ims 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 destitute 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
assured 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. God 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
God accept my service, and use me for his glory. A great honor it is to
he a fellow-worker with God." "It is a great venture," he writes to his
sister (28th April, 1851). "Fever may cu