Dedication To A Cause

Dedication To A Cause

He never gave up.

WILLIAM WILBERFORCE was born to affluence in Hull, England, in 1759. His schooling began at the Hull Grammar School, where he came under the influence of two brothers, headmaster Joseph Milner, and teacher Isaac Milner. Isaac used to lift the small boy onto a table so that the other students could listen to him read. After just two years in school William lost his father and was sent to live with his aunt, a staunch Methodist.

By fourteen, Wilberforce had already developed a social conscience, and he wrote a letter to the local newspaper on the evils of the slave trade. He completed his education at St. John’s College, Cambridge, where he largely wasted his time. However, in 1780 he was elected to Parliament, where he became a supporter and confidant of William Pitt the Younger, the British prime minister. Pitt persuaded Wilberforce to focus his efforts on the abolition of slavery.

In 1785 Wilberforce was looking for someone with whom to tour Europe when he ran into Isaac Milner, now a tutor at Cambridge. On impulse he invited Milner on the expense-paid trip. Had Wilberforce known that Milner was a committed Christian, he would not have extended the invitation.

As Wilberforce and Milner traveled together, they began arguing about religion. The arguments started to dissipate as they read together The Rise and Fall of Religion in the Soul by Philip Doddridge, an evangelical English pastor. By the end of their trip Wilberforce had given intellectual assent to many of the teachings of the Bible, but once back home he returned to politics and put religion on a back burner.

The next year Wilberforce took Isaac Milner on another tour of Europe. This time they studied the Greek New Testament together. Wilberforce later said, “I now fully believed the gospel and was persuaded that if I died at anytime I should perish everlastingly.”

Wilberforce was miserable, realizing that he must choose between Christ and the world, but he wanted both. Needing someone to talk to, he went to see his boyhood hero John Newton, the former slave trader, who now at sixty was a London pastor and the author of “Amazing Grace.” On December 7, 1785, he left John Newton’s home with the decision settled. He had chosen Christ and committed himself to being God’s man in politics.

Wilberforce became the leader of a group of wealthy Anglican evangelicals who lived mainly in the hamlet of Clapham, three miles from London. They became known as the Clapham Sect, although they were in no sense a sect. They were more like a close family determined to change the world for Jesus. The group included an amazing galaxy of talent: the governor general of India, the chairman of the East India Company, the undersecretary for the colonies, and a leading attorney. Intimates of the group who did not live in Clapham included Isaac Milner, Grenville Sharp, and Charles Simeon. Together they formed a remarkable fraternity, unique in British history. They determined which wrongs needed to be righted and then delegated to each person the work he could best perform for their mutual goals.

The first great achievement of Wilberforce and his friends was the abolition of the slave trade in 1807. But the abolition of slavery itself proved a tougher goal to achieve.

On July 26, 1833, at the age of seventy-three, Wilberforce was on his deathbed. Late that evening he received word that the Emancipation Act freeing the slaves of the British Empire was assured of passing. His final political goal had been reached. Three days later he died.

If the United States had not declared its independence from England in the Revolutionary War, slavery would have ended in America in 1833 without the Civil War.

Reflection

It took forty-six years for William Wilberforce to achieve his goal of abolishing slavery in the British Empire. Has God called you to a cause? If you feel discouraged because things seem to be moving slowly in spite of your efforts, remember Wilberforce and don’t give up!

Don’t get discouraged and give up, for we will reap a harvest of blessing at the appropriate time.

Galatians 6:9