After over two hours of walking, David and his father reached the outskirts of Glasgow, marked by row upon row of dreary red brick tenement houses stretching as far as the eye could see. It was unlike anything David had experienced in Blantyre, and for a while he walked alongside his father silent and wide-eyed. Together they trudged from one address to the next, but even the cheapest boardinghouses were too expensive for David. Finally, one landlady told David that if he could afford to pay only two shillings a week for a room, there was only one place in Glasgow for him—Rotten Row!
Rotten Row certainly did not sound like an appealing place to live, but David and his father followed the landlady’s directions and soon found themselves standing in front of a dilapidated wooden building. Several babies were crying loudly inside, and a woman was yelling at the top of her voice. David knocked gingerly on the well-worn door.
“It’s not locked,” came a reply from inside.
David turned the knob, and he and his father entered a dingy, candlelit hallway.
“Well, what is it you’d be wanting then?” asked a stout older woman with a dirty apron tied around her waist.
“Do you have a room I could rent?” asked David, looking around the dusty hallway.
“I only have one,” replied the woman, “upstairs, second on the right. It has a bed and a chair in it. The bathroom is out the back door, and I’ll give you a cupboard in the kitchen to keep your food. Now how does that sound for two shillings a week, eh? A bargain I’d say.”
David sighed. Even without seeing the bedroom, he knew it was hardly a bargain, but it was a roof over his head and a place to keep his books. “I’ll take it,” he said.
“That will be four shillings,” said the woman shrewdly, “two for the first week’s rent and two for a deposit.”
“I’ll put my things upstairs and bring the money down in a moment,” said David, picking up his bag and heading for the stairs.
The room was every bit as bad as he had imagined it would be. Mold grew on the inside of the walls, and there wasn’t enough space in the room for David and his father to step inside and shut the door. It took only a moment for David to put his things away.
“Well, God bless you, lad,” said Mr. Livingstone. “You know we’ll do whatever we can for you. And we want you to come home whenever you can spare the time.” With that he shook his son’s hand and began the walk back to Blantyre.
David stood on the doorstep and watched his father disappear around the corner of the building. For the first time in his life, twenty-three-year-old David Livingstone felt completely alone. He had never spent a single night away from home before, and he had always had his brothers and sisters and parents and grandparents around him. For a brief moment, he wanted to run after his father, but he had worked and saved for medical school too long to turn back now.
Impossible as it was to believe, the bed in David’s tiny room was even more uncomfortable than it looked, and David was glad to climb out of it early the following morning. A big day lay ahead of him. By mail he had enrolled in chemistry, medical Greek, and religion classes, but now it was time to meet his professors and fellow students.
David would never forget his first weeks of study at Anderson College. He woke up every morning with the excitement of going on a new adventure, an adventure in learning. Until now all of his schooling had been done after a long day of work at the mill. Now he could study in the morning and afternoon when his mind was fresh. What a change it was to be able to read and take notes without forcing himself to stay awake! He had read his textbooks through from cover to cover long before his professors were finished introducing their courses, and he stayed long after class debating what he had learned with the other students. For the first time, David felt he was mixing with people who valued learning as much as he did.
Most of David’s fellow students had attended the best schools in England in preparation for college, and their fathers were paying for their tuition at Anderson College. Despite the fact that David came from a low social class, the other students quickly accepted him as a fellow student. His interest and enthusiasm more than made up for his lack of a “correct” social background.
The whole college atmosphere made David feel more alive than he had felt in his entire life. Despite his living conditions at Rotten Row and the nights when he had nothing more to eat than a bowl of cold porridge, he never doubted he was in the right place. Of course, it helped that Anderson College buzzed with the latest scientific discoveries, especially in the new area of electricity. Two of the senior students had constructed a galvanic battery and now had enough current to perform a number of electrical experiments.
While all this interested David, the thing that fascinated him the most was learning to treat sickness. David never lost sight of his goal of being a missionary to China. He took notes in class on all of the latest medical techniques, such as how long to bloodlet a person for varying illnesses, the exact number of leeches to use to suck blood, and the quickest way to amputate an injured person’s limb. He also learned how to use a new gadget called a stethoscope, which allowed a doctor for the first time to hear air and blood flowing inside the human body.
All these new advances fascinated David’s family, too. Mr. Livingstone had changed his mind completely about science and religion being incompatible. Now that he realized that science could help spread the gospel message, he was eager to hear about all David was learning, as was the rest of the family. Once a month, David would make the sixteen-mile round-trip home to Blantyre, where his father would throw an extra log on the fire and his mother would brew a large pot of tea as the entire family gathered to listen with rapt attention as he described life in Glasgow and the wonders of medical science.
These conversations fired David’s younger brother and sisters’ imaginations and opened their minds to other possibilities besides working in the mills. His sisters, Janet and Agnes, decided to work hard to become schoolteachers, while Charles made up his mind to study to become a pastor.
In April 1837, five months after arriving in Glasgow, David had completed his first term at college. He had also run out of money, and so he left his room on Rotten Row and returned to Blantyre to work in the cotton mill and save more money so he could go back to college the following November.
It felt strange to David to be back working in the mill after mixing with such well-educated people all winter. While his hands worked the loom David thought about the new courses he planned to take during his next term at Anderson College.
Even though David worked hard and saved every penny he could, when it came time to return to college, he did not have enough to go back. But before he could despair, his older brother John, who now had a respectable job as a lace merchant, offered to give David the money he needed. It was the old Scottish way: David had helped his younger siblings, and now he was receiving help from his older brother when he needed it most. He was truly grateful.
David’s next term at college was just as exciting as his first. David had a mind like a sponge, and he wanted to learn all he could about everything. He made friends with a professor’s assistant named James Young. James had been hired to make science equipment to use for experiments, and David was fascinated by his workshop. James taught David how to use a lathe to turn wood and a furnace to heat glass and metal. David also learned how to mend broken or damaged pieces of science equipment. After all, David reasoned, since he had no way of predicting what he would be called upon to do once he was a missionary in China, he wanted to learn as much as possible.
Chapter 4
He Had No Answers
David Livingstone sat quietly in the library at Anderson College. In front of him was an application to join the London Missionary Society (LMS) to work in China. The question he was pondering was, “What do you see as the most important work of a missionary?” It was a question David had given much thought to since returning to college for his second term. But how should he put his thoughts into words? Finally it came to him: “The missionary’s object is to endeavor by every means in his power to make known the gospel by preaching, exhortation, conversation, instruction of the young; improving, so far as is in his power, the temporal condition of those among whom he labors, by introducing the arts and sciences to civilization, and doing everything to commend Christianity to their hearts and consciences.”
David read over his answer with satisfaction. Yes, that was what a missionary was—a person who told other people about the gospel message at the same time that he worked to improve their lives in every way possible. However, David had read enough missionary stories to know that the people a missionary tried to help did not always appreciate their effort. So he went on and wrote, “The missionary will be exposed to great trials of his faith and patience from the indifference, distrust, and even direct opposition and scorn of those for whose good he is laboring.”
It took David all afternoon to finish the questions, but in the end, he was satisfied he had told the LMS all it wanted to know about him. He placed the completed application in an envelope and mailed it to London.
David did not have to wait long for a reply. When it arrived, he ripped open the envelope bearing the insignia of the London Missionary Society and quickly scanned the contents of the letter inside. The letter read: “The London Missionary Society has received and reviewed your application and is happy to inform you that you have been provisionally accepted for our missionary training program. However, the course you have chosen is a rigorous one and you will need to apply consistent effort and diligence if you are to achieve your goal of being sent out as a missionary with our society.”
Other people might drop out, David thought to himself as he read, but not me. I’ll never be tempted to do that.
In September 1838, David completed his course of study at Anderson College. Much to his amazement, he was offered a job as a teacher at the college at a salary of 150 pounds a year—a small fortune to a twenty-five-year-old who had spent over half his life laboring in a cotton mill for twelve pounds a year. But the money did not tempt David, who stayed true to his word. David had set his heart on being a missionary, with all the trials, tribulations, and lack of funds that it entailed.
At the end of his time at Anderson College, David packed up his few belongings and caught a stagecoach to London to meet with the directors of the London Missionary Society. After a long and bumpy journey, the coach finally pulled to a halt in London. David stared around him in awe. Hard as it was to believe, he really was in London, four hundred miles from Glasgow!
By asking passersby for directions, David was able to find his way to 57 Aldersgate Street, where the LMS had told him he could find cheap lodgings. That night he sat down to dinner with the four other lodgers. One was a young doctor; one a saddle maker; another, a fellow Scot, was a bookseller. The fourth was a young man who introduced himself as Joseph Moore. Before David had finished his first bowl of soup, he and Joseph had struck up a conversation. What a relief it was for David to learn that Joseph Moore had also come to London that day to meet with the directors of the London Missionary Society. Now David did not feel so overwhelmed by all that lay ahead. He had made his first friend in London.
The next morning, Wednesday, David and Joseph Moore met for breakfast and decided to spend the day together. The first thing they did was visit the London Missionary Society offices, where they were told to report the following Monday and Tuesday mornings to take Latin, Greek, and theology examinations. David was nervous as he left the office. He was a good student, but Joseph had already told him about several of his friends who had not managed to pass the tough exams.
