Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia Part 44

The famous s.h.i.+p was well-known and much talked about at the time, but her records have mostly disappeared, and there is very little knowledge at present concerning her.

COLUMBIA'S EMBLEM.

EDNA DEAN PROCTOR. In September _Century_

The rose may bloom for England, The lily for France unfold; Ireland may honor the shamrock, Scotland her thistle bold; But the s.h.i.+eld of the great Republic, The glory of the West, Shall bear a stalk of the ta.s.seled corn-- Of all our wealth the best.

The arbutus and the golden-rod The heart of the North may cheer; And the mountain laurel for Maryland Its royal cl.u.s.ters rear; And jasmine and magnolia The crest of the South adorn; But the wide Republic's emblem Is the bounteous, golden corn!

EAST AND WEST.

THOMAS BUCHANAN READ, a distinguished American artist and poet.

Born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, 1822; died in New York, May 11, 1872. From his "Emigrant's Song."[60]

Leave the tears to the maiden, the fears to the child, While the future stands beckoning afar in the wild; For there Freedom, more fair, walks the primeval land, Where the wild deer all court the caress of her hand.

There the deep forests fall, and the old shadows fly, And the palace and temple leap into the sky. Oh, the East holds no place where the onward can rest, And alone there is room in the land of the West!

THE PRIMITIVE PITCH.

The Rev. MYRON W. REED, a distinguished American clergyman of Denver, Colo. From an address delivered in 1892.

The best thing we can do for the world is to take care of America. Keep our country up to the primitive pitch. In front of my old home, in another city, is the largest elm in the county. It never talked, it never went about doing good. It stood there and made shade for an acre of children, and a shelter for all the birds that came. It stood there and preached strength in the air by wide-flung branches, and strength in the earth by as many and as long roots as limbs. It stood, one fearful night, the charge of a cyclone, and was serene in the March morning. It proclaimed what an elm could be. It set tree-planters to planting elms.

So America preaches, man capable of self-government; preaches over the sea, a republic is safer than any kingdom. Men have outgrown kings. We shall remember Walt Whitman, if only for a line, "O America! we build for you because you build for the world."

MORAL PROGRESS.

WILLIAM HENRY SEWARD, an eminent American statesman. Born at Florida, Orange County, N. Y., May 16, 1801; died at Auburn, N. Y., October 10, 1872.

A kind of reverence is paid by all nations to antiquity. There is no one that does not trace its lineage from the G.o.ds, or from those who were especially favored by the G.o.ds. Every people has had its age of gold, or Augustine age, or historic age--an age, alas! forever pa.s.sed. These prejudices are not altogether unwholesome. Although they produce a conviction of declining virtue, which is unfavorable to generous emulation, yet a people at once ignorant and irreverential would necessarily become licentious. Nevertheless, such prejudices ought to be modified. It is untrue that in the period of a nation's rise from disorder to refinement it is not able to continually surpa.s.s itself. We see the _present_, plainly, distinctly, with all its coa.r.s.e outlines, its rough inequalities, its dark blots, and its glaring deformities. We hear all its tumultuous sounds and jarring discords. We see and hear the _past_ through a distance which reduces all its inequalities to a plane, mellows all its shades into a pleasing hue, and subdues even its hoa.r.s.est voices into harmony. In our own case, the prejudice is less erroneous than in most others. The Revolutionary age was truly a heroic one. Its exigencies called forth the genius, and the talents, and the virtues of society, and they ripened amid the hards.h.i.+ps of a long and severe trial. But there were selfishness and vice and factions then as now, although comparatively subdued and repressed. You have only to consult impartial history to learn that neither public faith, nor public loyalty, nor private virtue, culminated at that period in our own country; while a mere glance at the literature, or at the stage, or at the politics of any European country, in any previous age, reveals the fact that it was marked, more distinctly than the present, by licentious morals and mean ambition. It is only just to infer in favor of the United States an improvement of morals from their established progress in knowledge and power; otherwise, the philosophy of society is misunderstood, and we must change all our courses, and henceforth seek safety in imbecility, and virtue in superst.i.tion and ignorance.

A PROPHETIC UTTERANCE OF COLONIAL DAYS.

SAMUEL SEWELL. Born at Bishopstoke, Hamps.h.i.+re, England, March, 1652. Died at Boston, Ma.s.s., January, 1730.

Lift up your heads, O ye Gates of Columbia, and be ye lift up, ye Everlasting Doors, and the King of Glory shall come in.

NATIONAL INFLUENCE.

JOSEPH STORY, a distinguished American jurist. Born in Marblehead, Ma.s.s., September 18, 1779; died at Cambridge, Ma.s.s., September 10, 1845. By permission of Messrs. Little, Brown & Co., Publishers.

When we reflect on what has been, and is, how is it possible not to feel a profound sense of the responsibilities of this Republic to all future ages? What vast motives press upon us for lofty efforts! What brilliant prospects invite our enthusiasm! What solemn warnings at once demand our vigilance and moderate our confidence! We stand, the latest, and, if we fail, probably the last, experiment of self-government by the people. We have begun it under circ.u.mstances of the most auspicious nature. We are in the vigor of youth. Our growth has never been checked by the oppressions of tyranny. Our const.i.tutions have never been enfeebled by the vices or luxuries of the Old World. Such as we are, we have been from the beginning--simple, hardy, intelligent, accustomed to self-government and self-respect. The Atlantic rolls between us and any formidable foe. Within our own territory, stretching through many degrees of lat.i.tude and longitude, we have the choice of many products and many means of independence. The government is mild. The press is free. Religion is free. Knowledge reaches, or may reach, every home.

What fairer prospect of success could be presented? What means more adequate to accomplish the sublime end? What more is necessary than for the people to preserve what they themselves have created? Already has the age caught the spirit of our inst.i.tutions. It has already ascended the Andes, and snuffed the breezes of both oceans. It has infused itself into the life-blood of Europe, and warmed the sunny plains of France and the lowlands of Holland. It has touched the philosophy of Germany and the north, and, moving to the south, has opened to Greece the lessons of her better days.

AN ELECT NATION.

WILLIAM STOUGHTON. From an election sermon at Boston, Ma.s.s., April 29, 1669.

G.o.d sifted a whole nation that he might send choice grain over into this wilderness.

THE NAME "AMERICA."

MOSES F. SWEETSER, an American _litterateur_. Born in Ma.s.sachusetts, 1848. From his "Hand-book of the United States."[61]

The name America comes from _amalric_, or _emmerich_, an old German word spread through Europe by the Goths, and softened in Latin to Americus, and in Italian to Amerigo. It was first applied to Brazil. Americus Vespucius, the son of a wealthy Florentine notary, made several voyages to the New World, a few years later than Columbus, and gave spirited accounts of his discoveries. About the year 1507, Hylacomylus, of the college at St. Die, in the Vosges Mountains, brought out a book on cosmography, in which he said, "Now, truly, as these regions are more widely explored, and another fourth part is discovered, by Americus Vespucius, I see no reason why it should not be justly called _Amerigen_; that is, the land of Americus, or America, from Americus, its discoverer, a man of a subtle intellect." Hylacomylus invented the name America, and, as there was no other t.i.tle for the New World, this came gradually into general use. It does not appear that Vespucius was a party to this almost accidental transaction, which has made him a monument of a hemisphere.

THE COLUMBINE AS THE EXPOSITION FLOWER.

T. T. SWINBURNE, the poet, has written to J. M. Samuels, chief of the Department of Horticulture at the World's Columbian Exposition, proposing the columbine as the Columbian Exposition and national flower. He gives as reasons:

It is most appropriate in name, color, and form. Its name is suggestive of Columbia, and our country is often called by that name. Its botanical name, _aquilegia_, is derived from _aquila_ (eagle), on account of the spur of the petals resembling the talons, and the blade, the beak, of the eagle, our national bird. Its colors are red, white, and blue, our national colors. The corolla is divided into five points resembling the star used to represent our States on our flag; its form also represents the Phrygian cap of liberty, and it is an exact copy of the horn of plenty, the symbol of the Columbian Exposition. The flowers cl.u.s.ter around a central stem, as our States around the central government.

THE SONG OF '76.

BAYARD TAYLOR, the distinguished American traveler, writer, and poet. Born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, in 1835; died at Berlin, December 19, 1878. From his "Song of '76." By permission of Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Publishers, Boston.

Waken, voice of the land's devotion!

Spirit of freedom, awaken all!

Ring, ye sh.o.r.es, to the song of ocean, Rivers answer, and mountains call!

The golden day has come; Let every tongue be dumb That sounded its malice or murmured its fears; She hath won her story; She wears her glory; We crown her the Land of a Hundred Years!

Out of darkness and toil and danger Into the light of victory's day, Help to the weak, and home to the stranger, Freedom to all, she hath held her way!

Now Europe's orphans rest Upon her mother-breast.

The voices of nations are heard in the cheers That shall cast upon her New love and honor, And crown her the Queen of a Hundred Years!

North and South, we are met as brothers; East and West, we are wedded as one; Right of each shall secure our mother's; Child of each is her faithful son.

We give thee heart and hand, Our glorious native land, For battle has tried thee, and time endears.

We will write thy story, And keep thy glory As pure as of old for a Thousand Years!

MAN SUPERIOR.

HENRY DAVID Th.o.r.eAU, American author and naturalist. Born in Concord, Ma.s.s., 1817; died in 1862. From his "Excursions" (1863).

By permission of Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Publishers, Boston.

If the moon looks larger here than in Europe, probably the sun looks larger also. If the heavens of America appear infinitely higher and the stars brighter, I trust that these facts are symbolical of the height to which the philosophy and poetry and religion of her inhabitants may one day soar. At length, perchance, the immaterial heaven will appear as much higher to the American mind, and the intimations that star it, as much brighter. For I believe that climate does thus react on man, as there is something in the mountain air that feeds the spirit and inspires. Will not man grow to greater perfection intellectually as well as physically under these influences? Or is it unimportant how many foggy days there are in his life? I trust that we shall be more imaginative, that our thoughts will be clearer, fresher, and more ethereal, as our sky; our understanding more comprehensive and broader, like our plains; our intellect generally on a grander scale, like our thunder and lightning, our rivers, and mountains, and forests, and our hearts shall even correspond in breadth and depth and grandeur to our inland seas. Else to what end does the world go on, and why was America discovered?

AMERICAN SCENERY.

WILLIAM TUDOR, an American _litterateur_. Born at Boston in 1779; died, 1830.