General Gordon | Page 6

was too late. Some distance from the place where they had spent the night they came upon the pass over the mountains which led down into the country, drained by the great Peiho river. "The descent" says Gordon, "was terrible, and the cold so intense that raw eggs were frozen as hard as if they had been boiled half an hour." To add to their troubles, the carts they had sent on in front had been attacked by robbers. They, however, with many difficulties managed to reach Tientsin in safety; their leave of absence had been exceeded by about fourteen days. In 1862 Major Gordon left for Shanghai under the orders of Sir Charles Staveley who had been appointed to the command of the English forces in China. At the very time that England and France were at war with China, a terrible and far reaching rebellion was laying waste whole provinces. An article in our London Daily News about this date said, "But for Gordon the whole Continent of China might have been a scene of utter and hopeless ruin and devastation." At the date he took charge of the "ever victorious army," China was in a state of widespread anarchy and confusion.
This rebellion which Gordon was here authorized to suppress was called "The Tai-ping rebellion." Its rise was brought about by a strange mixture of incredulity and fanaticism, caused by some European Christian giving away his literature. A village demagogue named Hung-tsne-Shuen caught the idea, after reading the papers referred to, that he was inspired; that he was God, King, Emperor, and that he ought to rule; so, puffed up with pride and insatiable ambition, he began raising an army; and aimed at nothing less than the usurpation of the "Dragon Throne." Some thought him mad; but he gathered about him some 20,000 men whom he had influenced to believe in him as the "Second Celestial Brother," and gave out he was a seer of visions, a prophet of vengeance and freedom; a champion of the poor and oppressed; and many were mad enough to believe him, and thus he raised an army which grew in strength until it reached some hundreds of thousands strong; he then proclaimed himself the Heavenly King, The Emperor of the great place; and then with five wangs or warrior kings, chosen from amongst his kinsmen, he marched through China, devastating the country, and increasing his army in his progress.
The most populous, and until now wealthy provinces were soon in his hands. The silk factories were silent; the Cities were falling into utter and hopeless desolation: rebellion, war and famine, raged and reigned supreme. Gordon made them pause! His marvellous power of organizing and leading men, a power derived from an inflexible, determined, fearless, and deeply religious temperament, influenced the Chinese character quickly and powerfully. His very name soon became a terror to the banded brigands and to all evil doers. An Englishman in China at the time wrote home and said "The destiny of China is in the hands of Major Gordon, and if he remains at his post the question will soon be settled, and peace and quiet will be restored to this unfortunate, but sorely tried country."
In all the strange and trying experiences of this Chinese Campaign Gordon bore himself with a bravery and courage seldom equalled, we think never surpassed.
Dr. Guthrie once said, "It is very remarkable, and highly creditable to the loyalty and bravery of our British soldiers, that, notwithstanding all the wars in which they have been engaged, no foreign nation to-day flaunts a British flag as a trophy of its victory and of our defeat. Nor in the proud pillar raised by the great Napoleon in commemoration of his many victories--a pillar made of the cannons taken by him in battles, is there an ounce of metal that belongs to a British gun." The characteristics of the bravest of our British soldiers were pre-eminently displayed in Gordon. For--
"He holds no party with unmanly fears, Where duty points he confidently steers: Faces a thousand dangers at her call, And trusting in his God surmounts them all."
His soldierly qualities were very often put to the test in this strange land. Hung, the leader of this rebellion, had become so popular and made such marvellous progress that when Gordon had organized his ever victorious army, Hung had captured Nanking, one of the principal cities, and made this his capital; and here, under the very shadow of the Chinese metropolis, he established himself in royal state. His followers were held together by the force of his religious tenets; they believed in him as the Lord from Heaven, who would save the suffering minds and give them a celestial reward. A missionary who was in Nanking, Rev. J. L. Holmes, gives