EARLY TSARS. 



opportunity of doing good to the heathen, which he turned to account with 

 great zeal and success. In the year 1873, his health having broken down, he 

 started on his, return to England, but died on the passage home. 



At nineteen years of age Livingstone was promoted to the laborious 

 duties of a cotton spinner, and while the heavy toil pressed hard upon the 

 young and growing lad, he was cheered by the reflection that the high wages 

 he now earned would enable him, from his summer's labour, to support him- 

 self in Glasgow during the winter months while attending medical and other 

 classes at the University ; to attend which he walked to and from his father's 

 house daily, a distance of nine miles. He never received a particle of aid 

 from any one, nor did the resolute youth seek, or expect such, well-knowing 

 that his difficulties and trials were no greater than those of dozens of his 

 fellows who sat on the same benches with him in the class-rooms. The 

 religious awakening which we have already alluded to, which occurred when 

 he was about sixteen years of age, inspired him with a fervent ambition to 

 be a pioneer of Christianity in China, and his practical instincts taught him 

 that a knowledge of medicine would be of great service in securing him the 

 confidence of the people he was so desirous of benefiting, besides ensuring his 

 appointment as a medical missionary in connection with a society of that 

 name recently formed in his native land. 



At the conclusion of his medical curriculum he had to present a thesis 

 to the examining body of the University, on which his claim to be ad- 

 mitted a member of the faculty of physicians and surgeons would be 

 judged. The subject was one which in ordinary practice required the use 

 of the stethoscope for its diagnosis, and it was characteristic of the inde- 

 pendence and originality of the man, that an awkward difference arose 

 between him and the examiners, as fb whether the instrument could do 

 what was claimed for it. This unfortunate boldness procured him a more 

 than ordinarily severe examination, through which he passed triumphantly. 

 Alluding to this in after-years, he drily remarked that " The wiser plan 

 would have been to have had no opinions of my own." Looking back 

 over the years of toil and hardship which had led up to this important 

 stage in his career, and looking forward to the possibilities of the future, 

 he might well say that " It was with unfeigned delight I became a member 

 of a profession which is pre-eminently devoted to practical benevolence, and 

 which with unwearied energy pursues from age to age its endeavours to 

 lessen human woe." 



Writing in 1857, he tells us, that on reviewing his life of toil before 

 his missionary career began, he could feel thankful that it was of such a 

 nature as to prove a hardy training for the great enterprises he was 

 destined afterwards to engage in; and, he always spoke with warm and 

 affectionate respect of the sterling character of the bulk of the humble 

 villagers among whom he spent his early years. 



