Throughout history God has used key people to champion causes and do things on behalf of righteousness and justice. It seems that William Wilberforce was one of those people. He was born to a wealthy English merchant in 1759. He was sickly as a child and had poor eyesight. As a twelve-year-old, he was exposed to evangelical Christianity while on a visit to the home of his aunt Hannah, who was the sister of the wealthy Christian merchant John Thornton. Thorton did many good social projects and was a supporter of the leading Methodist preacher George Whitefield. But his mother and grandfather, who were staunch members of the Church of England, were worried about the Evangelical influences, so they brought him back to Hull in 1771.

At the age of 17, Wilberforce enrolled in St John’s College, at Cambridge. Then, because his grandfather and uncle passed, he became independently wealthy. So, he felt little need to study and he began to pursue a party lifestyle that included cards and drinking. While still a student, he was elected a Member of Parliament where he became a very influential orator. Four years later while touring Europe he converted to become an Evangelical and soon took a great interest in humanitarian reforms. Although a wealthy member of Parliament his new-found faith caused him to empathize with the lower classes of society. He came to conviction that he should be living out his faith by obeying the words of Jesus: “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” (Matthew 25:40) He poured his life into a number of “righteous” causes.  

His efforts initiated the abolitionist movement. This battle would take several decades and would include much prayer, speaking, writing and campaigning. It ultimately led to freedom for slaves, not only in England but other nations, including the United States of America. After being defeated for several years, The Slave Trade Act finally received royal assent on 25 March 1807. Many years later in 1863 Abraham Lincoln would issue the similar Emancipation Proclamation. That means Wilberforce didn’t see his cause get a legal foothold until he was forty-eight and it didn’t legally impact America until he had been dead for thirty years. But his faithful prayers and obedience were monumental.

Here is what Wilberforce had to say about prayer:

This perpetual hurry of business and company ruins me in soul if not in body.  More solitude and earlier hours! I suspect I have been allotting habitually too little time to religious exercises, as private devotion and religious meditation, Scripture-reading, etc.  Hence I am lean and cold and hard.  

I had better allot two hours or an hour and a half daily.  I have been keeping too late hours, and hence have had but a hurried half hour in a morning to myself.  Surely the experience of all good men confirms the proposition that without a due measure of private devotions the soul will grow lean.

But all may be done through prayer — almighty prayer, I am ready to say — and why not?  For that it is almighty is only through the gracious ordination of the God of love and truth. O then, pray, pray, pray!

William Wilberforce died a liberator of the unfortunate, slaves, orphans, even the chimney sweeps who were struggling for survival in his day. He proved that a righteous cause or mandate from God coupled with prayers of faith and Christian charity are a powerful combination. Those who have the privilege of participating in such endeavors are greatly blessed and, as a result, the kingdom of God prospers.