David Livingstone: Missionary Pioneer

David Livingstone is one of my earthly heroes. For a number of years I had prayed about the possibility of serving as a missionary in the continent he so loved. The Lord has not directed me and my family to do this, but Africa is still on my heart. I have some dear friends serving in this land and I think of and pray for them often. I even chose to give my son the middle name of Livingstone so that I might never forget the land of Africa.

We owe a lot more than we realize to the continent of Africa, from Church Fathers, to orthodox developments in Christian theology, to a rich heritage of Christian missions. Livingstone was burdened to open up a way into the heartland of this mysterious continent so that others might be able to join him, follow him, and succeed him in preaching the Good News of salvation in Jesus Christ to countless souls trapped in darkness.

Livingstone was born in Blantyre, Scotland on March 19, 1813. He was a hard worker having entered the workforce in the cotton-spinning factory at the age of ten. He was also noted to be an eager student. At the cotton mill he would carry a book with him and read as the machine spun.

Livingstone was reared in a poor but Christian home. His mother worked very hard to make ends meet and his father pushed him to read good religious books. He says of his parents that they took great pains to instill

the doctrines of Christianity into my mind, and I had no difficulty in understanding the theory of our free salvation by the atonement of our Savior, but it was only about this time [16 years of age] that I really began to feel the necessity and value of a personal application of the provisions of that atonement to my own case. The change was like what may be supposed would take place were it possible to cure a case of "color blindness." The perfect freeness with which the pardon of all our guilt is offered in God's book drew forth feelings of affectionate love to Him who bought us with his blood, and a sense of deep obligation to Him for his mercy has influenced, in some small measure, my conduct ever since. (David Livingstone, Missionary Travels and Research in South Africa. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1858. p. 4)

As a young man, in his early twenties, Livingstone responded to the missionary call. W. G. Blaikie notes that

It was the appeal of Gutzlaff for China as we have seen that inspired Livingstone with the desire to be a missionary; and China was the country to which his heart turned. The noble faith and dauntless enterprise of Gutzlaff, pressing into China over obstacles apparently insurmountable, aided by his medical skill and other unusual qualifications, must have served to shape Livingstone's ideal of a missionary, as well as to attract him to the country where Gutzlaff laboured. (W. G. Blaikie, The Personal Life of David Livingstone, p. 18)

However, it was due to the turbulent climate in China during the days of the Opium War and a providential meeting with Robert Moffat, missionary to South Africa (and Livingstone's future father-in-law), that turned Livingstone's attention toward the needs of the Dark Continent. Moffat wrote of Livingstone's growing interest in Africa as follows:

By and by he asked me whether 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." (ibid, p. 34-35.)

Livingstone spent the next thirty plus years exploring and sharing Christ in the heart of Africa. Near the end of his life he fought and prayed vigorously against the slave trade. In a letter to his daughter dated August 15, 1872, Livingstone wrote,

No one can estimate the amount of God-pleasing good that will be done, if, by Divine favour, this awful slave-trade, into the midst of which I have come, be abolished. This will be something to have lived for, and the conviction has grown in my mind that it was for this end I have been detained so long. (ibid, p. 444)

Blaikie's narrative of the last day of Livingtone's life reads as follows:

His people knew that the end could not be far off Nothing occurred to attract notice during the early part of the night, but at four in the morning, the boy who lay at his door called in alarm for Susi, fearing that their master was dead. By the candle still burning they saw him, not in bed, but kneeling at the bedside, with his head buried in his hands upon the pillow. The sad yet not unexpected truth soon became evident: he had passed away on the furthest of all his journeys, and without a single attendant. But he had died in the act of prayer--prayer offered in that reverential attitude about which he was always so particular; commending his own spirit, with all his dear ones, as was his wont, into the hands of his Saviour; and commending AFRICA--his own dear Africa--with all her woes and sins and wrongs, to the Avenger of the oppressed and the Redeemer of the lost. (ibid, p. 446)

David Livingstone entered into the presence of his Master on May 1, 1873. His noble, African attendants carefully removed his heart and other viscera, buried them in the African soil, embalmed his body, wrapped it, enclosed it in a piece of bark, and courageously transported it to the coast of Zanzibar. All in all, this labor of love took nine months to accomplish. From the coast Livingstone's body was transported back to England. His remains, after examination and identification, were finally laid to rest near the center of the naive of Westminster Abbey.

Inscribed upon the slab that marks his resting place are the following words:

For thirty years his life was spent in an unwearied effort
to evangelize the native races, to explore the undiscovered secrets,
and abolish the desolating slave trade of Central Africa,
where, with his last words he wrote:
"All I can say in my solitude is, may Heaven's rich blessing
come down on every one-American, English, Turk-
who will help to heal this open sore of the world."

May the Lord raise up many who will follow in his steps.
__________
Livingstone, David. Missionary Travels and Research in South Africa. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1858.

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Blaikie, William Garden. The Personal Life of David Livingstone. Second ed. London: John Murray, 1881.

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Harrison, Eugene Myers. Giants of the Missionary Trail: Men Who Defied Death and Demons. Reprint. Three Hills, Alberta, Canada: Prairie Bible Institute, 1969 [1954].

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Recommended by Ruth Tucker, author of From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya (2nd ed. Zondervan, 2004):

• Buxton, Meriel. David Livingstone. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2001.
• Jeal, Tim. Livingstone. New York: Dell, 1973.
• Northcott, Cecil. David Livingstone: His Triumph, Decline, and Fall. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1973.
• Ransford, Oliver. David Livingstone: The Dark Interior. New York: St. Martin's, 1978.
• Morrison, J. H. The Missionary Heroes of Africa. New York: George H. Doran, 1922.
  
• Mueller, J. Theodore. Great Missionaries to Africa. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1941.

Recommended by T. J. Thompson, author of "LIVINGSTONE, David" in Biographical Dictionary of Evangelicals (IVP, 2003), pp. 366-370:

• Blaikie, William Garden. The Personal Life of David Livingstone. London: John Murray, 188o.
• Jeal, Tim. Livingstone. London: Heinemann, 1973.
• Ross, A. C. Livingstone: Mission and Empire. London: Hambledon & London, 2002.
  

David Livingstone: Missionary Pioneer