are absolutely vagabonds.  When shall we return to Kolobeng?  When to Kuruman? Never.  The mark of Cain is on your foreheads, your father is a missionary.  Our children ought to have both the sympathies and prayers of those at whose bidding we become strangers for life.”

Was there ever a plea more powerful or more just?  It is sad to think that the coldness of Christians at home should have led a man like Livingstone to fancy that, because his children were the children of a missionary, they would bear the mark of Cain, and be homeless vagabonds.  Why are we at home so forgetful of the privilege of refreshing the bowels of those who take their lives in their hands for the love of Christ, by making a home for their offspring?  In a higher state of Christianity there will be hundreds of the best families at home delighted, for the love of their Master, to welcome and bring up the missionary’s children.  And when the Great Day comes, none will more surely receive that best of all forms of repayment, “Inasmuch as ye did it unto the least of these my brethren, ye did it unto Me.”

Livingstone, who had now got the troublesome uvula cut out, was detained at the Cape nearly two months after his family left.  He was so distrusted by the authorities that they would hardly sell powder and shot to him, and he had to fight a battle that demanded all his courage and perseverance for a few boxes of percussion-caps.  At the last moment, a troublesome country postmaster, to whom he had complained of an overcharge of postage, threatened an action against him for defamation of character, and, rather than be further detained, deep in debt though he was, Livingstone had to pay him a considerable sum.  His family were much in his thoughts; he found some relief in writing by every mail.  His letters to his wife are too sacred to be spread before the public; we confine ourselves to a single extract, to show over what a host of suppressed emotions he had to march in this expedition: 

“Cape Town, 5th May, 1852.—­MY DEAREST MARY,—­How I miss you now, and the children!  My heart yearns incessantly over you.  How many thoughts of the past crowd into my mind!  I feel as if I would treat you all much more tenderly and lovingly than ever.  You have been a great blessing to me.  You attended to my comfort in many, many ways.  May God bless you for all your kindnesses!  I see no face now to be compared with that sunburnt one which has so often greeted me with its kind looks.  Let us do our duty to our Saviour, and we shall meet again.  I wish that time were now.  You may read the letters over again which I wrote at Mabotsa, the sweet time you know.  As I told you before, I tell you again, they are true, true; there is not a bit of hypocrisy in them.  I never show all my feelings; but I can say truly, my dearest, that I loved you when I married you, and the longer I lived with you, I loved you the better....  Let us do our duty to Christ, and