It is related of General Gordon, affectionately known as “Chinese Gordon,” that when the English government sought to reward him for his magnificent service in China, he declined all money and titles, but accepted a gold medal on which his name and a record of his thirty-three engagements was inscribed. After his death the medal could not be found. Finally it was learned that he had sent it to Manchester during a famine, with a request that it be melted and used to buy bread for the famishing poor. In his diary that day he had written these words: “The last and only thing that I had in this world that I valued. I have given over to the Lord Jesus Christ.”

-Wilbur E. Nelson