I trust that no religious body or society of earnest Christians will think from the foregoing that I am either sneering or scoffing at religion, or that their disinterested efforts to spread the gospel of peace to the remotest ends of the earth have not my sincerest sympathy. I have spoken plainly and to the point, |323| for I consider that the occasion calls for it. The missionaries required in the Soudan now are clean-minded, honest traders, who will do more for you by a few years’ preparing the ground for “talking” missionaries than the missionaries can do in a score of years of preaching. It is men like Gordon who, though not preaching religion, yet practise it in their every act, whom the Soudan requires. Ask any one in the Soudan what is his opinion about Gordon, and he will reply, “Gordon was not a Christian; he was a true Muslim; no Christian could be so good and just as he was,” and I believe that this saying, or estimate of him, emanated from the Mahdi himself. I draw your particular attention to the word “just,” which proves that, in the eyes of the Mahdists and Soudanese alike, his justice ranked with his goodness. If any Soudanese or Mahdist ridiculed to Father Ohrwalder Gordon’s generosity, and considered it a sign of weakness, it must have been done for a purpose. During my twelve years amongst all shades of people of the Soudan, I never heard a single word against Gordon, nor did I hear one until I came amongst his own flesh and blood. I cannot do better than relate another example of the esteem he was held in, and this example is from a Christian source. My friend Nahoum Abbajee, when he reached Cairo, prepared a petition which he had intended forwarding to her Majesty the Queen, asking that the British Government should restore part of the fortune accumulated by him during his twenty-three years’ residence in the Soudan. His argument was that, trusting to |324| Gordon, he had delayed in Khartoum until Stewart’s departure was arranged for, when, acting on the advice of Gordon, he sold off his goods, realizing but half their value, accepted Gordon Bonds in payment, bought a boat, as no one then would hire one out, set off with Stewart, and was captured by the dervishes. This would not have happened, had not the commander of the gunboat disobeyed Gordon’s orders by steaming off to Khartoum, instead of bombarding Berber for three days, and Gordon was consequently responsible for the delinquencies of his subordinate.