The Personal Life of David Livingstone: Chiefly from his Unpublished Journals and Correspondence in the Possession of His FamilyBlaikie, William Garden
Religion
The Personal Life of David Livingstone: Chiefly from his Unpublished Journals and Correspondence in the Possession of His Family
Blaikie, William Garden
Livingstone, David, 1813-1873
It was painful to Livingstone to say good-bye to the Bakwains, and (as
Mrs. Moffat afterward reminded him) his friends were not all in favor of
his doing so; but he regarded his departure as inevitable. After a short
stay at Kuruman, he and his family went on to Cape Town, where they
arrived on the 16th of March, 1852, and had new proofs of Mr. Oswell's
kindness. After eleven years' absence, Livingstone's dress-coat had
fallen a little out of fashion, and the whole costume of the party was
somewhat in the style of Robinson Crusoe. The generosity of "the best
friend we have in Africa" made all comfortable, Mr. Oswell remarking
that Livingstone had as good a right as he to the money drawn from the
"preserves on his estate"--the elephants. Mentally, Livingstone traces
to its source the kindness of his friend, thinking of One to whom he
owed all--"O divine Love, I have not loved Thee strongly, deeply, warmly
enough." The retrospect of his eleven years of African labor, unexampled
though they had been, only awakened in him the sense of
unprofitable service.
Before closing the record of this period, we must take a glance at the
remarkable literary activity which it witnessed. We have had occasion to
refer to Livingstone's first letters to Captain Steele, for the
Geographical Society; additional letters were contributed from time to
time. His philological researches have also been noticed. In addition to
these, we find him writing two articles on African Missions for the
_British Quarterly Review_, only one of which was published. He likewise
wrote two papers for the _British Banner_ on the Boers. While crossing
the desert, after leaving the Cape on his first great journey, he wrote
a remarkable paper on "Missionary Sacrifices," and another of great
vigor on the Boers. Still another paper on Lake 'Ngami was written for a
Missionary Journal contemplated, but never started, under the editorship
of the late Mr. Isaac Taylor; and he had one in his mind on the religion
of the Bechuanas, presenting a view which differed somewhat from that of
Mr. Moffat. Writing to Mr. Watt from Linyanti (3d October, 1853), on
printing one of his papers, he says:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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