shall never be able to play....  To me it seems to be said, ’If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that be ready to be slain; if thou sayest, Behold we knew it not, doth not He that pondereth the heart consider, and He that keepeth thy soul doth He not know, and shall He not give to every one according to his works?’ I have been led, unwittingly, into the slaving field of the Banians and Arabs in Central Africa.  I have seen the woes inflicted, and I must still work and do all I can to expose and mitigate the evils.  Though hard work is still to be my lot, I look genially on others more favored in their lot.  I would not be a member of the ‘International,’ for I love to see and think of others enjoying life.

“During a large part of this journey I had a strong presentiment that I should never live to finish it.  It is weakened now, as I seem to see the end toward which I have been striving looming in the distance.  This presentiment did not interfere with the performance of any duty; it only made me think a great deal more of the future state of being.”

In his latest letters there is abundant evidence that the great desire of his heart was to expose the slave-trade, rouse public feeling, and get that great hindrance to all good for ever swept away.

“Spare no pains,” he wrote to Dr. Kirk in 1871, “in attempting to persuade your superior to this end, and the Divine blessing will descend on you and yours.”

To his daughter Agnes he wrote (15th August, 1872):  “No one can estimate the amount of God-pleasing good that will be done, if, by Divine favor, this awful slave-trade, into the midst of which I have come, be abolished.  This will be something to have lived for, and the conviction has grown in my mind that it was for this end I have been detained so long.”

To his brother in Canada he says (December, 1872):  “If the good Lord permits me to put a stop to the enormous evils of the inland slave-trade, I shall not grudge my hunger and toils.  I shall bless his name with all my heart.  The Nile sources are valuable to me only as a means of enabling me to open my mouth with power among men.  It is this power I hope to apply to remedy an enormous evil, and join my poor little helping hand in the enormous revolution that in his all-embracing Providence He has been carrying on for ages, and is now actually helping forward.  Men may think I covet fame, but I make it a rule never to read aught written in my praise.”

Livingstone’s last birthday (19th March, 1873) found him in much the same circumstances as before.  “Thanks to the Almighty Preserver of men for sparing me thus far on the journey of life.  Can I hope for ultimate success?  So many obstacles have arisen.  Let not Satan prevail over me, O my good Lord Jesus.”  A few days after (24th March):  “Nothing earthly will make me give up my work in despair.  I encourage myself in the Lord my God, and go forward.”