'Dr. Livingstone, I presume' is one of the best known quotations in the English language but, for many people, this is all they know of the great man. John Delaney tells us more . . .
Perseverance
This is not yet another eulogy on this intrepid medical missionary, explorer, and national hero of the past. It is, rather, holding forth a life to encourage every buffeted and bewildered follower of Jesus.
It will counter and should challenge the cacophony of contemporary self-absorption teaching, namely, that Scripture is boring compared with revelation knowledge, 'name it and claim it', angelic and demon cosmology, glory now, and Job a failure who lacked positive confession. So was David Living-stone a failure too? Old and shaky; huge sores and tropical ulcers on his feet; suffering from ruptured haemorrhoids; mouth almost toothless; the few remaining teeth well out of line. He described himself as an old fogie! He would hardly rank as an attraction to young people at a Sunday evening service! He died alone in a squalid hut yet a doyen of the medical profession described him later as: 'The great African explorer and missionary of civilisation, a man of whom it is said that no greater, more inspiring, self-sacrificing loveable agent of civilisation ever existed.'
