In looking forward to the work to which Providence seemed to be calling him, a communication received at Quilimane disturbed him not a little. It was from the London Missionary Society. It informed him that the Directors were restricted in their power of aiding plans connected only remotely with the spread of the gospel, and that even though certain obstacles (from tsetse, etc.) should prove surmountable, "the financial circumstances of the Society are not such as to afford any ground of hope that it would be in a position within any definite period to undertake untried any remote and difficult fields of labor." Dr. Livingstone very naturally understood this as a declinature of his proposals. Writing on the subject to Rev. William Thompson, the Society's agent at Cape Town, he said:
"I had imagined in my simplicity that both my preaching, conversation, and travel were as nearly connected with the spread of the gospel as the Boers would allow them to be. A plan of opening up a path from either the East or West Coast for the teeming population of the interior was submitted to the judgment of the Directors, and received their formal approbation.
"I have been seven times in peril of my life from savage men while laboriously and without swerving pursuing that plan, and never doubting that I was in the path of duty.
"Indeed, so clearly did I perceive that I was performing good service to the cause of Christy that I wrote to my brother that I would perish rather than fail in my enterprise. I shall not boast of what I have done, but the wonderful mercy I have received will constrain me to follow out the work in spite of the veto of the Board.
"If it is according to the will of God, means will be provided from other quarters."
A long letter to the Secretary gives a fuller statement of his views. It is so important as throwing light on his missionary consistency, that we give it in full in the Appendix [47].
The Directors showed a much more sympathetic spirit when Livingstone came among them, but meanwhile, as he tells us in his book, his old feeling of independence had returned, and it did not seem probable that he would remain in the same relation to the Society.
After Livingstone had been six weeks at Quilimane, H.M. brig "Frolic" arrived, with ample supplies for all his need, and took him to the Mauritius, where he arrived on 12th August, 1856. It was during this voyage that the lamentable insanity and suicide of his native attendant Sekwebu occurred, of which we have an account in the Missionary Travels. At the Mauritius he was the guest of General Hay, from whom he received the greatest kindness, and so rapid was his recovery from an affection of the spleen which his numerous fevers had bequeathed, that before he left the island he wrote to Commodore Trotter and other friends that he was perfectly well, and "quite ready to go back to Africa again." This, however, was not to be just yet. In November he sailed through the Red Sea, on the homeward route. He had expected to land at Southampton, and there Mrs. Livingstone and other friends had gone to welcome him. But the perils of travel were not yet over. A serious accident befell the ship, which might have been followed by fatal results but for that good Providence that held the life of Livingstone so carefully. Writing to Mrs. Livingstone from the Bay of Tunis (27th November, 1856), he says:
"We had very rough weather after leaving Malta, and yesterday at midday the shaft of the engine--an enormous mass of malleable iron--broke with a sort of oblique fracture, evidently from the terrific strains which the tremendous seas inflicted as they thumped and tossed this gigantic vessel like a plaything. We were near the island called Zembra, which is in sight of the Bay of Tunis. The wind, which had been a full gale ahead when we did not require it, now fell to a dead calm, and a current was drifting our gallant ship, with her sails flapping all helplessly, against the rocks; the boats were provisioned, watered, and armed, the number each was to carry arranged (the women and children to go in first, of course), when most providentially a wind sprung up and carried us out of danger into the Bay of Tunis, where I now write. The whole affair was managed by Captain Powell most admirably. He was assisted by two gentlemen whom we all admire--Captain Tregear of the same Company, and Lieutenant Chimnis of the Royal Navy, and though they and the sailors knew that the vessel was so near destruction as to render it certain that we should scarcely clear her in the boats before the swell would have overwhelmed her, all was managed so quietly that none of us passengers knew much about it. Though we saw the preparation, no alarm spread among us. The Company will do everything in their power to forward us quickly and safely. I'm only sorry for your sake, but patience is a great virtue, you know. Captain Tregear has been six years away from his family, I only four and a half."
The passengers were sent on viâ Marseilles, and Livingstone proceeded homeward by Paris and Dover.
At last he reached "dear old England" on the 9th of December, 1856. Tidings of a great sorrow had reached him on the way. At Cairo he heard of the death of his father. He had been ill a fortnight, and died full of faith and peace. "You wished so much to see David," said his daughter to him as his life was ebbing away. "Ay, very much, very much; but the will of the Lord be done." Then after a pause he said, "But I think I'll know whatever is worth knowing about him. When you see him, tell him I think so." David had not less eagerly desired to sit once more at the fireside and tell his father of all that had befallen him on the way. On both sides the desire had to be classed among hopes unfulfilled. But on both sides there was a vivid impression that the joy so narrowly missed on earth would be found in a purer form in the next stage of being.