David Livingston's Testimony

His body is buried at Westminister Abbey but his heart (literally) remains in Africa. When Robert Livingston, the missionary doctor, died, the Africans removed his heart and buried it in the land he loved.

When he died, they found him in prayer with his Bible opened to Matthew 28. Beside verse 20 he’d made this notation: “The Word of a Gentleman.”

Livingston could easily have lived comfortably in his native Scotland. What kept him in Africa? His arm paralyzed from a lion attack, he’d suffered 27 bouts of jungle fever, and was exhausted from battling slave traders. Later, addressing the University of Glasgow, David Livingston said, “What sustained me amidst the trials, hardships and loneliness of my exiled life, was the promise of a gentleman of the most sacred honor: it was this promise, ‘Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.’ People talk about the sacrifice I’ve made.

But can it be called a sacrifice when it’s simply paying back a small part of a great debt I owe to God? A payment, that brings peace of mind and the hope of a glorious destiny? It is emphatically no sacrifice, it is a privilege!” As a man wept openly at his funeral, a friend asked if he’d known Livingston personally.

He replied, “I weep not for Livingston, but for myself. He lived and died for something, I have lived for nothing.”