there no briers across thy pathway thrust?
Are there no thorns that compass it about?
Nor any stones that thou wilt deign to trust
My hand to gather out?"

The time had now come when he was to be called to a new form of work,
one to which he was to give the best years of his life, and for which
ultimately he was to sacrifice life itself. In the Crimea and in China,
he had shown what he could do as a soldier; at Gravesend he had set a
noble example to the world of what a Christian philanthropist might do
in his spare hours; and now he was to be called to wage war with the
horrors of slavery. We had him in our midst for six years, and we found
no work for him worthy of his abilities; but while we overlooked his
merits, other nations were not so blind. Just as later on the King of
the Belgians was anxious to secure his services which we were allowing
to remain idle, so now Nubar Pasha, the far-sighted minister of Ismail
Khan, Khedive of Egypt, persuaded him to enter the Egyptian service,
and go to Africa as Governor of the Equatorial Provinces.

But before we follow him into the Soudan, it may be well to dwell for a
little on the distinctly religious aspect of his life.

CHAPTER VIII

SIMPLE FAITH[4]

There are few young men who cannot remember having, in their boyhood,
taken a caterpillar and shut it up in a box. Before long the creature
assumed a chrysalis form, and finally developed into a butterfly, with
a completely new power not possessed by the caterpillar. Instead of
only being able to grovel on the ground, the creature in its new
existence is able to soar high into the air. This is one of Nature's
conversions, and is a faint illustration of the spiritual change which
takes place in the human heart, when the natural man becomes a new
creature with new powers. It is customary for some to sneer at the
doctrine of conversion, scorning the idea of a distinctly spiritual
change taking place in the human heart. It would, however, be difficult
to find any other term by which accurately to describe the change that
took place in Gordon's life.

[4] In this and the following chapter, I have, in order to give
Gordon's views, selected quotations from his letters at different
periods of his life, but not always in chronological order. For
want of space a large number of extracts have had to be omitted;
those that are given must be taken as specimens.

Up to a certai