pared her to meet with her husband, and had made her lot
so different from that of Miss Mackenzie and Mrs. Burrup. In a letter,
dated 26th May, she writes to Mary a graphic account of the electrical
thrill that passed through her when she saw David's handwriting--of the
beating heart with which she tried to get the essence of his letter
before she read the lines--of the overwhelming joy and gratitude with
which she learned that they had met--and then the horror of great
darkness that came over her when she read of the tragic death of the
Bishop, to whom she had learned to feel as to a friend and brother. Then
she pours out her tears over the "poor dear ladies, Miss Mackenzie and
Mrs. Burrup," and remembers the similar fate of the Helmores, who, like
the Bishop and his friends, had had it in their hearts to build a temple
to the Lord in Africa, but had not been permitted. Then comes some
family news, especially about her son Robert, whose sudden death
occurred a few days after, and was another bitter drop in the family
cup. And then some motherly forecastings of her daughter's future,
kindly counsel where she could offer any, and affectionate prayers for
the guidance of God where the future was too dark for her to penetrate.

For a whole month before this letter was written, poor Mary had been
sleeping under the baobab-tree at Shupanga!

In Livingstone's letter to Mrs. Moffat he gives the details of her
illness, and pours his heart out in the same affectionate terms as in
his Journal. He dwells on the many unhappy causes of delay which had
detained them near the mouth of the river, contrary to all his wishes
and arrangements. He is concerned that her deafness (through quinine)
and comatose condition before her death prevented her from giving him
the indications he would have desired respecting her state of mind in
the view of eternity.

"I look," he says, "to her previous experience and life for comfort, and
thank God for his mercy that we have it.... A good wife and mother was
she. God have pity on the children--she was so much beloved by them....
She was much respected by all the officers of the 'Gorgon,'--they would
do anything for her. When they met this vessel at Mozambique, Captain
Wilson offered his cabin in that fine large vessel, but she insisted
rather that Miss Mackenzie and Mrs. Burrup should go.... I enjoyed her
society during the three months we were together. It was the Lord who
gave and He has taken awa