24 DAVID LIVINGSTONE. [chap. n. 



(1837-38) Livingstone applied to the London Missionary 

 Society, offering his services to them as a missionary. 

 He had learned that that Society had for its sole object 

 to send the gospel to the heathen ; that it accepted 

 missionaries from different Churches, and that it did not 

 set up any particular form of Church, but left it to the 

 converts to choose the form they considered most in 

 accordance with the Word of God. This agreed with 

 Livingstone's own notion of what a Missionary Society 

 should do. He had already connected himself with 

 the Independent communion, but his preference for it was 

 founded chiefly on his greater regard for the personnel of 

 the body, and for the spirit in which it was administered, 

 as compared with the Presbyterian Churches of Scotland. 

 He had very strong views of the spirituality of the Church 

 of Christ, and the need of a profound spiritual change as 

 the only true basis of Christian life and character. He 

 thought that the Presbyterian Churches were too lax in 

 their communion, and particularly the Established Church. 

 He was at this time a decided Voluntary, chiefly on the 

 ground maintained by such men as Vinet, that the con- 

 nection of Church and State was hurtful to the spirituality 

 of the Church ; and he had a particular abhorrence of 

 what he called "geographical Christianity," — which gave 

 every man within a certain area a right to the sacraments. 

 We shall see that in his later years Dr. Livingstone saw 

 reason to modify some of these opinions ; surveying the 

 Evangelical Churches from the heart of Africa, he came to 

 think that, established or non-established, they did not 

 differ so very much from each other, and that there was 

 much good and considerable evil in them all. 



In his application to the London Missionary Society, 

 Livingstone stated his ideas of missionary work in com- 

 prehensive terms : — " The missionary's object is to en- 

 deavour by every means in his power to make known the 

 gospel by preaching, exhortation, conversation, instruction 



