1 6 DAVID LIVINGSTONE. [chap. i. 



tude claimed his sympathy most. How quick the people 

 are, whether in England or in Africa, to find out this 

 sympathetic spirit, and how powerful is the hold of their 

 hearts which those who have it gain ! In poetic feeling, 

 or at least in the power of expressing it, as in many other 

 things, David Livingstone and Robert Burns were a 

 great contrast ; but in sympathy with the people they 

 were alike, and in both cases the people felt it. Away 

 and alone, in the heart of Africa, when mourning "the 

 pride and avarice that make man a wolf to man," Living- 

 stone would welcome the " good time coming," humming 

 the words of Burns — 



" When man to man, the world, o'er, 

 Shall brothers be for a' that." 



In all the toils and trials of his life, he found the good of 

 that early Blantyre discipline, which had forced him to 

 bear irksome toil with patience, until the toil ceased to be 

 irksome, and even became a pleasure. 



Livingstone has told us that the village of Blantyre, 

 with its population of two thousand souls, contained some 

 characters of sterling worth and ability, who exerted a 

 most beneficial influence on the children and youth of the 

 place by imparting gratuitous religious instruction. The 

 names of two of the worthiest of these are given, probably 

 because they stood highest in his esteem, and he owed 

 most to them, Thomas Burke and David Hogg. Essen- 

 tially alike, they seem to have been outwardly very 

 different. Thomas Burke, a somewhat wild youth, had 

 enlisted early in the army. His adventures and hair- 

 breadth escapes in the Forty-second, during the Penin- 

 sular and other wars, were marvellous, and used to be told 

 in after years to 'crowds of wondering listeners. But most 

 marvellous was the change of heart that brought him 

 back an intense Christian evangelist, who, in season and 

 out of season, never ceased to beseech the people of 

 Blantyre to yield themselves to God. Early on Sunday 



