“He has taken away, if at last it be as we fear, the greatest
     man of his generation, for Dr. Livingstone stood alone.

“There are few enough, but a few statesmen.  There are few enough, but a few great in medicine, or in art, or in poetry.  There are a few great travelers.  But Dr. Livingstone stood alone as the great Missionary Traveler, the bringer-in of civilization; or rather the pioneer of civilization—­he that cometh before—­to races lying in darkness.

     “I always think of him as what John the Baptist, had he been
     living in the nineteenth century, would have been.

     “Dr. Livingstone’s fame was so world-wide that there were
     other nations who understood him even better than we did.

“Learned philologists from Germany, not at all orthodox in their opinions, have yet told me that Dr. Livingstone was the only man who understood races, and how to deal with them for good; that he was the one true missionary.  We cannot console ourselves for our loss.  He is irreplaceable.

     “It is not sad that he should have died out there.  Perhaps it
     was the thing, much as he yearned for home, that was the
     fitting end for him.  He may have felt it so himself.

     “But would that he could have completed that which he offered
     his life to God to do!

“If God took him, however, it was that his life was completed
in God’s sight; his work finished, the most glorious work of
our generation.

“He has opened those countries for God to enter in.  He struck
the first blow to abolish a hideous slave-trade.

“He, like Stephen, was the first martyr.

“’He climbed the steep ascent of heaven,
Through peril, toil, and pain;
O God! to us may grace be given
To follow in his train!’

“To us it is very dreary, not to have seen him again, that he
should have had none of us by him at the last; no last word
or message.

“I feel this with regard to my dear father and one who was
more than mother to me, Mrs. Bracebridge, who went with me to
the Crimean war, both of whom were taken from me last month.

“How much more must we feel it, with regard to out great
discoverer and hero, dying so far off!

     “But does he regret it?  How much he must know now! how much
     he must have enjoyed!

     “Though how much we would give to know his thoughts,
     alone with God, during the latter days of his life.

     “May we not say, with old Baxter (something altered from that
     verse)?

     “’My knowledge of that life is small,
     The eye of faith is dim;
     But ’tis enough that Christ knows all,
     And he will be with Him.’

“Let us think only of him and of his present happiness, his eternal happiness, and may God say to us:  ’Let not your heart be troubled,’ Let us exchange a ‘God bless you,’ and fetch a real blessing from God in saying so.

     “Florence Nightingale”