ways words of sympathy at command, and was
ready to perform acts of sympathy for those who were suffering." The
Rev. G.D. Watt, a brother Scotchman, who went as a missionary to India,
has a vivid remembrance of Livingstone's mode of discussion; he showed
great simplicity of view, along with a certain roughness or bluntness of
manner; great kindliness, and yet great persistence in holding to his
own ideas. But none of his friends seem to have had any foresight of
the eminence he was destined to attain. The Directors of the Society
did not even rank him among their ablest men. It is interesting to
contrast the opinion entertained of him then with that expressed by Sir
Bartle Frere, after much personal intercourse, many years afterward. "Of
his intellectual force and energy," wrote Sir Bartle, "he has given such
proof as few men could afford. Any five years of his life might in any
other occupation have established a character and raised for him a
fortune such as none but the most energetic of our race can
realize[18]."

[Footnote 18: _Good Words_, 1874, p. 285.]

But his early friends were not so much at fault. Livingstone was
somewhat slow of maturing. If we may say so, his intellect hung fire up
to this very time, and it was only during his last year in England that
he came to his intellectual manhood, and showed his real power. His very
handwriting shows the change; from being cramped and feeble it suddenly
becomes clear, firm, and upright, very neat, but quite the hand of a
vigorous, independent man.

Livingstone's prospects of getting to China had been damaged by the
Opium War; while it continued, no new appointments could be made, even
had the Directors wished to send him there. It was in these
circumstances that he came into contact with his countryman, Mr. (now
Dr.) Moffat, who was then in England, creating much interest in his
South African mission. The idea of his going to Africa became a settled
thing, and was soon carried into effect.

"I had occasion" (Dr. Moffat has informed us) "to call for
some one at Mrs. Sewell's, a boarding-house for young
missionaries in Aldersgate street, where Livingstone lived. I
observed soon that this young man was interested in my story,
that he would sometimes come quietly and ask me a question or
two, and that he was always desirous to know where I was to
speak in public, and attended on these occasions. By and by
he asked me whether