[Footnote 49:  It seems unaccountable that in the face of such unrivaled testimonies, reflections should continue to be cast on Livingstone’s scientific accuracy, even so late as the meeting of the British Association at Sheffield in 1879.  The family of the late Sir Thomas Maclear have sent home his collection of Livingstone’s papers.  They fill a box which one man could with difficulty carry.  And their mass is far from their most striking quality.  The evidence of laborious, painstaking care to be accurate is almost unprecedented.  Folio volumes of pages covered with figures show how much time and labor must have been spent in these computations.  Explanatory remarks often indicate the particulars of the observation.]

Following this unrivaled eulogium on the scientific powers of Livingstone came the testimony of Mr. Thompson to his missionary ardor: 

’I am in a position to express my earnest conviction, formed in long, intimate, unreserved communications with him, personally and by letter, that in the privations, sufferings, and dangers he has passed through, during the last eight years, he has not been actuated by mere curiosity; or the love of adventure, or the thirst for applause, or by any other object, however laudable in itself, less than his avowed one as a messenger of Christian love from the Churches.  If ever there was a man who, by realizing the obligations of his sacred calling as a Christian missionary, and intelligently comprehending its object, sought to pursue it to a successful issue, such a man is Dr. Livingstone.  The spirit in which he engages in his work may be seen in the following extract from one of his letters:  ’You kindly say you fear for the result of my going in alone.  I hope I am in the way of duty; my own conviction that such is the case has never wavered.  I am doing something for God.  I have preached the gospel in many a spot where the name of Christ has never been heard, and I would wish to do still more in the way of reducing the Barotse language, if I had not suffered so severely from fever.  Exhaustion produced vertigo, causing me, if I looked suddenly up, almost to lose consciousness; this made me give up sedentary work; but I hope God will accept of what I can do.’

A third gentleman at this meeting, Mr. Rutherfoord, who had known Livingstone for many years, besides describing him as “one of the most honorable, benevolent, conscientious men I ever met with,” bore testimony to his capacity in mercantile affairs; not exercised in his own interest, but in that of others.  It was Mr. Rutherfoord who, when Livingstone was at the Cape in 1852, entered into his plans for supplanting the slave-trade by lawful traffic, and at his suggestion engaged George Fleming to go north with him as a trader, and try the experiment.  The project was not very successful, owing to innumerable unforeseen worries, and especially the rascality of