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A History of the Church in Africa

against religion as the worst infidel in London.… For months after
we met I found myself listening to him, wondering at the old man
carrying out the words, “leave all and follow me.” But little by
little…I was converted by him, although he had not tried to do it.
(quoted in Tucker, 153)

Livingstone lived less than a year after Stanley found him. His workers
found him dead, kneeling by the cot in his tent on May 1, 1873. They
buried his heart under a sacred tree. To pay proper respect to the man
they loved, they embalmed his body in traditional fashion and carried
it from present day Zambia to Zanzibar—a journey of more than 1,500
miles. From there, they shipped his body to England where it was buried
at Westminster Abbey. A large crowd from all walks of life attended
the funeral, including his father-in-law, Robert Moffat. His tombstone in
Westminster Abbey states the words of Jesus: “Other sheep I have which
are not of this fold; them also I must bring.”

Livingstone’s Influence

Tanganyika
As a result of Livingstone’ influence, the London Missionary Society
sent missionaries to the Lake Tanganyika area in 1877. The new
missionaries faced persecution from the infamous slave trader Tippu
Tib, who saw the coming of Christianity as a threat to business. He
sent his forces to raid mission stations and to frighten the missionaries.
So warlike conditions existed. However, “by 1891 the tide had turned.
German forces under Hermann Wissman crushed the Arab attackers
and destroyed the inland slave trade. Germany declared a protectorate
in that same year” (Shaw 1996, 197).

Malawi
Livingstone thus paved the way for the expansion of the church.
In 1876, the Livingstone mission arrived in the area of present-day
Malawi. Hildebrandt describes what happened the following year:

An African evangelist from South Africa named William Koyi
arrived at the mission and began to assist the Europeans in giving
out the gospel.… He reached out to the warlike Ngoni who lived
on the west side of Lake Malawi. (119)

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