American Minute - Nov. 10 - Dr. Livingstone, I presume

American Minute
with
Bill Federer

"Doctor Livingstone, I presume," was the greeting NOVEMBER 10, 1871, by New York Herald newspaper reporter Henry Stanley as he met David Livingstone on the banks of Lake Tanganyika.

Livingstone, an internationally known missionary in Africa, had not been heard from in years and rumor was he had died. Stanley, a skeptic, set out to find him and write a story.

He described Dr. Livingstone as:

"A man who is manifestly sustained as well as guided by influences from Heaven...The...enthusiasm...of his life comes, beyond question, from Christ. There must, therefore, be a Christ."

Trying to end slavery, and discovering the Zambezi River and Victoria Falls, Livingstone was so loved by Africans that when he died in 1873 by Lake Bangweulu, his followers buried his heart in Africa before sending his body, packed in salt, back to England to be buried in Westminster Abbey.

In his Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa, 1857, Dr. David Livingstone wrote:

"The perfect fullness with which the pardon of all our guilt is offered in God's Book, drew forth feelings of affectionate love to Him who bought us with His blood...

A sense of deep obligation to Him for His mercy has influenced...my conduct ever since."