unfaltering courage through the most distressing
experiences. Disease, weakening, piteous, unromantic, unheroic, wasted
his form; ulcers, sores, horrible and hideous, made his progress slow
and his work sometimes a painful struggle over what many a man would
have deemed impossible barriers. The loss of his wife came to him twelve
years after she had elected to cast in her lot with his, but like Brutus
of old, he could exclaim,

"With meditating that she must die once,
I have the patience to endure it now.

Stanley could but marvel at such patience. On that memorable day when
they met, and the younger man gave the doctor his letters, he tells how
"Livingstone kept the letter-bag on his knee, then, presently opened it,
looked at the letters contained there, read one or two of his children's
letters, his face in the meanwhile lighting up. He asked me to tell him
the news, "No, Doctor," said I, "read your letters first, which I am
sure you must be impatient to read." "Ah," said he, "I have waited years
for letters, and I have been taught patience."

To you, of the younger generation, what a marvel, what a world of
meaning in those words--"I have been taught patience." We, who fret and
chafe because the whole world will not bend its will to our puny
strivings, and turn its whole course that we might have our unripe
desires fulfilled, should read and re-read of the man who could wait,
because he knew that time and all eternity would be bent to meet his
desires in time.

Livingstone's is a character that we cannot help but venerate; that
calls forth all one's enthusiasm; that evokes nothing but sincerest
admiration. He was sensitive, but so is any man of a high mind and
generous nature; he was sensitive on the point of being doubted or
criticised by the easy-chair geographers, lolling comfortably in their
clubs and scanning through their monocles the maps which the hard
working travellers had made. He was humble-souled, as are all the truly
great. His gentleness never forsook him; his hopefulness never deserted
him. No harassing anxiety, distraction of mind, long separation from
home and kindred, could make him complain. He thought all would come
out right at last, such faith had he in the goodness of Providence. The
sport of adverse circumstances; the plaything of the miserable slaves,
which were persistently sent him from Zanzibar, baffled and worried,
even almost to the grave; yet he would not desert the charge