The following student report was submitted by Ambassador League Agent Emily M. during the 2007-2008 League.
William Wilberforce
William Wilberforce has always been one of my heroes. I first heard of Wilberforce in 4th grade, after reading a short biography that was written for children. As time passed, I almost forgot about him and the work that he did, until the movie "Amazing Grace" came to theaters. After seeing it, I remembered how much I admired Wilberforce, and I determined to learn more about him. So, I was very excited to discover that God's Politician by Garth Lean was an Ambassador League book. In it, I discovered what a truly amazing man Wilberforce was, and that one person really can change the world.
When Wilberforce was nine, his father died, and so his mother sent him to live with his aunt and uncle. It was at this time that young William Wilberforce met Rev. John Newton, the author of the hymn "Amazing Grace." Later on, Newton would become a mentor and inspiration to Wilberforce in his battle against the slave trade.
At the age of twenty-one, William Wilberforce was elected to the House of Commons as the member for Yorkshire. Only a few years later, Wilberforce underwent what he called, "a great change." God was calling William Wilberforce; Wilberforce responded, and began to seek God. He knew that making Jesus his Lord would change every part of his life, but he was willing to let God fulfill his plan. Shortly after the great change began, God did reveal his plan for Wilberforce. In Wilberforce's words, "God almighty has set before me two great objects: the suppression of the Slave Trade and the reformation of manners." These two things became his life's work, and he worked indefatigably to bring them about.
Wilberforce presented a bill to the House of Commons to end the slave trade every autumn for twenty years, under stiff opposition. For the most part, it was Wilberforce pitted against all of Parliament. Wilberforce and his friends, people like James Stephen, Thomas Clarkson, and Hannah More, worked tirelessly to inform the public of the horrors of slavery, so that no one could claim ignorance. Wilberforce's bill to end the slave trade was not passed until 1807, but it only banned the slave trade, not slavery itself. Only three days before his death in 1833, did Wilberforce receive the news that his ultimate dream of total abolition, throughout the British Empire, had become a reality. Today, we can hardly understand the kind of opposition he faced. In Eric Metaxas' biography about Wilberforce "Amazing Grace" he says, "To fathom the magnitude of what Wilberforce did we have to see that the 'disease' he vanquished forever was actually neither the slave trade nor slavery. Slavery still exists around the world today. What Wilberforce vanquished was something worse than slavery, something that was much more fundamental and can hardly even be seen from where we stand today: he vanquished the very mind-set that made slavery acceptable. Even though slavery still exists here and there, the idea that it is good is dead."
Wilberforce's other "great object" was the reformation of manners, or in other words, the reformation of society. Society was indeed in need of reformation, just as it is now. Wilberforce took on this daunting task beginning in 1787, he began by persuading King George III to reissue "The Proclamation for the Encouragement of Piety and Virtue and for the Preventing of Vice, Profaneness and Immorality." This kind of proclamation was made by every English monarch when they ascended the throne, but they were almost always ignored. Wilberforce then reclaimed an idea from the reign of William and Mary; after the proclamation was made, Wilberforce helped start up "proclamation societies," to enforce the King's proclamation. What Wilberforce wanted was to make ". goodness fashionable." When Wilberforce took on this second "great object," charities and organizations to help the poor were almost nonexistent. The nation had grown cold toward true Christianity; England simply wore the façade of Christianity, but on the inside, the nation's morals were decaying rapidly. Yet, England experienced a great revival, led by evangelists like George Whitefield, and John Wesley, and the writings of Hannah More and Wilberforce himself. As time went on, and real Christianity began to take hold of the nation once again, goodness did become "fashionable." At one point in his life Wilberforce was president, vice president or member of well over fifty societies, all aimed at the bettering of society.
By the time William Wilberforce died on July 29th, 1833, the world was a completely different place than the world he had entered. As John Pollock said, "Wilberforce proved that one man can change his times, but that he cannot do it alone." Wilberforce is an inspiration to me, to step up and listen to what God is calling me to do. With God all things are possible.
