UBERFORCE FOR GOOD

He was small and sickly, so he could have pulled back from life; he was born into wealth and privilege, so he could have coasted through life.  He did neither.

Born in Yorkshire, England on August 24th, William Wilberforce (1759-1833) was an uberforce for good.  When the books are opened and the rewards distributed, this man's finger will be shown in many a righteous pie.

Most people may know Wilberforce to be the champion of the abolitionist movement in England.  In the late 1700's slavery was an entrenched economic reality and not many people thought it could be budged.  Wilberforce said "The objects of the present life fill the human eye with a false magnification because of their immediacy."

Before he could change the minds of people whose livelihoods depended on slavery, William Wilberforce had to show slavery for the atrocity that it was.  So he began an uphill battle which lasted his entire career and included many setbacks.

Tirelessly, Wilberforce gathered information, held meetings, distributed petitions, lobbied and wrote letters.  Because he became the target of anti-abolition forces, he was threatened repeatedly and publicly ridiculed (both for his size and frailty).

William Wilberforce would stand in Parliament to read the letters from the ship captains about the conditions on the ships...only to have his peers vote down his legislation time after time.  One day Parliament heard him say "You may choose to look the other way, but you can NEVER again say that you didn't know."

...an embroidery in the Wilberforce home

Wonder where William Wilberforce got such a passion for a life of service?

When he was 26, Wilberforce came to Christ.  Then friends said they observed a dramatic change in his lifestyle.                              

He weighed the call to preach versus the call to be involved politically.  William Pitt (his best friend from college days) helped convince him that God could use him to reform a nation.  And the Lord laid a burden about the slave trade on William Wilberforce's heart...a burden that would not let go.

"So enormous, so dreadful, so irremediable did the [slave] trade's wickedness appear that my own mind was completely made up for abolition. Let the consequences be what they would: I from this time determined that I would never rest until I had effected its abolition."  William Wilberforce

In 1807, largely because of twenty years of Mr. Wilberforce's effort, beginning legislation (called The Slave Trade Act) passed Parliament.  Nineteen years of more effort went by before Wilberforce finally had to resign from Parliament because of his poor health.  That meant he didn't get to lead the charge when the Slavery Abolition Act finally passed in 1833.  William Wilberforce died three days later.  God generously allowed this man to see the fruit from his labor accomplished.

Slavery was not the only cause that Wilberforce considered valuable.  At one time he was active in supporting 69 philanthropic causes.  He gave away a quarter of his annual income to the poor.  Toward the end of his life, he had a houseful of servants too old to serve, but he was not willing to send them away.  Instead, he served them.

His desire to hold religion and morality high caused him to support the Society for the Suppression of Vice...he also saw to it that the British East India Company's charter included money to go to missionary work in India...he worked to create a free colony in Sierra Leone...and he helped to found both the Church Mission Society AND the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Wilberforce's wit and generosity made him popular although poor health dogged him all his life.  He and his friend William Pitt (who went on to become the youngest Prime Minister of England), worked together to influence England for good.  They are buried close together in Westminster Abbey.

In 2007 a film called "Amazing Grace" was released on the 200th anniversary of the Slave Trade Act.

The movie tells the story of William Wilberforce and this LINK is to a good review of the movie.  I loved  the witty repartee between William and Hannah as their love story played out.

Eric Metaxas has written a book about Wilberforce...also called "Amazing Grace".  The book's title is a reference to John Newton, the slaver who came to Christ, became a minister, wrote the familiar hymn (by the same name), and mentored William Wilberforce.

Newton wrote to encourage Wilberforce... "it is hoped and believed that the Lord has raised you up for the good of His church and for the good of the nation."

Another mentor to Wilberforce was the man who had led him to Christ, John Wesley.  Wesley's last letter before he died was written to William Wilberforce (February 24, 1791)..."O be not weary of well doing!  Go on, in the name of God and in the power of His might, till even American slavery (the vilest that ever saw the sun) shall vanish away before it."

Hats are off to William Wilberforce on his birthday, August 24th.  I look forward to meeting this stalwart man of God.  And as I considered his life, I want to remember that...

   God equips the ones He calls.  

Who could have guessed that a small and sickly man would have a lion's heart?

When cacophonous voices deny God's place in the public square...

we listen for the still and quiet Voice.

Mr. Wilberforce's body did not cooperate, but he persevered

and finished the course.  Another more cooperative body now awaits him. 

I like to imagine William Wilberforce, standing before the Lord and hearing the words "Well done, good and faithful servant.  Enter into the joy of your master."