A Tale of Three Cities Concluded

Westminster Abby in London is half church and half graveyard of the greats. To be buried there is among the highest honors that England can bestow. It has its share of English kings, nobles, and great poets for sure. But easily eclipsing them all would be Sir Isaac Newton. I was pulled along through the majesty of the place by the anticipation of standing at his tomb and monument. Sir Isaac had contributed more to the development of modern science than any other man alive until that time (or perhaps even since). Newton’s Principia Mathematica became one of the most important and influential works on physics of all times. He formulated the basic laws of motion and the universal laws of nature that unraveled the great mysteries of science of his day. He invented calculus as well as gave birth to the classical theories of mechanics and optics. Alexander Pope summed it up succinctly in his couplet, "Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night; God said, Let Newton be! and all was light." The scientific history of the modern world could be written in terms of Before Newton and After Newton. More significantly, Newton, the consummate logician, held deeply to the necessity of God to sustain and hold all things together. He believed that the beauty and regularity of the natural world could only "proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being." His place in this hall of champions, ensconced in a holy shrine dedicated to God’s glory, is without dispute and wholly natural.

How ironic is the fact that not many years hence Charles Darwin would be laid to rest not many feet away from Newton’s tomb. Here was a man who had invented a world where God was no longer a necessity, where all the beauty and regularity of the natural world emanated from sheer chance and the drive of living beings to merely survive. Considering all the reverence of the place that swept our thoughts skyward, Darwin seemed terribly out of place. God seems to have tolerated Darwin’s ultimate insult with his usual patient equanimity and granted him a resting place. He who bore the mocking of his killers while nailed to a cross is surely not all that troubled by a bookish naturalist who was quite content to live a life defined by blindness to the eternal.

I sought out Newton to pay homage, I passed over Darwin as one who glances to look at a tragic scene, and then eagerly looked for a man who epitomized great accomplishment in the moral realm, William Wilberforce. His body and monument are separated by some distance, but both were well known to the uniformed docents that patrolled the scene. The grave was near the entrance, and it held its fascination. But the monument transfixed me with words of praise that echo down the ages. Born in 1759, Wilberforce served nearly half a century in the House of Commons. “In an age and country fertile in grand and good men, he was among the foremost of those who fixed the character of their times.” That was a tribute earned through years of steady devotion to a high and noble cause when few would pause to even give lip service and many stood in great opposition. “His name will ever be specially identified with those exertions which, by the blessing of God, removed from England the guilt of the African slave trade, and prepared the way for the abolition of slavery in every colony of the empire.” This was a protracted struggle that consumed a lifetime of service in politics at great personal cost. “In the prosecution of these objects, he relied, not in vain, on GOD; but in the progress, he was called to endure great obloquy (humiliation, disgrace, mortification, infamy) and great opposition.” The perseverance of William Wilberforce against all odds is legendary. To all his life in that political mudpit, however, “…he added the abiding eloquence of a Christian life.” Because of this and his steadfast dedication to principle, “He outlived … all enmity” and “died not unnoticed or forgotten by his country.” Let us not forget as well.

May God grant us some men and women who will fix the character of our times, who are ready to endure years of obloquy for the pursuit of righteousness, and who will outlive the enmity of their age for the sake of a better age to come.