444 DA VID LIVINGSTONE. [chap. xxii. 



" Spare no pains," he wrote to Dr. Kirk in 1871, " in 

 attempting to persuade your superiors to this end, and 

 the Divine blessing will descend on you and yours." 



To his daughter Agnes he wrote (15th August 1872) : 

 " No one can estimate the amount of God-pleasing good 

 that will be done, if, by Divine favour, this awful slave- 

 trade, into the midst of which I have come, be abolished. 

 This will be something to have lived for, and the convic- 

 tion has grown in my mind that it was for this end I 

 have been detained so long." 



To his brother in Canada he says (December 1872) : 

 "If the good Lord permits me to put a stop to the 

 enormous evils of the inland slave-trade, I shall not 

 grudge my hunger and toils. I shall bless His name 

 with all my heart. The Nile sources are valuable to 

 me only as a means of enabling me to open my mouth 

 with power among men. It is this power I hope to 

 apply to remedy an enormous evil, and join my poor 

 little helping hand in the enormous revolution that in 

 His all-embracing Providence He has been carrying on 

 for ages, and is now actually helping forward. Men may 

 think I covet fame, but I make it a rule never to read 

 aught written in my praise." 



Livingstone's last birthday (19th March 1873) found 

 him in much the same circumstances as before. " Thanks 

 to the Almighty Preserver of men for sparing me thus 

 far on the journey of life. Can I hope for ultimate 

 success ? So many obstacles have arisen. Let not Satan 

 prevail over me, my good Lord Jesus." A few days 

 after (24th March), " Nothing earthly will make me give 

 up my work in despair. I encourage myself in the Lord 

 my God, and go forward." 



In the beginning of April, the bleeding from the 

 bowels, from which he had been suffering, became more 

 copious, and his weakness was pitiful ; still he longed for 

 strength to finish his work. Even yet the old passion 



