William Wilberforce

“ Victory could only crown their efforts when the whole moral feeling of the nation was aroused, and much, very much hung on their choice of a leader. "Mr. Wilberforce," said Granville Sharp, "with his position as member for the largest county, the great influence of his personal connections, added to his unblemished character, will secure every advantage to the cause." So from the year 1787, William Wilberforce, chivalrous as any knight of old, gave up his life to the righting of a great wrong and to the deliverance of the oppressed. ”

“ Hatred and wrath and severity were not "dreamt of" in his "philosophy." Towards the most degraded and abandoned of the race he felt as tenderly as St. Francis felt towards the leper on the roadside at Assisi, when he kissed the scarred hand, and then found that, all unwittingly, he had ministered to the Lord, disguised in that loathsome form. This was the motive which impelled Wilberforce to devote himself, uncalculatingly and unhesitatingly, to the reclamation of lives that had been devastated by drunkenness, and which stimulated his zeal for all social and moral reforms. ”

“ WILBERFORCE, SAMUEL (1805-1873) , English bishop, third son of William Wilberforce, was born at Clapham Common, London, on the 7th of September 1805. In 1823 he entered Oriel College, Oxford. In the “United Debating Society,” which afterwards developed into the “Union,” he distinguished himself as a zealous advocate of liberalism. The set of friends with whom he chiefly associated at Oxford were sometimes named, on account of their exceptionally decorous conduct, the “Bethel Union”; but he was by no means averse to amusements, and specially delighted in hurdle jumping and hunting. ”

“ Wilberforce is a less perfect character in his way. He acts from mixed motives. He would willingly serve two masters, God and Mammon. He is a person of many excellent and admirable qualifications, but he has made a mistake in wishing to reconcile those that are incompatible. He has a most winning eloquence, specious, persuasive, familiar, silver-tongued, is amiable, charitable, conscientious, pious, loyal, humane, tractable to power, accessible to popularity, honouring the king, and no less charmed with the homage of his fellow-citizens. ”

“ The young enthusiast had counted the cost, but it had not changed him from his determination, and though he lived and died plain William Wilberforce, member of parliament, the Abbey roll of honour is made richer by his name, and he rests worthily in the Statesmen's Corner, great as any of those among whom he lies.
Just as Wilberforce was nearing the close of his life, a young spinner in some mills near Glasgow, glowing with enthusiasm, was resolving to offer himself as a medical missionary to China or Africa. David Livingstone, for he it was, came of homely Scottish stock. ”

“ My dear Wilberforce,—I am sorry to find from your letter from Nottingham that the Knight of Yorkshire is in so much dudgeon. Tho', to say the truth the instances of neglect you mention are enough to provoke common patience. What is worse, I know no remedy for it. My letter, which missed you, contained no other information than that the place of Marshall of the Admiralty had been long since filled up. Some of the world is here at present, and will be multiplying every day till the meeting of Parliament. I expect Eliot in a very few days. I know nothing of Bankes very lately. ”

“ To those who speculate in matters of race and pedigree it is interesting to watch the two elements contending in the character of Canon Basil Wilberforce, the Bishop's youngest and best-beloved son. When you see his graceful figure and clean-shaven ecclesiastical face in the pulpit of his strangely old-fashioned church, or catch the vibrating notes of his beautifully modulated voice in
"The hush of our dread high altar,
Where The Abbey makes us We,"
you feel yourself in the presence of a born ecclesiastic, called from his cradle by an irresistible vocation to a separate and sanctified career. ”

“ Morse's father had given him many letters of introduction to eminent men in England. Most of these he neglected to deliver, pleading in extenuation of his apparent carelessness that he could not spare the time from his artistic studies to fulfill all the duties that would be expected of him in society, and that he also could not afford the expenses necessary to a well-dressed man.
The following note from William Wilberforce explains itself, but there seems to be some confusion of dates, for Morse had just said in his letter of January 1st that he dined at Mr. Wilberforce's over a week before. ”

“ Wilberforce goes on to express his gratitude for the safety of his daughter Elizabeth (Mrs. James) , who had been confined of a daughter.
"The mere circumstance that a new immortal being is produced and committed to our keeping is a consideration of extreme moment. Though I own it sometimes tends to produce emotions of a saddening [Pg 270] character, to consider into what a world our new grandchild has entered, what stormy seas she will have to navigate. ”

“ Wilberforce to the Rev. Samuel Wilberforce.
"February 8, 1831.
"My dear Samuel,—Pray both for your mother and for poor William that they may be delivered from μἑριμνα. The former, alas! lies awake for hours in the morning, and cannot banish from her mind the carking cares that haunt and worry her. We profess to believe in the efficacy of prayer. Let us prove the truth of our profession by at least not acquiescing, without resistance, in such assailments. It is more from natural temperament than from any higher attainment that I am not the prey of these corrosions. ”

“ After 1800 Wilberforce seems in great measure to have cut himself loose from society that he considered frivolous; and to have used the extraordinary influence he possessed over his friends to endeavour to induce them also to forsake the world of fashion. The long letter which follows is from Lord Calthorpe (a relation of Barbara, [29] Wilberforce's wife) , who had been strongly advised by Wilberforce not to spend a Sunday with the Duchess of Gordon in Scotland. ”

“ No one had a keener sense of the workings of the Holy Spirit in regions beyond the precincts of all organized religion; and yet, in his own personal heart and life, Wilberforce belonged essentially to the Church of England. It is difficult to imagine him happy and content in any communion except our own. Nowhere else could he have found that unbroken chain which links us to Catholic antiquity Page 156 and guarantees the validity of our sacraments, combined with that freedom of religious speculation and that elasticity of devotional forms which were to him as necessary as vital air. ”

“ His reputation for piety and energy was extraordinarily but deservedly high. The evangelicals of course rejoiced in the first bishop who was chosen from among their ranks. Wilberforce ‘highly prized and loved Bishop Ryder as a prelate after his own heart, who united to the zeal of an apostle the most amiable and endearing qualities, and the polished manners of the best society’ (Recollections of William Wilberforce) . Charles Simeon ‘delighted’ in him; Hannah More is full of his praise; a person of a very different type, Dr. ”

“ They were bought at Bishop Wilberforce's sale, who was the Cardinal's brother-in-law, and contain the autograph of William Wilberforce, the bishop's eldest brother. Upon the same shelf will be found a copy of "Parochial Sermons" by John Henry Newman, Vicar of St. Mary the Virgin's, [Pg 114] Oxford. This volume formerly belonged to Bishop Stanley, and came from the library of his celebrated son, Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, sometime Dean of Westminster.
A good book might be written by one who is duly qualified on "the Poets who are not read." ”

“ In his answer he excuses himself for not having been more of a companion to her on the ground that he had been so long engaged in public business, and also that as he had been almost an old bachelor before he married, he had got out of the habit of tender attention to young women of education and delicacy; but he assures her she will always find in him unfeigned tenderness of spirit for all her feelings, and all her infirmities. His remedies for "solitariness of spirit" are most practical.
Mr. Wilberforce to his daughter Elizabeth. ”

“ Wilberforce is not a party-man. He is the more looked up to on this account, but not with sufficient reason. By tampering with different temptations and personal projects, he has all the air of the most perfect independence, and gains a character for impartiality and candour, when he is only striking a balance in his mind between the éclat of differing from a Minister on some 'vantage ground, and the risk or odium that may attend it. He carries all the weight of his artificial popularity over to the Government on vital points and hard-run questions ”

“ After years of weary effort, the slave-trade was finally abolished; and at last, in 1833, the early vindicator of this enormity, the maligner of a name hallowed among men, was brought to give his royal assent, as William the Fourth, King of Great Britain, to the immortal Act of Parliament, greater far than any victory of war, by which Slavery was abolished throughout the British dominions. Sir, time and the universal conscience have vindicated the labors of Wilberforce. ”

“ No one is better entitled and no one more worthy of it. Once more adieu. May the races afford you much amusement, and may the paths of Melville and Duneira be strewed with roses, without one care from public or private life to cause a gloom.
&c., &c.,
"J. Gordon."
The Duchess, in enclosing this correspondence, begs Wilberforce to be her defender if he hears her character attacked on the ground of "duplicity" or "inaccuracy;" his influence with Pitt was one reason for her troubling him with the subject. ”

“ There is no man in England who from activity, understanding, character, and neutrality could do it so effectually as Mr. Wilberforce—and when this country conceded a century ago an establishment to the Presbyterian Church, it is horrible to see four millions of Christians of another persuasion instructed by ragged priests, and praising their Creator in wet ditches. I hope to God you will stir in this great business, and then we will vote you the consulship for life, and you shall be perpetual member for Yorkshire. ”

“ Not that he will retire from that station in the world which Providence seems to have appointed him to fill: he will be active in the business of life, and enjoy its comforts with moderation and thankfulness; but he will not be “totus in illis,” he will not give up his whole soul to them, they will be habitually subordinate in his estimation to objects of more importance. The awful truth has sunk deep into his mind, “the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal;” ”

“ It will be remembered that when the Duke of Wellington was ambassador to Paris in 1814 he took up very warmly the question of the Slave Trade, himself circulating in Paris Wilberforce's letter to his Yorkshire constituents on the subject, which Madam de Staël had translated at the Duke's suggestion, and also undertaking to disperse Wilberforce's pamphlet to Talleyrand. ”

“ The tact of Wilberforce in uniting all Whigs and Tories who were not committed to the Coalition or bound by the magnates greatly furthered his cause; so that finally an election which had of late always been decided by the three great Houses named above, resulted in the triumphant return of Wilberforce and Duncombe. The show of hands was so overwhelmingly in their favour that the Whigs accepted the verdict and did not demand a poll. The victory was not only a severe blow to the county families and an assertion of the growing independence of the middle classes and yeomen ”

“ In the beginning of 1787 he busied himself with the establishment of a society for the reformation of manners. About the same time he made the acquaintance of Thomas Clarkson, and began the agitation against the slave trade. Pitt entered heartily into their plans, and recommended Wilberforce to undertake the guidance of the project as a subject suited to his character and talents. While Clarkson conducted the agitation throughout the country, Wilberforce took every opportunity in the House of Commons of exposing the evils and horrors of the trade. ”

“ Wilberforce, however, was reconciled to the idea by the knowledge that "dear little William's mother will be always on the spot, always on her guard, watchful and ready to detect and proceed against any attempt whatever which might be made to bias William's mind into undervaluing the importance of the difference between the Roman Catholic and the Protestant system, or still more to infuse into his pupil's mind any prejudices against our principles or personages, or any palliations of the Popish tenets." ”

“ Windham, of whom Wilberforce says that "he had many of the true characteristics of a hero, but he had one great fault as a statesman, he hated the popular side of any question," gives as his opinion in the next letter, that he saw no impossibility in two armies of from twenty to thirty thousand men being landed in different places, and being opposed only by yeomanry and volunteers they might advance to London or wherever else they pleased. "Government acknowledge that there is an utter want of firearms." ”

“ A statue was placed in Westminster Abbey by public subscription, a column was erected in memory of him at Hull, and a county asylum for the blind was founded in his honour at York. Wilberforce was survived by his four sons: William (b. 1798) , Robert Isaac [q. v.] , Samuel [q. v.] , Henry William [q. v.] His two daughters died before him.
An early portrait of Wilberforce by John Rising [q. v.] is in possession of the family; another of him, aged 11, painted by John Russell, R.A., is in the National Portrait Gallery, London ”