“19_th March, Birthday_.—­My Jesus, my King, my Life, my All; I again dedicate my whole self to Thee.  Accept me, and grant, O gracious Father, that ere this year is gone I may finish my task.  In Jesus’ name I ask it.  Amen.  So let it be.  DAVID LIVINGSTONE.”

Frequent letters were written to his daughter from Unyanyembe, and they dwelt a good deal upon his difficulties, the treacherous way in which he had been treated, and the indescribable toil and suffering which had been the result.  He said that in complaining to Dr. Kirk of the men whom he had employed, and the disgraceful use they had made of his (Kirk’s) name, he never meant to charge him with being the author of their crimes, and it never occurred to him to say to Kirk, “I don’t believe you to be the traitor they imply;” but Kirk took his complaint in high dudgeon as a covert attack upon himself, and did not act toward him as he ought to have done, considering what he owed him.  His cordial and uniform testimony of Stanley was, “altogether he has behaved right nobly.”

On the 1st May he finished a letter for the New York Herald, and asked God’s blessing on it.  It contained the memorable words afterward inscribed on the stone to his memory in Westminster Abbey:  “All I can add in my loneliness is, may Heaven’s rich blessing come down on every one—­American, English, or Turk—­who will help to heal the open sore of the world.”  It happened that the words were written precisely a year before his death.

Amid the universal darkness around him, the universal ignorance of God and of the grace and love of Jesus Christ, it was hard to believe that Africa should ever be won.  He had to strengthen his faith amid this universal desolation.  We read in his Journal: 

“13_th May_.—­He will keep his word—­the gracious One, full of grace and truth; no doubt of it.  He said:  ’Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out;’ and ’Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, I will give it.’  He WILL keep his word:  then I can come and humbly present my petition, and it will be all right.  Doubt is here inadmissible, surely, D.L.”

His mind ruminates on the river system of the country and the probability of his being in error: 

“2l_st May_.—­I wish I had some of the assurance possessed by others, but I am oppressed with the apprehension that, after all, it may turn out that I have been following the Congo; and who would risk being put into a cannibal pot, and converted into black man for it?”

“31_st May_.—­In reference to this Nile source, I have been kept in perpetual doubt and perplexity.  I know too much to be positive.  Great Lualaba, or Lualubba, as Manyuema say, may turn out to be the Congo, and Nile a shorter river after all[75].  The fountains flowing north and south seem in favor of its being the Nile.  Great westing is in favor of the Congo.”

     [Footnote 75:  From false punctuation, this passage is
     unintelligible in the Last Journals, vol. ii. p. 193.]