“Mother very low....  Has been a good affectionate mother to
     us all.  The Lord be with her....  Whatever is good for me and
     mine the Lord will give.

“To-morrow, Communion in kirk.  The Lord strip off all imperfections, wash away all guilt, breathe love and goodness through all my nature, and make his image shine out from my soul.

“Mother continued very low, and her mind ran on poor Robert.  Thought I was his brother, and asked me frequently, ’Where is your brother? where is that puir laddie?’...  Sisters most attentive....  Contrary to expectation she revived, and I went to Oxford.  The Vice-Chancellor offered me the theatre to lecture in, but I expected a telegram if any change took place on mother.  Gave an address to a number of friends in Dr. Daubeny’s chemical class-room.”

“Monday, 19th June.—­A telegram came, saying that mother had died the day before.  I started at once for Scotland.  No change was observed till within an hour and a half of her departure....  Seeing the end was near, sister Agnes said, ’The Saviour has come for you, mother.  You can “lippen” yourself to him?’ She replied, ‘Oh yes.’  Little Anna Mary was help up to her.  She gave her the last look, and said ’Bonnie wee lassie,’ gave a few long inspirations, and all was still, with a look of reverence on her countenance.  She had wished William Logan, a good Christian man, to lay her head in the grave, if I were not there.  When going away in 1858, she said to me that she would have liked one of her laddies to lay her head in the grave.  It so happened that I was there to pay the last tribute to a dear good mother.”

The last thing we find him doing in Scotland is attending the examination of Oswell’s school, with Anna Mary, and seeing him receive prizes.  Dr. London, of Hamilton, the medical attendant and much-valued friend of the Livingstones, furnishes us with a reminiscence of this occasion.  He had great difficulty in persuading Livingstone to go.  The awful bugbear was that he would be asked to make a speech.  Being assured that it would be thought strange if, in a gathering of the children’s parents, he were absent, he agreed to go.  And of course he had to speak.  What he said was pointed and practical, and in winding up, he said he had just two things to say to them—­“FEAR GOD, AND WORK HARD.”  These appear to have been Livingstone’s last public words in his native Scotland.

His Journal is continued in London: 

“8_th August_.—­Went to Zoological Gardens with Mr. Webb and Dr. Kirk; then to lunch with Miss Coutts” [Baroness Burdett Coutts].  “Queen Emma of Honolulu is to be there.  It is not fair for High Church people to ignore the labors of the Americans, for [the present state of Christianity] is the fruit of their labors, and not of the present Bishop.  Dined at Lady Franklin’s with Queen Emma; a nice, sensible person the Queen seems to be.