1 83 6-40.] MISSION AR Y PREPARA TION. 1 9 



been closed to the one brother might be opened to the 

 other. 



When he determined to be a missionary, the only 

 persons to whom he communicated his purpose were his 

 minister and his parents, from all of whom he received great 

 encouragement. 1 He hoped that he would be able to go 

 through the necessary preparation without help from any 

 quarter. This was the more commendable, because in 

 addition to the theological qualifications of a missionary? 

 he determined to acquire those of a medical practitioner. 

 The idea of Medical Missions was at that time com- 

 paratively new. It had been started in connection with 

 missions to China, and it was in the prospect of going 

 to that country that Livingstone resolved to obtain a 

 medical education. It would have been comparatively 

 easy for him, in a financial sense, to get the theological 

 training, but the medical education was a costly affair. 

 To a man of ordinary ideas, it would have seemed im- 

 possible to make the wages earned during the six months 

 of summer avail not merely for his support then, but for 

 winter too, and for lodgings, fees, and books besides. 

 Scotch students have often done wonders in this way, 

 notably the late Dr. John Henderson, a medical mis- 

 sionary to China, who actually lived on half-a-crown a 

 week, while attending medical classes in Edinburgh. 

 Livingstone followed the same self-denying course. If we 

 had a note of his housekeeping in his Glasgow lodging, 

 we should wonder less at his ability to live on the fare 



1 Livingstone's minister at this time was the Rev. John Moir, of the Congrega- 

 tional church, Hamilton, who afterwards joined the Free Church of Scotland,, and 

 is now Presbyterian minister in Wellington, New Zealand. Mr. Moir has furnished 

 us with some recollections of Livingstone, which reached us after the completion 

 of this narrative. He particularly notes that when Livingstone expressed his 

 desire to be a missionary, it was a missionary out and out, a missionary to the 

 heathen, not the minister of a congi*egation. Mr. Moir kindly lent him some books 

 when he went to London, all of which were conscientiously returned before he left 

 the country. A Greek Lexicon, with only cloth boards when lent, was returned in 

 substantial calf. He was ever careful, conscientious, and honourable in all his 

 dealings, as his father had been before him. 



