JANUARY NUMBER. PAGE LUCIUS ANNÆUS SENECA: THE LAST OF STOIC PHILOSOPHERS.. 197 REV. JOHN F. HURST, D.D., President of Drew Theological Seminary, Madison, N. J. L METHODIST QUARTERLY REVIEW. JANUARY, 1876. ART. L-AFRICA. Livingstone's Last Journals. Harpers, 1875. Schweinfurth's Heart of Africa. Harpers, 1874. IN reading Livingstone's last book and comparing it with his two former works, "Missionary Researches," and the "Expedition to the Zambezi," one is struck with the tone of sadness that pervades the later volume. Its spirit is autumnal. The great discoverer of Lake Ngami, the Victoria Falls, Lakes Nyassa, Moero, Bangweolo and Kamolondo treads bravely on to the last, despite sickness, poverty, and African ignorance and perversity, "The first," says Waller, "to set foot on the shores of vast inland seas, and with the simple appliances of his bodily stature for a sounding pole, and his stalwart stride for a measuring tape, to lay down new rivers by the hundred," yet the cheerful elasticity of earlier years is gone, expended in toil and destroyed by disease in part: ingraved, in part, no doubt, with the partner of his youth and earlier missionary labors on the banks of the Shupanga. All through these "Last Journals," the reader discerns the veteran traveler's dominant passion, "to work while the day lasts," feeling that the afternoon shadows are lengthening, and that coming night sends forward its monitory chills. His latest anniversary prayers grow earnest, and finally agonizing: Jan. 1, 1871. O, Father, help me to finish this work to thy honor! Jun. 1, 1872. May the Almighty help me to finish my work this year, for Christ's sake! FOURTH SERIES, VOL. XXVIII.—1 |
