[Footnote 17:  Not in the same parish, as stated afterward by Professor Owen.  Hunter was born in East Kilbride, and Livingstone in Blantyre.  The error is repeated in notices of Livingstone in some other quarters.]

On all his fellow-students and acquaintances the simplicity, frankness, and kindliness of Livingstone’s character made a deep impression.  Mr. J.S.  Cook, now of London, who spent three months with him at Ongar, writes:  “He was so kind and gentle in word and deed to all about him that all loved him.  He had always words of sympathy at command, and was ready to perform acts of sympathy for those who were suffering.”  The Rev. G.D.  Watt, a brother Scotchman, who went as a missionary to India, has a vivid remembrance of Livingstone’s mode of discussion; he showed great simplicity of view, along with a certain roughness or bluntness of manner; great kindliness, and yet great persistence in holding to his own ideas.  But none of his friends seem to have had any foresight of the eminence he was destined to attain.  The Directors of the Society did not even rank him among their ablest men.  It is interesting to contrast the opinion entertained of him then with that expressed by Sir Bartle Frere, after much personal intercourse, many years afterward.  “Of his intellectual force and energy,” wrote Sir Bartle, “he has given such proof as few men could afford.  Any five years of his life might in any other occupation have established a character and raised for him a fortune such as none but the most energetic of our race can realize[18].”

[Footnote 18:  Good Words, 1874, p. 285.]

But his early friends were not so much at fault.  Livingstone was somewhat slow of maturing.  If we may say so, his intellect hung fire up to this very time, and it was only during his last year in England that he came to his intellectual manhood, and showed his real power.  His very handwriting shows the change; from being cramped and feeble it suddenly becomes clear, firm, and upright, very neat, but quite the hand of a vigorous, independent man.

Livingstone’s prospects of getting to China had been damaged by the Opium War; while it continued, no new appointments could be made, even had the Directors wished to send him there.  It was in these circumstances that he came into contact with his countryman, Mr. (now Dr.) Moffat, who was then in England, creating much interest in his South African mission.  The idea of his going to Africa became a settled thing, and was soon carried into effect.

“I had occasion” (Dr. Moffat has informed us) “to call for some one at Mrs. Sewell’s, a boarding-house for young missionaries in Aldersgate street, where Livingstone lived.  I observed soon that this young man was interested in my story, that he would sometimes come quietly and ask me a question or two, and that he was always desirous to know where I was to speak in public, and attended on these occasions.