our forefathers. If, therefore, any of you or any of your children should take to dishonest ways it will not be because it runs in our blood; it does not belong to you. I leave this precept with you: Be honest!""

With pardonable pride and some covert sarcasm, Livingstone points out that at the period in question, according to Macaulay, the Highlanders "were much like Cape Kaffres, and any one, it was said, could escape punishment for cattle stealing by presenting a share of the plunder to his chieftain." Macaulay's assertion was true of the clans and bands of broken men who dwelt near the Highland line; but even in their case these cattle-lifting raids hardly deserved the designation of pure theft, as even up to the middle of the last century they looked upon the Lowlanders as an alien race, and consequently enemies whom it was lawful to despoil. The conduct of the needy and ambitious nobles who drove them from their native glens and mountains, where their fathers had lived and hunted for centuries, with a view to possessing themselves of their inheritance, too often furnished a sufficient excuse for the deeds of violence and plunder which figure so prominently in the annals of the country down even to the days of George II.

Like most of the Highlanders, his ancestors were Roman Catholics, but when Protestantism got fairly established in Scotland, the apostacy of the chief was followed by that of the entire clan. Livingstone says, "They were made Protestants by the laird (the squire) coming round, with a man having a yellow staff, which would seem to have attracted more attention than his teaching, for the new religion went long afterwards, perhaps it does so still, by the name of the religion of the staff.""

In the olden time, religion to them was only secondary to their devotion and attachment to their chief, and never seems to have taken any firm hold of their imaginations. The country was poor in money, and the priests they were

familiar with were needy and ignorant; and within the Highland line there were no splendid edifices or pomp of worship to rouse their enthusiasm, so that the abandonment of their old mode of worship entailed no sacrifice.*

With the breaking-up of the clans and the introduction of industrial occupations, and the teaching and preaching of devoted adherents of the new religion, the minds of the Highlanders were moved, and for many generations, and even at the present day, the Presbyterian form of worship. has no more zealous adherents than the people of the Highlands of Scotland. The man with the yellow staff was, in all likelihood, one of the commissioners sent out by the General Assembly to advocate the cause of the new religion among those who were either indifferent about it, or were too remote from Edinburgh to be affected by the deadly struggle for supremacy which was going on between the old creed and the new religion.

Towards the end of the last century, finding the small farm in Ulva insufficient for the maintenance of his family, Livingstone's grandfather removed to Blantyre, where he, for a number of years, occupied a position of trust in the employment of Messrs. Monteith & Co., of Blantyre Cotton Works, his sons being employed as clerks. It formed part of the old man's duty to convey large sums of money to and from Glasgow, and his unflinching honesty in this and other ways won him the respect and esteem of his employers, who

* In "Waverley," Sir Walter Scott very happily illustrates the nonreligious character of the Highlanders about the middle of last century. Waverley had just parted with Fergus McIvor, and was approaching a Lowland village, "and as he now distinguished not indeed the ringing of bells, but the tinkling of something like a hammer against the side of an old mossy, green, inverted porridge pot that hung in an open booth, of the size and shape of a parrot's cage, erected to grace the east end of a building resembling an old barn, he asked Callum Beg if it were Sunday. 'Couldna say just preceesely, Sunday seldom cam' aboon the Pass o' Bally-Brough.'

settled a pension on him when too old to continue his services.

Livingstone's uncles shared in the patriotic spirit which pervaded the country during the war with France, and entered the service of the king; but his father having recently got married settled down as a small grocer, the returns from which business were so meagre as to necessitate his children being sent to the factory as soon as they could earn anything to assist in the family support. David Livingstone was but ten years of age, in 1823, when he entered the mill as a "piecer," where he was employed from six o'clock in the morning until eight o'clock at night, with intervals for breakfast and dinner. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, this early introduction to a life of toil would have been the commencement of a lifetime of obscurity and privation. Let us see how David Livingstone bore and conquered the cruel circumstances of his boyhood, and made for himself a name which is known and respected throughout the civilized world, and is accepted by the savage inhabitants of Central Africa as conveying to their minds the ideal of all that is best in the character of "the white man."

Between the delicate "piecer" boy of ten and the middleaged man who returned to England after an absence of sixteen years, in December 1856, with a world-wide reputation, there was a mighty hill of difficulty nobly surmounted, and we cannot attach too much importance to the mode in which he conquered those difficulties and hindrances, which, but that they are mastered every now and again in our sight by some bold and daring spirit, we are almost inclined to think insurmountable. It is a true saying, that every man who has earned distinction must have been blessed with a parent or parents of no mean order, whatever their position in society. What his ancestors were like we gather from his own brief allusion to them; and the few remarks he makes regarding his parents and their circumstances, sup

plemented by some information procured from one who knew them, enables us to give a picture of his home surroundings, which will assist us materially in estimating the courageous spirit which carried the delicate and overworked boy safely through all his early toils and trials.

To the mere observer, Livingstone's father appeared to be somewhat stern and taciturn, and an overstrict disciplinarian where the members of his family were concerned; but under a cold and reserved exterior he sheltered a warm heart, and his real kindliness, as well as his truth and uprightness, are cherished in the memories of his family and his intimates. He was too truthful and conscientious to become rich as a small grocer in a country village; while his real goodness of heart induced him to trust people whose necessities were greater than their ability or desire to pay, to the further embarrassment of a household his limited business made severe enough.

"He

He brought up his children in connection with the Church of Scotland, from which he seceded a few years before his death, and joined an Independent congregation worshipping in Hamilton, some miles distant. Speaking of the Christian example he set before his family, his famous son says, deserved my lasting gratitude and homage for presenting me from infancy with a continuously consistent pious example, such as that, the ideal of which is so beautifully and truthfully portrayed in Burns' 'Cottar's Saturday Night."" He was a strict disciplinarian, and looked with small favour on his son's passion for reading scientific books and works of travel; but his son had much of his own stubborn and independent temperament where he supposed himself to be in the right; and sturdily preferred his own selection of books to "The Cloud of Witnesses," "Boston's Fourfold State," or "Wilberforce's Practical Christianity." His refusal to read the latter work procured him a caning, which was the last occasion his father applied the rod.

As in the case of many a young man in like circumstances, his father's importunity and unfortunate selection of authors fostered a dislike for merely doctrinal reading, which continued until years afterwards, when a perusal of “The Philosophy of Religion," and "The Philosophy of a Future State," by Dr. Thomas Dick, widened his understanding, and gratified him by confirming him in what he had all along believed, "that religion and science are not hostile, but friendly to each other." Both his parents had taken much pains to instil the principles of Christianity into his mind, but it was only after becoming acquainted with the writings of Dr. Dick and others that their efforts bore fruit. The depth of his religious convictions may be realised when we contemplate the sacrifices he afterwards made in his evangelistic labours, but his strong understanding saved him from becoming either a sectary or a bigot. While there was no more earnest-minded or devoted servant of Christ than Dr. Livingstone, there was none so liberal and so large-hearted in his acceptance of all honest and God-fearing men who strove to do good whatever their creed might be.

His father died in February 1856, at the time when his son was making his way from the interior of Africa to the coast, on his return to England, "expecting no greater pleasure in this country than sitting by our cottage fire and telling him my travels. I revere his memory." The applause of the best and highest in the land, in the social circle or in the crowded assembly, with hundreds hanging on his every word, was as nothing compared to the long talks he had looked forward to with the kindly though stern father he had not seen for so many years; but it was not to be. He has small notions of the strength of filial affection in the heart of such a man who cannot sympathise with his sorrow and disappointment.

His mother, a kindly and gentle woman, whose whole