The Personal Life of David Livingstone: Chiefly from his Unpublished Journals and Correspondence in the Possession of His FamilyBlaikie, William Garden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The Personal Life of David Livingstone: Chiefly from his Unpublished Journals and Correspondence in the Possession of His Family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 would be heresy to mention the idea of purchasing lands,
like religious endowments, among the stiff
Congregationalists; but an endowment conferred on a man who
will risk his life in an unhealthy climate, in order,
thereby, to spread Christ's gospel among the heathen, is
rather different, I ween, from the same given to a man to act
as pastor to a number of professed Christians.... Some may
think it creditable to our principles that we have not a
single acre of land, the gift of the Colonial Government, in
our possession. But it does not argue much for our foresight
that we have not farms of our own, equal to those of any
colonial farmer."
Dr. Livingstone acknowledged the services of the Jesuit missionaries in
the cause of education and literature, and even of commerce. But while
conceding to them this meed of praise, he did not praise their worship.
He was slow, indeed, to disparage any form of worship--any form in
which men, however unenlightened, gave expression to their religious
feelings; but he could not away with the sight of men of intelligence
kissing the toe of an image of the Virgin, as he saw them doing in a
Portuguese church, and taking part in services in which they did not,
and could not, believe. If the missions of the Church of Rome had left
good effects on some parts of Africa, how much greater blessing might
not come from Protestant missions, with the Bible instead of the
Syllabus as their basis, and animated with the spirit of freedom instead
of despotism!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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