28 DAVID LIVINGSTONE. [chap. ii. 



" He never became a preacher " [we shall see that this does not 

 apply to his preaching in the Sichuana language], " and in the first 

 letter I received from him from Elizabeth Town in Africa he says, ' I 

 am a very poor preacher, having a bad delivery, and some of them 

 said if they knew I was to preach again they would not enter the 

 chapel. Whether this was all on account of my manner I don't know ; 

 but the truth which I uttered seemed to plague very much the person 

 who supplies the missionaries with wagons and oxen. (They were 

 bad ones.) My subject was the necessity of adopting the benevolent 

 spirit of the Son of God, and abandoning the selfishness of the world.' 

 Each student at Ongar had also to conduct family worship in rotation. 

 I was much impressed by the fact that Livingstone never prayed 

 without the petition that we might imitate Christ in all his imitable 

 perfections." 1 



In the Autobiography of Mrs. Gilbert, an eminent 

 member of the family of the Taylors of Ongar, there 

 occur some reminiscences of Livingstone, corresponding 

 to those here given by Mr. Moore. 2 



The Rev. Isaac Taylor, LL.D., now rector of Settring- 

 ham, York, son of the celebrated author of The Natural 

 History of Enthusiasm, and himself author of Words and 

 Places, Etruscan Researches, etc., has kindly furnished us 

 with the following recollection : " I well remember as a boy 

 taking country rambles with Livingstone when he was 

 studying at Ongar. Mr. Cecil had several missionary 

 students, but Livingstone was the only one whose per- 

 sonality made any impression on my boyish imagination. 

 I might sum up my impression of him in two words — 

 Simplicity and Resolution. Now, after nearly forty years, 

 I remember his step, the characteristic forward tread, 

 firm, simple, resolute, neither fast nor slow, no hurry and 

 no dawdle, but which evidently meant — getting there." 3 



1 In connection with this prayer, it is interesting to note the impression made by 

 Livingstone nearly twenty years afterwards on one who saw him but twice — once 

 at a public breakfast in Edinburgh, and again at the British Association in Dublin 

 in 1857. We refer to Mrs. Sime, sister of Livingstone's early friend, Professor 

 George Wilson of Edinburgh. Mrs Sime writes : "I never knew any one who 

 gave me more the idea of power over other men, such power as our Saviour 

 showed while on earth, the power of love and purity combined." 



2 Page 386, third edition. 



3 On one occasion, in conversation with his former pastor, the Rev. John Moir, 



