interior
of Africa was a white space on the maps; but it is not possible to-day
to make such a geographical blunder as we have mentioned, about any part
of Africa.

It is because of the work he did in those twenty years, sowing all the
while the seeds from which sprang the great African Movement, that "the
gentle master of African exploration" is acclaimed to-day as one of the
world's great men, and that his body rests in Westminster Abbey among
the illustrious dead of Britain.

The son of a worthy weaver in Blantyre, Scotland, Livingstone's early
life was that of a poor boy, working in a spinning-mill, quiet, sober,
affectionate, and faithful in every relation of life. Moved at last by
the thirst for knowledge that has distinguished many a humble Scotch
boy, he entered the University at Glasgow, studying during the winter
months and spending the summers at his trade in the factory, fitting
himself all the while for the conquests he little dreamed he was to
achieve over difficulties almost insurmountable. A classmate spoke of
him as a pale, thin, retiring young man, but frank and most
kind-hearted, ready for any good and useful work, even for chopping the
University fuel and grinding wheat for the bread. In 1838, when he was
twenty-five years old, he went to London to be examined as a candidate
for the African missionary service. Two years later he was sent to South
Africa, where for eight or nine years he labored among the natives
earnestly and unostentatiously north of the place now famous as the site
of the Kimberley diamond mines. It was here that he became intimately
acquainted with the celebrated missionary, Robert Moffatt, whose
daughter he married. His devoted wife accompanied him in some of his
later travels, but long before he finished his work her body was laid to
rest under the shade of a tree that for years was pointed out to all
visitors to the Lower Zambesi.

In 1849, began the series of explorations that continued till his
death. "The end of geographical discovery is the beginning of missionary
enterprise," he wrote. Burning with zeal to reveal Africa to the world,
Livingstone never forgot the main aim of his life,--to open ways for the
planting of mission stations among all the scores of tribes he visited.
"I hope God will in mercy permit me to establish the Gospel somewhere in
this region," he wrote from the land of the Barotse, on the Upper
Zambesi. Does he now look down from his eternal home upon