48 CONVERSION AND MISSIONARY SPIRIT. 



memorials of the past. The ancient domains of Bothwell stood 

 with open door to these respected villagers. David Livingstone 

 was one of the people, and loved these scenes ; he knew their 

 history, all their old traditions were in his heart. 



A youth, with the spirit of these associations and surround- 

 ings, fund of study, with abundant capacity, wanted only the 

 touch of divine grace, and his heart would bound to noble sacri- 

 fice for Christ; he would not think of himself. The time came. 

 " The change," he says, " was like what may be supposed would 

 take place, were it possible to cure a case of color-blindness." 

 The appreciation of God's love was humiliating and controlling. 

 The freeness of grace engaged his gratitude and affection ; the 

 fulness and magnitude of it was unanswerable, and constrained 

 him. There was no expression left him but that of a life given 

 in return. He gave himself to God immediately. He deter- 

 mined to give himself to the heathen. But it was not Africa 

 which he thought of. He was not like Park — he did not make 

 special preparation for Africa. He looked toward China ; that 

 immense empire seemed to beckon him. He studied for China 

 and went to Africa. It is so in God's providence. Sometimes 

 the highest fitness for a place is attained indirectly. God orders 

 the preparation of his chosen. His ways are not like ours. 



The practical man shows himself in the boy. Young Living- 

 stone felt that whoever ministers to the souls of the people 

 must reach them through their bodies. He reasoned that the 

 confidence to be desired, as a spiritual teacher and helper, would 

 be most easily secured by attention to the humbler interests. 

 It is like seeking interview with a lord: it is easier if the 

 attendants are first won. Christ paid much attention to the 

 bodily necessities of people. So have all the best and wisest of 

 his servants. Livingstone studied medicine in preparation for 

 his missionary work. His first book led him "deeply and 

 anxiously into the perplexing profundities of astrology;" 

 and he only paused in his investigations when, to his youthful 

 mind, the ground seemed to be perilous, and, in his own words, 

 " when the dark hint seemed to loom toward selling soul and 

 body to the devil, as the price of the unfathomable knowledge 

 of the stars." 



He would wander, delighted and wondering, through 



