When the slave trade was Wilberforced

I just finished the popular (as opposed to strictly scholarly) biography on William Wilberforce by Eric Metaxas. I would commend the book for its readibility and content, with the occasional witty description of the characters therein. The book is not meant to be very detailed and does not often veer off its subject of Wilberforce to others who played a part in abolishing the slave trade in the British Empire.

In many ways the book reads like a an informal lecture and the prose does tend toward the grandiose.  But overall it fits the category of an adequate introduction to William Wilberforce. Any complaints about its Christian leaning should be held in check considering that is the worldview of the author.  A sample may prove to display Metaxas' style and I have chosen the section on the actual vote in Parliament's House of Commons on February 23, 1807 that finally abolished the slave trade.

And so, conscious of the unprecedented Moment in which they now lived and whose very air they breathed, nearly every man there, and the young ones especially, wanted to speak, to be a part of the glorious piling on. And how many did speak! They all rushed to enter the fray. Just as one member had finished his speech six or eight others leapt up to be the next. It was highly unusual for this body, but one could feel the intensity mounting and mounting. In what was his maiden speech, young Lord Mahon hailed Wilberforce as one "whose name will descend to the latest posterity with never fading honour!" It became unbearable.

And now came [Samuel] Romilly, the solicitor-general. Romilly loved and admired Wilberforce not merely for his abolitionist efforts but also for his efforts toward penal reform and his sincere devotion to the poor. His speech, which contrasted the strutting egomaniac across the Channel [Napoleon] with the humble figure seated only a few yards away, became legendary. Its sentences charged the air and brought the room to its final frenzy.

Romilly's speech concluded with a long and emotional tribute to Wilberforce in which he contrasted the peaceful happiness of Wilberforce in his bed with the tortured sleeplessness of the guilty Napoleon Bonaparte.

But when Romilly spoke of Wilberforce's reception at home it was too much for Wilberforce. Until then he had sat composed, quite composed, but now he was overcome, and taking his head in his hands, he wept. Romilly's moving oration, now halted and combined with the tears of its subject, proved too much for the room. It was as if somewhere, in the heart of creation, a dam had burst.

Everyone caught up in the increasingly charged atmosphere had been waiting, as it were, for some unconscious cue, something to ground the electricity--and Wilberforce's tears were it. Almost simultaneously, every man in the chamber lost his composure and was carried off by the flood of emotion. Everyone rose, and three deafening cheers rang out for Mr. Wilberforce; they echoed off those historical walls and hallowed them, and all was lost to the tumult...

...And here we leave him, weeping there in his accustomed seat as the overswollen thunderclouds of praise and celebration and joy burst over him and heaven rains a deluge of approbation upon his bowed head. In a little while the House would decide 283-16 in favor of abolition, and the battle would be officially won. But let's not run ahead just yet. Let's behold him here for a little while longer, here in this Moment of moments, a man allowed that highest and rarest privilege, to be awake inside his own dream. Seated there, head in his hands, humbled and exalted in his humility, we have the apotheosis of William Wilberforce. (pp. 209-211)

There is also a clip put together with scenes from the movie Amazing Grace, which follows Wilberforce's campaign. The song with the clip is from Mumford & Sons "Sigh No More."