David Livingstone: Explorer, Missionary, Scientist and Doctor

10/18/2016

David Livingstone’s motto was “Christianity, Commerce, and Civilization.” He hoped to bring not only Christianity but also beneficial trade and friendship to Africa. Unlike many explorers, he traveled with only a few men and very few weapons. He made friends with the tribes he came across, and he learned their customs.

This morning I’d like to tell you about a remarkable man. He was an explorer, a missionary, a father of six children, a scientist, and a doctor! He traveled 30,000 miles, much of it on foot. He mapped a trail from one side of Africa to the other, enduring many illnesses, even surviving an attack by a lion that crushed his shoulder. His name was David Livingstone.

David was born in Scotland, in 1813, in a mill town where textiles (or fabrics) were made. When he was 10, David began work at the mill at 6 o’clock in the morning, finished at 8 o’clock at night, and then had school for two hours. Through his force of will, he studied Greek and Latin well enough to enter the University of Glasgow where he became a doctor.

Medicine in his day had made big strides, and David knew that many places in the world did not have doctors with his skills. David joined the London Missionary Society and planned to go to Africa.

The vast continent of Africa was mostly unexplored in the mid-1800s. Most of us don’t realize how large Africa really is. Africa is bigger than the United States, PLUS Germany, France, Spain, and Italy, PLUS India, plus Mexico, plus…. China!

David Livingstone’s motto was “Christianity, Commerce and Civilization.” He hoped to bring not only Christianity but also beneficial trade and friendship to Africa. Unlike many explorers, he travelled with only a few men and very few weapons. He made friends with the tribes he came across, and he learned their customs.

David’s detailed accounts of his journeys are so precise his steps could be easily retraced. He discovered lakes, waterfalls, vast jungles, and met tribes and cultures that Europeans had never known. For six years he was not heard from in the outside world. Only one of the forty-four letters he sent ever reached a town where they could then be posted. When Livingstone learned this, he believed that the letters had been waylaid by Arab slave traders who knew that he was consistently advocating for the end of slavery.

Finally, a reporter from The New York Herald went looking for David Livingstone and found him, very ill, by the shores of Lake Tanganyika. The reporter famously said when he saw David, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” The reporter urged him to return with him, but Dr. Livingstone insisted on continuing his work.

As a doctor, he brought the latest scientific methods to African villages. He used chloroform to relieve pain during surgery before it was widely adopted, and he accepted the germ theory of disease and began boiling water to kill microorganisms while other doctors still debated whether germs caused disease.

David Livingstone died in 1873 at the age of 60, having explored Africa for 30 years. He had devoted his whole life to the service of others. He died, however, in full hope that his work was not only helping people in this life, but that he was expanding the kingdom of God. He is buried in Westminster Abbey, just beside the monument to Sir Isaac Newton.

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David Livingstone: Explorer, Missionary, Scientist and Doctor

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