CHAPTER XVI. 
LIVINGSTONE, THE MISSIONARY AND EXPLORER. 
His Education and Early Ambitions—His Thirst for Knowledge—Studies Whole Morning in 
Factory—Intended to Go to China but Was Providentially Directed to Africa—His Ex¬ 
citing Experiences, Thrilling Adventures and Epoch-Making Discoveries in the Dark Con¬ 
tinent. 
S Roosevelt sat on tlie deck of the magnificent steamer Hamburg, 
plying its way through the blue waves of the Mediterranean and 
leaving behind him Europe with its memories and ancient civili¬ 
zations he might have been seen re-reading the fascinating life story of 
Livingstone, the great and famous explorer who first opened the Dark 
Continent to advancing civilization. 
Livingstone’s life excels in fascinating interest. It tells us about a 
youth who from his earliest years was inspired with an insatiable thirst 
for knowledge and actuated by high and noble motives. He tells us 
how at the age of ten he was put in a cotton factory to aid by his earnings 
in lessening his mother’s anxiety. With part of his wages he bought 
books, attended an evening school and his mother often had to snatch 
the books out of his hands to prevent him from spending the whole 
night in studying. His working hours in the factory were from six in the 
morning till eight at night and his reading while at work was carried on 
by placing the book on a portion of the spinning jenny, so that he could 
catch sentence after sentence as he passed at his work. This enabled him 
to support himself while attending medical and Greek classes in Glas¬ 
gow in winter and divinity lectures in summer. He never received a 
lift from anyone and no doubt should have accomplished his project to 
go to China as a medical missionary by his own efforts, had not friends 
advised him to join the London Missionary Society on account of its un¬ 
sectarian character, which exactly agreed with his ideas, for in his 
own words it ‘ 1 sends neither Episcopacy, nor Presbyterianism, nor Inde¬ 
pendency, but the Gospel of Christ to the heathen.” 
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