PERIOD I.

PREPARATION.

CHAPTER I.

THE DISCOVERY

"The history of the world is nothing but the development of the idea of freedom. Philosophy concerns itself only with the glory of the idea mirroring itself in history, and the process of its development. That history is this process of development, and realization of spirit, is the justification of God in history."- HEGEL.

THE old civilization required a new life. The race demanded an accession of ideas, a new theatre for the exercise of its powers and the realization of the divine purpose in the creation. Up to near the close of the fifteenth century, human governments had revealed little more than the struggles of liberty with the repressions of despotism; and God evidently intended a new and nobler development of the human race, a larger sphere for the manifestation of his providence and the exposition of his plans of sovereign control over individuals and nations.

He had given to man, as man, a strong love of liberty, the due expression and proper growth of which required room for free and independent action. Amid the despotic governments of the Old World, this would have been a moral impossibility. Such contiguity to old corrupt forms would have resulted inevitably in the infection of any new system, however just in itself. On the side of oppression, there was power; and a novel theory must have room and opportunity to experiment.

Precisely adapted to the necessities and mission of a free government, God had reserved a continent in which the savage state of its predatory tribes invited the coming-in of a high and purifying civilization. Without forgetting the just rights of the native Indians, which the white man was sacredly bound to respect, it is philosophically and historically certain that Infinite Wisdom chose this land for the home of a broader liberty and higher Christian civilization than had been before known among men, and decreed the gradual occupancy of the Western World by the representatives of a new social order.

Upon the authority of ancient Icelandic manuscripts, brought forward by the distinguished antiquarian of Copenhagen, Professor C. Rafn, it is confidently affirmed that the old Northmen discovered this continent some five hundred years in advance of Columbus. Greenland was discovered in 983 by Erik the Red; and it is asserted that his son, Leif the Fortunate, in the year 1000, with thirty-five hardy mariners, landed at Helluland (Newfoundland), Markland (Nova Scotia), and Vineland (New England). He is said to have remained in the latter place for some time, where he erected large houses, called after him Leifbudis (Leif's booths). Two years later, Thorwald, a distinguished brother of Leif, prosecuting these daring discoveries farther south, received his death-wound from the natives, and desired to be buried at the Cape, where he thought it "pleasant to dwell;" supposed to be "Cape or Point Aldeston, not far from the Pilgrim city, Plymouth, State of Massachusetts, where the fearless Thorwald, shortly before the sad termination of life, chiselled in Runes the exploits of his gallant crew."*

In 1006, it is alleged that Thorfinn Karlsefne, "a man destined to become great," an Icelandic merchant, sailed to Greenland, where he married "Gudrid, the widow of Thorstein (a third son of Erik the Red); " after which, in three vessels, accompanied by his wife, and a crew of a hundred

* History of Scandinavia, by Prof. Paul C. Sinding, of Copenhagen, pp. 77, 78.

and sixty-five men, he sailed to Vineland, where Gudrid "bore him a son called Snorre, who was the very first child of European parents born in America."

It would seem that these "grim-visaged sea-kings of the North" continued their explorations, and attempts at settlements, down to 1347. But, by some strange influence of an invisible power, they disappeared from the continent. God threw a veil over it again until the plans of his wisdom should mature. He shut it up from the further gaze of the avaricious European until the fulness of the time was come; and then he produced the man, the idea, the impulse, which led to its discovery.

COLUMBUS AND THE NEW WORLD.

Who can fail to trace the evidences of the Divine in the history of Columbus? Whence came, the splendid poetry of that conception, which gave to him another world in the ideal before the knowledge of the real had become practicable? Why was he so far in advance of his age and contemporaries as to give him the reputation of a madman, not among the low and the vulgar alone, but among scholars,' and courts far above him in opportunities and learning? Whence that lofty heroism, that indomitable perseverance, which knew no danger; which defied poverty, jealousy, and the boldest combinations of secular and ecclesiastical power? It was not human. It was too elevated and far-reaching, too patient and enduring, too potent in resisting and wearing out opposition, too fruitful in expedients, and creative in resources, to admit of the idea for a moment. God only could have furnished such amazing foresight, such superhuman energies. He felt the stirrings of divinity within him, and claimed that he was inspired for his great mission of discovery. Still unaware of the grand designs of that Providence which guided him through all his wonderful career, he was, in his sphere, as verily the chosen instrument of

God as Moses or Joshua or Elijah. Heaven directed the winds that filled his sails and brought him to the unknown. land. What he had discovered he did not know; what impulses he had given to thought and enterprise, what new life he had poured into the mind of his age, he by no means understood. How much more was necessary to the realization of the plans of Providence, and who would be the honored agents of continental discoveries, he could not tell; nor was it in any way important. He had fulfilled his mission. He was not to be the successful founder of empire. He was not to wear the diadem of royalty. Neither heir nor kindred was to be the inheritor of the vast domain which rose up dimly before him. This was God's realm, and he would take the charge of its great future. Columbus could receive his discharge from cares and from earth. He was henceforth immortal.

THE WISDOM OF GOD ABOVE THE FOLLY OF MAN.

It is intensely interesting to observe the control of superior power over the devices of men for the accomplishment of high providential purposes. The success of Columbus aroused the spirit of enterprise; and navigators from different nations, with ideas wholly their own, embarked for new discoveries. But how very absurd were their views! how blind they were with respect to their true mission!

Portugal and Spain were moved by cupidity to adventurous expeditions in search for gold; but God used their hardy mariners to reveal other lands in the Western oceans. A Papal bull had divided the world of discovery between them, assuming original proprietorship of unknown as well as known portions of the globe; but God roused the spirit of exploration in another quarter.

John and Sebastian Cabot sailed in 1497, under the auspices of England, to look for land, but especially for a northwestern passage to Asia. It was not material what were their