Livingstone's opposition. 177 



can pray with him when we find him importuning God out of 

 those wildernesses for the time when his truth may have turned 

 the darkness into light, and when no man shall invade the con- 

 tinent with chains of any other bondage than Christ's constrain- 

 ing love. He found that the slave system existing in various 

 parts of the country presented one of the most perplexing bar- 

 riers to his work, and found, too, that, whatever might be the 

 contrast between negroes in America and their ancestors in 

 Africa, in Africa the contrast was against slavery. Wherever 

 he found the tribes distinguished by systems of slavery, he 

 found deceptions and cruelties and superstitions innumerable ; 

 while in the tribes which denounced slavery, and counted every 

 man a member of the family of the chief, and called themselves 

 " men," he found generosity and kindness and comparative in- 

 telligence. As a missionary in Africa he could only lament the 

 slave idea, and, depending on his testimony of facts, how shall 

 we not lament with him that idea, at least so far as it is con- 

 nected with the internal condition of that unhappy continent? 

 And how shall we not be willing to sacrifice all theories and 

 privileges for the speediest redemption of those wild tribes? 

 Who is there that can withhold his applause and his help when 

 the conversion of Africa demands the closing of every slave 

 mart on its coast, and the moral influence of the world against 

 the systems of bondage that exist in the social structure of its 

 tribes ? Livingstone's denunciation of slavery in the abstract 

 was grounded not so much on any theory of justice and injus- 

 tice, or idle prejudice, as on what he saw to be the evil influence 

 of the slave trade on Africa, and its natural antagonism for 

 African evangelization. He did not denounce the slaveholders 

 and go to Africa, but he went to Africa, and after long observa- 

 tion testified to the world that every slave ship which touched 

 that continent drove it into deeper degradation, and on behalf 

 of its hundred million souls pleaded against them. His heart 

 was encouraged by the presence of an English commissioner for 

 'the suppression of this trade in the person of such a man as Mr. 

 Gabriel, and by the presence in the port of English power to 

 prevent it; but it was quite clear that the strictest vigilance and 

 the most sincere purpose had not been successful in effectually 

 preventing its continuance. The cupidity of the traders was 

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