678 POWER OF BENEVOLENCE. 



certain that nothing could have separated him from his task 

 except death. 



We have already become familiar with the country through 

 which his journey to Ujiji lay. The Manyuema, who had 

 learned the difference between the white man and the Arabs, 

 treated him kindly ; they had no quarrel with him : he had a 

 " good heart/' they said. There is marvellous power in good- 

 ness ; the benevolence in human nature is the brightest reflection 

 of Deity ; Christian kindness is the truest representative of the 

 grace of God. The lives of men acting out those generous im- 

 pulses implanted by the Spirit of God are most potential rays 

 from Calvary, penetrating the world, enlightening, cheering, 

 and controlling human hearts. The fact of the crucifixion is 

 the saving truth of the ages : good men are the channels of its 

 dissemination and the agents of its power. It is not by human 

 prowess but by human benevolence that the world is to become 

 the kingdom of the Lord and of his Christ. If the life of 

 David Livingstone does no more, it will reassure the hearts of 

 men in the absolute adequacy of Christian kindness to control 

 the rudest barbarians, and make allies in noblest enterprises of 

 the most ignorant and degraded. Perils there may be for the 

 man who ventures on missionary work among savages, but if 

 he be thoroughly in love with them, so sincerely and immov- 

 ably consecrated to their welfare that no exhibitions of depravity 

 can diminish his zeal, and no ingratitude paralyze his purpose, 

 if he seek them as Christ sought the world, the love of his heart 

 will be his palladium and his kind offices his edicts of authority. 

 The life which is an emanation from the heart of Christ will 

 disarm all prejudices and overcome all resistance, and lead 

 out the latent virtues of the most ignorant and vicious, like 

 the gentle, genial rays of the sun scatter the darkness and melt 

 the crusts of earth and summon from its deadness a very para- 

 dise of life and beauty. Next to Jesus Christ a loveful human 

 life is glorious. When all the story has been told, when the 

 portrait of Livingstone stands out complete, the best thing of 

 all that will have been said, the brightest lines on the canvas, 

 will be the words of these poor Manyuema cannibals, "a good 

 man ! " We cannot think of him journeying toward Ujiji, full 

 of sorrow and pain, while the trembling victims of Arab cruel- 



