m'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
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