Thomas Clarkson, Great Britain, Abolitionist March 25. Thomas Clarkson. Clarkson was headed for a promising church career. The son of a British clergyman and teacher, he entered Cambridge University to prepare for ministry. While there, he wrote an essay against slavery that changed not only his life, but the lives of countless others. Clarkson worked with William Wilberforce, the British abolitionist, to gather evidence against slavery. Their tireless work over the course of 20 years paid off. On this date in 1807, Parliament passed the Slave Trade Abolition Act. That act paved the way for the complete abolition of slavery in the British empire in 1833. This is today’s story. Recognizing a need is often God’s call for us to do something. Clarkson was twenty-four-years old when he won a writing contest on an essay that explored whether it was lawful to buy and sell human beings. After he accepted the award, on the road back to London, he couldn’t stop thinking about the greed and the arrogance and the lack of respect for humanity that drove people to kidnap and sell other people. He had entered the writing competition to get attention, but his research changed his life. How could it be right to “own” fellow beings—each of us created by the same all-powerful God? ⁠ Something had to be done. Now. He thought more and more about the horror of being ripped away from your parents, from the life you knew, crammed into the rat-infested hold of a ship for weeks at a time, and taken on a dangerous journey. Slaveholders could afford to let a lot of their cargo die; they had a terrific markup. The man or woman or girl or boy got dumped in an unfamiliar land and became another person’s property to use any way he wanted. He recoiled from the brutality of slavery and felt driven to see enslaved people everywhere set free. He wanted the evil business stopped. Clarkson got so agitated about the atrocities being done to human beings, he had to stop, dismount, and pace. Finally, grief overtook him. “I sat down disconsolate on the turf by the road-side,” he wrote, “and here it forcibly occurred to me that something should be done to put an end to such cruelties.” ⁠ Someone needed to do something—he was sure about that. But he had heard little public discussion about the evils of slavery. Nobody talked about it. He mounted his horse and continued his journey, no closer to a solution than before. Weeks passed, and still Clarkson couldn’t shake the desire for somebody to step up and take on the cause. The thought of doing something himself had crossed his mind, but he was only twenty-four. What could he do? Yet the moral question swirled in his mind: how could a Christian nation allow such horrors to continue? The public had to be told, had to be educated. Perhaps his essay could do that small thing. ⁠ That November, 1785, Clarkson translated his essay from Latin to English. He added information he had learned since writing it, and he tried to write in a way that would impress the reader with the need to do something. From this moment forward, he dedicated his life to eradicating slavery in Great Britain. He wrote books and smaller works to educate people about what human beings were doing to human beings. And he got the plan of a slave-ship named Brookes and hired someone to draw an image of how the slaves were packed in. Depending on weather, the voyage could last six-to-thirteen weeks. Clarkson published the drawing and took copies of it with him when he spoke in public. For 61 years—from the day of his commitment to the day of his death—he spent his money, his time, and his health on behalf of enslaved people. He travelled a total of about 45,000 miles to spread the word and to build and encourage a network of anti-slavery societies—people ready to do something about the evil. Together they delivered 777 petitions to Parliament and demanded the end of the slave trade. In 1807, Parliament outlawed the slave trade.⁠ In 1833, the Slavery Abolition Act ended slavery altogether in Great Britain. ⁠ “I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do” (John 17:4 NASB). What issues grieve and consume you? Is God calling you to a first step to deal with that? Recognizing a need is often God’s call for us to do something. “Thomas Clarkson (1760–1846).” BBC History. Accessed September 3, 2020. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ historic_figures/clarkson_thomas.shtml. Brogan,Hugh. “Clarkson, Thomas (1760–1846).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Accessed January 15, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1093/ref: odnb/5545. Thomas Taylor, A Biographical Sketch of Thomas Clarkson, M.A. London: Joseph Rickerby, 1839. Google books. Accessed January 14, 2019. https://books.google.com/ books?id=9hdKAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Story read by Daniel Carpenter Would You Like to Learn More About This Man? The drawing Clarkson had made of slaves crammed in the slave ship Brooke. .