Happy 250th Birthday, Wilberforce!
August 24, 2009 Posted by Amy Hall
Today is the big 2-5-0 for William Wilberforce. He’s been one of my most favorite people ever since I read his book, A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Higher and Middle Classes in This Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity (1797). Okay, yes, they had long titles back then. Now you can purchase it as A Practical View of Christianity. Not quite as descriptive, but still the same, wonderful book.
In honor of the day, please take a moment to check out this short biography of Wilberforce by John Piper. Listening to it is the best option (about an hour and a half), but you can also read the transcript. Here’s a taste:
What was the key to Wilberforce’s perseverance under these kinds of burdens and obstacles? One of the main keys was his child-like, child-loving, self-forgetting joy in Christ. The testimonies and evidence of this are many. A certain Miss Sullivan wrote to a friend about Wilberforce in about 1815: “By the tones of his voice and expression of his countenance he showed that joy was the prevailing feature of his own mind, joy springing from entireness of trust in the Savior’s merits and from love to God and man. . . . His joy was quite penetrating”. . . .
There was in this child-like love of children and joyful freedom from care a deeply healthy self-forgetfulness. Richard Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, wrote after a meeting with Wilberforce, “You have made me so entirely forget you are a great man by seeming to forget it yourself in all our intercourse.” The effect of this self-forgetting joy was another mark of mental and spiritual health, namely, a joyful ability to see all the good in the world instead of being consumed by one’s own problems (even when those problems are huge). James Stephen recalled after Wilberforce’s death, “Being himself amused and interested by everything, whatever he said became amusing or interesting. . . . His presence was as fatal to dullness as to immorality. His mirth was as irresistible as the first laughter of childhood”. . . .
In other words, his indomitable joy moved others to be good and happy. He sustained himself and swayed others by his joy. If a man can rob you of your joy, he can rob you of your usefulness. Wilberforce’s joy was indomitable and therefore he was a compelling Christian and Politician all his life.
Wilberforce’s amazing perseverance in ending the slave trade came in spite of human opposition and physical difficulties, and his drive to seek God continued in spite of the resistance of his own human fallenness. This is part of why I am so fascinated by Wilberforce. I can relate to a man who desires to know and love God more than anything, but who finds himself over and over again not using his time to the best advantage, and who regrets that he never seems to have the amount of time he needs to be alone with God. And I simply want to know how someone who had some of the same struggles I have not only persevered, but loved God to the end and lived a beautiful life in spite of it all, leaving the world a far better place than he found it.
In answer to this question, I can’t get this simple prayer, written in Wilberforce’s journal, out of my mind:
Resolved to lead a new life, adhering more steadfastly to my resolutions. Do thou, O God, renew my heart–fill me with that love of thee which extinguishes all other affections, and enable me to give thee my heart, and to serve thee in spirit and in truth.
Related posts:
- Happy Birthday, Cap'n Murdock!
- Pain Now, the Land of Happy Later
- Happy 11:11 11/11/11!
- The Root of Experience is Knowledge
- Happy Mother's Day, from B.A.
- In Case Anyone Besides Me Needs to Hear This…
Posted in Amy's Posts, Miscellaneous, The Christian Life
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