216 
AFRICA AND ITS EXPLORATION. 
troubled with anything like scepticism, and in his case 
conversion meant more a change of consciousness than 
of conduct; what was before instinctive and unconscious 
action, became thenceforth inspired and motived life. 
Livingstone never gave much prominence to doctrinal 
Christianity; religion with him was a matter of the 
deepest feeling, of a realistic sense of the divine presence 
and influence, combined with sterling righteousness of 
conduct. He was brought up in the Independent 
Church, but in after years his practical creed became 
wonderfully liberalised; he had little but good to say 
even of the old Jesuit missionaries of Africa. It was 
in his twenty-first year that Livingstone decided upon 
the career of a missionary, moved thereto by the appeal 
of GutzlafF on behalf of China. From that time his 
“ efforts were constantly directed towards that object 
without any fluctuation.” When he went to college in 
Glasgow it was with a view to qualify himself for a 
medical missionary, and it was only in deference to the 
wishes of his friends and the London Missionary Society 
that he ultimately consented to ordination. He attended 
the medical and the Greek classes in Anderson’s College, 
and also a theological class. Livingstone was only two 
sessions at Glasgow, returning at the end of the first 
to the mill at Blantyre to earn the means of continuing 
his college work. As the result of an application during 
his second session, 1837-38, Livingstone went up to 
London in September, 1838, and was accepted by the 
London Missionary Society as a candidate. During the 
next two years he resided mostly in London, diligently 
attending medical and science classes. He took his 
medical degree in the Faculty of Physicians and 
Surgeons in Glasgow, in November, 1840. Livingstone 
had from the first set his heart on China, and it was a 
great disappointment to him that, partly owing to the 
Opium War, and partly owing to his supposed deficiencies 
in the gift of preaching, the Society finally decided to 
send him to the “ lower ” field of Africa. In London 
lie made the acquaintance of Moffat, who was home at 
the time from South Africa, and the experienced 
