Editing David Livingstone (section)

==Early life==
[[File:Birthplace of david livingstone.jpg|thumb|Livingstone's birthplace in [[Blantyre, South Lanarkshire]], [[South Lanarkshire]], Scotland]]
[[File:David Livingstones birthplace (geograph 4530192).jpg|thumb|David Livingstone's birthplace, with period furnishings]]
Livingstone was born on 19 March 1813 in the mill town of [[Blantyre, South Lanarkshire|Blantyre]], Scotland, in a [[tenement]] building for the workers of a cotton factory on the banks of the [[River Clyde]] under the bridge crossing into [[Bothwell]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.nts.org.uk/Property/23/ |title=David Livingstone Centre: Birthplace Of Famous Scot |access-date=12 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070212012712/https://www.nts.org.uk/Property/23/ |archive-date=12 February 2007 |url-status=bot: unknown }}</ref> He was the second of seven children born to Neil Livingstone and his wife Agnes ([[maiden name|née]] Hunter).

David was employed at the age of ten in the cotton mill of Henry Monteith & Co. in [[Blantyre, South Lanarkshire|Blantyre Works]]. He and his brother John worked 14-hour days as [[Spinning mule#Duties of the operatives|piecers]], tying broken cotton threads on the spinning machines.

Neil Livingstone was a [[Sunday school]] teacher and [[teetotaller]] who handed out Christian tracts on his travels as a door-to-door tea salesman. He read books on theology, travel, and missionary enterprises extensively. This rubbed off on the young David, who became an avid reader, but he also loved scouring the countryside for animal, plant, and geological specimens in local limestone quarries. Neil feared that science books were undermining Christianity and attempted to force his son to read nothing but theology, but David's deep interest in nature and science led him to investigate the [[relationship between religion and science]].{{sfn | Ross | 2002 | p=6}} In 1832, he read ''Philosophy of a Future State'', written by [[Thomas Dick (scientist)|Thomas Dick]], and he found the rationale that he needed to reconcile faith and science and, apart from the Bible, this book was perhaps his greatest philosophical influence.<ref name="Blaikie">{{cite book|last=Blaikie|first=William Garden|author-link=William Garden Blaikie |title=The Personal Life of David Livingstone... Chiefly from His Unpublished Journals and Correspondence in the Possession of His Family|url=http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13262|year=1880|publisher=John Murray|location=London|via=[[Project Gutenberg]]}}</ref>

Other significant influences in his early life were Thomas Burke, a Blantyre [[Evangelism|evangelist]], and David Hogg, his Sunday school teacher.<ref name="Blaikie" /> At age fifteen, David left the [[Church of Scotland]] for a local [[Congregational church]], influenced by preachers like [[Ralph Wardlaw]], who denied [[predestination|predestinarian]] limitations on salvation. Influenced by [[Christian revival|revivalistic]] teachings in the United States, Livingstone entirely accepted the proposition put by Charles Finney, Professor of Theology at Oberlin College, Ohio, that "the Holy Spirit is open to all who ask it". For Livingstone, this meant a release from the fear of eternal damnation.{{sfn | Jeal | 2013 | p=13}} Livingstone's reading of missionary [[Karl Gützlaff]]'s ''Appeal to the Churches of Britain and America on behalf of China'' enabled him to persuade his father that medical study could advance religious ends.<ref name="Vetch">{{cite DNB|wstitle=Livingstone, David|first=Robert Hamilton |last=Vetch|authorlink=Robert Hamilton Vetch|p=385|volume=33}}</ref>

Livingstone's experiences in H. Monteith's Blantyre cotton mill were also important from ages 10 to 26, first as a piecer and later as a [[Spinning mule#Duties of the operatives|spinner]]. This monotonous work was necessary to support his impoverished family, but it taught him persistence, endurance, and a natural empathy with all who labour, as expressed by lines that he used to hum from the egalitarian [[A Man's A Man for A' That|Robert Burns song]]: "When man to man, the world o'er/Shall brothers be for a' that".{{efn|This sentiment today would be expressed along the lines of: "all people, worldwide, are brothers and sisters, despite everything."<ref name="Blaikie" />}}