100% hero

Seen as an emancipator as well as a warrior/hero, J.W. Buel pays tribute to one of England’s shining knights. "No man has had a more remarkable career, none so distinguished, when we consider the many different flags he found under and the diversified commands that he held. His life was like a twelfth century romance, reflecting the glamor of the crusading and chivalric ages; he was a Peter the Hermit in pious devotion, a Lancelot in skill, a Barbarossa in impetuous courage. But though he was one of the gods of war if the metaphor be not too florid, he was in quiet scenes a babe of peace, and thus within him were those warring elements that, like hot and cold currents of air coming together to produce a cyclone, swept him into the most furious actions and left upon his brow the marks of heroic struggle. While nature seems to have made him a great military leader, endowing him with Napoleonic sagacity and almost unexampled courage, yet his heart was so gentle that it might have served him the most pious nun. And with woman’s sweetest sympathy there was joined the greatest charity, devotion, loyalty and all the holy attributes that belong to a truly generous nature.. Though he was a very thunderbolt in battle and was as anxious on the eve of action as a war-horse that is held under curb when he hears the rattle of musketry, yet the martial spirit that moved him to valorous deeds found satisfaction in execution, and was, enigmatic as it may appear, intensely displeased with every effort made to invest him with the mark of honor. He had no thirst for distinction, being as insensible to fame as the most rigid ascetic of olden times, and for wealth he had no desire whatever. "

And how did this great man, General George Gordon meet his death? Buel says ignominiously - unarmed at the hands of two of is own soldiers. "Unexpectant and unarmed, the brave soldier could make no defense, and hence bared his bosom to the steel of his assassins; and thus he fell, no more a hero than a martyr, for on England is the shame that she should enact such a sacrifice of one who deserved more honor than in most generous humor she could bestow." England’s hero of the Dark Continent tried to free Africa from the bondage of slavery.

Buel presents a poignant descriptions of the practice of slavery in Africa when he writes that "men, women and children were crowded into stockades, packed as closely as hogs in railroad cars, and with as little attention to the filth that became a natural consequence, as shippers give to their stock. The babe died in its mother’s arms, children were trampled to death beneath crowded feet, and yet the corpses were suffered to lie in the mass of mud, wallow and offal, the whole putrescent under a fiery sun, no one caring, for human life was cheap."

I remember another greater man who met an ignominious death over 2000 years ago. A greater man who we also remember as our God, this Easter, April 12th, 2009. A man-God who ended slavery of the human race to Original Sin and opened the gates of Paradise to those who would be shining knights presenting testament to his message.