Stanley Saw God
Story★★★★★Henry M. Stanley, who wrote the first great story of David Livingstone, from which the motion picture in which Spencer Tracy played was taken, was a hard-boiled newspaper reporter who was sent out to Africa to find Livingstone. He went out as a cynic and an unbeliever but he returned a believer.
Dan Crawford said to me once about this change which had gone on in Stanley’s heart, “Livingstone was seemingly so eminently one of Christ’s men that Stanley could believe there was a Christ because there was a Livingstone.” Stanley himself said: Here is a man who is manifestly sustained as well as guided by influences from heaven. The Holy Spirit dwells in him; God speaks through him. The heroism, the nobility, the pure and stainless enthusiasm at the root of his life came beyond question from Christ.
There must, therefore, be a Christ and it is worth while to have such a helper and a redeemer as this Christ undoubtedly is, as he reveals himself in this wonderful disciple. That is not a preacher, a missionary, or a pious fraud talking. That is Stanley, a newspaperman and one of the greatest the newspaper world has ever had. Men have been looking for some revelation of God through all the ages, but perhaps the ultimate revelation will always be through some human being.
Edna St. Vincent Millay said: The soul can split the sky in two, And let the face of God shine through. That was what Dan Crawford meant when he said, “Stanley could believe there was a Christ because there was a Livingstone.”
Many of us have believed that there is a Christ and a God in Israel because we have known a good Christian—a kindly, loving mother or father, brother or sister, husband or wife. We have seen Christ through some individual. Jesus himself said long ago, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” He meant that the world could believe that there is a God because there has been a Christ.
So was it in Christ’s day, so was it in Livingstone’s day, so is it in this day. We can believe that there is a Christ because we have seen men and women willing to sacrifice, willing to die, willing to give in the spirit of Christ even if that means the cross and death.
The point
Henry Stanley, a hard-boiled newspaper reporter sent to find Livingstone in Africa, began as a cynic but was transformed by witnessing Livingstone's Christ-like character and devotion, recognizing that there must be a real Christ to produce such a disciple.