PREFATORY LETTER. Ixxxv 



the prophet of inductive science, there was a wisdom lurk- 

 ing under the wild visions of those Ancients, which shadowed 

 forth some higher truths than had then been plainly told — 

 and were to the old world, as the outstretched hands of a blind 

 man, feeling his way towards a true resting-place, but with 

 no light to help him. They tell us in a fable, that fire brought 

 down by stealth from heaven could give life to a statue of 

 cold clay. We can take up the figure, no longer entangled 

 in a fable, and declare its accomplishment in that heavenly 

 fire which warms the Christian heart, and that holy light 

 which irradiates the Christian eye. The power of God — which 

 brooding over the dead matter of the created world, brought 

 out of it law, and order, and all living things, and breathed 

 into man a living soul — has not lost its energy. It was the 

 Spirit of the everlasting God who knows no change; who 

 has dealt kindly by His faithful people, and will deal kindly 

 still; who knows how to help His faithful servant, and will 

 help him ; and by His renovating power will, in His own 

 time, give to a good man a mighty strength to lift up the poor 

 heathen from the earth, to warm his cold frozen heart, and to 

 bring his inner being into that likeness of God in which man 

 was created. 



Such is the faith and hope, and such the commission of 

 Livingstone, and of other good men — too many to tell — who 

 are gone to teach the truth to the millions of our fellow-crea- 

 tures who are scattered over the earth. These men are a por- 

 tion of the sinews of our national strength. For they help to 

 keep alive amongst us the true practical acceptance of our re- 

 ligion. The men of no nation can be maintained in honour 

 and happiness without a recognition of religious principle. 

 Heathens have taught this lesson ; and I once heard it af- 

 firmed by one of the greatest philosophers in France, who, at 

 the time he uttered this great moral truth, was himself an 

 unbeliever in the religion of Christ. But I write not to un- 

 believers. It is not on mere grounds of expediency, but to 



