By and by he asked me whether I thought he would do for Africa.  I said I believed he would, if he would not go to an old station, but would advance to unoccupied ground, specifying the vast plain to the north, where I had sometimes seen, in the morning sun, the smoke of a thousand villages, where no missionary had ever been.  At last Livingstone said:  ’What is the use of my waiting for the end of this abominable opium war?  I will go at once to Africa.’  The Directors concurred, and Africa became his sphere.”

It is no wonder that all his life Livingstone had a very strong faith in Providence, for at every turn of his career up to this point, some unlooked-for circumstance had come in to give a new direction to his history.  First, his reading Dick’s Philosophy of a Future State, which led him to Christ, but did not lead him away from science; then his falling in with Gutzlaff’s Appeal, which induced him to become a medical missionary; the Opium War, which closed China against him; the friendly word of the Director who procured for him another trial; Mr. Moffat’s visit, which deepened his interest in Africa; and finally, the issue of a dangerous illness that attacked him in London—­all indicated the unseen hand that was preparing him for his great work.

The meeting of Livingstone with Moffat is far too important an event to be passed over without remark.  Both directly and indirectly Mr. Moffat’s influence on his young brother, afterward to become his son-in-law, was remarkable.  In after-life they had a thorough appreciation of each other.  No family on the face of the globe could have been so helpful to Livingstone in connection with the great work to which he gave himself.  If the old Roman fashion of surnames still prevailed, there is no household of which all the members would have been better entitled to put AFRICANUS after their name.  The interests of the great continent were dear to them all.  In 1872, when one of the Search Expeditions for Livingstone was fitted out, a grandson of Dr. Moffat, another Robert Moffat, was among those who set out in the hope of relieving him; cut off at the very beginning, in the flower of his youth, he left his bones to moulder in African soil.

The illness to which we have alluded was an attack of congestion of the liver, with an affection of the lungs.  It seemed likely to prove fatal, and the only chance of recovery appeared to be a visit to his home, and return to his native air.  In accompanying him to the steamer, Mr. Moore found him so weak that he could scarcely walk on board.  He parted from him in tears, fearing that he had but a few days to live.  But the voyage and the visit had a wonderful effect, and very soon Livingstone was in his usual health.  The parting with his father and mother, as they afterward told Mr. Moore, was very affecting.  It happened, however, that they met once more.  It was felt that the possession of a medical diploma