The Personal Life of David Livingstone/CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II.
MISSIONARY PREPARATION.
A.D. 1836--1840.
His desire to be a missionary to China--Medical missions--He studies at Glasgow--Classmates and teachers--He applies to London Missionary Society--His ideas of mission work--He is accepted provisionally--He goes to London--to Ongar--Reminiscences by Rev. Joseph Moore--by Mrs. Gilbert--by Rev. Isaac Taylor--Nearly rejected by the Directors--Returns to Ongar--to London--Letter to his sister--Reminiscences by Dr. Risdon Bennett--Promise to Professor Owen--Impression of his character on his friends and fellow-students--Rev. R. Moffat in England--Livingstone interested--Could not be sent to China--Is appointed to Africa--Providential links in his history--Illness--Last visits to his home--Receives Medical diploma--Parts from his family.
It was the appeal of Gutzlaff for China, as we have seen, that inspired
Livingstone with the desire to be a missionary; and China was the
country to which his heart turned. The noble faith and dauntless
enterprise of Gutzlaff, pressing into China over obstacles apparently
insurmountable, aided by his medical skill and other unusual
qualifications, must have served to shape Livingstone's ideal of a
missionary, as well as to attract him to the country where Gutzlaff
labored. It was so ordered, however, that in consequence of the opium
war shutting China, as it seemed, to the English, his lot was not cast
there; but throughout his whole life he had a peculiarly lively interest
in the country that had been the object of his first love. Afterward,
when his brother Charles, then in America, wrote to him that he, too,
felt called to the missionary office, China was the sphere which David
pointed out to him, in the hope that the door which had been closed to
the one brother might be opened to the other.
When he determined to be a missionary, the only persons to whom he communicated his purpose were his minister and his parents, from all of whom he received great encouragement[8]. He hoped that he would be able to go through the necessary preparation without help from any quarter. This was the more commendable, because in addition to the theological qualifications of a missionary, he determined to aquire those of a medical practitioner. The idea of medical missions was at that time comparatively new. It had been started in connection with missions to China, and it was in the prospect of going to that country that Livingstone resolved to obtain a medical education. It would have been comparatively easy for him, in a financial sense, to get the theological training, but the medical education was a costly affair. To a man of ordinary ideas, it would have seemed impossible to make the wages earned during the six months of summer avail not merely for his support then, but for winter too, and for lodgings, fees, and books besides. Scotch students have often done wonders in this way, notably the late Dr. John Henderson, a medical missionary to China, who actually lived on half-a-crown a week, while attending medical classes in Edinburgh. Livingstone followed the same self-denying course. If we had a note of his house-keeping in his Glasgow lodging, we should wonder less at his ability to live on the fare to which he was often reduced in Africa. But the importance of the medical qualification had taken a firm hold of his mind, and he persevered in spite of difficulties. Though it was never his lot to exercise the healing art in China, his medical training was of the highest use in Africa, and it developed wonderfully his strong scientific turn.
[Footnote 8: Livingstone's minister at this time was the Rev. John Moir, of the Congregational church, Hamilton, who afterward joined the Free Church of Scotland, and is now Presbyterian minister in Wellington, New Zealand. Mr. Moir has furnished us with some recollections of Livingstone, which reached us after the completion of this narrative. He particularly notes that when Livingstone expressed his desire to be a missionary, it was a missionary out and out, a missionary to the heathen, not the minister of a congregation. Mr. Moir kindly lent him some books when he went to London, all of which were conscientiously returned before he left the country. A Greek Lexicon, with only cloth boards when lent, was returned in substantial calf. He was ever careful, conscientious, and honorable in all his dealings, as his father had been before him.]
It was in the winter of 1836-37 that he spent his first session in Glasgow. Furnished by a friend with a list of lodgings, Livingstone and his father set out from Blantyre one wintry day, while the snow was on the ground, and walked to Glasgow. The lodgings were all too expensive. All day they searched for a cheaper apartment, and at last in Rotten Row they found a room at two shillings a week. Next evening David wrote to his friends that he had entered in the various classes, and spent twelve pounds in fees; that he felt very lonely after his father left, but would put "a stout heart to a stey brae," and "either mak' a spune or spoil a horn." At Rotten Row he found that his landlady held rather communistic views in regard to his tea and sugar; so another search had to be made, and this time he found a room in the High street, where he was very comfortable, at half-a-crown a week.
At the close of the session in April he returned to Blantyre and resumed work at the mill. He was unable to save quite enough for his second session, and found it necessary to borrow a little from his elder brother[9]. The classes he attended during these two sessions were the Greek class in Anderson's College, the theological classes of Rev. Dr. Wardlaw, who trained students for the Independent Churches, and the medical classes in Anderson's. In the Greek class he seems to have been entered as a private student exciting little notice[10]. In the same capacity he attended the lectures of Dr. Wardlaw. He had a great admiration for that divine, and accepted generally his theological views. But Livingstone was not much of a scientific theologian.
[Footnote 9: The readiness of elder brothers to advance part of their hard-won earnings, or otherwise encourage a younger brother to attend college, is a pleasant feature of family life in the humbler classes of Scotland. The case of James Beattie, the poet, assisted by his brother David, and that of Sir James Simpson, who owed so much to his brother Alexander, will be remembered in this connection.]
[Footnote 10: A very sensational and foolish reminiscence was once published of a raw country youth coming into the class with his clothes stained with grease and whitened by cotton-wool. This was Livingstone. The fact is, nothing could possibly have been more unlike him. At this time Livingstone was not working at the mill; and, in regard to dress, however plainly he might be clad, he was never careless, far less offensive.]
His chief work in Glasgow was the prosecution of medical study. Of his teachers, two attracted him beyond the rest--the late Dr. Thomas Graham, the very distinguished Professor of Chemistry, and Dr. Andrew Buchanan, Professor of the Institutes of Medicine, his life-long and much-attached friend. While attending Dr. Graham's class he was brought into frequent contact with the assistant to the Professor, Mr. James Young. Originally bred to a mechanical employment, this young man had attended the evening course of Dr. Graham, and having attracted his attention, and done various pieces of work for him, he became his assistant. The students used to gather round him, and several met in his room, where there was a bench, a turning-lathe, and other conveniences for mechanical work. Livingstone took an interest in the turning-lathe, and increased his knowledge of tools--a knowledge which proved of the highest service to him when--as he used to say all missionaries should be ready to do--he had to become a Jack-of-all-trades in Africa.
Livingstone was not the only man of mark who frequented that room, and got lessons from Mr. Young "how to use his hands." The Right Hon. Lyon Playfair, who has had so distinguished a scientific career, was another of its habitués. A galvanic battery constructed by two young men on a new principle, under Mr. Young's instructions, became an object of great attraction, and among those who came to see it and its effects were two sons of the Professor of Mathematics in the University. Although but boys, both were fired at this interview with enthusiasm for electric science. Both have been for many years Professors in the University of Glasgow. The elder, Professor James Thomson, is well known for his useful inventions and ingenious papers on many branches of science. The younger, Sir William Thomson, ranks over the world as prince of electricians, and second to no living man in scientific reputation.
Dr. Graham's assistant devoted himself to practical chemistry, and made for himself a brilliant name by the purification of petroleum, adapting it for use in private houses, and by the manufacture of paraffin and paraffin-oil. Few men have made the art to which they devoted themselves more subservient to the use of man than he whom Livingstone first knew as Graham's assistant, and afterward used to call playfully "Sir Paraffin." "I have been obliged to knight him," he used to say, "to distinguish him from the other Young." The "other" Young was Mr. E. D. Young, of the Search Expedition, and subsequently the very successful leader of the Scotch Mission at Lake Nyassa. The assistant to Dr. Graham still survives, and is well known as Mr. Young, of Kelly, LL.D. and F.R.S.
When Livingstone returned from his first journey his acquaintance with Mr. Young was resumed, and their friendship continued through life. It is no slight testimony from one who knew him so long and so intimately, that, in his judgment, Livingstone was the best man he ever knew, had more than any other man of true filial trust in God, more of the spirit of Christ, more of integrity, purity, and simplicity of character, and of self-denying love for his fellow-men. Livingstone named after him a river which he supposed might be one of the sources of the Nile, and used ever to speak with great respect of the chief achievement of Mr. Young's life,--filling houses with a clear white light at a fraction of the cost of the smoky article which it displaced.
Beyond their own department, men of science are often as lax and illogical as any; but when scientific training is duly applied, it genders a habit of thorough accuracy, inasmuch as in scientific inquiry the slightest deviation from truth breeds endless mischief. Other influences had already disposed Livingstone to great exactness of statement, but along with these his scientific training may be held to have contributed to that dread of exaggeration and of all inaccuracy which was so marked a feature of his character through life.
It happened that Livingstone did not part company with Professor Graham and Mr. Young when he left Glasgow. The same year, Dr. Graham went to London as Professor in University College, and Livingstone, who also went to London, had the opportunity of paying occasional visits to his class. In this way, too, he became acquainted with the late Dr. George Wilson, afterward Professor of Technology in the University of Edinburgh, who was then acting as unsalaried assistant in Dr. Graham's laboratory. Frank, genial, and chivalrous, Wilson and Livingstone had much in common, and more in after-years, when Wilson, too, became an earnest Christian. In the simplicity and purity of their character, and in their devotion to science, not only for its own sake, but as a department of the kingdom of God, they were brothers indeed. Livingstone showed his friendship in after-years by collecting and transmitting to Wilson whatever he could find in Africa worthy of a place in the Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art, of which his friend was the first Director.
In the course of his second session in Glasgow (1837-38) Livingstone applied to the London Missionary Society, offering his services to them as a missionary. He had learned that that Society had for its sole object to send the gospel to the heathen; that it accepted missionaries from different Churches, and that it did not set up any particular form of Church, but left it to the converts to choose the form they considered most in accordance with the Word of God. This agreed with Livingstone's own notion of what a Missionary Society should do. He had already connected himself with the Independent communion, but this preference for it was founded chiefly on his greater regard for the _personnel_ of the body, and for the spirit in which it was administered, as compared with the Presbyterian Churches of Scotland. He had very strong views of the spirituality of the Church of Christ, and the need of a profound spiritual change as the only true basis of Christian life and character. He thought that the Presbyterian Churches were too lax in their communion, and particularly the Established Church. He was at this time a decided Voluntary, chiefly on the ground maintained by such men as Vinet, that the connection of Church and State was hurtful to the spirituality of the Church; and he had a particular abhorrence of what he called "geographical Christianity,"--which gave every man within a certain area a right to the sacraments. We shall see that in his later years Dr. Livingstone saw reason to modify some of these opinions; surveying the Evangelical Churches from the heart of Africa, he came to think that, established or non-established, they did not differ so very much from each other, and that there was much good and considerable evil in them all.
In his application to the London Missionary Society, Livingstone stated his ideas of missionary work in comprehensive terms: "The missionary's object is to endeavor by every means in his power to make known the gospel by preaching, exhortation, conversation, instruction of the young; improving, so far as in his power, the temporal condition of those among whom he labors, by introducing the arts and sciences of civilization, and doing everything to commend Christianity to their hearts and consciences. He will be exposed to great trials of his faith and patience from the indifference, distrust, and even direct opposition and scorn of those for whose good he is laboring; he may be tempted to despondency from the little apparent fruit of his exertions, and exposed to all the contaminating influence of heathenism." He was not about to undertake this work without counting the cost. "The hardships and dangers of missionary life, so far as I have had the means of ascertaining their nature and extent, have been the subject of serious reflection, and in dependence on the promised assistance of the Holy Spirit, I have no hesitation in saying that I would willingly submit to them, considering my constitution capable of enduring any ordinary share of hardship or fatigue." On one point he was able to give the Directors very explicit information: he was not married, nor under any engagement of marriage, nor had he ever made proposals of marriage, nor indeed been in love! He would prefer to go out unmarried, that he might, like the great apostle, be without family cares, and give himself entirely to the work.
His application to the London Missionary Society was provisionally accepted, and in September, 1838, he was summoned to London to meet the Directors. A young Englishman came to London on the same errand at the same time, and a friendship naturally arose between the two. Livingstone's young friend was the Rev. Joseph Moore, afterwards missionary at Tahiti; now of Congleton, in Cheshire. Nine years later, Livingstone, writing to Mr. Moore from Africa, said: "Of all those I have met since we parted, I have seen no one I can compare to you for sincere, hearty friendship." Livingstone's family used to speak of them as Jonathan and David. Mr. Moore has kindly furnished us with his recollections of Livingstone at this time:--
"I met with Livingstone first in September, 1838, at 57 Aldersgate street, London. On the same day we had received a letter from the Secretary informing us severally that our applications had been received, and that we must appear in London to be examined by the Mission Board there. On the same day, he from Scotland, and I from the south of England, arrived in town. On that night we simply accosted each other, as those who meet at a lodging house might do. After breakfast on the following day we fell into conversation, and finding that the same object had brought us to the metropolis, and that the same trial awaited us, naturally enough we were drawn to each other. Every day, as we had not been in town before, we visited places of renown in the great city, and had many a chat about our prospects.
"On Sunday, in the morning, we heard Dr. Leifchild, who was then in his prime, and in the evening Mr. Sherman, who preached with all his accustomed persuasiveness and mellifluousness. In the afternoon we worshiped at St. Paul's, and heard Prebendary Dale.
"On Monday we passed our first examination. On Tuesday we went to Westminster Abbey. Who that had seen those two young men passing from monument to monument could have divined that one of them would one day be buried with a nation's--rather with the civilized world's--lament, in that sacred shrine? The wildest fancy could not have pictured that such an honor awaited David Livingstone. I grew daily more attached to him. If I were asked why, I should be rather at a loss to reply. There was truly an indescribable charm about him, which, with all his rather ungainly ways, and by no means winning face, attracted almost every one, and which helped him so much in his after-wanderings in Africa.
"He won those who came near him by a kind of spell. There happened to be in the boarding-house at that time a young M.D., a saddler from Hants, and a bookseller from Scotland. To this hour they all speak of him in rapturous terms.
"After passing two examinations, we were both so far accepted by the Society that we were sent to the Rev. Richard Cecil, who resided at Chipping Ongar, in Essex. Most missionary students were sent to him for three months' probation, and if a favorable opinion was sent to the Board of Directors, they went to one of the Independent colleges. The students did not for the most part live with Mr. Cecil, but took lodgings in the town, and went to his house for meals and instruction in classics and theology. Livingstone and I lodged together. We read Latin and Greek, and began Hebrew together. Every day we took walks, and visited all the spots of interest in the neighborhood, among them the country churchyard which was the burial-place of John Locke. In a place so quiet, and a life so ordinary as that of a student, there did not occur many events worthy of recital. I will, however, mention one or two things, because they give an insight--a kind of prophetic glance--into Livingstone's after-career.
"One foggy November morning, at three o'clock, he set out from Ongar to walk to London to see a relative of his father's[11]. It was about twenty-seven miles to the house he sought. After spending a few hours with his relation, he set out to return on foot to Ongar. Just out of London, near Edmonton, a lady had been thrown out of a gig. She lay stunned on the road. Livingston immediately went to her, helped to carry her into a house close by, and having examined her and found no bones broken, and recommending a doctor to be called, he resumed his weary tramp. Weary and footsore, when he reached Stanford Rivers he missed his way, and finding after some time that he was wrong, he felt so dead-beat that he was inclined to lie down and sleep; but finding a directing-post he climbed it, and by the light of the stars deciphered enough to know his whereabouts. About twelve that Saturday night he reached Ongar, white as a sheet, and so tired he could hardly utter a word. I gave him a basin of bread and milk, and I am not exaggerating when I say I put him to bed. He fell at once asleep, and did not awake till noonday had passed on Sunday.
[Footnote 11: We learn from the family that the precise object of the visit was to transact some business for his eldest brother, who had begun to deal in lace. In the darkness of the morning Livingstone fell into a ditch, smearing his clothes, and not improving his appearance for smart business purposes. The day was spent in going about in London from shop to shop, greatly increasing Livingstone's fatigue.]
"Total abstinence at that time began to be spoken of, and Livingstone and I, and a Mr. Taylor, who went to India, took a pledge together to abstain[12]. Of that trio, two, I am sorry to say _(heu me miserum!),_ enfeebled health, after many years, compelled to take a little wine for our stomachs' sake. Livingstone was one of the two.
[Footnote 12: Livingstone had always practiced total abstinence, according to the invariable custom of his father's house. The third of the trio was the Rev. Joseph V.S. Taylor, now of the Irish Presbyterian Mission, Gujerat, Bombay.]
"One part of our duties was to prepare sermons, which were submitted to Mr. Cecil, and, when corrected, were committed to memory, and then repeated to our village congregations. Livingstone prepared one, and one Sunday the minister of Stamford Rivers; where the celebrated Isaac Taylor resided, having fallen sick after the morning service, Livingstone was sent for to preach in the evening. He took his text, read it out very deliberately, and then--then--his sermon had fled! Midnight darkness came upon him, and he abruptly said: 'Friends, I have forgotten all I had to say,' and hurrying out of the pulpit, he left the chapel.
"He never became a preacher" [we shall see that this does not apply to his preaching in the Sichuana language], "and in the first letter I received from him from Elizabeth Town, in Africa, he says: 'I am a very poor preacher, having a bad delivery, and some of them said if they knew I was to preach again they would not enter the chapel. Whether this was all on account of my manner I don't know; but the truth which I uttered seemed to plague very much the person who supplies the missionaries with wagons and oxen. (They were bad ones.) My subject was the necessity of adopting the benevolent spirit of the Son of God, and abandoning the selfishness of the world.' Each student at Ongar had also to conduct family worship in rotation. I was much impressed by the fact that Livingstone never prayed without the petition that we might imitate Christ in all his imitable perfections[13]."
[Footnote 13: In connection with this prayer, it is interesting to note the impression made by Livingstone nearly twenty years afterward on one who saw him but twice--once at a public breakfast in Edinburgh, and again at the British Association in Dublin in 1857. We refer to Mrs. Sime, sister of Livingstone's early friend, Professor George Wilson, of Edinburgh. Mrs. Sime writes; "I never knew any one who gave me more the idea of power over other men, such power as our Saviour showed while on earth, the power of love and purity combined."]
In the Autobiography of Mrs. Gilbert, an eminent member of the family of the Taylors of Ongar, there occur some reminiscenses of Livingstone, corresponding to those here given by Mr. Moore[14].
[Footnote 14: Page 886, third edition.]
The Rev. Isaac Taylor, LL.D., now rector of Settringham, York, son of the celebrated author of _The Natural History of Enthusiasm_, and himself author of _Words and Places, Etruscan Researches_, etc., has kindly furnished us with the following recollection: "I well remember as a boy taking country rambles with Livingstone when he was studying at Ongar. Mr. Cecil had several missionary students, but Livingstone was the only one whose personality made any impression on my boyish imagination. I might sum up my impression of him in two words--simplicity and resolution. Now, after nearly forty years, I remember his step, the characteristic forward tread, firm, simple, resolute, neither fast nor slow, no hurry and no dawdle, but which evidently meant--getting there[15]."
[Footnote 15: On one occasion, in conversation with his former pastor, the Rev. John Moir, Livingstone spoke of Mr. Isaac Taylor, who had shown him much kindness, and often invited him to dine in his house. He said that though Mr. Taylor was connected with the Independents, he was attached to the principles of the Church of England. Mr. Taylor used to lay very great stress on acquaintance with the writings of the Fathers as necessary for meeting the claims of the Tractarians, and did not think that that study was sufficiently encouraged by the Nonconformists. Any one who has been in Mr. Taylor's study at Stanford Rivers, and who remembers the top-heavy row of patristic folios that crowned his collection of books, and the glance of pride he cast on them as he asked his visitor whether many men in his Church were well read in the Fathers, will be at no loss to verify this reminiscence. Certainly Livingstone had no such qualification, and undoubtedly he never missed it.]
We resume Mr. Moore's reminiscences:
"When three months had elapsed, Mr. Cecil sent in his report to the Board. Judging from Livingstone's hesitating manner in conducting family worship, and while praying on the week-days in the chapel, and also from his failure so complete in preaching, an unfavorable report was given in.... Happily, when it was read, and a decision was about to be given against him, some one pleaded hard that his probation should be extended, and so he had several months' additional trial granted. I sailed in the same boat, and was also sent back to Ongar as a naughty boy.... At last we had so improved that both were fully accepted. Livingstone went to London to pursue his medical studies, and I went to Cheshunt College, A day or two after reaching college, I sent to Livingstone, asking him to purchase a second-hand carpet for my room. He was quite scandalized at such an exhibition of effeminacy, and positively refused to gratify my wish.... In the spring of 1840 I met Livingstone at London in Exeter Hall, when Prince Albert delivered his maiden speech in England. I remember how nearly he was brought to silence when the speech, which he had lodged on the brim of his hat, fell into it, as deafening cheers made it vibrate. A day or two after, we heard Binney deliver his masterly missionary sermon, 'Christ seeing of the travail of his soul and being satisfied.'"
The meeting at Exeter Hall was held to inaugurate the Niger Expedition. It was on this occasion that Samuel Wilberforce became known as a great platform orator[16]. It must have been pleasant to Livingstone in after-years to recall the circumstance when he became a friend and correspondent of the Bishop of Oxford.
[Footnote 16: _Life of Bishop Wilberforce_, vol. i, p. 160.]
Notwithstanding the dear postage of the time, Livingstone wrote regularly to his friends, but few of his letters have survived. One of the few, dated 5th May, 1839, is addressed to his sister, and in it he says that there had been some intention of sending him abroad at once, but that he was very desirous of getting more education. The letter contains very little news, but is full of the most devout aspirations for himself and exhortations to his sister. Alluding to the remark of a friend that they should seek to be "uncommon Christians, that is, eminently holy and devoted servants of the Most High," he urges:
"Let us seek--and with the conviction that we cannot do
without it--that all selfishness be extirpated, pride
banished, unbelief driven from the mind, every idol
dethroned, and everything hostile to holiness and opposed to
the divine will crucified; that 'holiness to the Lord' may be
engraven on the heart, and evermore characterize our whole
conduct. This is what we ought to strive after; this is the
way to be happy; this is what our Saviour loves--entire
surrender of the heart. May He enable us by his Spirit to
persevere till we attain it! All comes from Him, the
disposition to ask as well as the blessing itself.
"I hope you improve the talents committed to you whenever
there is an opportunity. You have a class with whom you have
some influence. It requires prudence in the way of managing
it; seek wisdom from above to direct you; _persevere_--don't
be content with once or twice recommending the Saviour to
them--again and again, in as kind a manner as possible,
familiarly, individually, and privately, exhibit to them the
fountain of happiness and joy, never forgetting to implore
divine energy to accompany your endeavors, and you need not
fear that your labor will be unfruitful. If you have the
willing mind, that is accepted; nothing is accepted if that
be wanting. God desires that. He can do all the rest. After
all, He is the sole agent, for the 'willing mind' comes alone
from Him. This is comforting, for when we think of the
feebleness and littleness of all we do, we might despair of
having our services accepted, were we not assured that it is
not these God looks to, except in so far as they are
indications of the state of the heart."
Dr. Livingstone's sisters have a distinct recollection that the field to which the Directors intended to send him was the West Indies, and that he remonstrated on the ground that he had spent two years in medical study, but in the West Indies, where there were regular practitioners, his medical knowledge would be of little or no avail. He pleaded with the Directors, therefore, that he might be allowed to complete his medical studies, and it was then that Africa was provisionally fixed on as his destination. It appears, however, that he had not quite abandoned the thought of China. Mr. Moir, his former pastor, writes that being in London in May, 1839, he called at the Mission House to make inquiries about him. He asked whether the Directors did not intend to send him to the East Indies, where the field was so large and the demand so urgent, but he was told that though they esteemed him highly, they did not think that his gifts fitted him for India, and that Africa would be a more suitable field.
On returning to London, Livingstone devoted himself with special ardor to medical and scientific study. The church with which he was connected was that of the late Rev. Dr. Bennett, in Falcon Square. This led to his becoming intimate with Dr. Bennett's son, now the well-known J. Risdon Bennett, M.D., LL.D., F.R.S., and President of the Royal College of Physicians, London. The friendship continued during the whole of Dr. Livingstone's life. From some recollections with which Dr. Bennett has kindly furnished us we take the following:
"My acquaintance with David Livingstone was through the
London Missionary Society, when, having offered himself to
that Society, he came to London to carry on those medical and
other studies which he had commenced in Glasgow. From the
first, I became deeply interested in his character, and ever
after maintained a close friendship with him. I entertained
toward him a sincere affection, and had the highest
admiration of his endowments, both of mind and heart, and of
his pure and noble devotion of all his powers to the highest
purposes of life. One could not fail to be impressed with his
simple, loving, Christian spirit, and the combined modest,
unassuming, and self-reliant character of the man.
"He placed himself under my guidance in reference to his
medical studies, and I was struck with the amount of
knowledge that he had already acquired of those subjects
which constitute the foundation of medical science. He had,
however, little or no acquaintance with the practical
departments of medicine, and had had no opportunities of
studying the nature and aspects of disease. Of these
deficiencies he was quite aware, and felt the importance of
acquiring as much practical knowledge as possible during his
stay in London. I was at that time physician to the
Aldersgate Street Dispensary, and was lecturing at the
Charing Cross Hospital on the practice of medicine, and thus
was able to obtain for him free admission to hospital
practice as well as attendance on my lectures and my practice
at the dispensary. I think that I also obtained for him
admission to the opthalmic hospital in Moorfields. With these
sources of information open to him, he obtained a
considerable acquaintance with the more ordinary forms of
disease, both surgical and medical, and an amount of
scientific and practical knowledge that could not fail to be
of the greatest advantage to him in the distant regions to
which he was going, away from all the resources of
civilization. His letters to me, and indeed all the records
of his eventful life, demonstrate how great to him was the
value of the medical knowledge with which he entered on
missionary life. There is abundant evidence that on various
occasions his own life was preserved through his courageous
and sagacious application of his scientific knowledge to his
own needs; and the benefits which he conferred on the natives
to whose welfare he devoted himself, and the wonderful
influence which he exercised over them, were in no small
degree due to the humane and skilled assistance which he was
able to render as a healer of bodily disease. The account
which he gave me of his perilous encounter with the lion, and
the means he adopted for the repair of the serious injuries
which he received, excited the astonishment and admiration of
all the medical friends to whom I related it, as evincing an
amount of courage, sagacity, skill, and endurance that have
scarcely been surpassed in the annals of heroism."
Another distinguished man of science with whom Livingstone became acquainted in London, and on whom he made an impression similar to that made on Dr. Bennett, was Professor Owen. Part of the little time at his disposal was devoted to studying the series of comparative anatomy in the Hunterian Museum, under Professor Owen's charge. Mr. Owen was interested to find that the Lanarkshire student was born in the same neighborhood as Hunter[17], but still more interested in the youth himself and his great love of natural history. On taking leave, Livingstone promised to bear his instructor in mind if any curiosity fell in his way. Years passed, and as no communication reached him, Mr. Owen was disposed to class the promise with too many others made in the like circumstances. But on his first return to this country Livingstone presented himself, bearing the tusk of an elephant with a spiral curve. He had found it in the heart of Africa, and it was not easy of transport. "You may recall," said Professor Owen, at the Farewell Festival in 1858, "the difficulties of the progress of the weary sick traveler on the bullock's back. Every pound weight was of moment; but Livingstone said, 'Owen shall have this tusk,' and he placed it in my hands in London." Professor Owen recorded this as a proof of Livingstone's inflexible adherence to his word. With equal justice we may quote it as a proof of his undying gratitude to any one that had shown him kindness.
[Footnote 17: Not in the same _parish_, as stated afterward by Professor Owen. Hunter was born in East Kilbride, and Livingstone in Blantyre. The error is repeated in notices of Livingstone in some other quarters.]
On all his fellow-students and acquaintances the simplicity, frankness, and kindliness of Livingstone's character made a deep impression. Mr. J.S. Cook, now of London, who spent three months with him at Ongar, writes: "He was so kind and gentle in word and deed to all about him that all loved him. He had always words of sympathy at command, and was ready to perform acts of sympathy for those who were suffering." The Rev. G.D. Watt, a brother Scotchman, who went as a missionary to India, has a vivid remembrance of Livingstone's mode of discussion; he showed great simplicity of view, along with a certain roughness or bluntness of manner; great kindliness, and yet great persistence in holding to his own ideas. But none of his friends seem to have had any foresight of the eminence he was destined to attain. The Directors of the Society did not even rank him among their ablest men. It is interesting to contrast the opinion entertained of him then with that expressed by Sir Bartle Frere, after much personal intercourse, many years afterward. "Of his intellectual force and energy," wrote Sir Bartle, "he has given such proof as few men could afford. Any five years of his life might in any other occupation have established a character and raised for him a fortune such as none but the most energetic of our race can realize[18]."
[Footnote 18: _Good Words_, 1874, p. 285.]
But his early friends were not so much at fault. Livingstone was somewhat slow of maturing. If we may say so, his intellect hung fire up to this very time, and it was only during his last year in England that he came to his intellectual manhood, and showed his real power. His very handwriting shows the change; from being cramped and feeble it suddenly becomes clear, firm, and upright, very neat, but quite the hand of a vigorous, independent man.
Livingstone's prospects of getting to China had been damaged by the Opium War; while it continued, no new appointments could be made, even had the Directors wished to send him there. It was in these circumstances that he came into contact with his countryman, Mr. (now Dr.) Moffat, who was then in England, creating much interest in his South African mission. The idea of his going to Africa became a settled thing, and was soon carried into effect.
"I had occasion" (Dr. Moffat has informed us) "to call for
some one at Mrs. Sewell's, a boarding-house for young
missionaries in Aldersgate street, where Livingstone lived. I
observed soon that this young man was interested in my story,
that he would sometimes come quietly and ask me a question or
two, and that he was always desirous to know where I was to
speak in public, and attended on these occasions. By and by
he asked me whether I thought he would do for Africa. I said
I believed he would, if he would not go to an old station,
but would advance to unoccupied ground, specifying the vast
plain to the north, where 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."
It is no wonder that all his life Livingstone had a very strong faith in Providence, for at every turn of his career up to this point, some unlooked-for circumstance had come in to give a new direction to his history. First, his reading Dick's _Philosophy of a Future State_, which led him to Christ, but did not lead him away from science; then his falling in with Gutzlaff's _Appeal_, which induced him to become a medical missionary; the Opium War, which closed China against him; the friendly word of the Director who procured for him another trial; Mr. Moffat's visit, which deepened his interest in Africa; and finally, the issue of a dangerous illness that attacked him in London--all indicated the unseen hand that was preparing him for his great work.
The meeting of Livingstone with Moffat is far too important an event to be passed over without remark. Both directly and indirectly Mr. Moffat's influence on his young brother, afterward to become his son-in-law, was remarkable. In after-life they had a thorough appreciation of each other. No family on the face of the globe could have been so helpful to Livingstone in connection with the great work to which he gave himself. If the old Roman fashion of surnames still prevailed, there is no household of which all the members would have been better entitled to put AFRICANUS after their name. The interests of the great continent were dear to them all. In 1872, when one of the Search Expeditions for Livingstone was fitted out, a grandson of Dr. Moffat, another Robert Moffat, was among those who set out in the hope of relieving him; cut off at the very beginning, in the flower of his youth, he left his bones to moulder in African soil.
The illness to which we have alluded was an attack of congestion of the liver, with an affection of the lungs. It seemed likely to prove fatal, and the only chance of recovery appeared to be a visit to his home, and return to his native air. In accompanying him to the steamer, Mr. Moore found him so weak that he could scarcely walk on board. He parted from him in tears, fearing that he had but a few days to live. But the voyage and the visit had a wonderful effect, and very soon Livingstone was in his usual health. The parting with his father and mother, as they afterward told Mr. Moore, was very affecting. It happened, however, that they met once more. It was felt that the possession of a medical diploma would be of service, and Livingstone returned to Scotland in November, 1840, and passed at Glasgow as Licentiate of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons. It was on this occasion he found it so inconvenient to have opinions of his own and the knack of sticking to them. It seemed as if he was going to be rejected for obstinately maintaining his views in regard to the stethoscope; but he pulled through. A single night was all that he could spend with his family, and they had so much to speak of that David proposed they should sit up all night. This, however, his mother would not hear of. "I remember my father and him," writes his sister, "talking over the prospects of Christian missions. They agreed that the time would come when rich men and 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 17th November we got up at five o'clock. My mother made coffee. David read the 121st and 135th Psalms, and prayed. My father and he walked to Glasgow to catch the Liverpool steamer." On the Broomielaw, father and son looked for the last time on earth on each other's faces. The old man walked back slowly to Blantyre, with a lonely heart no doubt, yet praising God. David's face was now set in earnest toward the Dark Continent.