STANLEY ON LIVINGSTONE.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XVIII, Issue 1180, 16 September 1885, Page 6

STANLEY ON LIVINGSTONE.

Mr Stanley, the celebrated traveller, said in the course of a recent interview : — I have been in Africa seventeen years; and I never met a man yet who would bill me if I folded my hands. What is wanted, and what I have been endeavoring to ask for the poor Africans, has been the good offices of Christians ; ever since Livingstone taught me during those four months that I was with him. In 1871 I went to him as prejudiced as the biggest atheist in London. To a reporter and correspondent, such as I, who had only to deal with wars, mass meetings and political gatherings, sentimental matters were entirely out of my province. But there came for me ere long time for reflection. I was out there far from a worldly world, I saw this solitary old man there, and asked myself, " How on earth does he stop here; is he cracked or what? What is it that inspires him ?" Por months after we met I simply found myself listening to him, wondering at the old man carrying out all that was said in tbe Bible — "Leave all things and follow Me." But little by little his sympathy for others became contagious ; my sympathy was aroused ; seeing his piety, his gentleness, his zeal, his earnestness, and how quietly he went about his business, I was converted by him, although he had not tried to do it. He converted people by example. How sad that the good old man should have died so soon. How joyful he would have been if he could have seen what had since happened there.