An introduction to religious and spiritual experience

William Wilberforce (1759–1833)
Here was a man whose whole life became a struggle to liberate the 
oppressed. It took William Wilberforce 20
 
years to get the bill to abolish 
the Atlantic slave trade through parliament, and it was not until he was 
on his deathbed in 1833 that the Abolition of Slavery was enacted. 
Wilberforce was not born to religion, rather the opposite, in fact. 
While staying with an Aunt and Uncle as a young boy, he became 
influenced by their Methodism, and this so horrified his mother that she 
instantly removed him from his relatives and ensured that he was then 
exposed to all the pleasures and distractions of life which came with his 
prosperous family standing in Hull. He enjoyed life to the full, became a 
Member of Parliament and was a good friend of the Prime Minister 
William Pitt.
However, as a young man, Wilberforce was converted and a funda-
mental change took place.
In the autumn of 1875 Wilberforce experienced a classic conversion to 
Christian evangelicalism, a mental and spiritual experience of enor-
mous power.
. . .
It is not possible to pinpoint Wilberforce’s own conversion to a single 
day, nor did he report the intervention of an other-worldly vision or 

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Spiritual and Mystical Experiences
203
voice. Yet the time which elapsed between his going about his normal 
business in the late spring of 1785 and the adoption of an entirely new 
and rigorous approach to life that December was unusually short.
. . .
Wilberforce was clear in later life that true religious conviction could 
only emerge after a period of self-examination, doubt and often agony.
. . .
. . . Wilberforce clearly felt an ineluctable pull towards an enthusiasm 
for Christianity which would guide and dictate all his future actions in 
every aspect of life.
190
After this, Wilberforce relinquished a life of pleasure and dissipation to 
follow a regime of prayer and reading of scripture and theology. His life 
and career were henceforth guided by Christian principles. He gave much 
of his salary and fortune away, particularly supporting causes close to his 
heart, like that of educating those who had wasted their opportunities in 
early life, as had he himself. Although he had changed his priorities, such 
was his charm that he managed not to lose his former friends while 
making new ones who shared his new view on life.
He turned his attentions to the Reformation of Manners, a camp-
aign against prostitution, gambling and excessive drinking. In 1787 
Wilberforce, having heard reports of the conditions of the West Indian 
slaves and the high death rate during their crossing of the Atlantic, took 
up the cause of the Abolition of the Slave Trade.
God Almighty has set before me two great objects, the suppression of 
the slave trade and the reformation of manners.’ . . . As soon as I had 
arrived thus far in my investigation of the slave trade, I confess to you, 
so enormous, so dreadful, so irremediable did its wickedness appear 
that my own mind was completely made up for the abolition . . . let the 
consequences be what they would, I from this time determined that 
I would never rest until I had effected its Abolition.
191
Although in all it took him years of persistent campaigning, he never 
wavered, despite stiff opposition within and outside parliament especially 
from those whose wealth depended on the trade. Eventually the bill to 
abolish the slave trade was passed in 1807, paving the way for complete 
abolition of slavery. This actually took place long after he had retired 

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Religious and Spiritual Experience
204
from active politics. As Wilberforce lay dying in 1833 the news was 
brought to him that the bill for the Abolition of Slavery was finally secure 
in its passage through parliament.
His story is told in William Hague’s 
William Wilberforce, The Life of 
the Great Anti-Slave Trade Campaigner
.