Gordon was, in fact, something of an oddity. He was an unconventional and passionate evangelical, imbued with a personal theology which was intense, mystical and ascetic. He had been known to stick religious tracts onto walls, and even throw them out of train windows. He was much given to practical good works, visited slums, brought comfort to the sick and the dying and the old, and showed a particular interest in boys.
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“... energy which drove him into weird beliefs, eccentric activities, and a sometimes misplaced confidence in his own judgement. For example, Gordon believed that God’s throne rested literally upon the earth, which was in its turn enclosed in the firmament, that the Garden of Eden was on the bed of the sea near the Seychelles, and that most of the sites of the Holy Places in Jerusalem had been wrongly identified. It was doubtless his capacity for independent and eccentric thought, his taste for isolated command, and his almost messianic qualities ... that made his military and political superiors wary of entrusting him with really important assignments.”
http://www.britishempire.co.uk/biography/gordon.htm
“Gordon believed in reincarnation. In 1877, he wrote in a letter: ‘This life is only one of a series of lives which our incarnated part has lived. I have little doubt of our having pre-existed; and that also in the time of our pre-existence we were actively employed. So, therefore, I believe in our active employment in a future life, and I like the thought.’”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_George_Gordon#Personality_and_beliefs