52 ENGLAND FOR AFRICA. 



saved by rushing to the battle without one's armor and weapons. 

 Livingstone was right. He knew there would be all to give, 

 and but little to receive. There is great waste in missionary 

 life. A man does wisely to seek thorough development before 

 he sets out on such work. Livingstone was a man with a 

 reasonable scientific knowledge, good medical education, a 

 student of theology — all pervaded by the love of Christ and 

 devotion to humanity, with a deep-felt call to the heathen. 



This is the man who left England for Africa in 1840. He 

 was born in 1815. He was twenty-five years old when he 

 began his great work there. It was a life in the fulness and 

 elasticity of its vigor which he laid, on God's altar in the 

 service of humanity. 



The portion of the benighted continent which he selected 

 was full of interest and mystery. Stories of wonderful fertility 

 and tempting reservoirs of wealth had for a long time been 

 floating in the popular mind. Civilization looked eagerly 

 toward the heathen wilderness. Accounts, all indefinite, but 

 promising, of nations worthy of their sympathy, had moved 

 the hearts of Christians. The missionaries, who had gone 

 before, had but little more than built their fires over against 

 the gloom. Now and then a man would come out of the 

 deeper shadows, attracted by their brightness. These men 

 revealed the hidden want. It was that hidden want which 

 cried so loudly to the heart of Livingstone. His Highland 

 blood was consecrated to Christ. He could not accept a service 

 which was less than heroic. He could not measure his obliga- 

 tions by apparent expediency and personal safety. The English 

 power on the Cape had, in God's providence, provided a footing 

 for Christianity on the unreclaimed territory. Light had 

 stepped on the coast of darkness ; that was all. The radiance 

 must be guide through the gloom. Livingstone rejoiced in the 

 undertaking;. We will find that his work assumes the char- 

 acter of exploration. It was the work of Christian zeal. It was 

 the gospel in control of a man penetrating the "regions beyond." 

 The same gospel has been the unrecognized power in all the 

 histories, wrapping the world with the joys and beauties of true 

 civilization. 



The Cape Colony is divided. The divisions are the Eastern 



