His desire to be a missionary to China--Medical missions--He studies at
Glasgow--Classmates and teachers--He applies to London Missionary
Society--His ideas of mission work--He is accepted provisionally--He
goes to London--to Ongar--Reminiscences by Rev. Joseph Moore--by Mrs.
Gilbert--by Rev. Isaac Taylor--Nearly rejected by the Directors--Returns
to Ongar--to London--Letter to his sister--Reminiscences by Dr. Risdon
Bennett--Promise to Professor Owen--Impression of his character on his
friends and fellow-students--Rev. R. Moffat in England--Livingstone
interested--Could not be sent to China--Is appointed to
Africa--Providential links in his history--Illness--Last visits to his
home--Receives Medical diploma--Parts from his family.


It was the appeal of Gutzlaff for China, as we have seen, that inspired
Livingstone with the desire to be a missionary; and China was the
country to which his heart turned. The noble faith and dauntless
enterprise of Gutzlaff, pressing into China over obstacles apparently
insurmountable, aided by his medical skill and other unusual
qualifications, must have served to shape Livingstone's ideal of a
missionary, as well as to attract him to the country where Gutzlaff
labored. It was so ordered, however, that in consequence of the opium
war shutting China, as it seemed, to the English, his lot was not cast
there; but throughout his whole life he had a peculiarly lively interest
in the country that had been the object of his first love. Afterward,
when his brother Charles, then in America, wrote to him that he, too,
felt called to the missionary office, China was the sphere which David
pointed out to him, in the hope that the door which had been closed to
the one brother might be opened to the other.

When he determined to be a missionary, the only persons to whom he