The Voice That Would Not Rest Until the Captives Were Free

In 1789, William Wilberforce stood before the British Parliament, his slight frame trembling with conviction, and described in unflinching detail the conditions aboard slave ships crossing the Atlantic. He spoke of human beings chained in rows so tight they could not turn over, of children torn from mothers on auction blocks in Kingston and Bridgetown. Most of his colleagues looked away. Some walked out. The vote failed.

But Wilberforce would not stop. Year after year, for nearly two decades, he introduced the same bill. He was mocked, threatened, and physically attacked. His health deteriorated until friends feared for his life. Yet he kept returning to that chamber because he believed that any authority worth holding must bend toward the deliverance of the oppressed.

When the Slave Trade Act finally passed in 1807, Parliament gave him a standing ovation. Wilberforce wept — not for himself, but for the countless souls who might now be spared the chain and the whip.

The psalmist prayed for a king who would "defend the afflicted among the people and save the children of the needy." Psalm 72 envisions power exercised not for personal glory but for the rescue of the forgotten and the crushed. Wilberforce glimpsed that vision and gave his life to it. How much more completely will it be fulfilled when the true King reigns — the One whose justice rolls down like waters and whose compassion has no end.