MK. GLADSTONE RECOMMENDS A PENSION. 517 



with a view to satisfying his family and the world as to the fate which had 

 befallen him ; but the carrying out of his last instructions in the face of hun- 

 ger and fatigue for many months, is a striking instance of love and fidelity 

 on the part of these ignorant men, which it is to be hoped will not be allowed 

 to pass without substantial reward. 



To his infinite honour, Mr. Gladstone, within a couple of days of his 

 resigning the highest office under the Crown — in circumstances when he 

 might have been supposed to be thinking of nothing save the inconstancy 

 of the party he had so earnestly served for five years — recommended Her 

 Majesty to grant a pension of £2000 per annum to the family of Dr. Living- 

 stone. We need hardly say that the recommendation was immediately acted 

 upon. 



The following account of the surviving members of Dr. Livingstone's 

 family will not be without interest to the reader : — 



His mother died in 1865. Dr. Livingstone took frequent opportunity of 

 acknowledging the debt he owed to the Christian example set him by his 

 parents. Speaking at a banquet held in his honour in Hamilton in January 

 1857, he said: "A great benefit which his parents had conferred on him and 

 their other children was religious instruction and a pious example; and he 

 was more grateful for that than though he had been born to riches and 

 worldly honours." Although a strict disciplinarian, and somewhat stern in his 

 manner towards his children, Dr. Livingstone's father earned the respect and 

 affection of his family in no common degree. He was proud of his sons, and 

 the positions they attained; and more especially was he proud of his son 

 David, as a great missionary and successful explorer of hitherto unknown 

 regions. The regret felt by Dr. Livingstone on his return to this country, 

 that his father was not alive to hear the stirring story of his adventures, was 

 reciprocated by the longing which filled the mind of the old man on his death- 

 bed to see once more his distinguished son. The "Hamilton Advertiser," of 

 January 10th, 1857, speaking of Mr. Neil Livingstone, says: — 



"Among his last words were, ' Dauvit, come awa, man, that I may see 

 ye before I dee.' The old man's favourite walk in the latter years of his life 

 was to the woods near the ancient Roman bridge near Bothwell, also a fre- 

 quent resort of the Doctor's youth, and where he had carved his name, and the 

 polemical war-cry of the day, ' No State Church,'* on the bark of a tree — 

 wood-cuts which it was his father's delight to decipher. The letters 'D. L.' 



* At that time the Voluntary Controversy was agitating the Churches in Scotland, and the " Ten 

 Years' Conflict," which ended in the -disruption of the Church of Scotland, was at its height. In 

 his manhood, no man was more tolerant as to the question of "Creed" than Dr. Livingstone. To 

 him all men were truly " brethren " who honestly and uprightly followed after Christ and His com- 

 mandments. 



