To Live Before The Audience Of One Truly Makes A ...  PRO

To live before the Audience of One truly makes a demonstrable difference. The character and life of the great nineteenth-century Christian soldier General Charles Gordon, sometimes known as "Chinese Gordon" or "Gordon of Khartoum" is a striking example. In his book on the recapture of Sudan, Winston Churchill described General Gordon as "a man careless alike of the frowns of men or the smiles of women, of life or comfort, wealth or fame." But these words came almost directly from Gordon himself. "The more one sees of life," Gordon wrote, "the more one feels, in order to from shipwreck, the necessity of steering by the Polar Star, i.e. in a word leave to God alone, and never pay attention to the favors or smiles of man; if He smiles on you, neither the smile or frown of men can affect you."

General Gordon was eventually abandoned and left to die in the siege of Khartoum because of the moral cowardice of Prime Minister William Gladstone and his Cabinet in London. His end at the hand of the Mahdi and his fanatical followers is legendary. But his call-inspired strength was equally legendary throughout his life.

"Do you know, Gordon Pasha," snarled the cruel King John of Abyssinia in an earlier incident, "that I could kill you on the spot if I like?"

"I am perfectly well aware of it, Your Majesty," Gordon replied. "Do so at once if it is your royal pleasure. I am ready."

"What, ready to be killed?"

"Certainly. I am always ready to die."

"Then my power has no terrors for you?" the king gasped.

"None whatever!" Gordon answered, and the king left him, amazed.

After Gordon's death, John Bonar, a Scottish friend, wrote to Gordon's brother. "What at once, and always struck me was the way in which his oneness with God ruled all his actions, and his mode of...

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