In December 1856, David Livingstone returned to England after spending fifteen years in Southern and Central Africa. A year later on the 4th of December, he gave a speech to students at Cambridge University. Below is that speech, with an introductory paragraph written by a commentator:
FROM Cambridge Speech of 1857
David Livingstone (1813-1873), the Scottish missionary and explorer of
Africa, personified for
Britain the higher cause of imperialism. Between 1840 and 1873, Livingstone traversed nearly a third of Africa, missionizing Christianity, opposing the persistent slave trade, and recording thegeography and ethnographic customs of its peoples. His achievement and his self-effacing devotion
to opening up Africa to commerce and Christianity provided inspiration to a nineteenth-century British public in search of a moral center to its imperialist policies in Africa.
My object in going into the country south of the desert was to instruct
the natives in a knowledge of
Christianity, but many circumstances prevented my living amongst them
more than seven years,
amongst which were considerations arising out of the slave system
carried on by the Dutch Boers.
I resolved to go into the country beyond, and soon found that, for
the purposes of commerce,
it was necessary to have a path to the sea. I might have gone on
instructing the natives in
religion, but as civilization and Christianity must go on together, I
was obliged to find a path to the
sea, in order that I should not sink to the level of the natives. The
chief was overjoyed at the
suggestion, and furnished me with twenty-seven men, and
canoes, and provisions, and presents
for the tribes through whose country we had to pass.
In a commercial point of view communication with this country is
desirable. Angola is wonderfully
fertile, producing every kind of tropical plant in rank luxuriance.
Passing on to the valley of
Quango, the stalk of the grass was as thick as a quill, and towered
above my head, although I
was mounted on my ox; cotton is produced in great abundance, though
merely woven into common
cloth; bananas and pineapples grow in great luxuriance; but the
people having no maritime
communication, these advantages are almost lost. The country on the
other side is not quite so
fertile, but in addition to indigo, cotton, and sugarcane, produces a
fibrous substance, which I
am assured is stronger than flax.
The Zambesi has not been thought much of as a river by Europeans, not
appearing very large at its
mouth; but on going up it for about seventy miles, it is enormous.
The first three hundred miles
might be navigated without obstacle: then there is a rapid, and near
it a coal-field of large extent.
The elevated sides of the basin, which form the most important
feature of the country, are far
different in climate to the country nearer the sea, or even the
centre. Here the grass is short,
and the Angola goat, which could not live in the centre, had
been seen on the east highland by
Mr Moffat.
My desire is to open a path to this district, that civilization,
commerce, and Christianity might
find their way there. I consider that we made a great mistake,
when we carried commerce into
India, in being ashamed of our Christianity; as a matter of
common sense and good policy, it is
always best to appear in one's true character. In travelling
through Africa, I might have imitated
certain Portuguese, and have passed for a chief; but I never
attempted anything of the sort,
although endeavouring always to keep to the lessons of
cleanliness rigidly instilled by my mother
long ago; the consequence was that the natives respected me
for that quality, though remaining
dirty themselves.
I had a pass from the Portuguese consul, and on arriving at their
settlement, I was asked what I
was. I said, "A missionary, and a doctor too." They
asked, "Are you a doctor of medicine?" "Yes
... . .. Are you not a doctor of mathematics too?" - "No
... . .. And yet you can take longitudes and
latitudes." - Then they asked me about my moustache; and
I simply said I wore it, because men
had moustaches to wear, and ladies had not. They could not
understand either, why a sacerdote
should have a wife and four children; a joke took place upon
that subject. I used to say, "Is it not better to have children
with than without a wife?" Englishmen of education always
command respect, without
any adventitious aid. A Portuguese governor left for Angola, giving
out that he was going to
keep a large establishment, and taking with him quantities of
crockery, and about five
hundred waistcoats; but when he arrived in Africa, he made a 'deal'
of them. Educated Englishmen
seldom descend to that sort of thing.
A prospect is now before us of opening Africa for commerce and the
Gospel. Providence has been
preparing the way, for even before I proceeded to the Central basin
it had been conquered and
rendered safe by a chief named Sebituane, and the language of the
Bechuanas made the fashionable
tongue, and that was one of the languages into which Mr Moffat had
translated the Scriptures.
Sebituane also discovered Lake Ngami some time previous to my
explorations in that part.
In going back to that country my object is to open up traffic along
the banks of the Zambezi,
and also to preach the Gospel. The natives of Central Africa are very
desirous of trading, but
their only traffic is at present in slaves, of which the poorer
people have an unmitigated
horror: it is therefore most desirable to encourage the former
principle, and thus open a
way for the consumption of free productions, and the introduction of
Christianity and commerce.
By encouraging the native propensity for trade, the advantages that
might be derived in a
commercial point of view are incalculable; nor should we lose sight
of the inestimable blessings
it is in our power to bestow upon the unenlightened African, by
giving him the light of
Christianity. Those two pioneers of civilization -
Christianity and commerce - should ever be
inseparable; and Englishmen should be warned by the fruits of
neglecting that principle as
exemplified in the result of the management of Indian affairs.
By trading with Africa, also, we
should at length be independent of slave-labour, and thus
discountenance practices so obnoxious
to every Englishman.
Though the natives are not absolutely anxious to receive the Gospel, they
are open to Christian influences.
Among the Bechuanas the Gospel was well received. These people think
it a crime to shed a tear,
but I have seen some of them weep at the recollection of their sins
when God had opened their
hearts to Christianity and repentance. It is true that missionaries
have difficulties to encounter;
but what great enterprise was ever accomplished without difficulty?
It is deplorable to think
that one of the noblest of our missionary societies, the Church
Missionary Society, is compelled
to send to Germany for missionaries, whilst other societies are amply
supplied. Let this stain be
wiped off. - The sort of men who are wanted for missionaries are such
as I see before me; men of
education, standing, enterprise, zeal, and piety. It is a mistake to
suppose that any one, as
long as he is pious, will do for this office. Pioneers in every thing
should be the ablest and best
qualified men, not those of small ability and education. This
remark especially applies to the first
teachers of Christian truth in regions which may never have
before been blest with the name and
Gospel of Jesus Christ. In the early ages the monasteries were
the schools of Europe, and the
monks were not ashamed to hold the plough. The missionaries
now take the place of those noble
men, and we should not hesitate to give up the small luxuries
of life in order to carry knowledge
and truth to them that are in darkness. I hope that many of
those whom I now address will
embrace that honourable career. Education has been given us
from above for the purpose of
bringing to the benighted the knowledge of a Saviour. If you
knew the satisfaction of performing
such a duty, as well as the gratitude to God which the
missionary must always feel, in being
chosen for so noble, so sacred a calling, you would have no
hesitation in embracing it.
For my own part, I have never ceased to rejoice that God has appointed me
to such an office. People
talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in
Africa. Can that be called
a sacrifice which is simply paid back as a small part of a great debt
owing to our God, which we
can never repay?- Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest
reward in healthful activity,
the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of
a glorious destiny hereafter? - Away
with the word in such a view, and with such a thought! It is
emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety,
sickness, suffering, or danger, now and then, with a
foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this
life, may make us pause, and cause
the spirit to waver, and the soul to sink, but let this only
be for a moment. All these are nothing
when compared with the glory which shall hereafter be revealed
in, and for, us. I never made a
sacrifice. Of this we ought not to talk, when we remember the
great sacrifice which HE made who
left His Father's throne on high to give Himself for us.
Speech
to students at Cambridge University (4 December 1857)
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