The Personal Life of David Livingstone: Chiefly from his Unpublished Journals and Correspondence in the Possession of His Family — John Shaqi
The Personal Life of David Livingstone: Chiefly from his Unpublished Journals and Correspondence in the Possession of His FamilyBlaikie, William Garden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The Personal Life of David Livingstone: Chiefly from his Unpublished Journals and Correspondence in the Possession of His Family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
"I met with Livingstone first in September, 1838, at 57 Aldersgate
street, London. On the same day we had received a letter from the
Secretary informing us severally that our applications had been
received, and that we must appear in London to be examined by the
Mission Board there. On the same day, he from Scotland, and I from the
south of England, arrived in town. On that night we simply accosted each
other, as those who meet at a lodging house might do. After breakfast on
the following day we fell into conversation, and finding that the same
object had brought us to the metropolis, and that the same trial awaited
us, naturally enough we were drawn to each other. Every day, as we had
not been in town before, we visited places of renown in the great city,
and had many a chat about our prospects.
"On Sunday, in the morning, we heard Dr. Leifchild, who was then in his
prime, and in the evening Mr. Sherman, who preached with all his
accustomed persuasiveness and mellifluousness. In the afternoon we
worshiped at St. Paul's, and heard Prebendary Dale.
"On Monday we passed our first examination. On Tuesday we went to
Westminster Abbey. Who that had seen those two young men passing from
monument to monument could have divined that one of them would one day
be buried with a nation's--rather with the civilized world's--lament, in
that sacred shrine? The wildest fancy could not have pictured that such
an honor awaited David Livingstone. I grew daily more attached to him.
If I were asked why, I should be rather at a loss to reply. There was
truly an indescribable charm about him, which, with all his rather
ungainly ways, and by no means winning face, attracted almost every one,
and which helped him so much in his after-wanderings in Africa.
"He won those who came near him by a kind of spell. There happened to be
in the boarding-house at that time a young M.D., a saddler from Hants,
and a bookseller from Scotland. To this hour they all speak of him in
rapturous terms.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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