The Personal Life of David Livingstone eBook

William Garden Blaikie
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 677 pages of information about The Personal Life of David Livingstone.

The Personal Life of David Livingstone eBook

William Garden Blaikie
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 677 pages of information about The Personal Life of David Livingstone.
“9_th August_.—­Parted with my friends Mr. and Mrs. Webb at King’s Cross station to-day.  He gracefully said that he wished I had been coming rather than going away, and she shook me very cordially with both hands, and said, ’You will come back again to us, won’t you?’ and shed a womanly tear.  The good Lord bless and save them both, and have mercy on their whole household!”
“11_th August_.—­Went down to say good-bye to the Duchess-Dowager of Sutherland, at Maidenhead.  Garibaldi’s rooms are shown; a good man he was, but followed by a crowd of harpies who tried to use him for their own purposes....  He was so utterly worn out by shaking hands, that a detective policeman who was with him in the carriage, put his hand under his cloak, and did the ceremony for him.

     “Took leave at Foreign Office.  Mr. Layard very kind in his
     expressions at parting, and so was Mr. Wylde.

“12_th August_.—­“Went down to Wimbledon to dine with Mr. Murray, and take leave.  Mr. and Mrs. Oswell came up to say farewell.  He offers to go over to Paris at any time to bring Agnes” [who was going to school there] “home, or do anything that a father would. ["I love him,” Livingstone writes to Mr. Webb, “with true affection, and I believe he does the same to me; and yet we never show it.”]
“We have been with Dr. and Mrs. Hamilton for some time—­good, gracious people.  The Lord bless them and their household!  Dr. Kirk and Mr. Waller go down to Folkestone to-morrow, and take leave of us there.  This is very kind.  The Lord puts it into their hearts to show kindness, and blessed be his name.”

Dr. Livingstone’s last weeks in England were passed under the roof of the late Rev. Dr. Hamilton, author of Life in Earnest, and could hardly have been passed in a more congenial home.  Natives of the same part of Scotland, nearly of an age, and resembling each other much in taste and character, the two men drew greatly to each other.  The same Puritan faith lay at the basis of their religious character, with all its stability and firmness.  But above all, they had put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.  In Natural History, too, they had an equal enthusiasm.  In Dr. Hamilton, Livingstone found what he missed in many orthodox men.  On the evening of his last Sunday, he was prevailed on to give an address in Dr. Hamilton’s church, after having in the morning received the Communion with the congregation.  In his address he vindicated his character as a missionary, and declared that it was as much as ever his great object to proclaim the love of Christ, which they had been commemorating that day.  His prayers made a deep impression; they were like the communings of a child with his father.  At the railway station, the last Scotch hands grasped by him were those of Dr. and Mrs. Hamilton.  The news of Dr. Hamilton’s death was received by Livingstone a few years after, in the heart of Africa, with no small emotion.  Their next meeting was in the better land.

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
The Personal Life of David Livingstone from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.