TWICE-BORN MEN
REMARKABLE CONVERSIONS OF WELL-KNOWN MEN
IN DIFFERENT AGES AND IN VARIED RANKS OF LIFE
Compiled by HY. PICKERING
The Working Man’s Friend
LORD SHAFTESBURY, Anthony Ashley-Cooper, the Seventh Earl, was born in 1801, at 24 Grosvenor Square, London. His early recollections are of the saddest, and his after years seemed to be permeated with that melancholy which overshadowed his childhood. But those sorrows had a great part in urging him to the work with which his name is ever associated—the care and succour of the oppressed.
The sweetest memory of his early days lingered round Maria Millis, the housekeeper. This incomparable woman had been maid to his mother when his mother he was a girl. and had been promoted to the position of housekeeper. She was devoted to the little boy, and being a true and faithful follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, she often took the child on her lap and told him stories from the Bible, especially the story of Him who came to save the lost, to comfort the sorrowing, and who said, “Suffer the little children to come unto Me” (Mt 19:14). She taught him a simple prayer which he always used; even in his old age and sickness those simple words would come to his lips. It was to this good woman, he says, he was indebted for that saving knowledge of the Son of God which came to him at the age of seven, and which was such a joy and strength to him through all the difficulties and trials of his long life.
Young Ashley was sent to school soon after he was seven years of age—a school at the thought of which he always shuddered. “The place was bad, wicked, filthy: and the treatment was starvation and cruelty.” At home, too, he was unhappy, for in those days parents ruled by fear, not love, and it is evident from his diary when be had reached manhood’s estate, that his parents (the mother in particular) were almost cruel. He remembered weary nights of bitter cold, and days of insufficient food.
The crowning trouble at this time was the death of his beloved friend, Maria Millis. He mourned deeply, for she was—and no wonder—more to him than anyone else. In her will she left him her handsome gold watch, and he never wore any other. “This watch was given to me by the best friend I have ever had,” he would say.
The spirit in which he entered upon his career is given in his journal of April 28th, 1829, his 28th birthday: “Now let me consider my future career. The first principle, God’s honour; the second, man’s happiness; the means, prayer and unremitting diligence; all petty love of excellence must be put aside, the matter must be studied, the motives refined, and one’s best done for the remainder.” To this he steadfastly adhered all his life.
His own happiness did not make him callous as regards those less fortunately placed. The memory of his sad and neglected childhood urged him to help forward any work which could alleviate the sufferings of others. He was early known as the Working Man’s Friend, but especially was he the friend of the children.
Not only unfortunate adults and children received his attention, but the ill-fed, badly treated costers’ donkeys came under his notice. He bought a fine coster’s barrow, called himself “K.G. and Coster,” and let the barrow out, till the coster could procure one for himself. He so won their esteem that at an annual meeting of costers, his lordship was surprised to see a sleek donkey, which the costers had unitedly purchased, led to the front and presented to him. It would be difficult to say which were most delighted, the K.G. Coster or the Pearly Costers.