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2 (218) THE P
up all night?so eager was he to talk with his
lather of the future of missions. "They
agreed," writes his sister, "that the time would
come when ncli men aud great men would think
it an honor to support whole stations of missionaries,
instead of spending their money on
hounds and horses." On the morning of November
17tll the fjllllilv I'llSO nf 1ivo nVlm-lr llavirt
read Psalms exxi. raid exxxv., aud ottered prayer.
Then lie aud ins lather walked to Ulasgow
to catch the Liverpool steamer.
On that morning "father and son looked for
the last time on each other's laces." Neil Livingstone
walked homewards to lilantyre, pondering
perhaps on those words of the P saint his
son had read, "The Lord shall preserve thy going
out and thy coming in lrom this time forth,
and for evermore."
Years have passed on, and we see the aged
i\eii Livingstone lying 011 his deathbed in ISoG.'
"You wished so much to see David," said the
daughter who was waiting upon him, "Ay. very
much, very much; but the will of the Lord be
done." Then, after a pause, he said, "JJut 1
think I'll know whatever is worth knowing
about him. When you see him tell him I-think
so."
It was at Cairo, on his homeward journey,
that Livingstone heard of his father's death. On
his first evening with his widowed mother he
was deeply affected by the sight of his father's
empty chair. "One of us remarking that after
he knew he was dying his spirits seemed to rise,
David burst into tears. At family worship that
evening lie said with deep feeling, 'We blessThee,
O Lord, for our parents; we give Thee
thanks for the dead who has died in the Lord.' "
DU. L!\ INCSTONK's MOTHER.
We know comparatively little of the mother
of this heroic man. She is remembered as an
anxious, faithful, toiling woman. Luther's
earliest memory of his mother showed her with
shoulders bowed under a heavy weight of faggots
which she was carrying from the forest;
i r :? a ... * ? ? %t . %
unu invjngsiuue aiso couiu recall nis momer s
thrift, industry, and cleanliness.
Mrs. Neil Livingstone died on June 18, 1865,
at the age of eighty-two. David, who received
the news by telegram at Oxford, wrote in his
journal:
"No change was observed till within an hour
and a half of her departure. . . . Seeing
the end was near, Sister Agnes said, 'Thy
Saviour has come for you, mother. You can
"lippcn" yourself to him?' She replied, 'Oh,
ves.' Little Anna Mnrv wns nn fr? linr
She gave her the last look, and said, 'Bonnie wee
lass,' gave a few long inspirations, and all Avas
still, with a look of reverence on her countenance.
. . . When going away in 3858 she
said to me that she would have liked one of her
laddies to lay her head in the grave. It so happened
that I was there to pay the last tribute to
a dear, good mother."
Everyone -will remember that on the tombstone
which Dr. Livingstone placed over the
resting-place of his parents in the cemetery of
Hamilton he thanked God "for poor and pious
parents."
TfTE BOYTTOOU OP T.IVINGSTONE.
Ono nf tlif* nnrliocf L'nAtrn fnoto oW.if T.4w
^ ? V vr J. . vxv VIII tivwv 11 1UWIO auuui J-JIV"
ingstono's boyhood is that he gained a New
Testament at the age of nine from his Sunday
school teacher for repeating the 119th Psalm on
two successive evenings with only five errors.
We need not linger here on his experiences as a
T> 1 ? -l. M J a - i ? ? * * <
i>inui/rc liiL-inry umiii, luuiiig, wiin unci intervals,
for fourteen hours a day, yet finding
time to study the Latin poets in the evening.
Many biographers have described David's early
scientific explorations, his courage, cheerfulness,
and self-reliance, his charm as a fireside story
RESBVTEKIAN OF T H ? S (
teller, his filial and brotherly affection. There
were two plain men in Blautyre village, Thomas
liurke and David llogg, from whose religious inw
t ? ! 1 < ?t in 111' lin *-v ??y\fi 1<./1 TJ? " -1 ? 1 ' -
xviuvuvuo u? jiiviucu. ivuv 1U JlUgg SitlU lO Ills
young name-sake on his deathbed, "Now, lad,
make religion the every-day business of your life,
and not a thing of fits and starts; for if you do,
temptation and other things will get the better
of you." Never for any scientitic dream was
Livingstone tempted to forsake his life's supreme
"business."
DK. THOMAS DICK. y
Incalculable was the debt lie owed to Dr.
Thomas Dick, of Droughty Ferry. Ilis father
had discouraged him from reading scientitic
books, and had endeavored in vain to force upon
him such works as \Yilberforce's "Practical
Christianity." "This dislike to dry, doctrinal
reuaing, ana 10 religious reading ol every sort,
he says, "continued for years, but, having lighted
on those admirable works of Thomas Dick,
'The Philosophy of Religion,' and 'The Philosophy
of a Future State,' it was gratifying to
find my own ideas, that religion and science are
not hostile, but friendly to each other, fully
proved and enforced."
YEARS OF STUDY.
We must pass over the Blantyre student's
life at Glasgow University, where he supported
himself, as many a Scottish lad has done, during
the winter months on the wages earned during
the six months of summer. At Glasgow in
1S40 he took his medical degree.
In 1837-38 he decided to olTer himself for foreign
service to the Loudon Missionary Society.
Neil Livingstone was an Independant by conviction,
and David's sympathies were unsectarian.
Ite was accepted by the Board, and was
sent on probation to the Rev. Richard Cecil, of
Chipping Ongar, in Essex. There he narrowly
escaped the fate of the "stickit minister,"
but was eventually admitted and encouraged to
prosecute bis medical studies.
ok. moffat's call to Livingstone.
Livingstone owed his immediate call to Africa
to the counsel and inspiration of Dr. Robert
Moffat, who made his acquaintance at Mrs.
Sewell's boarding-house in Aldersgate Street.
"He asked me," wrote Dr. MolFat, "whether I
thought he would do for Africa. I said I be
aievea ne would, n lie would not go to an old
station, but would advance to unoccupied
ground, specifying the vast plain to the north,
wiiere I had .sometimes seen, in the morning
sun, the smoke of a thousand villages, where no
missionary had ever been. At last Livingstone
said, 'What is the use of my waiting for the end
of this abominable opium war? I will go at once
to Africa.' The Directors concurred, and
Africa became his sphere."
FIRST YEARS IN AFRICA.
Livingstone was in his twenty-eighth year
when he embarked (December 8, 1840) on board
the ship George for South Africa. lie longed
for arduous service. To his friend G. D. Watt
he wrote, "My life may be spent as profitably
as a pioneer as in any other way." His motto
was, "I am ready to go anywhere?provided it
be forward." From Kuruman he travelled 700
miles into the Bechuana country, and his remarkable
qualities became manifest even before
he had mastered any of the native languages.
The ehiofs recognised in him a man of noble
character, tender sympathy, and infinite helpfulness.
ITis bold, adventurous nature responded
eagerly to the new open-air life. ITe loved
the long journeys by ox-wagon, tho bracing
winds of the veldt, the bivouac under the stars,
the opportunities for sport and scientific observation.
The New Testament was his constant
companion, and before long he could proclaim
its saving message to the people. The chief
)OTfl [March 12, 1913
Sekomi said to him one day, "1 wish you could
change my heart. Give me medicine to change
it, for it is proud, proud and angry, angry
always." "I lifted up the Testament," says the
missionary, "and was about to tell him of the
only way in which the heart can be changed, but
lie interrupted me by saying, 'Nay, 1 wish to
have it changed by medicine, and have it chang
ed at once, l'or it is always very proud and very
uneasy, and continually angry with someone.'
lie then rose and walked away."
TIIE ADVENT!IKE WITH THE LION.
A well-known incident of Livingstone's first
years in Africa, was the encounter with the
lion at Mabotsa, when his left shoulder-bone was
severely crushed and his arm lamed for life.
The false joint in the crushed arm was the mark
by which his body was identified when brought
home in 1874. On the margin of one of his
biographies a friend wrote these words in pen,.;i.
+^1,1 ?- i.~
vii. uiv mgijiuiii; IUIU me umi tic nunc
understood the fascination of a mouse by a cat
from his expereicnee with this lion, lie saw
it was going to spring at him, but he could not
run, and did not feel at all frightened. lie
said, 41 was absorbed by the thought whether it
would jump over that twig or the next one to
it when it sprang.' " In writing to his father,
Livingstone made light of the adventure. Ilia
arm, he said, was nearly well, feeling weak only
from having been confined in one position so
long. "I ought to nraise Him who delivered me
from so great a danger. I hope I shall never
forget Ilis mercy. . . . Gratitude is the
only feeling we ought to have in remembering
the event. Do not mention this to anyone. T
do not 1 ike to be talked about."
JILS MARRIAGE TO MARY MOFFAT.
The young missionary lived as a bachelor in
Africa for four years. In 1844, beneath one of
the fruit-trees at lvuruman, he proposed to Dr.
Moffat's eldest daughter, Mary, and his happy
marriaire was celebrated a few months later.
Livingstone's salary from the London Missionary
Society was only 100 pounds a year, and
liis housekeeping at Mabotsa was conducted with
strict economy. lie left this pleasant home and
garden owing to a difference with one of his colleagues.
"I like a garden," he wrote, "but
Paradise will make amends for all our privar
tions and sorrows here."
While laboring as teacher and physician
among the Dakwauis, Livingstone's eagle vision
was piercing to the unkuown regions of Central
Africa, liis word to the Directors was always
"Onward." lie was haunted by the vastness of
the undiscovered country, and longed to carry
the light of the gospel to the people who sat in
darkness, and to cheek the hideous curse of
slavery.
FIRST GREAT DISCOVERY.
Livingstone's career as an explorer began in
loin i?-- J! - < T _ 1 VT TT?_
wiin me uiseovcry or J-<aKe iNgami. nis
record as a geographer is thus summed up by
I)r. Blaikic:
"lie travelled 29,000 miles in Africa, and
added to the known part of the globe about a
million square miles. He discovered Lakes
Ngami, Shirwa, Nyassa, Mocro, and Bangwelo;
the Upper Zambesi, and many other rivers;
made known the wonderful Victoria Falls
. . . he was the first European to traverse
Hie whole lenflh nf T.nke Trmornnvilrn nnrl +o
give it its (rue orientation . . . and through
no fault of his own, just missed the information
that would have set at rest all his surmises
about the sources of the Nile."
AN HISTORIC JOURNEY.
Livingstone was in his fortieth year when he
set forth on his memorable journey from Cape
Town. After twelve years of ceaseless toil, he
might have claimed a x long furlough with his