1S47-52.] THIRD STATION. 87 



four around you, and I can scarcely believe myself to be 

 so far advanced as to be the father of two." 



Livingstone never expected the work of real Chris- 

 tianity to advance rapidly among the Bakwains. They 

 were a slow people and took long to move. But it was 

 not his desire to have a large church of nominal ad- 

 herents. " Nothing," he writes, "will induce me to form 

 an impure church. Fifty added to the church sounds 

 fine at home, but if only five of these are genuine; what 

 will it profit in the Great Day ? I have felt more than 

 ever lately that the great object of our exertions ought to 

 be conversion." There was no subject on which Living- 

 stone had stronger feelings than on purity of communion. 

 For two whole years he allowed no dispensation of the 

 Lord's Supper, because he did not deem the professing 

 Christians to be living consistently. Here was a crowning 

 proof of his hatred of all sham and false pretence, and 

 his intense love of solid, thorough, finished work. 



Hardly were things begun to be settled at Kolobeng 

 when, by way of relaxation, Livingstone (January 1848) 

 again moved eastwards. He would have gone sooner, but 

 " a mad sort of Scotchman," 1 having wandered past them 

 shooting elephants, and lost all his cattle by the bite of 

 the tsetse-fly, Livingstone had to go to his help ; and 

 moreover the dam, having burst, required to be repaired. 

 Sechele set out to accompany him, and intended to go 

 with him the whole way ; but some friends having come 

 to visit his tribe, he had to return, or at least did return, 

 leaving Livingstone four gallons of porridge, and two 

 servants to act in his stead. " He is about the only 

 individual," says Livingstone, " who possesses distinct 

 consistent views on the subject of our mission. He is 

 bound by his wives : has a curious idea — would like to go 

 to another country for three or four years in order to 

 study, with the hope that probably his wives would have 



1 Mr. Gordon Cumming. 



