I recently started reading a biography of Scotsman David Livingston (pictured) an early missionary and African explorer during 1840-1873. I didn’t finish and won’t recommend that book. The cruelty of slave traders described in Livingston’s journals will be difficult for me to forget. However, I switched to a sanitized Wikipedia version and found a compelling story.

As a young man, Livingston struggled to escape poverty and become a medical doctor. He took his skills to Africa and developed deep caring for Africans. While trying to defend a village from a marauding lion, the lion caught and maimed him for life. The daughter of a fellow missionary nursed him afterwards and became his wife. One of their sons died fighting against slavery by volunteering for America’s Union Army in the Civil War.

During an age when explorers were revered, Livingston became famous in Britian and America. He disappeared on his final African trip. Such was his celebrity that an American newspaper sent Henry Morton Stanley to find him. His words on finding Livingston (possibly apocryphal), “Dr. Livingston, I presume,” made Stanley famous himself.

Livingston did not survive to return to Britian. But his compassion for the Africans moved and inspired me.

Drew