Next
month marks the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of David Livingstone,
one of the great pioneer missionaries of Christian history, and one of the most
famous Congregationalist figures of all time.
This first article explores his early life.
David
Livingstone was born on March 13th 1813 in Blantyre, Lanarkshire,
about eight miles south of Glasgow. He
grew up in a typically poor, protestant Scottish family, where there was an
emphasis on personal piety, hard work, the importance of education and a sense
of mission.
His
parents, Neil, a tea salesman, and Agnes, had been married just over two years
before in Blantyre. Neil’s family came
from the island of Ulva, just off the Scottish west coast, and Agnes’s from the
lowlands of Scotland, being descended from a family of Covenanters, evangelical
protestants who suffered much persecution in earlier times.
The
family were poor, and David was brought up as one of seven children in a single
room at the top of a tenement block known as ‘Shuttle Row’. It had been built for the workers of a cotton
factory on the banks of the River Clyde.
The Livingstone family was devout, and
David was brought up to treasure God’s Word.
Before he was ten, the
boy received a prize for reciting the whole of the one hundred and nineteenth
Psalm, "with only five hitches," we are told. It was in this factory that David was forced
to go to work to help the family’s finances, when he was only ten years
old. He had to work there from six in
the morning until eight in the evening every day.
Along
with the other children, Livingstone would then spend what was left of the
evening at the night school run for their benefit. Though many children simply fell asleep
exhausted, Livingstone studied hard, often until late at night.
He bought a study-book out of his first week's wages,
and in the evenings, when David could have the schoolmaster's help, he took it,
and when he couldn't, he worked on alone. In this way he mastered his Latin. He
was not brighter than other boys, but more determined to learn than many. He
used to put a book on the spinning jenny, and catch sentences now and then, as
he passed the place in his work. In this way he learned to put his mind on his
book no matter what clatter went on around him. When nineteen, he was promoted
in the factory.
Though David had been brought up in a Christian
family, it wasn’t until he was twenty that the young man became an earnest
Christian, and the spiritual change that took place then determined the whole
course of the remainder of his life.
Before his conversion he had often thought about eternity; "Great pains," he says,
"had been taken by my parents to instill the doctrines of Christianity
into my mind, and I had no difficulty in understanding the theory of a free
salvation by the atonement of our Saviour; but it was only about this time that
I began to feel the necessity and value of a personal application of the
provisions of that atonement to my own case."
He
now began to reflect on his state as a sinner, and became anxious to experience
the peace that the Gospel promises. He often felt his unworthiness to receive
the grace promised by the Bible and consequently long felt that he couldn’t
commit himself to the only true hope of the sinner, the finished work of the
Lord Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary.
In His grace, God revealed to him his error, and he renounced all hope in
himself; and as a bankrupt sinner he trusted in the power and willingness of
Christ to save. To use again his own words: "I saw the duty and
inestimable privilege immediately to accept salvation by Christ. Humbly
believing that through sovereign mercy and grace I have been enabled so to do,
and having felt in some measure its effects on my still depraved and deceitful
heart, it is my desire to show my attachment to the cause of Him who died for
me by henceforth devoting my life to His service."
Following
his conversion, Livingstone soon became aware of the desperate need for
qualified missionaries, and as a response, he began to intersperse his work in
the Blantyre cotton mill with studies in theology and medicine. He was a member by now of a congregational
church, where the pastor, the Rev John Moir, encouraged him in his missionary
training. Close friends also supported
him, and they persuaded him to apply to the London Missionary Society.
The
Missionary Society were reluctant at first to accept him, on the grounds that
that he was a dismal failure as a preacher, and very hesitant in his leading of
public worship. They therefore extended
his probationary period. Livingstone had
always had an interest in China, and so determined that this would be where he
would serve the Lord. The Opium War that
was then raging in the Far East frustrated him in this desire, and so his
attention turned to Africa, after hearing Robert Moffatt, an LMS worker there.
(To
be continued)
No comments:
Post a Comment