His last words as we parted were that he felt sure we should never meet again. I said he had been wrong once when he told me that he should not see me again, and I hoped he was wrong now. He said no, he felt that he had no more work to do for God on this earth, and that he should never return from the Congo. Within a month he was in upper Egypt.
It was characteristic of the man that scarcely any one in Haifa knew who he was. Seeing a very handsome garden belonging to a rich Syrian, near Acre, he strolled into it, and was accosted by the proprietor, who asked him who he was. He replied, “Gordon Pasha,” on which my Syrian friend, who told me the story, laughed incredulously, and politely showed him out. Gordon meekly departed without attempting to insist on his identity. The proprietor told me that he felt convinced that he was being imposed upon, because Gordon, when spoken to in English, would answer in bad Arabic, and because, when asked his name, he took his card-case half out of his pocket, as though to give his card, and then, on second thought, put it back again and answered verbally. So my friend lost his chance of entertaining an angel unawares, which he has never ceased to regret, the more especially as his friends take a pleasure in teasing him about it.
My last letter from Gordon is dated Khartoum, the 6th of March. Now that he is gone, and his name has become a household word in almost all countries, and among the professors of all religions, the few among the natives who knew him here treasure up every trait of his marked individuality, and are fond of narrating anecdotes, which grow by repetition. His instinct of retirement and extremely unassuming manner concealed him, so to speak, from general observation; but his simplicity, purity, and absolute singleness of aim made him a sort of moral magnet, irresistibly attractive to those who came directly beneath the sphere of his influence. The potency of his virtue in life has been proved by the imperishable moral legacy which in death he has bequeathed to humanity.
THE CONVENT OF CARMEL _versus_ THE TOWN OF HAIFA.