The Personal Life of David Livingstone Part 9

From expressions in Livingstone's letter to the Directors, it is evident that he was fully aware of the risk he ran, in his new line of work, of appearing to sink the missionary in the explorer. There is no doubt that next to the charge of forgetting the claims of his family, to which we have already adverted, this was the most plausible of the objections taken to his subsequent career. But any one who has candidly followed his course of thought and feeling from the moment when the sense of unseen realities burst on him at Blantyre, to the time at which we have now arrived, must see that this view is altogether dest.i.tute of support. The impulse of divine love that had urged him first to become a missionary had now become with him the settled habit of his life. No new ambition had flitted across his path, for though he had become known as a geographical discoverer, he says he thought very little of the fact, and his life shows this to have been true. Twelve years of missionary life had given birth to no sense of weariness, no abatement of interest in these poor black savages, no reluctance to make common cause with them in the affairs of life, no despair of being able to do them good.

On the contrary, he was confirmed in his opinion of the efficacy of his favorite plan of native agency, and if he could but get a suitable base of operations, he was eager to set it going, and on every side he was a.s.sured of native welcome. Shortly before (5th February, 1850), when writing to his father with reference to a proposal of his brother Charles that he should go and settle in America, he had said: "I am a missionary, heart and soul. G.o.d had an only Son, and He was a missionary and a physician. A poor, poor imitation of Him I am, or wish to be. In this service I hope to live, in it I wish to die." The spectre of the slave-trade had enlarged his horizon, and shown him the necessity of a commercial revolution for the whole of Africa, before effectual and permanent good could be done in any part of it. The plan which he had now in view multiplied the risks he ran, and compelled him to think anew whether he was ready to sacrifice himself, and if so, for what. All that Livingstone did was thus done with open eyes and well-considered resolution. Adverting to the prevalence of fever in some parts of the country, while other parts were comparatively healthy, he says in his Journal: "I offer myself as a forlorn hope in order to ascertain whether there is a place fit to be a sanatorium for more unhealthy spots. May G.o.d accept my service, and use me for his glory. A great honor it is to he a fellow-worker with G.o.d." "It is a great venture," he writes to his sister (28th April, 1851). "Fever may cut us all off. I feel much when I think of the children dying. But who will go if we don't? Not one. I would venture everything for Christ. Pity I have so little to give. But He will accept us, for He is a good master. Never one like Him. He can sympathize. May He forgive, and purify, and bless us."

If in his spirit of high consecration he was thus unchanged, equally far was he from having a fanatical disregard of life, and the rules of provident living.

"Jesus," he says, "came not to judge,--[Greek: kriuo],--condemn judicially, or execute vengeance on any one.

His was a message of peace and love. He shall not strive nor cry, neither shall his voice he heard in the streets.

Missionaries ought to follow his example. Neither insist on our rights, nor appear as if we could allow our goods to be destroyed without regret: for if we are righteous overmuch, or stand up for our rights with too much vehemence, we beget dislikes, and the people see no difference between ourselves and them. And if we appear to care nothing for the things of this world, they conclude we are rich, and when they beg, our refusal is ascribed to n.i.g.g.ardliness, and our property, too, is wantonly destroyed. 'Ga ba tloke'=they are not in need, is the phrase employed when our goods are allowed to go to destruction by the neglect of servants.... In coming among savage people, we ought to make them feel we are of them, 'we seek not yours, but you'; but while very careful not to make a gain of them, we ought to be as careful to appear thankful, and appreciate any effort they may make for our comfort or subsistence."

On reaching Kolobeng from 'Ngami they found the station deserted. The Bakwains had removed to Limaue. Sechele came down the day after, and presented them with an ox--a valuable gift in his circ.u.mstances. Sechele had much yet to bear from the Boers; and after being, without provocation, attacked, pillaged, and wasted, and robbed of his children, he was bent on going to the Queen of England to state his wrongs. This, however, he could not accomplish, though he went as far as the Cape.

Coming back afterward to his own people, he gathered large numbers about him from other tribes, to whose improvement he devoted himself with much success. He still survives, with the one wife whom he retained; and, though not without some drawbacks (which Livingstone ascribed to the bad example set him by some), he maintains his Christian profession. His people are settled at some miles' distance from Kolobeng, and have a missionary station, supported by a Hanoverian Society. His regard for the memory of Livingstone is very great, and he reads with eagerness all that he can find about him. He has ever been a warm friend of missions has a wonderful knowledge of the Bible, and can preach well. The influence of Livingstone in his early days was doubtless a real power in mission-work. Mebalwe, too, we are informed by Dr. Moffat, still survives; a useful man, an able preacher, and one who has done much to bring his people to Christ.

It was painful to Livingstone to say good-bye to the Bakwains, and (as Mrs. Moffat afterward reminded him) his friends were not all in favor of his doing so; but he regarded his departure as inevitable. After a short stay at Kuruman, he and his family went on to Cape Town, where they arrived on the 16th of March, 1852, and had new proofs of Mr. Oswell's kindness. After eleven years' absence, Livingstone's dress-coat had fallen a little out of fashion, and the whole costume of the party was somewhat in the style of Robinson Crusoe. The generosity of "the best friend we have in Africa" made all comfortable, Mr. Oswell remarking that Livingstone had as good a right as he to the money drawn from the "preserves on his estate"--the elephants. Mentally, Livingstone traces to its source the kindness of his friend, thinking of One to whom he owed all--"O divine Love, I have not loved Thee strongly, deeply, warmly enough." The retrospect of his eleven years of African labor, unexampled though they had been, only awakened in him the sense of unprofitable service.

Before closing the record of this period, we must take a glance at the remarkable literary activity which it witnessed. We have had occasion to refer to Livingstone's first letters to Captain Steele, for the Geographical Society; additional letters were contributed from time to time. His philological researches have also been noticed. In addition to these, we find him writing two articles on African Missions for the _British Quarterly Review_, only one of which was published. He likewise wrote two papers for the _British Banner_ on the Boers. While crossing the desert, after leaving the Cape on his first great journey, he wrote a remarkable paper on "Missionary Sacrifices," and another of great vigor on the Boers. Still another paper on Lake 'Ngami was written for a Missionary Journal contemplated, but never started, under the editorship of the late Mr. Isaac Taylor; and he had one in his mind on the religion of the Bechuanas, presenting a view which differed somewhat from that of Mr. Moffat. Writing to Mr. Watt from Linyanti (3d October, 1853), on printing one of his papers, he says:

"But the expense, my dear man. What a mess I am in, writing papers which cannot pay their own way! Pauper papers, in fact, which must go to the workhouse for support. Ugh! Has the Caffre War paper shared the same fate? and the Language paper too? Here I have two by me, which I will keep in their native obscurity. One is on the South African Boers and slavery, in which I show that their church is, and always has been, the great bulwark of slavery, cattle-lifting, and Caffre-marauding; and I correct the mistaken views of some writers who describe the Boers as all that is good, and of others who describe as all that is bad, by showing who are the good and who are the bad. The other, which I rather admire,--what father doesn't his own progeny?--is on the missionary work, and designed to aid young men of piety to form a more correct idea of it than is to be had from much of the missionary biography of 'sacrifices.' I magnify the enterprise, exult in the future, etc., etc. It was written in coming across the desert, and if it never does aught else, it imparted comfort and encouragement to myself[34].... I feel almost inclined to send it.... If the Caffre War one is rejected, then farewell to spouting in Reviews."

[Footnote 34: For extracts from the paper on "Missionary Sacrifices,"

see Appendix No. I. For part of the paper on the Boers, see _Catholic Presbyterian_ December, 1879 (London, Nisbet and Co.).]

If he had met with more encouragement from editors he would have written more. But the editorial cold shoulder was beyond even his power of endurance. He laid aside his pen in a kind of disgust, and this doubtless was one of the reasons that made him unwilling to resume it on his return to England. Editors were wiser then; and the offer from one London Magazine of 400 for four articles, and from _Good Words_ of 1000 for a number of papers to be fixed afterward,--offers which, however, were not accepted finally,--showed how the tide had turned.

CHAPTER VII.

FROM THE CAPE TO LINYANTI.

A.D. 1852-1853.

Unfavorable feeling at Cape Town--Departure of Mrs. Livingstone and children--Livingstone's detention and difficulties--Letter to his wife--To Agnes--Occupations at Cape Town--The Astronomer-Royal--Livingstone leaves the Cape and reaches Kuruman--Destruction of Kolobeng by the Boers--Letters to his wife and Rev. J. Moore--His resolution to open up Africa _or perish_--Arrival at Linyanti--Unhealthiness of the country--Thoughts on setting out for coast--Sekeletu's kindness--Livingstone's missionary activity--Death of Mpepe, and of his father--Meeting with Ma-mochisane--Barotse country--Determines to go to Loanda--Heathenism unadulterated--Taste for the beautiful--Letter to his children--to his father--Last Sunday at Linyanti--Prospect of his falling.

When Livingstone arrived at the Cape, he found the authorities in a state of excitement over the Caffre War, and very far from friendly toward the London Missionary Society, some of whose missionaries--himself among the number--were regarded as "unpatriotic."

He had a very poor opinion of the officials, and their treatment of the natives scandalized him. He describes the trial of an old soldier, Botha, as "the most horrid exhibition I ever witnessed." The n.o.ble conduct of Botha in prison was a beautiful contrast to the scene in court. This whole Caffre War had exemplified the blundering of the British authorities, and was teaching the natives developments, the issue of which could not be foreseen. As for himself, he writes to Mr.

Moffat, that he was cordially hated, and perhaps he might be pulled up; but he knew that some of his letters had been read by the Duke of Wellington and Lord Brougham with pleasure, and, possibly, he might get justice. He bids his father-in-law not to be surprised if he saw him abused in the newspapers.

On the 23d April, 1852, Mrs. Livingstone and the four children sailed from Cape Town for England. The sending of his children to be brought up by others was a very great trial, and Dr. Livingstone seized the opportunity to impress on the Directors that those by whom missionaries were sent out had a great duty to the children whom their parents were compelled to send away. Referring to the filthy conversation and ways of the heathen, he says:

"Missionaries expose their children to a contamination which they have had no hand in producing. We expose them and ourselves for a time in order to elevate those sad captives of sin and Satan, who are the victims of the degradation of ages. None of those who complain about missionaries sending their children home ever descend to this. And again, as Mr.

James in his _Young Man from Home_ forcibly shows, a greater misfortune cannot befall a youth than to be cast into the world without a home. In regard to even the vestige of a home, my children are absolutely vagabonds. When shall we return to Kolobeng? When to Kuruman? _Never_. The mark of Cain is on your foreheads, your father is a missionary. Our children ought to have both the sympathies and prayers of those at whose bidding we become strangers for life."

Was there ever a plea more powerful or more just? It is sad to think that the coldness of Christians at home should have led a man like Livingstone to fancy that, because his children were the children of a missionary, they would bear the mark of Cain, and be homeless vagabonds.

Why are we at home so forgetful of the privilege of refreshing the bowels of those who take their lives in their hands for the love of Christ, by making a home for their offspring? In a higher state of Christianity there will be hundreds of the best families at home delighted, for the love of their Master, to welcome and bring up the missionary's children. And when the Great Day comes, none will more surely receive that best of all forms of repayment, "Inasmuch as ye did it unto the least of these my brethren, ye did it unto Me."

Livingstone, who had now got the troublesome uvula cut out, was detained at the Cape nearly two months after his family left. He was so distrusted by the authorities that they would hardly sell powder and shot to him, and he had to fight a battle that demanded all his courage and perseverance for a few boxes of percussion-caps. At the last moment, a troublesome country postmaster, to whom he had complained of an overcharge of postage, threatened an action against him for defamation of character, and, rather than be further detained, deep in debt though he was, Livingstone had to pay him a considerable sum. His family were much in his thoughts; he found some relief in writing by every mail. His letters to his wife are too sacred to be spread before the public; we confine ourselves to a single extract, to show over what a host of suppressed emotions he had to march in this expedition:

"_Cape Town, 5th May_, 1852.--MY DEAREST MARY,--How I miss you now, and the children! My heart yearns incessantly over you. How many thoughts of the past crowd into my mind! I feel as if I would treat you all much more tenderly and lovingly than ever. You have been a great blessing to me. You attended to my comfort in many, many ways. May G.o.d bless you for all your kindnesses! I see no face now to be compared with that sunburnt one which has so often greeted me with its kind looks. Let us do our duty to our Saviour, and we shall meet again. I wish that time were now. You may read the letters over again which I wrote at Mabotsa, the sweet time you know.

As I told you before, I tell you again, they are true, true; there is not a bit of hypocrisy in them. I never show all my feelings; but I can say truly, my dearest, that I loved you when I married you, and the longer I lived with you, I loved you the better.... Let us do our duty to Christ, and He will bring us through the world with honor and usefulness. He is our refuge and high tower; let us trust in Him at all times, and in all circ.u.mstances. Love Him more and more, and diffuse his love among the children. Take them all round you, and kiss them for me. Tell them I have left them for the love of Jesus, and they must love Him too, and avoid sin, for that displeases Jesus. I shall be delighted to hear of you all safe in England...."

A few days later, he writes to his eldest daughter, then in her fifth year:

"_Cape Town, 18th May_, 1852.--MY DEAR AGNES,--This is your own little letter. Mamma will read it to you, and you will hear her just as if I were speaking to you, for the words which I write are those which she will read. I am still at Cape Town. You know you left me there when you all went into the big ship and sailed away. Well, I shall leave Cape Town soon. Malatsi has gone for the oxen, and then I shall go away back to Sebituane's country, and see Seipone and Meriye, who gave you the beads and fed you with milk and honey. I shall not see you again for a long time, and I am very sorry. I have no Nannie now. I have given you back to Jesus, your Friend--your Papa who is in heaven. He is above you, but He is always near you. When we ask things from Him, that is praying to Him; and if you do or say a naughty thing ask Him to pardon you, and bless you, and make you one of his children. Love Jesus much, for He loves you, and He came and died for you. Oh, how good Jesus is! I love Him, and I shall love Him as long as I live. You must love Him too, and you must love your brothers and mamma, and never tease them or be naughty, for Jesus does not like to see naughtiness.--Good-bye, my dear Nannie,

D. LIVINGSTON."

Among his other occupations at Cape Town, Livingstone put himself under the instructions of the Astronomer-Royal, Mr. (afterward Sir Thomas) Maclear, who became one of his best and most esteemed friends. His object was to qualify himself more thoroughly for taking observations that would give perfect accuracy to his geographical explorations. He tried English preaching too, but his throat was still tender, and he felt very nervous, as he had done at Ongar. "What a little thing," he writes to Mr. Moffat, "is sufficient to bring down to old-wifeishness such a rough tyke as I consider myself! Poor, proud human nature is a great fool after all." A second effort was more successful. "I preached," he writes to his wife, "on the text, 'Why will ye die?' I had it written out and only referred to it twice, which is an improvement in English. I hope good was done. The people were very attentive indeed. I felt less at a loss than in Union Chapel[35]." He arranged with a mercantile friend, Mr. Rutherfoord, to direct the operations of a native trader, George Fleming, whom that gentleman was to employ for the purpose of introducing lawful traffic in order to supplant the slave-trade.

[Footnote 35: The ma.n.u.script of this sermon still exists. The sermon is very simple, scriptural, and earnest, in the style of Bishop Ryle, or of Mr. Moody.]

It was not till the 8th of June that he left the Cape. His wagon was loaded to double the usual weight from his good nature in taking everybody's packages. His oxen were lean, and he was too poor to provide better. He reached Griqua Town on the 15th August, and Kuruman a fortnight later. Many things had occasioned unexpected delay, and the last crowning detention was caused by the breaking down of a wheel. It turned out, however, that these delays were probably the means of saving his life. Had they not occurred he would have reached Kolobeng in August. But this was the very time when the commando of the Boers, numbering 600 colonists and many natives besides, were busy with the work of death and destruction. Had he been at Kolobeng, Pretorius would probably have executed his threat of killing him; at the least he would have been deprived of all the property that he carried with him, and his projected enterprise would have been brought to an end.

In a letter to his wife, Livingstone gives full details of the horrible outrage perpetrated shortly before by the Boers at Kolobeng:

"_Kuruman, 20th September_, 1852.--Along with this I send you a long letter; this I write in order to give you the latest news. The Boers gutted our house at Kolobeng; they brought four wagons down and took away sofa, table, bed, all the crockery, your desk (I hope it had nothing in it--Have you the letters?), smashed the wooden chairs, took away the iron ones, tore out the leaves of all the books, and scattered them in front of the house, smashed the bottles containing medicines, windows, oven-door, took away the smith-bellows, anvil, all the tools,--in fact everything worth taking; three corn-mills, a bag of coffee, for which I paid six pounds, and lots of coffee, tea, and sugar, which the gentlemen who went to the north left; took all our cattle and Paul's and Mebalwe's. They then went up to Limaue, went to church morning and afternoon, and heard Mebalwe preach! After the second service they told Sechele that they had come to fight, because he allowed Englishmen to proceed to the North, though they had repeatedly ordered him not to do so. He replied that he was a man of peace, that he could not molest Englishmen, because they had never done him any harm, and always treated him well. In the morning they commenced firing on the town with swivels, and set fire to it. The heat forced some of the women to flee, the men to huddle together on the small hill in the middle of the town; the smoke prevented them seeing the Boers, and the cannon killed many, sixty (60) Bakwains.

The Boers then came near to kill and destroy them all, but the Bakwains killed thirty-five (35), and many horses. They fought the whole day, but the Boers could not dislodge them.

They stopped firing in the evening, and then the Bakwains retired on account of having no water. The above sixty are not all men; women and children are among the slain. The Boers were 600, and they had 700 natives with them. All the corn is burned. Parties went out and burned Bangwaketse town, and swept off all the cattle. Sebubi's cattle are all gone.

All the Bakhatla cattle gone. Neither Bangwaketse nor Bakhatla fired a shot. All the corn burned of the whole three tribes. Everything edible is taken from them. How will they live! They told Sechele that the Queen had given off the land to them, and henceforth they were the masters,--had abolished chieftainship. Sir Harry Smith tried the same, and England has paid two millions of money to catch one chief, and he is still as free as the winds of heaven. How will it end? I don't know, but I will tell you the beginning. There are two parties of Boers gone to the Lake. These will to a dead certainty be cut off. They amount to thirty-six men. Parties are sent now in pursuit of them. The Bakwains will plunder and murder the Boers without mercy, and by and by the Boers will ask the English Government to a.s.sist them to put down rebellion, and of this rebellion I shall have, of course, to bear the blame. They often expressed a wish to get hold of me. I wait here a little in order to get information when the path is clear. Kind Providence detained me from falling into the very thick of it. G.o.d will preserve me still. He has work for me or He would have allowed me to go in just when the Boers were there. We shall remove more easily now that we are lightened of our furniture. They have taken away our sofa. I never had a good rest on it. We had only got it ready when we left. Well, they can't have taken away all the stones. We shall have a seat in spite of them, and that, too, with a merry heart which doeth good like a medicine. I wonder what the Peace Society would do with these worthies. They are Christians. The Dutch predicants baptise all their children, and admit them to the Lord's Supper...."

Dr. Livingstone was not disposed to restrain his indignation and grief over his losses. For one so patient and good, he had a very large vial of indignation, and on occasion poured it out right heartily over all injustice and cruelty. On no heads was it ever discharged more freely than on these Transvaal Boers. He made a formal representation of his losses both to the Cape and Home authorities, but never received a farthing of compensation. The subsequent history of the Transvaal Republic will convince many that Livingstone was not far from the truth in his estimate of the character of the free and independent Boers.

But while perfectly sincere in his indignation over the treatment of the natives and his own losses, his playful fancy could find a ludicrous side for what concerned himself, and grim enjoyment in showing it to his friends. "Think," he writes to his friend Watt, "think of a big fat Boeress drinking coffee out of my kettle, and then throwing her tallowy corporeity on my sofa, or keeping her needles in my wife's writing-desk!

Ugh! and then think of foolish John Bull paying so many thousands a year for the suppression of the slave-trade, and allowing Commissioner Aven to make treaties with Boers who carry on the slave-trade.... The Boers are mad with rage against me because my people fought bravely. It was I, they think, who taught them to shoot Boers. Fancy your reverend friend teaching the young idea how to shoot Boers, and praying for a blessing on the work of his hands!"

In the same spirit he writes to his friend Moore:

"I never knew I was so rich until I recounted up the different articles that were taken away. They cannot be replaced in this country under 300. Many things brought to our establishment by my better-half were of considerable value. Of all I am now lightened, and they want to ease me of my head.... The Boers kill the blacks without compunction, and without provocation, because they believe they have no souls.... Viewing the dispensation apart from the extreme wickedness of the Boers, it seemed a judgment on the blacks for their rejection of the gospel. They have verily done despite unto the Spirit of grace.... Their enmity was not manifested to us, but to the gospel. I am grieved for them, and still hope that the good seed will yet vegetate[36]."

[Footnote 36: This letter to Mr. Moore contains a trait of Livingstone, very trifling in the occasion out of which it arose, but showing vividly the nature of the man. He had promised to send Mr. Moore's little son some curiosities, but had forgotten when his family went to England.

Being reminded of his promise in a postscript the little fellow had added to a letter from his father, Livingstone is "overwhelmed with shame and confusion of face." He feels he has disappointed the boy and forgotten his promise. Again and again Livingstone returns to the subject, and feels a.s.sured that his young friend would forgive him if he knew how much he suffered for his fault. That in the midst of his own overwhelming troubles he should feel so much for the disappointment of a little heart in England, shows how terrible a thing it was to him to cause needless pain, and how profoundly it distressed him to seem forgetful of a promise. Years afterward he wrote that he had brought an elephant's tail for Henry, but one of the men stole all the hairs and sold them. He had still a tusk of a hippopotamus for him, and a tooth for his brother, but he had brought no curiosities, for he could scarcely get along himself.]

But while he could relax playfully at the thought of the desolation at Kolobeng, he knew how to make it the occasion likewise of high resolves.

The Boers, as he wrote the Directors, were resolved to shut up the interior. He was determined, with G.o.d's help, to open the country. Time would show which would be most successful in resolution,--they or he. To his brother-in-law he wrote that he would open a path through the country, _or perish_.

As for the contest with the Boers, we may smile at their impotent wrath.

It is a singular fact, that while Sechele still retains the position of an independent chief, the republic of the Boers has pa.s.sed away. It is now part of the British Empire.

The country was so unsettled that for a long time Dr. Livingstone could not get guides at Kuruman to go with him to Sebituane's. At length, however, he succeeded, and leaving Kuruman finally about the end of December, 1852, in company with George Fleming, Mr. Rutherfoord's trader, he set out in a new direction, to the west of the old, in order to give a wide berth to the Boers. Traveling rapidly he pa.s.sed through Sebituane's country, and in June, 1858, arrived at Linyanti, the capital of the Makololo. He wrote to his wife that he had been very anxious to go to Kolobeng and see with his own eyes the destruction wrought by the savages. He had a great longing, too, to visit once more the grave of Elizabeth, their infant daughter, but he heard that the Boers were in the neighborhood, and were anxious to catch him, and he thought it best not to go. Two years before, he had been at Linyanti with Mr. Oswell.

Many details of the new journey are given in the _Missionary Travels_, which it is unnecessary to repeat, It may be enough to state that he found the country flooded, and that on the way it was no unusual thing for him to be wet all day, and to walk through swamps, and water three or four feet deep. Trees, thorns, and reeds offered tremendous resistance, and he and his people must have presented a pitiable sight when forcing their way through reeds with cutting edges. "With our own hands all raw and b.l.o.o.d.y, and knees through our trousers, we at length emerged." It was a happy thought to tear his pocket-handkerchief into two parts and tie them over his knees. "I remember," he says in his Journal, referring to last year's journey, "the toil which our friend Oswell endured on our account. He never spared himself." It is not to be supposed that his guides were happy in such a march; it required his tact stretched to its very utmost to prevent them from turning back. "At the Malopo," he writes to his wife, "there were other dangers besides.

When walking before the wagon in the morning twilight, I observed a lioness about fifty yards from me, in the squatting way they walk when going to spring. She was followed by a very large lion, but seeing the wagon, she turned back." Though he escaped fever at first, he had repeated attacks afterward, and had to be constantly using remedies against it. The unhealthiness of the region to Europeans forced itself painfully on his attention, and made him wonder in what way G.o.d would bring the light of the gospel to the poor inhabitants. As a physician his mind was much occupied with the nature of the disease, and the way to cure it. If only he could discover a remedy for that scourge of Africa, what an invaluable boon would he confer on its much-afflicted people!

"I would like," he says in his Journal, "to devote a portion of my life to the discovery of a remedy for that terrible disease, the African fever[37]. I would go into the parts where it prevails most, and try to discover if the natives have a remedy for it. I must make many inquiries of the river people in this quarter. What an unspeakable mercy it is to be permitted to engage in this most holy and honorable work!

What an infinity of lots in the world are poor, miserable, and degraded compared with mine! I might have been a common soldier, a day-laborer, a factory operative, a mechanic, instead of a missionary. If my faculties had been left to run riot or to waste as those of so many young men, I should now have been used up, a dotard, as many of my school-fellows are. I am respected by the natives, their kind expressions often make me ashamed, and they are sincere. So much deference and favor manifested without any effort on my part to secure it comes from the Author of every good gift. I acknowledge the mercies of the great G.o.d with devout and reverential grat.i.tude."

[Footnote 37: Livingstone's Remedy for African fever. See Appendix No.

II.]

Dr. Livingstone had declined a considerate proposal that another missionary should accompany him, and deliberately resolved to go this great journey alone. He knew, in fact, that except Mr. Moffat, who was busy with his translation of the Bible, no other missionary would go with him[38]. But in the absence of all to whom he could unburden his spirit, we find him more freely than usual pouring out his feelings in his Journal, and it is but an act of justice to himself that it should be made known how his thoughts were running, with so bold and difficult an undertaking before him: