1 October: Boreham on Lord Shaftesbury

The Friend of Millions
Australians who visit London never afterwards forget the beautiful statue of Eros, the god of Love, that adorns the centre of Piccadilly Circus. The graceful figure is one of the real distinctions and one of the most familiar landmarks of London life. Stored away for safe custody during the years of war, its return to its old eminence was applauded by tens of thousands of excited citizens; yet how many of those who so enthusiastically admire it realise that it represents London's memorial to the great Lord Shaftesbury, the anniversary of whose death today will elicit many references. The noble monument bears an eloquent inscription, carefully drafted by Mr. Gladstone; but, of the throngs that surge through Piccadilly, who ever turns aside to read it?

The life of Lord Shaftesbury presents us with an epic of lofty achievement. In the mines and factories, in the prisons and asylums, among the tattered waifs of the noisome slums and the overwrought toilers on the rural farms, Lord Shaftesbury effected changes by which life was literally transfigured. Existence for countless thousands was scarcely tolerable until he appeared. He revolutionised the whole industrial world and earned the grateful benedictions of millions. His figure became the best known, the most commanding, and the most honoured in the public life of England. And so compelling was his personal magnetism, and so absolute his irresistible authority that, whether he was addressing the House of Lords or talking to the ragamuffins in some filthy alley, he was invariably heard with the most profound respect.

Two Hemispheres Of One Personality
He who would set down in black and white a description of the conditions prevailing in England during the early years of the nineteenth century would invite the incredulity of his readers. The recital would read like the record of a national nightmare. In contrast with that hideous nightmare, Lord Shaftesbury dreamed a beautiful dream and lived to see it come true. He achieved his triumph by a remarkable combination of the mystical and the practical. In one respect he was a mystic. "I believe," he repeatedly declared, "that the sole remedy for all our distresses is the gospel. We must take Christ to the people. He and He alone is the power of God unto salvation." Giving this mystical creed a practical application, he was to be seen at dead of night in the haunts of the underworld, surrounded by the most desperate criminals of his day. "But, my lord," objected one well-known gaolbird, "this is all very good; but, if we do as you say, how are we to live? Prayer won't fill empty stomachs!" The interjector did not know his man. Lord Shaftesbury took the names of those who sincerely desired to live honestly, and, within a few months, he had settled them on Canadian farms or introduced them to honourable and remunerative vocations.

The mystical streak in his composition owed its origin to Maria Millis, the servant girl who tended him as a child. Edwin Hodder, his biographer, says that, becoming very fond of the gentle, serious boy, this girl would take him on her knee and tell him the stories of Bethlehem and Calvary. "It was her hand," Hodder says, "that touched the delicate chords and awoke the first music of his inner life." In her will she left him her watch, and, to the day of his death, he wore no other. "It was given me," he would tell his titled friends, "by the best friend I ever had!" The origin of the other streak, the practical one, is to be traced to his school days at Harrow. He saw a pauper funeral. The roughly-made coffin was borne by a number of drunken men, shouting roistering choruses. They eventually dropped the coffin, and, standing round, roared lustily at the joke. The open eyed schoolboy saw as in a cameo, the degradation that was then associated with poverty. "That incident," he used to say, "changed the whole course of my life." The spot is now marked by a memorial; the incident deserves to be regarded as historic.

A Good Man's Terror And A People's Tribute
The secret behind all this is revealed in Lord Shaftesbury's private journal. He confesses that, all through life, he was haunted by one constant dread. It was not the horror, which is fairly common, of doing some unworthy thing that might bring shame upon his name; it was rather the fear of leaving undone some good thing that it was in his power to do:

At vesper-tide,
One virtuous and pure in heart did say,
"Since none I wronged in deed or word today,
From whom should I crave pardon? Master, say!"
A voice replied:
"From the sad child whose joy thou hast not planned;
The goaded beast whose friend thou didst not stand;
The rose that died for water from thy hand."

The most conclusive evidence that such misgivings on his part were quite superfluous was furnished by his funeral. London, the city that has gazed upon so many solemn pomps and stately pageants, had never seen such a funeral. From the moment at which the casket emerged from the home at Grosvenor Square till the moment of its arrival at the Abbey doors the dense black crowds stood bareheaded in the driving rain in honour of one who had made the world a happier place for everybody. In the procession, one group carried a banner reading: "I was an hungered and ye gave me meat!" Another banner read: "I was in prison and ye visited me!" And so on. The coffin, when it rested in the Abbey, before being conveyed to the village god's-acre at which, in accordance with his strong wish, it was finally interred, was buried beneath masses of the most exquisite flowers. There were ornate wreaths from crowned heads and bunches of violets from the children of the ragged schools. Princesses and servant girls alike, sent fragrant tributes; millionaires and crossing sweepers joined in the universal manifestation of sorrow. The entire nation felt, and still feels, the immensity of the debt it owes him.

F W Boreham

Image: Lord Shaftesbury