484 DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



being cut off from all the joys of life in generously attempting to 

 render me a service. As there is no regular means of proceeding 

 from this to the Cape, I remain here in the hope of meeting another 

 cruiser, which the kindness of Commodore Trotter has led me to 

 expect, in preference to going by a small Arab or Portuguese 

 trading vessel to some point on the "overland route to India." 

 And though I may possibly reach you as soon as a letter, it appears 

 advisable to state in writing my thoughts respecting one or two 

 very important points in your communication. 



Accompanied by many kind expressions of approbation, which 

 I highly value on account of having emanated from a body of men 

 whose sole object in undertaking the responsibility and labour of 

 the Direction must have been a sincere desire to promote the 

 interests of the kingdom of our Lord among the heathen, I find 

 the intimation that the Directors are restricted in their power of 

 aiding plans connected only remotely with the spread of the 

 gospel. And it is added also, that even though certain very 

 formidable obstacles should prove surmountable, the "financial 

 circumstances of the Society are not such as to afford any ground 

 of hope that it would be, within any definite period, in a position 

 to enter upon untried, remote, and difficult fields of labour." 



If I am not mistaken, these statements imply a resolution on 

 the part of the gentlemen now in the Direction to devote the 

 decreasing income of the Society committed to their charge to 

 parts of the world of easy access, and in which the missionaries 

 may devote their entire time and energies to the dissemination of 

 the truths of the gospel with reasonable hopes of speedy success. 

 This, there can be no doubt, evinces a sincere desire to perform 

 their duty faithfully to their constituents, to the heathen, and to 

 our Lord and Master. Yet while still retaining that full convic- 

 tion of the purity of their motives, which no measure adopted 

 during the sixteen years of my connection with the Society has 

 for a moment disturbed, I feel constrained to view " the untried, 

 remote, and difficult fields," to which I humbly yet firmly believe 

 God has directed my steps, with a resolution widely different from 

 that which their words imply. As our aims and purposes will now 

 appear in some degree divergent — on their part from a sort of 

 paralysis caused by financial decay, and on mine from the simple 

 continuance of an old determination to devote my life and my all 

 to the service of Christ, in whatever way He may lead me in inter- 



