Another time, when he and a brother missionary were on a tour a long way from home, a messenger came to tell his companion that one of his children was alarmingly ill. It was but natural for him to desire Livingstone to go back with him. The way lay over a road infested by lions. Livingstone's life would be in danger; moreover, as we have seen, he was intensely desirous to examine the fossil bones at the place. But when his friend expressed the desire for him to go, he went without hesitation. His firm belief in Providence sustained him in these as in so many other dangers. Medical practice was certainly not made easier by what happened to some of his packages from England. Writing to his father-in-law, Mr. Moffat (18th January, 1849), he says: "Most of our boxes which come to us from England are opened, and usually lightened of their contents. You will perhaps remember one in which Sechéle's cloak was. It contained, on leaving Glasgow, besides the articles which came here, a parcel of surgical instruments which I ordered, and of course paid for. One of these was a valuable cupping apparatus. The value at which the instruments were purchased for me was £4, 12s., their real value much more. "The box which you kindly packed for us and despatched to Glasgow has, we hear, been gutted by the Custom-House thieves, and only a very few plain karosses left in it. When we see a box which has been opened we have not half the pleasure which we otherwise should in unpacking it.... Can you give me any information how these annoyances may be prevented? Or must we submit to it as one of the crooked things of this life, which Solomon says cannot be made straight?" Not only in these scenes of active missionary labor, but everywhere else, Livingstone was in the habit of preaching to the natives, and conversing seriously with them on religion, his favorite topics being the love of Christ, the Fatherhood of God, the resurrection, and the last judgment. His preaching to them, in Dr. Moffat's judgment, was highly effective. It was simple, scriptural, conversational, went straight to the point, was well fitted to arrest the attention, and remarkably adapted to the capacity of the people. To his father he writes (5th July, 1848): "For a long time I felt much depressed after preaching the unsearchable riches of Christ to apparently insensible hearts; but now I like to dwell on the love of the great Mediator, for it always warms my own heart, and I know that the gospel is the power of God--the great means which He employs for the regeneration of our ruined world."