comforting, for when we think of the feebleness and littleness of all we do, we might despair of having our services accepted, were we not assured that it is not these God looks to, except in so far as they are indications of the state of the heart.”

Dr. Livingstone’s sisters have a distinct recollection that the field to which the Directors intended to send him was the West Indies, and that he remonstrated on the ground that he had spent two years in medical study, but in the West Indies, where there were regular practitioners, his medical knowledge would be of little or no avail.  He pleaded with the Directors, therefore, that he might be allowed to complete his medical studies, and it was then that Africa was provisionally fixed on as his destination.  It appears, however, that he had not quite abandoned the thought of China.  Mr. Moir, his former pastor, writes that being in London in May, 1839, he called at the Mission House to make inquiries about him.  He asked whether the Directors did not intend to send him to the East Indies, where the field was so large and the demand so urgent, but he was told that though they esteemed him highly, they did not think that his gifts fitted him for India, and that Africa would be a more suitable field.

On returning to London, Livingstone devoted himself with special ardor to medical and scientific study.  The church with which he was connected was that of the late Rev. Dr. Bennett, in Falcon Square.  This led to his becoming intimate with Dr. Bennett’s son, now the well-known J. Risdon Bennett, M.D., LL.D., F.R.S., and President of the Royal College of Physicians, London.  The friendship continued during the whole of Dr. Livingstone’s life.  From some recollections with which Dr. Bennett has kindly furnished us we take the following: 

“My acquaintance with David Livingstone was through the London Missionary Society, when, having offered himself to that Society, he came to London to carry on those medical and other studies which he had commenced in Glasgow.  From the first, I became deeply interested in his character, and ever after maintained a close friendship with him.  I entertained toward him a sincere affection, and had the highest admiration of his endowments, both of mind and heart, and of his pure and noble devotion of all his powers to the highest purposes of life.  One could not fail to be impressed with his simple, loving, Christian spirit, and the combined modest, unassuming, and self-reliant character of the man.

“He placed himself under my guidance in reference to his medical studies, and I was struck with the amount of knowledge that he had already acquired of those subjects which constitute the foundation of medical science.  He had, however, little or no acquaintance with the practical departments of medicine, and had had no opportunities of studying the nature and aspects of disease.  Of these deficiencies he was quite aware, and felt the importance of acquiring