As a physician
his mind was much occupied with the nature of the disease, and the way
to cure it. If only he could discover a remedy for that scourge of
Africa, what an invaluable boon would he confer on its
much-afflicted people!
"I would like," he says in his Journal, "to devote a portion
of my life to the discovery of a remedy for that terrible
disease, the African fever[37]. I would go into the parts
where it prevails most, and try to discover if the natives
have a remedy for it. I must make many inquiries of the river
people in this quarter. What an unspeakable mercy it is to be
permitted to engage in this most holy and honorable work!
What an infinity of lots in the world are poor, miserable,
and degraded compared with mine! I might have been a common
soldier, a day-laborer, a factory operative, a mechanic,
instead of a missionary. If my faculties had been left to run
riot or to waste as those of so many young men, I should now
have been used up, a dotard, as many of my school-fellows
are.
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