Witness Franklin, Burke and
Wills, and Livingstone. The long uncertainty overhanging the fate of
the gallant Franklin, after he and the expedition he commanded had
vanished into the darkness of Arctic winter in 1845, and the
unfaltering faithfulness with which his widow clung to the search for
her lost husband, form one of the most pathetic chapters of English
story. The veil was lifted at last and the secret of the North-West
Passage, to which so many lives had been sacrificed, was brought to
light in the course of the many efforts made to find the dead
discoverer. As Franklin had disappeared in the North, so Livingstone
was long lost to sight in the wilds of Africa, and hardly less
feverish interest centred round the point, so long disputed, of his
being in life or in death--interest freshly awakened when the remains
of the heroic explorer, who had been found only to be lost again,
were brought home to be laid among the mighty dead of England. The
fervent Christian philanthropy of Livingstone endeared him yet more
to the national heart; and we may here note that very often, as in
his case, the missionary has served not only Christianity, as was his
first and last aim, but also geographical and ethnological science
and colonial and commercial development.
Pages:
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188