He will bring us through the world with honor and usefulness.  He is our refuge and high tower; let us trust in Him at all times, and in all circumstances.  Love Him more and more, and diffuse his love among the children.  Take them all round you, and kiss them for me.  Tell them I have left them for the love of Jesus, and they must love Him too, and avoid sin, for that displeases Jesus.  I shall be delighted to hear of you all safe in England....”

A few days later, he writes to his eldest daughter, then in her fifth year: 

“Cape Town, 18th May, 1852.—­MY DEAR AGNES,—­This is your own little letter.  Mamma will read it to you, and you will hear her just as if I were speaking to you, for the words which I write are those which she will read.  I am still at Cape Town.  You know you left me there when you all went into the big ship and sailed away.  Well, I shall leave Cape Town soon.  Malatsi has gone for the oxen, and then I shall go away back to Sebituane’s country, and see Seipone and Meriye, who gave you the beads and fed you with milk and honey.  I shall not see you again for a long time, and I am very sorry.  I have no Nannie now.  I have given you back to Jesus, your Friend—­your Papa who is in heaven.  He is above you, but He is always near you.  When we ask things from Him, that is praying to Him; and if you do or say a naughty thing ask Him to pardon you, and bless you, and make you one of his children.  Love Jesus much, for He loves you, and He came and died for you.  Oh, how good Jesus is!  I love Him, and I shall love Him as long as I live.  You must love Him too, and you must love your brothers and mamma, and never tease them or be naughty, for Jesus does not like to see naughtiness.—­Good-bye, my dear Nannie,

     D. LIVINGSTON.”

Among his other occupations at Cape Town, Livingstone put himself under the instructions of the Astronomer-Royal, Mr. (afterward Sir Thomas) Maclear, who became one of his best and most esteemed friends.  His object was to qualify himself more thoroughly for taking observations that would give perfect accuracy to his geographical explorations.  He tried English preaching too, but his throat was still tender, and he felt very nervous, as he had done at Ongar.  “What a little thing,” he writes to Mr. Moffat, “is sufficient to bring down to old-wifeishness such a rough tyke as I consider myself!  Poor, proud human nature is a great fool after all.”  A second effort was more successful.  “I preached,” he writes to his wife, “on the text, ‘Why will ye die?’ I had it written out and only referred to it twice, which is an improvement in English.  I hope good was done.  The people were very attentive indeed.  I felt less at a loss than in Union Chapel[35].”  He arranged with a mercantile friend, Mr. Rutherfoord, to direct the operations of a native trader, George Fleming, whom that gentleman was to employ for the purpose of introducing lawful traffic in order to supplant the slave-trade.