AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DE. LIVINGSTONE.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume 1, Issue 31, 24 April 1858, Page 6

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DE. LIVINGSTONE.

The following highly characteristic autobiography of this eminent man forms the introduction to his new work upon Africa. We are indebted for it to the columns of the New Zealander, the editor of which acknowledges receipt of a copy — the only one, it is said, that has reached the Province. My own inclination would lead me to say as little possible about myself; but several friends, in whose judgment I have confidence, have suggested that as the reader likes to know something about the author, a short account of his origin and early life would lend an additional interest to this book. Such is mv excuse for the follow-

ing egotism ; and if an apology be necessary for giving a genealogy, I find it in the fact that it is not very long, and contains only one incident of which I have reason to be proud.

Our great-grandfather fell at the "battle of Culloden, fighting for the eld line of kings ; and our grandfather was a small farmer in Ulva, where my father was born. It was one of that cluster of the Hebrides thus alluded to by Walter Scott : —

" And Ulva dark, and Colonsay, And all the group of islets gay That guard famad Staffa round."

Our grandfather was intimately acquainted with all the traditionary legends which that great writer has since made use of in the "Tales of a Grandfather" and oLher works. As a boy I remember listening to him with delight, for his memory was stored with a never-ending stock of stones, many of which were wonderfully like those I have since heard while sitting by the African evening fires. Our Grandmother, too, used to sing Gaelic Songs, some of which, as she "believed, had been composed by captive islanders, languishing hopelessly among the Turks. Grandfather could give particulars of the lives of his ancestors for six generations of the family "before him ; and the only point of the tradition I feel proud of is this. One of these poor hardy islanders was renowned in the district for great wisdom and prudence ; and it is related that, when he was on his deathbed, he called ail his children around him and said, "Now, in my lifetime, I have searched most carefully through all the traditions I could find of our family, and I never could discover that there was a dishonest man among our forefathers. If therefore any of you dr your children should take to dishonest ways, it will not be because it runs in our blood ; it does not belong to you. I leave this precept with you : Be honest." If, therefore, in the following pages I fall into any errors, I hope they will he dealt with as honest mistakes, and not as indicating that I have forgotten the ancient motto. This event took place at a time when the Highlanders, according to Macaulay, were much like the Cape Caifres, and any one, it is said, could escape punishment f>r cattle-stealing by presenting a share of ihe plunder to his chieftain. Our aicestors were Roman Catholics ; they were made Protestants by the laird coming round with a man having a yellow staff, which would seem to have attracted more attention than his teaching, lor the new religion went long af'erwards, perhaps it does so still, by the name of "the religion of the yellow stick."

Finding his farm in Ulva insufficient to support a numerous family, my grandfather removed to Blantyre Works, a large cotton manufactory on the beautiful Clyde, above Glasgow : and his sons having had the best education the Hebrides afforded, were ghdly received as clerks by the proprietors, Monteith and Co. He himself, highly esteemed for his unflinching l.onesty, was employed in the conveyance of large sums of money from Glasgow to the works, and in old age was, according to the custom of that company, pensioned off, so as to spsnd his declining years in ease and comfort.

Our uncles all entered his Majesty's serv'ce during the last French war, either as soldiers or sailors ; but my father remained at home, and, though too conscientious ever to become rich as a small tea-dealer, by his kindliness of manner and winning ways he made the heartstrings of his children twine around him as firmly as if he had possessed, arid could have bestowed upon them, every worldly advantage. He reare 1 his children in connexion with the Kirk of Scotland — a religious establishment which Las been an incalculable blessing to that country — but be afterwards left it, and during the last twenty years of his life held

the office of deacon of an independent church in Hamilton, and deserved my lasting gratitude and homage for presenting me from infancy with a continuously consistent pious example, such as that the ideal of which is so beautifully and truthfully portrayed in Burns' 'Cottar's Saturday Night.' lie died in February 1856, in peaceful hope of that mercy which we all expect through the death of our Lord and Saviour. I was at the time on my way below Zumbo expecting no greater pleasure in this country than sitting by our cottage fire telling him my travels. 1 revere his memory.

The earliest recollection of my mother recalls a picture so often seen among the Scottish poor — that of the anxious housewife striving to make both ends meet. At the age of ten I was put into the factory as a "piecer," to aid by my earnings in lessening her anxiety. With a part of my first week's wages I purchased Ruddiman's "Rudiments of Latin," and pursued the study of that language for many years afterwards, with unabated ardour, at an evening school, which met between the hours of eight and ten. The dictionary part of my labours was followed up till twelve o'clock, or later, if my mother did not interfere by jumping up and snatching the books out of my h-inds. I had to be back in the factory by six in the morning, and continue my work, with intervals for breakfast and dinner, till eight o'clock at night. I read in this way many of the classical authors, and knew Virjjl and Horace better at sixteen than Ido now. Our school-master — happily still alive — was supported in part by the company ; he was attentive and kind, and so moderate in his charges that all who wished for education might have obtained it. Many availed themselves of the privilege ; and some of my schoolfellows now rank in positions far above what they appeared ever likely to come to when in the village school. If such a system were established in England, it would prove a never ending blessing to the poor.

In reading, everything that I could lay ray hands on was devoured except novels. Scientific works and books of travels were my especial delight ; though my father, believing, v.i'Ji many of his; time who ought to have known better, that the former were inimical to religion, would have preferred to have seen me poring over the '"Cloud of "Witnesses," or Boston's "Fourfold State." Our differences of opinion reached the point of open rebellion on my part, and his last, application of the rod was on my refusal to peruse "Wilberforce's "Practical Christianity." This dislike to dry doctrinal reading of every sort, continued for years afterwards ; but having lighted on those admirable works of Dr. Thomas Dick, "The Philosophy of Religion," and '"The Philosophy of a Future State," it was gratifying to find my own ideas, that religion and science are not hostile, but friendly to each other, fully proved and enforced.

Gicat pains had been taken by my parents to instil the doctrines of Christianity into my mind, and I had no difficulty in understanding the theory of our free salvation by the atonement of our Saviour, but it was about this time that I really began to feel the necessity and value of a personal application of the provisions of that atonement to my own case. The change was like what may be supposed would take place v, ere it possible to cure a case of 'color blindness.' The perfect freeness with which the pardon cf all our guilt is offered in God's book, drew forth feelings of affoctionate love to Him who bought us with his own blood, and a sense of deep obligation to Him, for his mercy has influenced, in some small measure, my conduct ever since. But I shall not again refer to the inner spiritual life which I believe then began, nor do I intend to specify with any prominence the evangelistic labours to which the love cf Christ has since impelled me : this book will speak not so much of what has been done, as what still remains to be performed before the gospel can be said to be preached to all nations.

In the glow of love which Christianity inspires, I soon resolved to devote my life to the alleviation of human misery. Turning thi -4 idea over in my mind, I felt that to be a pioneer of Christianity in China might lead to the material benefit of some portion of that immense empire ; and therefore set mys.'lf to obtain a medical education, in order to be qualified for that enterprise.

In recognising the plants pointed out in my first medical hook, that extraoidinary old work on astrol gical medicine, Culpepev's "Herbal," I had the guidance of a book on the plants of Lanarkshire, by Patrick. Limited as my time was, I found opportunities to scour the whole country -

side, "collecting simples." Deep and anxious were my studies on the still deeper and more perplexing profundities of astrology, and I believe I got as far in that abyss of fantasies as my author said he dared to lead me. It seemed perilous ground to tread on farther, for the dark hint seemed to my youthful mind to loom towards "selling soul and body to the devil," as the price of the unfathomable knowledge of the stars. These excursions, often in company with brothers, one now in Canada, and the other a clergyman in the United States, gratified my intense love of nature ; and though we generally returned so unmercifully hungry and fatigued that the embryo parson shed tears, yet we discovered so many to us new and interesting things, that he was always as eager to join us the next time as he was the last.

On one of these exploring tours we entered a limestone quarry — long before geology was so popular as it is now. It is impossible to describe the delight and wonder with wliijh I began to collect the shells found in the carboniferous limestone which crops out in High B lan tyre and Cambuslang. A quarryman, seeing a little boy so engaged, looked with that pitying eye which the benevolent assume when viewing the insane. Addressing him with, "However did these shells come into these rocks ?" When God made the rocks, he made the shells in them," was the damping reply. What a deal of trouble geologists might have saved themselves by adopting the Turk-like philosophy of this Scotchman !

My reading while at work was carried on

by placing the book on a portion of the spinning jenny, so that I could catch sentence after sentence as I passed at my work ; I thus kept up a pretty constant study undisturbed by the roar of the machinery. To this part of my education I owe my present power of completely abstracting the mind from surrounding noises, so as to read and write with perfect comfort amidst the play of children or near the dancing and songs of savages. The toil of cotton-spin-ning, to which I was promoted in my nineteenth year, was excessively severe on a slim loose-jointed lad, but it was well paid for ; and it enabled me to support myself while attending medical and Greek classes in Glasgow in winter, as also the divinity lectures of Dr. Wardhuv, by working with my hands in summer. I never received a firthing of aid from any one, and should have accomplished my project of going to China as a medical missionary, in the course of time by my own efforts, had not some friends advised my joining the London Missionary Society on account of its perfectly unsectarian character. It "sends neither episcopacy, nor presbyterianism, nor independency, but the gospel of Christ to the heathen. 1 ' This exactly agreed with my ideas of v. hat a Missionary Society ought to do ; but it was not without a pang that I offered myself, for it was not quite agreeable to one accustomed to work his own way to become in a measure dependent on others. And I "would not have been much put about, though my offer had been rejected. Looking hack now on that life of toil, I cannot but feel thankful that it formed such a material part of my early education ; and were it possible, I should like to begin life over againin the same lowly style, and to pass through the same hardy training.

Time and travel have not effaced the feelings of respect I imbibed for the humble inhabitants of my native village. For morality, honesty, and intelligence, they were in general good specimens of the Scottish poor. In a population of more than two thousand souls we had ot course a variety of character. In addition to the common run of men, there were some characters of sterling worth and ability, who exerted a most beneficial influence on the children and youth of the place by imparting gratuitous religious instruction. Much intelligent interest was felt by the villagers in all public questions and they furnished a proof that the possession of the means of education did not render them an unsafe portion of the population. They felt kindly towards each other, and much respected those of the neighbouring gentry who, like the late Lord Douglas, placed some confidence in their sense of honor. Through the kindness of that nobleman, the poorest among us could stroll at pleasure over the ancient domains of Bothwell, and other spots hallowed by the venerahl» associations of which our school-book and local traditions made us well aware ; and few of us could read the dear memorials of the past without feeling that these carefully kept monuments were our own. The masses of the working people of Scotland have read history, and are no revolutionary levt-llers. They rejoice in the me-

mories of ""Wallace and Bruce' and a' the lave," who are still much revered as the former champions of freedom. And while foreigners imagine that we want the spirit only to overturn capitalists and aristocracy, we are content to respect our laws till we can change them, and hate those stupid revolutions which might sweep away timehonoured institutions, dear alike to rich and poor. Having finished the medical curriculum and presented a thesis on a subject which which required the use of the stethescope for its diagnosis, I unwittingly procured for myself an examination rather more severe and prolonged than usual among examining bodies. The reason was, that between me and the examiners a slight difference of opinion existed as to whether this instrument could do what was asserted. The wiser plan would have been to have had no opinion of my own. However, I was admitted a Licentiate of Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons. It was with unfeigned delight I became member of a profession which is pre-eminently devoted to practical benevolence, and which with unwearied energy pursues from age to age its endeavours to lessen human woe.

But though now qualified for my original plan, the opium war was then raging, and it was deemed inexpedient for me to proceed to China. I had fondly hoped to have gained access to that then closed empire hy means of the healing art ; but there bein"no prospect of an early peace with the Chinese, and as another inviting field -was opened through the labours of Mr. Mofi'at, I was induced to turn my thoughts to Africa, and after a more extended course of theological training in England than I had enjo3 red in Glasgow, I embarked for Africa in IS4O, and, after a voyage of three months, reached Cape Town. Spending but a short time there, I started for the interior by going- round to Algoa Bay, and soon proceeded inland, and have spent the following sixteen years of my life, namely from IS4O to 1856, in medical and missionary labours there without cost to the inhabitants. As to those literary qualifications which are acquired by habits of writing, and which are so important to an author, my African life has not only not been favourable to the growth of such accomplishments, but quite the reverse : it has muds composition irksome and laborious. I think I would rather cross the African continent again than to write another book. It is far easier to travel than to write about it. I intended going to Africa to continue my studies : but as I could not brook the idea of simply entering into other men's labours made ready to my hands, I entailed on myself, in addition to teaching, manual labour in building and other handicraft work, which made me generally as much exhausted and unfit for study in the evenings as ever I had been when a cotton -spinner. The want of time for self-improvement was the only source of regret that I experienced during my African career. The reader remembering this will make allowances for the mere gropings for light of a student who has the vanity to think himself "not yet too old to learn." More precise information on several subjects has necessarily been omitted in a popular work like the present ; but I hope to give such details to the scientific reader through some other channel.