The prize made the eyes of the lad sparkle with anticipation. His Sunday school teacher had offered a New Testament to any boy in the class who would memorize Psalm 119, all 176 verses! The young boy had never done anything like this before, and he was only nine years old. 

Sure enough, by the required time, the boy stood erect on the stand and quoted the entire psalm with only five small errors. Little did that Sunday School teacher know that his pupil’s name, David Livingstone, would one day be a name that was known throughout the world, and that he would carry this New Testament to places that were not even on the map! 

But that adventure was for another day. Life for a nine-year-old son of a poor Scottish clerk had to go on. When he was ten, his loving parents had to put their little boy to work in a Scottish cotton mill. The very first week of his employment, the boy purchased a grammar book. He sat for long hours at the spinning-jenny, a hand-powered spindle machine for spinning wool or cotton. However, he always had a book propped up where he could read while his hands worked. In this way, the lad acquired his education. He would not read novels, considering them a waste of time, but he did devour every other thing that he read. 

Over the years, David Livingstone memorized large sections of the Bible. He read science. He read history. He especially liked to read geography and to learn about strange lands far from the hills of his native Scotland. He openly confessed Christ at the age of twenty and dedicated his life to the service of God.

Hearing an appeal for the benighted land of China, Livingstone began to prepare himself for that mission field. He himself would be a missionary. His heart yearned for the salvation of the thronging millions in the vast continent of Asia whom he had read about. In addition to theology, he diligently began to study medicine, which he knew he would need among the millions of souls in mainland China. At the age of twenty-five, Livingstone applied to the London Missionary Society as a candidate for the mission field of China. 

During this time, Livingstone also began to preach in the surrounding countryside churches in additional preparation for the mission field. One day, the pastor of a nearby village church suddenly became sick, and the missionary candidate was asked to come speak. Livingstone carefully prepared a sermon. When the time came to preach, he ascended the pulpit and dutifully read his Scripture text. But then, suddenly, he could not remember his sermon—not a single word! He ruefully announced, “Friends, I have forgotten all I had to say.” With that statement uttered, he then fled from the church. 

As a result of this disconcerting incident, distressing rumors began to circulate about him. Men in high places looked with disfavor upon the young man. Some said that his prayers were “not eloquent.” Others pointed to his general failure in the pulpit. Discussing the situation, the leaders of the London Missionary Society decided that David Livingstone would not make a good missionary, and they placed him on probation. 

In spite of these discouragements, Livingstone would not quit. Realizing his own failures, he sought to remedy them the same way he had memorized Psalm 119 and had read books on his spinning-jenny. The remedy was diligent hard work. 

Thus, denying his own ease and pleasure, David Livingstone applied himself wholeheartedly to the study of medicine and theology and endeavored to do better in the pulpit. The London Missionary Society agreed not to dismiss him; they merely continued his probation. 

Then came an unexpected turn of events. With the Opium War raging in China, that door was temporarily closed to mission efforts. At the same time, a visiting veteran missionary from another field came and spoke to the mission candidates. The missionary described another field, equally important as China. “I have, at night, looked out from my mission station and seen the smoke of a thousand villages where Christ is not named.” From that moment, the heart of the young mission candidate was fixed upon the new mission field, the land known in that day as “The Dark Continent.” 

On November 20, 1840, David Livingstone was ordained as a missionary. He eagerly set sail for South Africa the next month and arrived in the Dark Continent in March 1841. From 1841 until his death in 1873, David Livingstone walked thousands of miles, taking the name of Christ to those same villages. He married Mary Moffet, the daughter of the man who had described those villages to him. 

While in Africa, he discovered tribes not even known of or recorded and introduced them to the God Who was the Creator of all things and the Redeemer of sinners. Livingstone crossed the Kalahari Desert. He cut his way through dense jungles and swam crocodile-infested streams. He traced rivers, such as the Zambezi, Shire, and Nile, to their sources. He discovered Mosi-oa-Tunya Waterfall and renamed it Victoria Falls, after his queen. 

The trials of his youth had prepared him for the difficult trials of a pioneer missionary. He endured tropical illnesses, betrayals, discouragements, and injuries. On one occasion, he met a huge African lion on the trail. Although he was well-armed, his gun was no match for the powerful lion. Even with two bullets in its heart, the lion still had enough strength to seize and crush the missionary’s shoulder. For the rest of his life, Livingstone had trouble with that shoulder. His domestic life also had its hardships. Eventually, he had to bury his beloved wife and several children in the soil of Africa.

Although he had no way of knowing, during this time on the mission field, David Livingstone had become a national hero back home in the British Isles. The occasional letters that he had sent home were, without his knowledge, published in the London papers. Englishmen throughout the world began pulling out maps and tracing with their fingers those vast blank regions of Africa where he was carrying the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In 1856, when Livingstone returned to England for a visit, he was surprised to see a crowd of admirers thronging the wharf to catch a glimpse of him! 

After this visit to England, David Livingstone returned to Africa, the land that he had come to love. He plunged into the vast interior of the Dark Continent. He was not heard from for several years. Was he still alive? A newspaperman was sent from New York to find out. 

The task of finding a missionary in a huge, unfamiliar continent was like looking for a needle in a haystack! However, beyond all hope, the newsman finally found the object of his search. Deep in the African wilderness, the two men who had never before met would now come face-to-face near Lake Tanganyika in modern Tanzania. Upon seeing the missionary, the newspaperman uttered this simple and now-famous greeting, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume.”

David Livingstone had carried the New Testament he had won as a prize through thousands of miles of vast and unexplored savannas, jungles, swamps, and mountains. The London Missionary Society was made famous by the candidate they had once criticized and considered dropping. All England had been awakened to foreign missions. 

In 1873, an aging Dr. Livingstone set out on a long trek to find the sources of the Congo River. One morning when his native companions came to check on their beloved leader, they found his stiffened body in a kneeling posture beside his cot. Denying himself, Dr. Livingstone had taken up his cross and followed Christ all the way to mortal death and eternal life. 

Dr. Livingstone’s body was embalmed and taken back to England, where it was received with all the honors due a hero. His remains were afforded the high honor of being laid to rest in Westminster Abbey. But before leaving the shores of Africa, at the respectful request of the natives among whom Dr. Livingstone had spent his life, his heart had been removed from his body and lovingly buried in the soil of Africa.

Sources and Further Reference:

Christie, Vance. David Livingstone: Missionary, Explorer, Abolitionist. Ross-shire, Scotland, UK: Christian Focus, 2023.