Beacon Lights of History, Volume 14: The New Era: A Supplementary Volume, by Recent Writers, as Set Forth in the Preface and Table of ContentsLord, John
Philosophy
Beacon Lights of History, Volume 14: The New Era: A Supplementary Volume, by Recent Writers, as Set Forth in the Preface and Table of Contents
Lord, John
History
Then dawned the era of David Livingstone. Sixty-two years ago this
humble Scotchman went to South Africa as a missionary. It was not long
before he became imbued with the idea that missionary service could not
be projected on broad, economic, and effective lines till the field was
known. The explorer, he said, must precede the teacher and the merchant.
We can work best for Christianity and civilization after we learn what
the people are and know the nature of their environment. This was the
thought that took him into the unknown; that inspired him with
unflagging courage and zeal throughout twenty years of weary plodding in
the African wilderness among hundreds of tribes who never before had
seen a white man. And all the years he was studying the country and
winning the love of its people, his faith in Africa, in its abounding
resources worth the world's seeking, in the capacity of its people for
development, steadily grew till it became the all-pervading impulse of
his life. Livingstone's faith converted the world to the belief that,
after all, there was good in Africa.
"I shall never forget," said Stanley, one day in New York, "the time
when I stood with Livingstone on the shore of Lake Tanganyika, and he
raised his trembling hand above his head, leaned towards me as he looked
me in the eye, and said in a voice broken with emotion: 'The day is
coming when the whole world will know that Africa is worth reclaiming,
and that its people may be brought out of barbarism. The world needs
Africa; and teachers, merchants, railroads, and every influence of
civilization will be spread through this continent to fit it for the
place in human interests that belongs to it.' I thought then that
Livingstone was an enthusiast and a visionary; but long ago I learned to
believe that every word he said was true."
Europe and America were thrilled by the simple narrative of those
twenty-two thousand miles of wanderings that brought into the light of
day millions of human beings who had been as much unknown to us as
though they inhabited Mars. Livingstone did not live to know it, but it
was he who kindled the great African Movement,--an outburst of zeal for
geographic discovery and economic development such as was never
seen before.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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