t nobly."

On the 1st May he finished a letter for the _New York Herald_, and asked
God's blessing on it. It contained the memorable words afterward
inscribed on the stone to his memory in Westminster Abbey: "All I can
add in my loneliness is, may Heaven's rich blessing come down on every
one--American, English, or Turk--who will help to heal the open sore of
the world." It happened that the words were written precisely a year
before his death.

Amid the universal darkness around him, the universal ignorance of God
and of the grace and love of Jesus Christ, it was hard to believe that
Africa should ever be won. He had to strengthen his faith amid this
universal desolation. We read in his Journal:

"13_th May_.--He will keep his word--the gracious One, full
of grace and truth; no doubt of it. He said: 'Him that cometh
unto me, I will in no wise cast out;' and 'Whatsoever ye
shall ask in my name, I will give it.' He WILL keep his word:
then I can come and humbly present my petition, and it will
be all right. Doubt is here inadmissible, surely, D.L."

His mind ruminates on the river system of the country and the
probability of his being in error:

"2l_st May_.--I wish I had some of the assurance possessed by
others, but I am oppressed with the apprehension that, after
all, it may turn out that I have been following the Congo;
and who would risk being put into a cannibal pot, and
converted into black man for _it?_"

"31_st May_.--In reference to this Nile source, I have been
kept in perpetual doubt and perplexity. I know too much to be
positive. Great Lualaba, or Lualubba, as Manyuema say, may
turn out to be the Congo, and Nile a shorter river after
all[75]. The fountains flowing north and south seem in favor
of its being the Nile. Great westing is in favor of
the Congo."

[Footnote 75: From false punctuation, this passage is
unintelligible in the _Last Journals_, vol. ii. p. 193.]

"24_th June_.--The medical education has led me to a
continual tendency to suspend the judgment. What a state of
blessedness it would have been, had I possessed the dead
certainty of the homoeopathic persuasion, and as soon as I
found the Lakes Bangweolo, Moero, and Kamolondo, pouring out
their waters down the great central valley, bellowed out,
'Hurrah! Eureka!' and gone home in firm and honest belief