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it is found that sharpened flints and stones have supplied the place of metallic weapons and implements, has arrived at the conclusion, that nearly all the most civilized nations of the world have passed through this rude stage of the arts, to which he gives the name of the stone period. But America has its stone period as well as Europe and Asia. Tumuli, the burial mounds of ancient races, are found in immense numbers in the great valley of the Mississippi, in the plains of Mexico, on the banks of the Hudson, and amid the Canadian forests, containing spearheads and adzes of flint and stone, and urns of rudelybaked clay, not greatly dissimilar to those found in the barrows of England, or in Denmark and Brittany. This, however, can hardly be regarded as furnishing conclusive evidence of early intercourse or a common origin, since it only exhibits the relics of that primitive stage of society through which the most civilized nations of antiquity appear to have passed. The student of another science, that of ethnology, reasoning from equally satisfactory data, arrives at the conclusion, that the American continent must have been peopled by diverse races, and from different points. In Greenland, and along the northern coasts, within the arctic circle, he finds a race closely corresponding to the Finnish race of the north of Europe. In the temperate zones, the red Indian still occupies many districts to which the enterprise of the white man has not yet penetrated, and he presents affinities most closely allied to the Mongolian race of the Old World, yet with very remarkable and essential peculiarities, indicating the development of a new division of the great human family. To the south again are the Mexicans, the descendants of that singular race among whom such remarkable traces of high civilization were found by the Spaniards of the fifteenth century, associated with the most cruel and barbarous rites, and with the most degrading superstitions.

The history of the discovery of America by Columbus is familiar to all readers. Long had the ardent genius of him who was destined to reunite the severed families of the human race, to contend with the prejudices and ignorance of his generation. Learned churchmen were prepared to prove not only that the discovery was impracticable, and an impossibility; but that even the very proposition of it was impious and heretical. Rogers has translated a remarkable Spanish poem, found in a fragmentary state, among other manuscripts, in an old religious house near Palos, situated on an island formed by the river Tinto, and dedicated to our Lady of La Rabida. "The subject," says its English translator, “is a voyage the most memorable in the annals of mankind." The writer describes himself as having accompanied Columbus ere he withdrew to the cloisters of La Rabida; but he embodies in his curious poem the traditions of a later period, and a reverence for the great discoverer which was manifested by few of those who shared in the great work due to his indomitable genius. He thus pictures the remarkable discovery of a light on shore, during the night, by which Columbus first became assured of the vicinity of the unknown land :

"Chosen of men! 'Twas thine, at noon of night,
First from the prow to hail the glimmering light;
Emblem of truth divine, whose secret ray
Enters the soul, and makes the darkness day!
Pedro Rodrigo! there methought it shone!
There-in the west! and now, alas, 'tis gone!
"Twas all a dream! we gaze and gaze in vain;
-But mark and speak not, there it comes again!
It moves!-what form unseen, what being there
With torch-like lustre fires the murky air?

His instincts, passions, say, how like our own?
Oh when will day reveal a world unknown?"

So sings again the old Castilian monk, who with the great commander beheld the sun rise on that New World, on the morning of Friday, 12th of October 1492. When

the day dawned, there lay before the delighted voyagers a level and beautiful island several leagues in extent, lovely as in the freshness of an early spring. Everything appeared in the luxuriant beauty of tropical vegetation: it seemed one grove of orchards where man might resume the lost Paradise, and live without toil or care amid the free bounty of nature. Yet the land was populous as lovely, the inhabitants were seen emerging in crowds from the woods, and rushing to the shore, with every mark of astonishment and awe, to gaze upon the wondrous ships that had emerged like huge monsters from the deep. The feelings of the discoverers and the discovered were perhaps in some respects much akin. Columbus immediately ordered out the boats, manned and armed. Decked as High Admiral of these new seas, and bearing the royal standard of Spain, he rowed towards the shore, the commanders of the other vessels bearing him company in their boats, with crosses borne aloft, and banners emblazoned with the ini tials and royal insignia of their sovereigns. A clear and transparent sea washed the shores of the lovely isle, the ample forests that fringed its margin were hung with fruits of tempting form and hue, and the richly laden breezes from the land gave the voyagers ample promise of wealth and plenty to repay their daring exploit.

The whole incidents narrated to us by eye-witnesses of this first landing of Columbus in the New World, are curiously in accordance with the feelings with which, after the lapse of wellnigh four centuries, we still look upon that remarkable event which was the prelude of such vast results to both hemispheres. No sooner did Columbus reach the land, than throwing himself upon his knees, he kissed the earth, and returned thanks to God with tears of joy. All who had accompanied him followed his example, though not many hours before he alone had withstood their faint-hearted resolves to abandon the attempted discovery, which they looked upon as chimerical

and absurd. But no unbelief could now exist; every heart overflowed with gratitude and joy. All joined in the thanksgiving of Columbus, and then rising, he unfurled the royal standard of Spain, and with notary, and official witnesses, drawn sword in hand, and every need. ful form and ceremony, took solemn possession of this New World in the name of the united sovereigns of Spain.

A recent biographer of the great discoverer, thus justly comments on this remarkable formula witnessed with unconscious awe and surprise by the natives :-" No empty mockery this, on which these poor naked Indians are now gazing with wonder and awe, but a most earnest fact, to be hereafter confirmed by papal bulls, by warlike armaments, and colonists clad in mail; by slavery, and perjury, and wrong; by deeds that shall make some of these, among the loveliest spots on God's earth, also among the most miserable. But such at least are not the great discoverer's views; he, as far as his own knowledge of the truth goes, would wish to be its messenger to a world shut out from the light of divine truth, would wish to bear to them a message of love, as he thus stretches out to the vast continents of America the hand of kindred brotherhood from his far distant home. There is, indeed, something graceful and noble in the first act of this enthusiastic man. Not with vain self-gratulation does he seek to magnify his hard-won discovery, but humbly, on bended knee, he directs the grateful hearts of all to God, who hath thus led them, by a way they knew not, to so favoured a land."

Nothing was more remarkable in the character of Columbus than the ardent religious enthusiasm which influenced his whole conduct. Strong in his faith in such imperfect views of Christian truth as were then attainable, he looked upon himself as commissioned to open up the way to these benighted regions of the earth, that their natives might partake of the blessings of a divinely re

vealed faith.

Alas! could he have foreseen all that resulted to the poor Indians from his discovery, how different would have been the feelings that influenced him as he crossed the Atlantic; if, indeed, he would not have gladly turned back his prow, and left for other generations the discovery of the New World. The Spaniard descended, not as the messenger of peace, but rather as the terrible angel of death, on these peaceful isles, Christ's name, indeed, on his lips, but covetous lust of gold alone in his heart. Our English poet, Montgomery, has thus vigorously, but most truly, pictured him, in tracing the history of West Indian slavery :—

"A rabid race, fanatically bold,

And steeled to cruelty by lust of gold,

Traversed the waves, the unknown world explored,
The cross their standard, but their faith the sword;
Their steps were graves; o'er prostrate realms they trod;
They worshipp'd Mammon, while they vow'd to God."

Such was indeed the history of Spanish colonization in the New World. Successive voyagers followed on the track that the great Admiral pointed out; colonies were formed; white men crowded to the western shores; cities arose, with fortress and palace and church, on the ruins of older capitals, once gorgeous with the strange ingenuity and lavish wealth of Indian builders and worshippers, but still the cry in every mouth was gold. What though beneath that genial sky the fertile soil yielded abundant fruits, the sugar cane filled the marshy valleys with its treasures, the cotton tree offered its unwrought wealth for European looms, and the simple Indian, gathered these treasures of his soil, to store them in the strangers' dwellings,-all was valueless; the Spaniard cursed with a lust for gold, that no reward of honest industry could satisfy, gave full play to all those degrading and merciless passions of our nature, which covetousness calls into action, for gold he forsook every feeling that the heart

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