GENERAL GORDON AS A DIVINE.* IN one respect the publiCation

of this book is opportune, for it throws much light on the-character of its author, who fills at this moment more of the public mind of England than any man living. The world knows General Gordon as a soldier of genius, endowed with an extraordinary gift of personal influence, especially over uncivilised and semi-civilised men. He is also known as a man of heroic unselfishness and .deep piety. This book reveals him as a religious mystic in addition. The bent of his mind, aided by the circumstances of his life, has made him audaciously self-confident in public affairs; and this self-con- fidence he carries unabated into the discussion of the most abstruse Toblems of theology. The doctrines of the Trinity, the Incarnation, the creation, constitution, and destiny of man and his relation to God, are questions. which present no serious difficulty to his mind. He lays down the law upon them with the same dogmatic assurance with which he offers to "smash up the Mandi," with- the help of 3,000 Turks and £300,000 from "the millionaires of America and England." And it is a curious fact that his independent and profoundly devout study of the Bible has landed him, apparently without his knowing it, in a confused acceptance of Catholic theology on the subject of the Sacraments.

General Gordon spent the whole of last year in Palestine, for the purpose, as we infer, of receiving inspiration from that hallowed scene for the right understanding of 'the Bible. The result is before us in these-condensed "Reflections," which "are given to the world," ap we are assured in the preface, "not only with the sanction of General Gordon, but by his express wish and injunction." In the midst of his arduous responsibilities in Khartoum he gives instructions about the publicatiOn of this little volume. In a letter dated March 3rd, 1884, he. says :- "I am very interested in the book;for it may tend to show -forth God's dealing in ns. This is the great secret (Psalm xxv.)" The book opens with a really interesting discussion of the topography of Jerusalem and the • site and furniture of the ancient Temple. In the " Brazen Sea, or laver," General Gordon finds a prototype of the Christian font, and in the Jewish altar of sacrifice a figure of ".the altar-table of the Lord." But,

• Bdiections in Palestine. 18811. By Charles George Gordon. London : Macmillan and-Co. 188a

not satisfied with this, he traoes the sacramental system back to the very dawn of creation. Originally the earth was dead—a mere mass of chaotic matter submerged in water. Over this chaos the spirit of God moved ; "the earth was called out of the waters " and endowed with life. So that- there vias a bap- tismal regeneration even of dead matter by the operation of the Holy Spirit on the element of water. "As the earth was once covered with water, and dead, so baptism covers man figura- tively with water to denote his death—to state publicly that he acknowledges death as his due. And as the earth emerges in its new creation, so man comes forth from baptisni a new crea- ture, and he can then feed on the tree of life in the Holy Communion." Without knowing it, he holds, with St. Augus- tine and the ancient Fathers, that "the trees" of the Garden

of Eden" were sacramental trees [the italics are his), endued for a time with mystic properties." By eating of the forbidden tree our first parents severed their connection with God and came under the dominion of Satan, " and acquired his attributes of evil." And as. Adam and Eve fell before they had any children, it follows that the nature which they transmitted to their de- scendants was not the sinless nature which they received from the Creator, but the poisoned nature which was the result of

their disobedience. And as "in nature, if a poison is taken into the body, in which it spreads its virus, to neutralise it an antidote must be taken into the same body, in which it must spread its healing effects," so it is in the moral recovery of man. "Analogous to the words Thou shalt not eat'—the words God spake to man at the first—are almost the last words of Christ to his disciples, and through them to the world,—' Take, eat, this is My body." So, again, "in nature man does not trouble himself, if poisoned, as to how and in what way the antidote will work - It is enough for him that he suffers,

and wishes his cure. He takes the antidote in trust." In like manner, the sinner who feels his malady, and degres a cure, ought not to trouble himself about the modus operandi of the- Sacramental remedy. There is really a striking rebuke of clergy

who, instead of administering the Holy Communion in faith,

seek to pry into its mystery, and deny the fact of a Real Presence because they cannot understand the mode. Quoting from Ezekiel the words, " Ye are my watchman ; if thou dost not give thy flock warning, and they die in their sin, their blood will I require at thy hand," he proceeds:— "These words to our first parents' You had the fall warning of the effects of disobeying My command, not to eat,-continually during your life before yon '—should be changed for us into this saying of the Lord :—I said to you, in words solemn enough to call your atten- tion, Verily, verily, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood;' that I would raise him up who ate My flesh and blood at the last day ; that I would dwell in him and he in Me; and I showed you how to eat My body and to drink My blood I gave you the charge of My mysteries ; I appoihted you as overseers of My flock ; I honoured you to administer these mysteries, to that flock. My words were clear as to what was to be done ; equally clear was what I said would result from obeying My commands, and what would result from disobeying them. Your parents had My words, In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt die.' Were not these words true ? Did I explain how eating would bring death ? Have I ordered you to explain how My words, to take, eat,' will enable Me to live in a man and he in Me. I told you that if you ate in the beginning you would die: Did I not speak truth? And now that I tell you that whoever eateth My body and drinketh My blood dwelleth in Me, do I speak a thing not to be credited, and require you to qualify My words with your explanations ? My words to your father Adam were clear and distinct. In the day thou eatest thou shalt die.% My words to My flock through yon, My shepherds, are, Take, eat ; this is My body ; do this in remembrance of Me.' . You say you fear that evil will come to your flock unless you explain. You hereby imply that I have given a command which needs your explanation to render obedience to it beneficial ; that, unless you explain, My command may, by being obeyed, be an evil thing. I have anticipated this-view by My words, that those who disobey My command have no life. Do you reason that they who obey My command will be worse for doing so ?"

"There is also," Gordon maintains, "a close connection be- tween the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper and the resurrection of the body." In proof of this, he quotes St. John vi., 54, and argues that " if we actually participate worthily in His Sacrament, we do, by spiritually eating that bread and drinking that wine,

receive His body into our bodies and His blood into our blood, cleansing us wholly. And is it possible to think that- these bodies can ever perish, after such an intimate union with the Godhead as the eating and .drinking of His body and blood implies ?" Most of the coldness and barrenness of Christian

life he attributes to neglect of the Holy Communion. "I think all the troubles of the Church have come from the callous way in which we treat the Communion. No one can doubt but that its constant celebration and faithful reception must tend towards unity." So far Gordon writes as if he were a fervid Catholic. But mixed up with his Catholic theology are many strange, crude, and Manichaean fancies. For instance :-

" God framed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,—two processes. Ho took dust of the earth—the devil's dust (for the devil said it was his ; he is the prince of it)—and breathed his own substance into it. Consequently, man is made up of a divine essence of God a'nd a body of Satan's earth. Hence it is that the combat of this life between the soul and Satan is for the body. Satan disputed for the body of Moses ; it was his, for

it was made of his earth." . •

And the following :—

- "I believe that the Divine breathing into Adam (which breathing made him differ from all animals) ,was the breathing into him of certain existences of God's nature ; that-those existences, or souls, were of God, as existing and derived from Him, and consequently God's ; that in time eaoh of these souls are incarnated in bodies, but that through the Fall the bodies with which they were clothed were sinful and had carnal desires ; that the only difference between Christ and man is that, in the case of Christ, He was the fulness of the Godhead in a sinless body, and that man is of God (equally though inferiorly a eon), in sinful flesh or body ; that the Fall caused the death or dormant state to fall on all those souls, in which state they would have remained unless Christ offered His body as a,substitute for their transgressions."

He is an admirer of the Athanasian Creed, and finds in the doc- trine of the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son a type and confirmation of his favourite Sacramental belief. As the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, so "from Christ's side proceeded forth blood and water, the Sacraments of His Church." One of the most striking things in • the book is the author's perfect self-confidence. It never seems to occur to him that any of his views may be erroneous. There is a certain tone of dogmatic infallibility and proud • humility all • through the book. This feature, no doubt, • Constitutes a large part of that magic influence which Gordon has exercised over his subordinates ; but it is plain that it in- capacitates him utterly from acting loyally towards superiors. Not that he means to be disloyal : when he takes an independent line of his own, it is because he believes himself acting nitder the inspiration of a higher Power. " God made us," he writes from Khartoum on March 3rd, " in order to have a house-

naos—to live in. Without us He is houseless ; He needs us, and how much do we need Him ! " This is a monstrous doctrine, and may very easily pass into criminal presumption. Do

we not behold some of its fruits in parts of Gordon's recent conduct ? He will not, after all, trust God to order matters aright in the Soudan. He has more confidence in "the millionaires of England and America, and in the muscles and weapons of Turkish soldiers. Nor is this the only inconsistency between his doctrines and his acts. "I am com- forted here," he says, in the letter from Khartoum already quoted, "in my weakness by the reflection that our Lord rules all things; and it is dire rebellion to dislike or murmur against His rale." Yet the murmurs of Gordon's recent telegrams are tolerably loud. He ends his letter with the words, " May I be deeply humbled, and thus have a greater sense of his indwelling Spirit ! This is my earnest prayer." When, however, he

foresees that his prayer may possibly be answered, he protests that " he does not see the fun of it,—indeed, very few of us- do,—and declares his intention to • court death rather

than suffer humiliation. General Gordon, in fact, is one of those men of erratic and heroic mould who are easily elated and easily depressed ; while his firm conviction that he is a necessary instrument in the hands of God, that God " needs " him, disqualifies him for carrying out any mission but his own.

He has made up his mind that the Mandi must be •" smashed up," and he considers himself " abandoned " because troops are not placed at his disposal for that purpose.. It. was evidently a great mistake to send him into the Soudan at all. His experienced companion, Colonel Stewart, would.have done much

better.