Page:They're a multitoode (1900).djvu/74

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week's wages, sixty cents, he gave with pride to his mother. He saved a few pence and purchased a "Rudiments of Latin," over which he pored when the day's work was done. His thirst for knowledge was intense. At the age of sixteen he had read many of the classical authors and knew Horace and Virgil well.

It was about his twentieth year that the great spiritual change took place, which was to determine Livingstone's future life. At that time he definitely received Christ as his personal Saviour, and there can be no doubt that his heart was thoroughly penetrated by the new life that then flowed into it. Religion became the everyday business of his life and his daily prayer was that he might resemble Christ, a petition fulfilled in no ordinary degree. A desire was born within him to preach Christ in China, and that he might be fitted for that work he entered as a medical student in the University of Glasgow, and in due time was graduated in medicine. He received not a cent of aid from anyone. What a struggle he had! What economy he had to practice! Frequently his meal consisted entirely of oatmeal porridge.

He was accepted by the London Missionary Society and sent out in 1840—not to China—but to Africa. To God and to Africa he gave his manhood's prime. No grander work was ever done than that accomplished by David Livingstone. In him life's fire glowed. With magnanimous and self-sacrificing devotion, with undaunted courage, in the midst of manifold sufferings, through days of hunger and