864 LIFE OF DA VID LIVINGSTONE, LL.D. 



really honest in his endeavours to put the slave trade down in his domi- 

 nion, but he could, not trust those under him to faithfully carry out his 

 directions. 



The other way to which he referred was the dealing with the traffic in 

 countries from which the slaves came, and by the introduction of Christianity, 

 and civilisation alongside Christianity, to cut off the supply of slaves, and so 

 put an end to the thing altogether. As they had heard, it was necessary 

 for them to look at this question from a comprehensive point of view, and he 

 might tell them that what they heard of the necessity of the slave trade being 

 grappled with before missionary work could be hoped to be successful was 

 confirmed by Sir Samuel Baker, and was the conviction of David Livingstone, 

 who left one work and set himself to grapple with the other, which he felt to 

 be the open sore of the world, and in the cause of which he nobly laid down 

 his life. Yes, they must prepare the way for the missionary and the colonist, 

 by teaching slave-holding nations that they were really going against their 

 own interests, and destroying themselves. When they had done this the na- 

 tives would soon learn to be no longer satisfied with the merest natural re- 

 quirements, but would begin to covet things of which they knew not the want 

 before. This desire would also stimulate the native to production, so that he 

 might have something to give in return, and thus the merchant would find a 

 new outlet for his ware, and take a new product in exchange. Thus the 

 change would be effected, but time alone could show its accomplishment. 



They had heard of the beginning of the work with many noble efforts, 

 and they were encouraged to believe what had been told them by Mr. Price 

 that there was hope for the regeneration of Africa, for had they not proof of 

 its practicability in the Christian settlements which had been rising up on the 

 West Coast of Africa since the slave trade had been abolished ? There was, 

 too, the evidence of Bishop Crowther, a native African, a bishop of their own 

 Church — who had recently made a journey of twenty days, travelling fifteen 

 or twenty miles a day, and every day had found five or six rising villages in 

 the very country through which he was brought to the coast as a slave, aDd 

 which was then utterly depopulated waste. They might look for reports of 

 governors of those districts, and they would find that they agreed in saying 

 that the civilisation of these West Coast settlements penetrated into the very 

 heart of Africa. They found, too, confirmation of the possibility of the re- 

 generation of Africa in the native churches as they existed in Sierra Leone 

 — native churches which were so strong that they declined any longer to re- 

 ceive help, and were paying back £300 a year to the society to which they 

 owed their existence. Who would say, then, that they ought to be discou- 

 raged ? The Government, he was convinced, would not be slow to recognise 

 what the country expected of them. They had had in the House of Commons 

 a most satisfactory assurance by the Secretary of State for War, whose heart 



