1 836-40.] MISSIONAR Y PREPARA T10N. 3 1 



avail. He pleaded with the Directors, therefore, that he 

 might be allowed to complete his medical studies, and it 

 was then that Africa was provisionally fixed on as his 

 destination. It appears, however, that he had not quite 

 abandoned the thought of China. Mr. Moir, his former 

 pastor, writes that being in London in May 1839, he 

 called at the Mission House to make inquiries about him. 

 He asked whether the Directors did not intend to send 

 him to the East Indies, where the field was so large and 

 the demand so urgent, but he was told that though they 

 esteemed him highly, they did not think that his gifts 

 fitted him for India, and that Africa would be a more 

 suitable field. 



On returning to London, Livingstone devoted himself 

 with special ardour to medical and scientific study. The 

 church with which he was connected was that of the late 

 Rev. Dr. Bennett, in Falcon Square. This led to his 

 becoming intimate with Dr. Bennett's son, now the well- 

 known J. Risdon Bennett, M.D., LL.D., F.B.S., and 

 President of the Boyal College of Physicians, London. 

 The friendship continued during the whole of Dr. Living- 

 stone's life. From some recollections with which Dr. 

 Bennett has kindly furnished us, we take the follow- 

 ing:— 



"My acquaintance with David Livingstone was through the 

 London Missionary Society, when, having offered himself to that 

 Society, he came to London to carry on those medical and other 

 studies which he had commenced in Glasgow. From the first, I 

 became deeply interested in his character, and ever after maintained 

 a close friendship with him. I entertained towards him a sincere 

 affection, and had the highest admiration of his endowments, both of 

 mind and heart, and of his pure and noble devotion of all his powers 

 to the highest purposes of life. One could not fail to be impressed 

 with his simple, loving, Christian spirit, and the combined modest, 

 unassuming, and self-reliant character of the man. 



" He placed himself under my guidance in reference to his medical 

 studies, and I was struck with the amount of knowledge that he had 

 already acquired of those subjects which constitute the foundation of 

 medical science. He had, however, little or no acquaintance with the 



