In regard to mission work for the future an important question arose, What should be done for the Bakwains? They could not remain at Kolobeng--hunger and the Boers decided that point. Was it not, then, his duty to find and found a new station for them? Dr. Livingstone thought not. He had always told them that he would remain with them only for a few years. One of his great ideas on missions in Africa was that a fair trial should be given to as many places as possible, and if the trial did not succeed the missionaries should pass on to other tribes. He had a great aversion to the common impression that the less success one had the stronger was one's duty to remain. Missionaries were only too ready to settle down and make themselves as comfortable as possible, whereas the great need was for men to move on, to strike out into the regions beyond, to go into all the world. He had far more sympathy for tribes that had never heard the gospel than for those who had had it for years. He used to refer to certain tribes near Griqualand that had got a little instruction, but had no stated missionaries; they used to send some of their people to the Griquas to learn what they could, and afterward some others; and these persons, returning, communicated what they knew, till a wonderful measure of knowledge was acquired, and a numerous church was formed. If the seed had once been sown in any place it would not remain dormant, but would excite the desire for further knowledge; and on the whole it would be better for the people to be thrown somewhat on their own resources than to have everything done for them by missionaries from Europe. In regard to the Bakwains, though they had promised well at first, they had not been a very teachable people. He was not inclined to blame them; they had been so pinched by hunger and badgered by the Boers that they could not attend to instruction; or rather, they had too good an excuse for not doing so. "I have much affection for them," he says in his Journal, "and though I pass from them I do not relinquish the hope that they will yet turn to Him to whose mercy and love they have often been invited. The seed of the living Word will not perish."
The finger of Providence clearly pointed to a region farther north in the country of the Barotse or beyond it, He admitted that there were pros and cons in the case. Against his plan,--some of his brethren did not hesitate to charge him with being actuated by worldly ambition. This was the more trying, for sometimes he suspected his own motives. Others dwelt on what was due to his family. Moreover, his own predilections were all for a quiet life. And there was also the consideration, that as the Directors could not well realize the distances he would have to travel before he reached the field, he might appear more as an explorer than a missionary. On the other hand:
"I am conscious," he says, "that though there is much impurity in my motives, they are in the main for the glory of Him to whom I have devoted myself. I never anticipated fame from the discovery of the Lake. I cared very little about it, but the sight of the Tamanak'le, and the report of other large rivers beyond, all densely populated, awakened many and enthusiastic feelings.... Then, again, consider the multitude that in the Providence of God have been brought to light in the country of Sebituane; the probability that in our efforts to evangelize we shall put a stop to the slave-trade in a large region, and by means of the highway into the North which we have discovered bring unknown nations into the sympathies of the Christian world. If I were to choose my work, it would be to reduce this new language, translate the Bible into it, and be the means of forming a small church. Let this be accomplished, I think I could then lie down and die contented. Two years' absence will be necessary.... Nothing but a strong conviction that the step will lead to the glory of Christ would make me orphanize my children. Even now my bowels yearn over them. They Will forget me; but I hope when the day of trial comes, I shall not be found a more sorry soldier than those who serve an earthly sovereign. Should you not feel yourselves justified in incurring the expense of their support in England, I shall feel called upon to renounce the hope of carrying the gospel into that country, and labor among those who live in a more healthy country, viz., the Bakwains. But, stay, I am not sure; so powerfully convinced am I that it is the will of the Lord I should, I will go, no matter who opposes; but from you I expect nothing but encouragement. I know you wish as ardently as I can that all the world may be filled with the glory of the Lord. I feel relieved when I lay the whole case before you."
He proposed that a brother missionary, Mr. Ashton, should be placed among the Bamangwato, a people who were in the habit of spreading themselves through the Bakalahari, and should thus form a link between himself and the brethren in the south.
In a postscript, dated Bamangwato, 14th November, he gratefully acknowledges a letter from the Directors, in which his plans are approved of generally. They had recommended him to complete a dictionary of the Sichuana language. This he would have been delighted to do when his mind was full of the subject, but with the new projects now before him, and the probability of having to deal with a new language for the Zambesi district, he could not undertake such a work at present.
In a subsequent letter to the Directors (Cape Town, 17th March, 1852), Livingstone finds it necessary to go into full details with regard to his finances. Though he writes with perfect calmness, it is evident that his exchequer was sadly embarrassed. In fact, he had already not only spent all the salary (£100) of 1852, but fifty-seven pounds of 1853, and the balance would be absorbed by expenses in Cape Town. He had been as economical as possible; in personal expenditure most careful--he had been a teetotaler for twenty years. He did not hesitate to express his conviction that the salary was inadequate, and to urge the Directors to defray the extra expenditure which was now inevitable; but with characteristic generosity he urged Mr. Moffat's Claims much more warmly than his own.
From expressions in Livingstone's letter to the Directors, it is evident that he was fully aware of the risk he ran, in his new line of work, of appearing to sink the missionary in the explorer. There is no doubt that next to the charge of forgetting the claims of his family, to which we have already adverted, this was the most plausible of the objections taken to his subsequent career. But any one who has candidly followed his course of thought and feeling from the moment when the sense of unseen realities burst on him at Blantyre, to the time at which we have now arrived, must see that this view is altogether destitute of support. The impulse of divine love that had urged him first to become a missionary had now become with him the settled habit of his life. No new ambition had flitted across his path, for though he had become known as a geographical discoverer, he says he thought very little of the fact, and his life shows this to have been true. Twelve years of missionary life had given birth to no sense of weariness, no abatement of interest in these poor black savages, no reluctance to make common cause with them in the affairs of life, no despair of being able to do them good. On the contrary, he was confirmed in his opinion of the efficacy of his favorite plan of native agency, and if he could but get a suitable base of operations, he was eager to set it going, and on every side he was assured of native welcome. Shortly before (5th February, 1850), when writing to his father with reference to a proposal of his brother Charles that he should go and settle in America, he had said: "I am a missionary, heart and soul. God had an only Son, and He was a missionary and a physician. A poor, poor imitation of Him I am, or wish to be. In this service I hope to live, in it I wish to die." The spectre of the slave-trade had enlarged his horizon, and shown him the necessity of a commercial revolution for the whole of Africa, before effectual and permanent good could be done in any part of it. The plan which he had now in view multiplied the risks he ran, and compelled him to think anew whether he was ready to sacrifice himself, and if so, for what. All that Livingstone did was thus done with open eyes and well-considered resolution. Adverting to the prevalence of fever in some parts of the country, while other parts were comparatively healthy, he says in his Journal: "I offer myself as a forlorn hope in order to ascertain whether there is a place fit to be a sanatorium for more unhealthy spots. May God accept my service, and use me for his glory. A great honor it is to he a fellow-worker with God." "It is a great venture," he writes to his sister (28th April, 1851). "Fever may cut us all off. I feel much when I think of the children dying. But who will go if we don't? Not one. I would venture everything for Christ. Pity I have so little to give. But He will accept us, for He is a good master. Never one like Him. He can sympathize. May He forgive, and purify, and bless us."
If in his spirit of high consecration he was thus unchanged, equally far was he from having a fanatical disregard of life, and the rules of provident living.
"Jesus," he says, "came not to judge,--[Greek: kriuo],--condemn judicially, or execute vengeance on any one. His was a message of peace and love. He shall not strive nor cry, neither shall his voice he heard in the streets. Missionaries ought to follow his example. Neither insist on our rights, nor appear as if we could allow our goods to be destroyed without regret: for if we are righteous overmuch, or stand up for our rights with too much vehemence, we beget dislikes, and the people see no difference between ourselves and them. And if we appear to care nothing for the things of this world, they conclude we are rich, and when they beg, our refusal is ascribed to niggardliness, and our property, too, is wantonly destroyed. 'Ga ba tloke'=they are not in need, is the phrase employed when our goods are allowed to go to destruction by the neglect of servants.... In coming among savage people, we ought to make them feel we are of them, 'we seek not yours, but you'; but while very careful not to make a gain of them, we ought to be as careful to appear thankful, and appreciate any effort they may make for our comfort or subsistence."
On reaching Kolobeng from 'Ngami they found the station deserted. The Bakwains had removed to Limaüe. Sechéle came down the day after, and presented them with an ox--a valuable gift in his circumstances. Sechéle had much yet to bear from the Boers; and after being, without provocation, attacked, pillaged, and wasted, and robbed of his children, he was bent on going to the Queen of England to state his wrongs. This, however, he could not accomplish, though he went as far as the Cape. Coming back afterward to his own people, he gathered large numbers about him from other tribes, to whose improvement he devoted himself with much success. He still survives, with the one wife whom he retained; and, though not without some drawbacks (which Livingstone ascribed to the bad example set him by some), he maintains his Christian profession. His people are settled at some miles' distance from Kolobeng, and have a missionary station, supported by a Hanoverian Society. His regard for the memory of Livingstone is very great, and he reads with eagerness all that he can find about him. He has ever been a warm friend of missions has a wonderful knowledge of the Bible, and can preach well. The influence of Livingstone in his early days was doubtless a real power in mission-work. Mebalwe, too, we are informed by Dr. Moffat, still survives; a useful man, an able preacher, and one who has done much to bring his people to Christ.