Alexander Gordon

“ GORDON, JOHN, D.D. (1544–1619) , dean of Salisbury, probably the eldest son of Alexander Gordon [q. v.] , bishop-elect of Galloway, was born on 1 Sept. 1544. He first studied at St. Leonard's College, St. Andrews. In June 1565 he was sent to pursue his education in France, having a yearly pension granted him by Queen Mary, payable out of her French dowry. He spent two years at the universities of Paris and Orleans. On 4 Jan. 1568 he was confirmed by royal charter in the bishopric of Galloway and abbacy of Tongland, vacated in his favour by his father ”

“ Then began a long series of misfortunes for Alexander Gordon. He was five times tried, twice threatened with torture—which he escaped, in the judgment hall itself, by such an exhibition of his great strength as terrified his judges. He simulated madness, foamed at the mouth, and finally tore up the benches in order to attack the judges with the fragments. He was sent first to the castle of Edinburgh and afterward to the Bass (an island) , "for a change of air," as the record quaintly says. Finally, he was despatched to Blackness Castle, where he remained close in hold till the revolution. ”

“ He spoke these words with great feeling, and we returned to examine the monument of Sir Alexander Gordon, a broken column, on which he made some criticisms, bestowing [pg 110] great praise on the fraternal affection of his brother, who had erected it. He did not seem much interested about the positions of the troops, which I pointed out to him; and we got into our carriage, and drove to the Château Goumont, the poet remaining silent, pensive, and in a musing mood, which I took care not to interrupt. ”

“ He was some time after death cited before the privy council, and sentence of forfeiture and death was passed upon him.
Gordon was survived by his widow, Mary Hope, second daughter of Sir John Hope, lord Craighall, who with great difficulty succeeded in retaining her life-rent right in the estates. They were married on 26 Oct. 1648, and had issue thirteen children, most of whom died young, only three sons and one daughter reaching maturity. The sons were (1) Alexander Gordon of Earlston [q. v.] ”

“ But we are not all body; we are soul as well, and much more soul than body. Bodily exercise profiteth little, says the Apostle,—compared, that is, with the exercise of the soul, of the mind, and of the heart. Now, Alexander Gordon was such an athlete of the heart that all who knew him saw well what exercise he must have gone through before he was subdued in his high mind and proud spirit to be so humble, so meek, so silent, so unselfish, and so full of godliness and brotherly kindness—what a world of inward exercise all that bespoke! ”

“ Thomas Boston in his most interesting autobiography tells us about one of his elders who, though a poor man, had always ‘a brow for a good cause.’ Now nothing could better describe the Gordons of Earlston than just that saying. For old Alexander Gordon, the founder of the family, lifted up his brow for the cause of the Bible and the Sabbath-day when his brow was as yet alone in the whole of Galloway ”

“ Sir William Butler in his biography of Gordon says, "Thus on March 24, 1863, Gordon stepped out for the first time from that inevitable environment of the mass which so often keeps entangled in its folds men on whom Nature has conferred great gifts. Fate, it is said, knocks once at every man's door, but sometimes it is when the shadows are gathering and the fire is beginning to burn slow." This was not the case with Gordon, for he was at about the age at which such famous soldiers as Alexander, Wellington, and Napoleon have shown that man is full of life and fire. ”

“ During the ten years of his professorial career he was successful in stimulating economic study. He frequently attended the Social Science congresses, acting at Norwich in 1873 as president of the educational section. In 1875 he was made president of the Educational Institute of Scotland. A strong liberal, he took little part in politics. He died of angina pectoris at Brussels while attending the educational congress there on 24 Aug. 1880. He was buried at the Grange cemetery, Edinburgh. He married, first (in 1841) , Jane Cox of Liverpool, who died without issue on 1 July 1860 ”

“ Gordon accompanied his corps to Shanghai in the spring of 1862, and was engaged in the operations for clearing the thirty-mile radius under General Staveley, who spoke warmly of his daring reconnoitring services, for which Gordon had been already distinguished in the Crimea. In the following winter he was busy surveying and mapping the country which had been reconquered from the rebels, and in the spring of 1863 he was offered by his chief the leadership of Ward's force. ”

“ By his first wife he had issue Armand Claude, who was wounded at Pavia, and died on his way to Scotland; George, who died in the college of Beauvais; and two daughters who died young. C. A. Gordon, who gives a somewhat questionable pedigree of the descendants of Armand Claude, says that he had his first name from Cardinal Richelieu, his godfather; if so, he must have received catholic baptism rather late in life. Gordon's second wife died at Gordonstoun, Morayshire, on 6 Dec. ”

“ Bitterly cold was the night, as hour after hour, till well past midnight, all of us, with lamp in hand, and in small separate bodies pursued our search, our own frames benumbed, unsupported by sufficient food, and without the possibility of obtaining such comfort as hot coffee or tea could afford. ”

“ GORDON, WILLIAM, D.D. (1728–1807) , independent minister, was born at Hitchin, Hertfordshire, in 1728, and educated for the dissenting ministry at an academy in Plasterers' Hall, London, under Zephaniah Marryatt, D.D. He began his ministry early in 1752 as assistant to William Notcutt at Tacket Street, Ipswich. On 31 July 1754 he was called to the co-pastorate, and ordained on 9 Oct. ”

“ What had been until recently ornamental “Tea” gardens were now occupied by French troops; once highly ornamented buildings within such enclosures converted into barracks for our allies. Uprooted shrubs and valuable plants lay about decayed and withered; rockwork, including fanciful-shaped miniature bridges, cast like so much rubbish into what had been artificial lakes and streams peopled by fish and water-plants. The glory of the place was indeed gone—​desecrated, as the Chinese could not inappropriately say, by Western “barbarians.” ”

“ He remained constant to the duties of his own parish, where his week-day lecture had for twenty years an imprecedented following, 'seldom were so few as sixty coaches' at the doors. His preaching, so far as it touched upon the questions of the day, held up the ideal of constitutional freedom as against arbitrary acts, whether of the king or of his opponents. Yet it is too much to say, with his grandson, that in his utterances there was 'nothing tending to inflame.' In the pulpit Calamy's frankness of heart sometimes got the better of his caution. ”

“ And under his name was found written all that John Gordon was appointed and expected to do while his sand-glass was still running. His opening life as child and boy and man in Galloway; his entrance on Rusco; his friendship with Samuel Rutherford; his duties to his family, to his tenants, to his Church, and to the Scottish Covenant; the inward life he was commanded and expected to live alone with God; the seven things he was every day to remember; the evangelical graces of heart and life and character he was to be told and to be enabled to put on ”

“ Let the king be a 'very infidel ' and persecutor of the truth, or openly defy every law of God, he held that he still retained, as 'archbishop and general overseer of all the churches within his dominions,' the right to rule all churches within his realm, and must not be resisted in the name of conscience; those who cannot obey must passively take what punishment he allots. The key to Bradshaw's own scheme of church polity is the complete autonomy of individual congregations. ”

“ Considerable numbers of the fugitives from Chatillon were marched along some thoroughfares, their coats turned outside in, their hands tied behind them, the word “Lâche” placarded on their backs. Masses of men, including old and young, the strong, decrepid and malformed, gathered in front of the Hôtel de Ville, and along the boulevards extending thence to the Place de la Bastille. ”

“ Compared and contrasted with a march in India, that now over presented some striking points of difference, not the least of which were the absence of hackeries, bullocks, camels, elephants, and that heterogeneous collection of “followers” comprised under the name of “the bazaar.” Instead of tents and camp fare we had comfortable if expensive entertainment at hotels, while our daily line of route lay through rich, varied, and beautiful English scenery. ”

“ By what was now called the system of unification the fact became unpleasantly apparent that thenceforward the sick soldier, together with his wife and child, must depend in times of illness upon the aid of strangers, instead of, as heretofore, obtaining the help of those who personally knew them, and whose self-interest, even in the absence of higher motive, enhanced the care and attention shown towards them. ”

“ De Morgan admits (Budget of Paradoxes) that, though not a ‘rational,’ Fox was certainly a ‘national’ man. Marsden has done more justice to the intellectual merit of Fox's doctrine of the inner light, which ‘rested upon one idea, the greatest that can penetrate the mind of man: God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and truth’ (Hist. of the Later Puritans, 1872, p. 240) . There can be no question of the healthiness and strength of his moral fibre. It is remarkable that Wesley, who was acquainted with Barclay's ‘Apology,’ never mentions Fox. ”

“ Through that tract of bush we had to make a way, not only for ourselves, but also for our “forces.” Armed with an axe and long knife such as bush men in this part of Africa use, we cut a path for ourselves to the summit of a promontory from which it was practicable to take bearings for further progress. Meanwhile, and all through the following night, large numbers of men were busy clearing a road by which the mass of our contingent could advance. ”

“ Among the refugees proceeding by steamer down country was Mrs. Mills, whose husband, Major Mills, of the Bengal Artillery, had been shot by his mutinous men while endeavouring to escape from Fyzabad, by swimming the Gogra. This unfortunate lady had been wandering in the jungle for nearly three months. She now was ill from hardships and starvation; one child, an infant, had died, the remaining two were ill with cholera; she herself nearly devoid of clothing, without servant or other help, almost completely broken down; nor was it until a few days ago that she learned the fate of her husband. ”

“ This shews that those magistrates that are at absolute defiance with a nation, either cannot subsist long, or will not suffer the nation to subsist long; and that mighty traitors, rather than fall themselves, will pull down their country.
What a dreadful spirit must that man possess, who can put a private appetite in balance against the universal good of his country, and of mankind! Alexander and Caesar were that sort of men; they would set the world on fire, and spill its blood, rather than not govern it. ”

“ Hence the new teaching and praxis spread rapidly from Switzerland to Germany, Holland and France. While the horrors of the Münster fanaticism, which culminated in 1534, made Anabaptism a byword, and increased the severity of a persecution directed against all Baptists indiscriminately, the reaction against the fatal errors of the Münster experiment increased also the adherents of communities which discarded the sword; thus Menno was brought into their ranks. Each community was independent, united with others only by the bond of love. ”

“ While in London Henderson laid before Charles a plan for subsidising the Scottish universities from the bishops' rents. The office of rector of Edinburgh university had been revived in his favour (January 1640) by the town council, and he was annually re-elected till his death. His exertions in behalf of the education of his country, both in its colleges and parochial schools, were great and successful. He introduced at Edinburgh the teaching of Hebrew, and the system of honour classes known as ‘circles.’ For the colleges he secured a monopoly in the teaching of Greek and logic. ”

“ A long and arduous march through difficult country; the villages along our route deserted by their inhabitants, the fields destitute of labourers. On arrival at our camping ground near Jugdispore, it was ascertained that our advance guard had fallen in with and captured two messengers conveying a purwana, or order, from the Ranee of Lucknow to the zemindars of the district just traversed by us, intimating to them the advance of a small body of English, and calling upon them to destroy the intruders at Sooltanpore; also to send without delay provisions for the rebel troops holding Lucknow. ”

“ Preparations for defence went on apace. Private carriages disappeared, except such as were retained by special permission; public conveyances decreased in number, the horses belonging to them being requisitioned for public purposes. Women pedestrians were few; scarcely a man to be seen on the streets, in shops, offices, and other establishments, but those who wore more or less complete uniform; those on the streets carrying rifles, side arms, or both. At night, and throughout the day, the sound of drum and bugle was incessant; here and there varied by the Marseillaise sung in stentorian voice. ”