I thought he would do for Africa. I said
I believed he would, if he would not go to an old station,
but would advance to unoccupied ground, specifying the vast
plain to the north, where I had sometimes seen, in the
morning sun, the smoke of a thousand villages, where no
missionary had ever been. At last Livingstone said: 'What is
the use of my waiting for the end of this abominable opium
war? I will go at once to Africa.' The Directors concurred,
and Africa became his sphere."

It is no wonder that all his life Livingstone had a very strong faith in
Providence, for at every turn of his career up to this point, some
unlooked-for circumstance had come in to give a new direction to his
history. First, his reading Dick's _Philosophy of a Future State_, which
led him to Christ, but did not lead him away from science; then his
falling in with Gutzlaff's _Appeal_, which induced him to become a
medical missionary; the Opium War, which closed China against him; the
friendly word of the Director who procured for him another trial; Mr.
Moffat's visit, which deepened his interest in Africa; and finally, the
issue of a dangerous illness that attacked him in London--all indicated
the unseen hand that was preparing him for his great work.

The meeting of Livingstone with Moffat is far too important an event to
be passed over without remark. Both directly and indirectly Mr. Moffat's
influence on his young brother, afterward to become his son-in-law, was
remarkable. In after-life they had a thorough appreciation of each
other. No family on the face of the globe could have been so helpful to
Livingstone in connection with the great work to which he gave himself.
If the old Roman fashion of surnames still prevailed, there is no
household of which all the members would have been better entitled to
put AFRICANUS after their name. The interests of the great continent
were dear to them all. In 1872, when one of the Search Expeditions for
Livingstone was fitted out, a grandson of Dr. Moffat, another Robert
Moffat, was among those who set out in the hope of relieving him; cut
off at the very beginning, in the flower of his youth, he left his bones
to moulder in African soil.

The illness to which we have alluded was an attack of congestion of the
liver, with an affection of the lungs. It seemed likely to prove fatal,
and the only chance of recovery appeared to be a visit to his home, and
return to his