now every gift, every power he possessed was held as a sacred trust. Besides, he was respected by all parties in the House, and the hope of the Anti-Slavery party lay in their cause being non-political. Victory could only crown their efforts when the whole moral feeling of the nation was aroused, and much, very much hung on their choice of a leader. "Mr. Wilberforce," said Granville Sharp, "with his position as member for the largest county, the great influence of his personal connections, added to his unblemished character, will secure every advantage to the cause." So from the year 1787, William Wilberforce, chivalrous as any knight of old, gave up his life to the righting of a great wrong and to the deliverance of the oppressed.

For twenty years the fight went on, and though he was successfully opposed over and over again by the strong West Indian party, assisted by many of the Tories and the majority in the House of Lords, he was never baffled or disheartened.

"I am in no degree discouraged," he said after one defeat. "It is again my intention to move next year for the abolition, and though I dare not hope to carry the bill through both Houses, yet, if I do not deceive myself, this infamous and wicked traffic will not last out the century."

Both Pitt and Fox supported Wilberforce, but the opposition was solid and wealthy, and the bill above mentioned, brought in during the session of 1796, was again defeated by 78 votes to 61. The Revolution in France was causing much excitement and apprehension among all classes of Englishmen, and the opponents of Wilberforce attempted, among other things, to prove that he was at heart a revolutionist, and that his efforts to set free a class who had always been kept in slavery showed that he believed in the revolutionary "rights of men."

"There is no greater enemy to all such delusions," Pitt warmly and indignantly made reply.

But by 1804 a change had come about. All fears regarding a revolution in England were allayed; every year Wilberforce and his party, by their steady persistence, their moderation, and their powerful appeals to the highest motives, had gained converts to their cause both in and out of Parliament, and the Bill of May 30, 1804, was carried in the Commons by a majority of over 70. This was by far the greatest triumph Wilberforce had yet gained, but to his regret it was not proceeded with by the House of Lords, who had thrown out the two previous bills, though, in fairness be it said, the majorities with which they had come from the Commons had been very small. However, the Abolitionists were by now accustomed to possessing their souls in patience, and they knew the tide had turned in their favour. The death of Pitt put Fox, who of the two men was the more zealous supporter of their cause, into power; he prevailed upon a majority in the Cabinet to declare that the slave trade was contrary to the principles of justice, humanity, and sound policy, and should be abolished by the House with all practicable expediency. In 1807 the bill was again brought in, this time to be carried by a majority of 283 to 16. The Solicitor-General made a powerful speech, in which he contrasted the feelings of the Emperor of the French in all his greatness with those of that "honoured man who would soon lay his head on his pillow, knowing that the slave trade was no more." At this reference to Wilberforce the House burst into delighted applause. They had seen him during his many years of brave fighting, and now that victory was at hand, they cheered him with such cheers as had seldom before been given to any man sitting in his place in either House. Further opposition was useless, and the bill became law.

"God will bless this country," was Wilberforce's earnest declaration, in the gladdest, proudest moment of his life. His own share in the good work he counted as nothing.

Much was won, but not all. The slave trade was abolished—that is to say, slaves could not be taken to any British possession, or put on any British ships, and our warships were instructed to capture any vessels disobeying this order. Yet slaves were still held by British masters in the West Indies and on the American coast. Wilberforce, far from resting content with his victory, made ready for a second fight, having now for his lieutenant in the House of Commons, Fowell Buxton, called Elephant Buxton, on account of his great size, a man as energetic and indefatigable by nature as he was powerful in appearance. However sad the lot of the slaves, they had been bought and paid for under the old law by their masters, just as if they had been cattle or any other marketable produce, so that if they were to be set free by law, the money spent on them must in honour be returned to these masters, or otherwise they would be ruined, and a great injustice would be done. To compensate the owners, and thus honourably to free every slave, required a large sum of money, not less than ￡20,000,000; but so changed had become public opinion throughout England, and consequently in Parliament, that the money was voted in 1833. For the last few years Wilberforce had been in failing health, and his old place in the House of Commons knew him no more; but Buxton had valiantly carried on the work, in a spirit best illustrated by some words of his own:—

"The longer I live, the more certain I am that the great difference between men, between the feeble and the powerful, the great and the insignificant, is energy, invincible determination—a purpose once fixed, and then, death or victory! That quality will do anything that can be done in the world, and no talents, no circumstances, no opportunities, will make a two-legged creature a man without it."

Wilberforce just lived to hear the glorious news which crowned his life and work, and to realise that from that day forward there would not exist a slave in any British colony. It was the great triumph of righteousness, and humbly he thanked God that his had been the privilege of leading the little army which had gone on from strength to strength until its mission was accomplished. Two or three days later he passed peacefully away, and immediately after his death this letter, signed by all the leading members of both Houses of Parliament, was sent to his son:—

"We being anxious upon public grounds to show our respect for the memory of the late William Wilberforce, and being also satisfied that public honours cannot be more fitly bestowed than upon such benefactors of mankind, earnestly request that he may be buried in Westminster Abbey, and that we, with others who agree with us in these sentiments, may have permission to attend the funeral."

So to the Abbey he was brought. All public business was suspended, and public men of every rank followed him to the grave. Members of Parliament were there in numbers to show their reverence for one whose eloquence had ever been put to the noblest uses, and, fitly enough, his body was laid close to the tombs of Pitt and Fox.

"If you carry this point in your life, that life will be far better spent than in being prime minister many years," a much-loved friend had said to Wilberforce when he first resolved to devote himself to the cause of the slave, and to set aside all thought of his own career and ambition. The young enthusiast had counted the cost, but it had not changed him from his determination, and though he lived and died plain William Wilberforce, member of parliament, the Abbey roll of honour is made richer by his name, and he rests worthily in the Statesmen's Corner, great as any of those among whom he lies.

Just as Wilberforce was nearing the close of his life, a young spinner in some mills near Glasgow, glowing with enthusiasm, was resolving to offer himself as a medical missionary to China or Africa. David Livingstone, for he it was, came of homely Scottish stock.

"The only point of family tradition I feel proud of is this," he declared. "One of my forefathers, when on his death-bed, called his children round him and said, 'I have searched diligently throughout all the traditions of our family, and I never could find there was a dishonest man among them.... So I leave this precept with you, Be honest.'"
DAVID LIVINGSTONE.
DAVID LIVINGSTONE.

And perfectly honest David Livingstone certainly was to the end of his days. Though he went to work in the mills when ten years old, his love of books made him learn eagerly in every spare moment and on so late into the night, that his mother, half in anger, half in pride, often went to him at midnight and carried off every available light. However David was a sturdy youth, or twelve hours' work each day in the factory added to six hours' reading would have ruined his health. He was twenty-five when he offered himself to the London Missionary Society, and he was sent for a three months' trial to a training-place in Essex. But when he had to deliver his first sermon, every idea fled from his brain. "I have forgotten all I had to say, friends," he announced frankly, and left the pulpit. But for his other sterling qualities, this would have put an end to his career. As it was, he was given another three months and came successfully out of the ordeal, after which he went for two years to a London hospital. Africa was to be his destination, "Don't go to an old station," Dr. Moffat, the veteran missionary, said to him on the eve of his ordination. "But push on to the vast unoccupied district to the north, where on a clear morning I have seen the smoke of a thousand villages no missionary has ever reached." Kuruman, an important station of the Missionary Society, more than seven hundred miles up country, was his first halting-place after leaving Cape Town, and he set himself with great energy to learn the language of the natives, acting at the same time as their doctor. In this last capacity he soon made his name famous, and patients came to him over enormous distances. Splendid patients they were too, he always declared, perfectly obedient and of extraordinary courage. When once he had mastered their language, which he did in a short while, he combined his missionary and medical work very happily.

In 1843 he left Kuruman to form a new station about two hundred miles to the north-east at Mabotsa, and whilst here he married a daughter of Dr. Moffat, a girl who had lived among missionaries for many years, and so was accustomed to the rough, solitary existence which would be her lot. "My time," wrote Livingstone to a friend, "is filled up with building, gardening, cobbling, doctoring, tinkering, carpentering, gun-mending, farriering, preaching, schooling, teaching, and lecturing, while my wife, in addition to her usual work, makes clothes, soap, and candles, and teaches classes of children."

Gradually it dawned upon Livingstone that a great work awaited him in the interior, but it was a work which he must face alone. "I must not be a more sorry soldier than those who serve an earthly sovereign," he wrote to the Directors of the Mission, to whose care he commended his family. "And so powerfully am I convinced it is the will of God, that I will go, no matter who opposes."

Therefore in 1852, having seen his wife and children off to England, he started in his Cape waggon and again made for Kuruman, after leaving which he was constantly harassed by parties of Boers, who believed he was teaching their slaves to rise in revolt. But he reached the land of Sebituan, a friendly chief, safely, and found the warmest welcome awaiting him. As doctor and missionary his hands were full, and seeing the field of work opening all around him, he grew more and more anxious to become the pioneer missioner to the very interior. Fever, he realised, would be his worst enemy. "I would like," he wrote in his journal, "to discover some remedy for that terrible disease. I must go to parts where it prevails most and try to discover if the natives have a remedy for it.... I mean to open up a path to the interior or perish. I never have had the shadow of a doubt. Cannot the love of Christ carry the missionary where the slave trade carries the trader?"

The travels of Livingstone through that unknown country which he practically discovered, would have to be closely followed on a map from point to point to be made clear. Otherwise they are a mere string of strange names. He set out in the November of 1853. "I had three muskets for my people and a double-barrelled gun for myself," he said. "My ammunition was distributed through the luggage, that we might not be left without a supply. Our chief hopes for food were in our guns. I carried twenty pounds of beads, a few pounds of tea, sugar, and coffee. One tin canister was filled with spare clothes, another was stored with medicines, a third with books, and a fourth with a magic lantern. A small tent, a sheep-skin, and a horse-rug completed my equipment, as an array of baggage would have excited the tribes." Four years later, worn out by frequent attacks of fever, but otherwise perfectly satisfied with the result of his journeyings into parts where as yet no other Englishman had penetrated, Livingstone sailed for England, having heard nothing of his family for three years. He at once became the hero of the hour; dinners were given, speeches were made in his honour, and he was asked to equip and command a government expedition for the exploration of that part of South-Eastern Africa through which the river Zambesi flows. After some consideration he decided to undertake this, though it meant that from henceforth he would cease to be a missionary pure and simple. But he looked at the question in its broadest aspect. "Wherever I go," he said, "I go as the servant of God, following the leadings of His Hand. My ideal of a missionary is not that of a dumpy man with a Bible under his arm. I feel I am not my own. I am serving Christ in labouring as well as in preaching, and having by His help got information which I hope will bring blessing to Africa, am I to hide the light under a bushel, because some will not consider it sufficiently or even at all missionary? I refrain from taking any salary from Missionary Societies, so no loss is sustained by any one."

In the March of 1858 he returned to his work, and Mrs. Livingstone started with him to go at least as far as Kuruman. This second Zambesi expedition lasted nearly six years, and as Livingstone stood on the shores of Lake Nyasa, he was able to feel that he stood where no white man had ever stood before him. Three years later, Bishop Mackenzie and six missionaries followed him here, but among the many sorrows which fell upon him about this time, was the death of the "good bishop" from fever, the death of his own wife, and the growing feeling that the extreme unhealthiness of the district would make anything like colonisation impossible. His third great journey, commenced in 1866, was his last, and when more than three years passed by without any tidings of him, owing to his long stay in the country of the cannibal Manyema, the editor of the New York Herald equipped an expedition to go in search of him the man in charge of it being Henry Stanley, whose orders were "to find Livingstone, living or dead." It was in 1871 that the two men met face to face at Tanganyika, and the relieving party found the object of their search almost alone, worn out, fever-stricken, cut off from all news of his children, and as near to despair as was possible to one of his strong faith and brave nature. But when Stanley, after many attacks of fever, returned to Europe, he could not persuade his companion to leave the country, which held him as a magnet. He was determined to find the sources of the Nile, and the determination cost him his life. The district through which he fought his way has been described as "one vast sponge," and was poisonous to the last degree. His strength failed, and though his faithful natives bore him along on a litter with the utmost tenderness, his sufferings were terrible. He died on the first of May 1873, alone save for his natives, "the greatest and best man who ever explored Africa." Believing that to labour is to pray, if the work be done for God's glory and not for self-advancement, David Livingstone's life had been one long prayer, and throughout those lonely dangerous journeyings the sense of God's Presence had been his stay and comfort. Around the last hours of the brave man a veil is drawn. But who can doubt that the love of God overshadowed him, and made even that desolate, marsh-like place a road of light, along which the worn-out traveller passed to Him, his one true goal?

His native servants behaved with beautiful devotion, and would not leave him alone in death. His heart they buried where he died, but as best they could they embalmed his body, and by slow stages made their way towards the coast with their precious burden, which they were determined somehow to get to England. At one time every one of them was stricken down by the terrible fever, but on they went for many a month, through swamp and desert and through hostile lands. Nothing could daunt them. Their master must lie in his home, far away, over the seas. When at last they reached Zanzibar and handed over the trust they had so loyally guarded, they barely received a word of thanks. But one friend of Livingstone's came forward just in time, and undertook to pay all expenses for two of their number to go to England and be present at the funeral. Susi and Chuma, two of the slaves the Doctor had freed, and his most devoted attendants, were chosen to go with their master till the end of his journey. It was almost a year after his death when the great traveller was borne into the Abbey, and those two stood there among the mourners, awe-struck but contented. Their task was accomplished; the white man who had been their deliverer lay among his own people.

A very simple inscription, ending with the words, "Other sheep I have which are not of this fold. Them also must I bring," marks the place in the nave where, with a curious significance, Livingstone, an architect of the Empire, lies close to other architects, Sir Charles Barry, Sir Gilbert Scott, and John Pearson, whose works are to be seen in the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, and Westminster Hall.

We cannot leave these lovers of humanity without one glance at the statue of the good Earl of Shaftesbury, the friend of little children and of all those who were desolate and oppressed. Possessed of all that could make life attractive to him, he devoted himself to his dying day to the service of his fellows, and his name will go down to history as the liberator of the white slaves in England. For, as Wilberforce championed the negro, Shaftesbury fought long and steadily in the cause of the women and children employed in factories and collieries, who worked sometimes for thirty-six hours at a time under the most appalling conditions. At last he forced Parliament to take action, and to pass the Ten Hours' Bill, besides insisting that factory inspectors were appointed to see that all workers were protected as the law intended they should be. That was his greatest work, but to tell of all that he did would fill a volume with a record of golden deeds. Ever ready to lead an unpopular cause; an enthusiast without being a fanatic; strong, clear-headed, steadfast, reliable, and single-hearted, he stands out a noble figure in the social history of the nineteenth century. Just before his death, in 1885, his friend, Dean Stanley, in writing to him, spoke of Westminster Abbey as the place where he should rest. But the old man shook his head and begged to be buried in his country home.

However, the Abbey could not altogether refrain from doing him honour, and through streets lined with people, many of them the poorest in the land, most of them wearing some outward sign of mourning, a bit of black ribbon or a scrap of crape, followed by deputations from almost every charitable association, the coffin was carried to Westminster. Around it stood high and low, rich and poor. The wreaths sent by royal princes lay Bide by side with the tributes from the flower-girls and the boys on the training-ships. A mighty volume of sound ascended to the vaulted roof, as the familiar hymn was sung—

    "Let saints on earth in concert sing,
    With those whose rest is won,
    For all the servants of our King
    In earth and heaven are one!"

Then the organ ceased, the Blessing was given, and the great procession left the Abbey to the march of the coster-mongers' band, to the tramp of thousands of feet, whose way in life he had made more easy and more blessed.

In the north aisle of the nave rest three great men, builders in another way, who have served the world by their thoughts—Newton, Herschel, and Darwin.

Sir Isaac Newton made one of the most wonderful discoveries in the world of science and nature, the law of gravitation, and also invented a method by which the whole course of a comet could be calculated. On his monument you will see a globe, covered with constellations and the path of a comet, while below are groups of children weighing the sun and the moon. The long Latin epitaph was one which greatly offended Dr. Johnson, who said that "none but philosophers could understand it."

Sir John Herschel was the son of a distinguished father, and from his boyhood he resolved to follow in his father's footsteps. "To put my shoulders to the wheel, and to leave the world a little better than I found it," was the ideal he set before himself whilst at Cambridge, and in this spirit he carried on the work of making a careful study of the stars in the southern hemisphere, which had never been done before.

Besides astronomy he was devoted to books, especially to poetry, and translated many of Schiller's poems, as well as parts of the "Iliad," into English. "Give a man," he said, "once the taste for reading good books, and you place him in contact with the best society in every period of history, with the wisest, the wittiest, the tenderest, the bravest, and the purest of characters who have adorned humanity. You make him a denizen of all nations, a contemporary of all ages."

His eyes were fixed on the stars; his heart was ever set on those things that are above. These are the beautiful words in which he has described the object and the end of all his study:—

"To spring even a little way aloft, to carol for awhile in bright and sunny regions—to open the doors of the human mind to let in light and knowledge, always sure that right will come right at last—to rise to the level of our strength, and if we must sink again, to sink not exhausted but exercised, not dulled in spirit, but cheered in heart—such may be the contented and happy lot of him who can repose with equal confidence on the bosom of the earth, or ride above the mists of earth into the empyrean day."

He died loaded with honours in 1871, though no man sought fame or honour less.

    "Enough if cleansed at last from earthly stain,
    My homeward step be firm, and pure my evening sky."

Thus had he written, and how could longing soar higher?
CHARLES DARWIN.
CHARLES DARWIN.

Charles Darwin was perhaps the greatest man of the three, for after long years of patient hard work, bravely carried on through bad health, he produced as the result of his experiments a wonderful book called "The Origin of Species," in which he explained how the world, instead of being created all at once as it is to-day, has grown slowly and very gradually, through many processes, just as we ourselves, our minds, and all our powers have developed from a state of savagery into our present state of civilisation. When first Darwin published his work explaining all this, some people were frightened and horrified, and declared that he wanted to upset all the old ideas about God and religion. But thus they had said whenever a new discovery had been made, and yet with each new discovery we have only learnt more and more how great God is, and how—

    "He moves in a mysterious way
    His wonders to perform."

So all such great discoverers as Newton, Herschel, and Darwin give us in reality the same message, which is never to be afraid of truth, for truth comes from God, and the only danger is when we doubt, even for a moment, that it must come triumphant out of every honest discussion.