The fact which ought to stimulate us above all others is, not that we have contributed to the conversion of a few souls, however valuable these may be, but that we are diffusing a knowledge of Christianity throughout the world.  The number of conversions in India is but a poor criterion of the success which has followed the missionaries there.  The general knowledge is the criterion; and there, as well as in other lands where missionaries in the midst of masses of heathenism seem like voices crying in the wilderness—­Reformers before the Reformation, future missionaries will see conversions follow every sermon.  We prepare the way for them.  May they not forget the pioneers who worked in the thick gloom with few rays to cheer, except such as flow from faith in God’s promises!  We work for a glorious future which we are not destined to see—­the golden age which has not been, but will yet be.  We are only morning-stars shining in the dark, but the glorious morn will break, the good time coming yet.  The present mission-stations will all be broken up.  No matter how great the outcry against the instrumentality which God employs for his purposes, whether by French soldiery as in Tahiti, or tawny Boers as in South Africa, our duty is onward, onward, proclaiming God’s Word whether men will hear or whether they will forbear.  A few conversions show whether God’s Spirit is in a mission or not.  No mission which has his approbation is entirely unsuccessful.  His purposes have been fulfilled, if we have been faithful.  ’The nation or kingdom that will not serve Thee shall utterly be destroyed’—­this has often been preceded by free offers of friendship and mercy, and many missions which He has sent in the olden time seemed bad failures.  Noah’s preaching was a failure, Isaiah thought his so too.  Poor Jeremiah is sitting weeping tears over his people, everybody cursing the honest man, and he ill-pleased with his mother for having borne him among such a set.  And Ezekiel’s stiff-necked, rebellious crew were no better.  Paul said, ’All seek their own, not the things of Jesus Christ,’ and he knew that after his departure grievous wolves would enter in, not sparing the flock.  Yet the cause of God is still carried on to more enlightened developments of his will and character, and the dominion is being given by the power of commerce and population unto the people of the saints of the Most High.  And this is an everlasting kingdom, a little stone cut out of a mountain without hands which shall cover the whole earth.  For this time we work; may God accept our imperfect service!”

At length Livingstone began to get near the coast, reaching the outlying Portuguese stations.  He was received by the Portuguese gentlemen with great kindness, and his wants were generously provided for.  One of them gave him the first glass of wine he had taken in Africa.  Another provided him with a suit of clothing.  Livingstone invoked the blessing of Him who said, “I was naked and ye clothed me.”  His Journal is profuse in its admiration of some of the Portuguese traders, who did not like the slave-trade—­not they, but had most enlightened views for the welfare of Africa.  But opposite some of these eulogistical passages of the Journal there were afterward added an expressive series of marks of interrogation.