at the Prayer-Book was
written or compiled by the clergy, it is wonderful how carefully they
avoided setting up undue claims, so as to magnify their own office.
There is indeed only one expression in the Prayer-Book to indicate that
the authors believed that the ministry was of Divine appointment, and
that is a sentence, occurring three times over in the Ordination
Service, which runs: "Almighty God, who by Thy Divine Providence hast
appointed divers orders of ministers in Thy Church, &c." This merely
asserts that the Bible teaches that there were deacons and elders, or
ministers, in Apostolic days, and it is difficult to read the New
Testament without recognising this fact. Certainly Gordon did not deny
it. Indeed no body even of the Nonconformists does so except the
Plymouth Brethren. Gordon's shrewd common sense showed him that, apart
from any Divine sanction to the principle, there must be a division of
labour, there must be specialists in every department of life, and
religion was no exception to the general rule. Though he would resent
the pretentious claims of an exclusive ministry, he never opposed the
principle of a scriptural ministry. He had friends who were in the
ministry, and he derived great benefits from their teaching.

The truth is that Gordon thought more of the man than he did of the
profession or calling. Shovel hats, wideawakes, long-tailed black
coats, and white ties were nothing to him. What he valued was the man
who was to be found beneath the clerical costume. Was he a true man, or
was he merely a professional hireling? Had he a heart to sympathise
with the sufferings of his fellow-creatures, and to help them to wage
war with sin and temptation? If so he would find a true friend in
Gordon; but it mattered little in his eyes what the external profession
was, if there was an absence of the internal reality. Gordon hated
everything that was not genuine, and of all the shams in life the
religious one was to him the worst.

It is not a little interesting to note that while some considered him
almost a Plymouth Brother on the one hand, others have attributed to
him extreme party views in an opposite direction on the subject of the
Lord's Supper. It may not, therefore, be out of place to show exactly
what his views were, for though apparently peculiar, they were
certainly not extreme. For many years he appears not to have given much
thought to the subject of Holy Communion, but in 1880 the Rev. Horac