David Livingstone's SacrificeDavid Livingstone is recognized as one of the world's foremost explorers and Christian missionaries. For thirty years he traveled through Africa, making friends wherever he went. His example and his death acted like an inspiration, filling Africa with an army of explorers and missionaries. In recognition of his sufferings and many compulsory delays in opening up the vast continent of Africa to Christian influence, his words "I never made a sacrifice" have made an indelible impression on men's hearts. Here is the glorious statement of this pure and tenderhearted man in its original setting:
"People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that be called a sacrifice which is simply paid back as a small part of a great debt owing to our God, which we can never repay? Is that a sacrifice which brings its own best reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word in such a view, and with such a thought! It was emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering or danger, now and then, with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charites of this life make us pause and cause the spirit to waver and the soul to sink, but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall hereafter be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice. Of this we ought not to talk when we remember the great sacrifice which He made Who left His Father's throne on high to give Himself for us: Who, being the brightness of that Father's glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when he had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high."
Aug. 1963 The Gospel Standard