The other subject that chiefly occupied Livingstone’s mind at this time was missionary labor.  This, like all other labor, required to be organized, on the principle of making the very best use of all the force that was or could be contributed for missionary effort.  With his fair, open mind, he weighed the old method of monastic establishments, and, mutatis mutandis, he thought something of the kind might be very useful.  He thought it unfair to judge of what these monasteries were in their periods of youth and vigor, from the rottenness of their decay.  Modern missionary stations, indeed, with their churches, schools, and hospitals, were like Protestant monasteries, conducted on the more wholesome principle of family life; but they wanted stability; they had not farms like monasteries, and hence they required to depend on the mother country.  From infancy to decay they were pauper institutions.  In Livingstone’s judgment they needed to have more of the self-supporting element: 

“It would be heresy to mention the idea of purchasing lands, like religious endowments, among the stiff Congregationalists; but an endowment conferred on a man who will risk his life in an unhealthy climate, in order, thereby, to spread Christ’s gospel among the heathen, is rather different, I ween, from the same given to a man to act as pastor to a number of professed Christians....  Some may think it creditable to our principles that we have not a single acre of land, the gift of the Colonial Government, in our possession.  But it does not argue much for our foresight that we have not farms of our own, equal to those of any colonial farmer.”

Dr. Livingstone acknowledged the services of the Jesuit missionaries in the cause of education and literature, and even of commerce.  But while conceding to them this meed of praise, he did not praise their worship.  He was slow, indeed, to disparage any form of worship—­any form in which men, however unenlightened, gave expression to their religious feelings; but he could not away with the sight of men of intelligence kissing the toe of an image of the Virgin, as he saw them doing in a Portuguese church, and taking part in services in which they did not, and could not, believe.  If the missions of the Church of Rome had left good effects on some parts of Africa, how much greater blessing might not come from Protestant missions, with the Bible instead of the Syllabus as their basis, and animated with the spirit of freedom instead of despotism!

With regard to that part of Africa which he had been exploring, he gives his views at great length in a letter to the Directors, dated Linyanti, 12th October, 1855.  After fully describing the physical features of the country, he fastens on the one element which, more than any other, was likely to hinder missions—­fever.  He does not deny that it is a serious obstacle.  But he argues at great length that it is not insurmountable.  Fever yields to proper treatment.  His own experience