David says of him that "for about forty years he had been incessant and never weary in good works, and that such men were an honor to their country and their profession." Yet it was not after the model of Thomas Burke that Livingstone's own religious life was fashioned.

It had a greater resemblance to that of David Hogg, the other of the two Blantyre patriarchs of whom he makes special mention, under whose instructions he had sat in the Sunday-school, and whose spirit may be gathered from his death-bed advice to him: "Now, lad, make religion the every-day business of your life, and not a thing of fits and starts; for if you do, temptation and other things will get the better of you." It would hardly be possible to give a better account of Livingstone's religion than that he did make it quietly, but very really, the every-day business of his life.

From the first he disliked men of much profession and little performance; the aversion grew as he advanced in years; and by the end of his life, in judging of men, he had come to make somewhat light both of profession and of formal creed, retaining and cherishing more and more firmly the one great test of the Saviour--"By their fruits ye shall know them.".