Quotes from David Livingstone
By Doug Nichols
"Cannot the love of Christ carry the missionary where the slave trade carries the trader?"
"For a long time I felt much depressed after preaching the unsearchable riches of Christ to
apparently insensible hearts; but now I like to dwell on the love of the great Mediator, for it
always warms my own heart, and I know that the gospel is the power of God—the great means
which He employs for the regeneration of our ruined world."
"Shall I tell you what sustained me amidst the toil, the hardship, and loneliness of my exiled life?
It was the promise, ‘Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end.’"
"Future missionaries will be rewarded by conversions for every sermon…Let them not forget…us,
who worked when all was gloom, and no evidence of success in the way of conversion cheered our
paths."
"Where the geographical feat ends, there the missionary work begins."
David Livingstone buried his wife in Africa -- planted a few wild flowers on her grave, watered them
with his tears, and walked away from that grave, the most lonesome man in all the world, but with
these words ringing in his heart:
He leadeth me, O blessed thought:
O words with heavenly comfort fraught!
Whate'er I do, wher'er I be,
Still 'tis God's hand that leadeth me. (Missionary Crusader, August 1967)
"I am trying now to establish the Lord's Kingdom in a region wider by far than Scotland. Fever seems
to forbid, but I shall work for the glory of Christ's Kingdom -- fever or no fever." (David Livingstone in
a letter to his father, 1853)