help both him and the
children, gave vehemence to this desire. Her letters to her husband tell
of much spiritual darkness; his replies were the very soul of tenderness
and Christian earnestness. Providence seemed to favor her wish; the
vessel in which she sailed was preserved from imminent destruction, and
she had the great happiness of finding her husband alive and well.

On the 21st of April Mrs. Livingstone became ill. On the 25th the
symptoms were alarming--vomitings every quarter of an hour, which
prevented any medicine from remaining on her stomach. On the 26th she
was worse and delirious. On the evening of Sunday the 27th Dr. Stewart
got a message from her husband that the end was drawing near. "He was
sitting by the side of a rude bed formed of boxes, but covered with a
soft mattress, on which lay his dying wife. All consciousness had now
departed, as she was in a state of deep coma, from which all efforts to
rouse her had been unavailing. The strongest medical remedies and her
husband's voice were both alike powerless to reach the spirit which was
still there, but was now so rapidly sinking into the depths of slumber,
and darkness and death. The fixedness of feature and the oppressed and
heavy breathing only made it too plain that the end was near. And the
man who had faced so many deaths, and braved so many dangers, was now
utterly broken down and weeping like a child."

Dr. Livingstone asked Dr. Stewart to commend her spirit to God, and
along with Dr. Kirk they kneeled in prayer beside her. In less than an
hour, her spirit had returned to God. Half an hour after, Dr. Stewart
was struck with her likeness to her father, Dr. Moffat. He was afraid to
utter what struck him so much, but at last he said to Livingstone, "Do
you notice any change?" "Yes," he replied, without raising his eyes from
her face,--"the very features and expression of her father."

Every one is struck with the calmness of Dr. Livingstone's notice of his
wife's death in _The Zambesi and its Tributaries_. Its matter-of-fact
tone only shows that he regarded that book as a sort of official report
to the nation, in which it would not be becoming for him to introduce
personal feelings. A few extracts from his Journal and letters will show
better the state of his heart.

"It is the first heavy stroke I have suffered, and quite takes away my
strength. I wept over her who well deserved many tears. I loved her when
I married her, and the longer I l