Introduction
David Livingstone: Africa’s Trailblazer is a book written by Janet and Geoff Benge and published in 1999. It describes the remarkable and life-changing journey of David Livingstone across Africa’s uncharted regions to spread the gospel message to local inhabitants. This book belongs to the genre of Christian fiction that deals with the theme of Christianity in a positive way. David Livingstone was a prominent explorer and missionary who was sent to South Africa on behalf of the London Missionary Society.
He wrote a book Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa that focuses on the most significant episodes of Livingstone’s missions. However, despite the highly substantial religious aspect of David Livingstone’s life, both books indicate that it is a strong personality and considered actions of the explorer that help him in his journey rather than God’s will.
David Livingstone’s Childhood
The strength of David Livingstone’s personality may be observed since his childhood. In David Livingstone: Africa’s Trailblazer, he is described as a boy who is highly interested in science and loves reading. David had a botany book, Culpepper’s Herbal, that contained the drawings of various plants, their stalks, flowers, and leaves in the finest details (Benge and Benge 18). The boy was fascinated by this book and wanted to pick up plants that he had recognized due it to press them for his collection. However, his father did not share his interests and prohibited David to read this book and other scientific books as well.
David’s father believed that religion and science were incompatible, and any wish to understand the way of things was “against the laws of God” (Benge and Benge 19). However, David was different from any person he knew as he refused to accept his father’s beliefs. The boy had inherited his passion for reading from his grandfather, who allowed David to borrow his books. Livingstone even demonstrated his knowledge and love for science when he was investigating the animal’s skeleton with his brother.
The way how Livingstone’s family lived also plays a highly significant role in the strengthening of David’s character that helps him to overcome all difficulties during his journey in Africa. David’s parents and all their children lived in a single-room apartment.
The father was a tea peddler who could not produce enough money for his family. He “bought sacks of tea from a wagon that came through from Glasgow, repackaged them into small bags, and walked the length and breadth of Lanarkshire selling them door to door” (Benge and Benge 23). David and his brother John worked at the Monteith & Co. cotton mill “fourteen hours a day six days a week” (Benge and Benge 19). They had started to work at a young age as their family was in need of money.
David Livingstone’s Actions
In both books about Livingstone’s challenges in Africa, it is possible to distinguish multiple episodes when his actions rather than God’s will lead to successful outcomes. In Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa, David Livingstone described the lion’s attack (Livingstone 12). The author noticed an animal sitting on a rock and fired at it, however, the lion did not fall down. He sprang, caught David’s shoulder, and struck him down to the ground. When Mebalwe, a native schoolmaster and Livingstone’s helper, tried to shoot the lion at a non-significant distance, it attacked him as well.
The animal subsequently attacked the third man who was trying to stop it until “the bullets it had received took effect, and it fell down dead” (Livingstone 13). All three men could die if the lion was unhurt and strong, and it was the first shot of David Livingstone that wounded the animal and saved all humans. In addition, the traveler was saved from the inflammation due to his tartan jacket that “wiped off all the virus from the teeth that pierced the flesh” (Livingstone 13). At the same time, both David’s companions suffered from substantial pains.
Livingstone’s decisions he took while traveling across Africa not only save his life but change the life of other people in a positive way. In Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa as well, Livingstone described the incident when one person of the Makalaka robbed a stranger who had visited Sesheke for barter (Livingstone 234). When the thief was caught, he made a confession and admitted that he had already given the prevalent part of goods to a person who “had removed to a distance” (Livingstone 234). People were highly enraged at this incident that could compromise their good name and decided “to throw the criminal into the river” (Livingstone 235).
However, David Livingstone admitted that this traditional punishment would not restore the stranger’s lost property. He paid for the loss and left the criminal “to work out an equivalent with his hoe in a garden” (Livingstone 235). This just system introduced by the traveler impressed locals so much that it started to be used immediately, and criminals had to work in the proportion of their offenses or contribute their property to cover losses.
David Livingstone’s Help
Both books contain numerous proofs that, in his journeys, David Livingstone helped a substantial number of people who could die without his knowledge and supplies. In Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa, the author described how the Bakwains suffered from indigestion due to “an exclusively vegetable diet” that contained no salt (Livingstone 26). There was a lack of salt in that region, and only rich locals could afford it. That is why David Livingstone and his companions “cured the disease by giving a teaspoonful of salt,” meat, or milk (Livingstone 27). David’s wife helped poor Bakwain women as well by giving them salt and other supplies.
Another act of humanity and help from David Livingstone that saved people’s lives was described in his book as well. When the author with his wife and children were traveling to lake Zouga, they were informed that a group of Englishmen who had arrived to the lake for ivory was suffering from severe fever (Livingstone 27). When David Livingstone and his family members had come rapidly to help, they were grieved to know that one person from the group, a talented young artist who had arrived in Africa to make sketches, was dead. Fortunately, other Englishmen subsequently recovered due to medications and care provided by Livingstone’s wife.
Conclusion
The events described by Janet and Geoff Benge in David Livingstone: Africa’s Trailblazer and David Livingstone in Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa prove that it is David Livingstone’s dignity, compassion, knowledge, and strong character helped him in his journey. These books include multiple evidence of the interdependence between Livingstone’s actions and positive outcomes. Without him, a substantial number of people would not be saved only by God’s providence.
Works Cited
Benge, Janet, and Geoff Benge. David Livingstone: Africa’s Trailblazer. YWAM Publishing, 1999.
Livingstone, David. Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa. John Murray, 1857. Internet Archive. Web.