Part 19 (1/2)

THE PENETRATION AND EXTREME ACCURACY OF COLUMBUS.

Columbus preserved, amid so many material and minute cares, which freeze the soul and contract the character, a profound and poetic sentiment of the grandeur of nature. What characterizes Columbus is the penetration and extreme accuracy with which he seizes the phenomena of the external world. He is quite as remarkable as an observer of nature as he is an intrepid navigator.

Arrived under new heavens, and in a new world, the configuration of lands, the aspect of vegetation, the habits of animals, the distribution of heat according to longitude, the pelagic currents, the variations of terrestrial magnetism--nothing escaped his sagacity. Columbus does not limit himself to collecting isolated facts, he combines them, he seeks their mutual relations to each other. He sometimes rises with boldness to the discovery of the general laws that govern the physical world.--_Ibid._

A FLIGHT OF PARROTS WAS HIS GUIDING STAR.

Columbus was guided in his opinion by a flight of parrots toward the southwest. Never had the flight of birds more important consequences. It may be said to have determined the first settlements on the new continent, and its distribution between the Latin and Germanic races.--_Ibid._

COLUMBUS A GIANT.

Columbus is a giant standing on the confines between mediaeval and modern times, and his existence marks one of the great epochs in the history of the world.--_Ibid._

THE MAJESTY OF GRAND RECOLLECTIONS.

The majesty of grand recollections seems concentered on the ill.u.s.trious name of Columbus.--_Ibid._

RELIGION.

JOHN FLETCHER HURST, D. D., LL.D., a noted American Methodist bishop. Born near Salem, Md., August 17, 1834. From his ”Short History of the Church in the United States.” Copyright, 1889. By permission of Messrs. Harper & Brothers, Publishers.

When Columbus discovered the little West India Island of San Salvador, and raised upon the sh.o.r.e the cross, he dedicated it and the lands beyond to the sovereigns Ferdinand and Isabella. The ”_Gloria in Excelsis_” was sung by the discoverer and his weary crew with as much fervor as it had ever been chanted in the cathedrals of Spain. The faith was Roman Catholic. On his second voyage, in 1494, Columbus took with him a vicar apostolic and twelve priests, and on the island of Haiti erected the first chapel in the western world.[40] The success of Columbus in discovering a new world in the West awakened a wild enthusiasm throughout Europe. Visions of gold inflamed the minds alike of rulers, knights, and adventurers. To discover and gather treasures, and organize vast missionary undertakings, became the mania of the times. No European country which possessed a strip of seaboard escaped the delirium.

ARMA VIRUMQUE CANO.

WAs.h.i.+NGTON IRVING, one of the most distinguished American authors and humorists. Born in New York City, April 3, 1783. Died at Sunnyside on the Hudson, N. Y., November 28, 1859. From his ”History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus” (4 vols., 1828). ”This is one of those works,” says Alexander H. Everett, ”which are at the same time the delight of readers and the despair of critics. It is as nearly perfect as any work well can be.”

It is my object to relate the deeds and fortunes of the mariner who first had the judgment to divine, and the intrepidity to brave, the mysteries of the perilous deep; and who, by his hardy genius, his inflexible constancy, and his heroic courage, brought the ends of the earth into communication with each other. The narrative of his troubled life is the link which connects the history of the Old World with that of the New.

To his intellectual vision it was given to read the signs of the times in the conjectures and reveries of the past ages, the indications of an unknown world, as soothsayers were said to read predictions in the stars, and to foretell events from the visions of the night.

PRACTICAL AND POETICAL.

He who paints a great man merely in great and heroic traits, though he may produce a fine picture, will never present a faithful portrait.

Great men are compounds of great and little qualities. Indeed, much of their greatness arises from their mastery over the imperfections of their nature, and their n.o.blest actions are sometimes struck forth by the collision of their merits and their defects.

In Columbus were singularly combined the practical and the poetical. His mind had grasped all kinds of knowledge, whether procured by study or observation, which bore upon his theories; impatient of the scanty aliment of the day, ”his impetuous ardor threw him into the study of the fathers of the Church, the Arabian Jews, and the ancient geographers”; while his daring but irregular genius, bursting from the limits of imperfect science, bore him to conclusions far beyond the intellectual vision of his contemporaries. If some of his conclusions were erroneous, they were at least ingenious and splendid; and their error resulted from the clouds which still hung over his peculiar path of enterprise. His own discoveries enlightened the ignorance of the age, guided conjecture to certainty, and dispelled that very darkness with which he had been obliged to struggle.

In the progress of his discoveries, he has been remarked for the extreme sagacity and the admirable justness with which he seized upon the phenomena of the exterior world. As they broke upon him, these phenomena were discerned with wonderful quickness of perception, and made to contribute important principles to the stock of general knowledge. This lucidity of spirit, this quick convertibility of facts to principles, distinguish him from the dawn to the close of his sublime enterprise, insomuch that, with all the sallying ardor of his imagination, his ultimate success has been admirably characterized as a ”conquest of reflection.”--_Ibid._

A VISIT TO PALOS.

I can not express to you what were my feelings on treading the sh.o.r.e which had once been animated by the bustle of departure, and whose sands had been printed by the last footstep of Columbus. The solemn and sublime nature of the event that had followed, together with the fate and fortunes of those concerned in it, filled the mind with vague yet melancholy ideas. It was like viewing the silent and empty stage of some great drama when all the actors had departed. The very aspect of the landscape, so tranquilly beautiful, had an effect upon me, and as I paced the deserted sh.o.r.e by the side of a descendant of one of the discoverers I felt my heart swelling with emotion and my eyes filling with tears.--_Ibid._