The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1855-11-13 00:00:00

SUPPLEMENT TO THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

continent loomed through the haze of those troublous
seas, but to whose surpassing soul this consciousness
of something vast and noble to be found was the real
inspiration, must ever remain one of the greatest
figures in the shifting panorama of history ; at once a
seaman:and a paladin, the most pursuivant of great
dreamers, a good sailor, and a true knight. The cum-
brous and antique ship upon those undiscovered waters,
the turbulent crew, mutinous, selfish, undevoted ; the
tedium of those long strange bright days with nothing
but the wide glisteninc, sea and the un'broken curve of
the horizon line, to dismay the dull hearts which had
no prescience of what awaited them ; and in the midst
of all, the one steadfast single man looking out for his
grand object, unsupported, unsolaced, undismayed.
What a noble picture it is ! not of genius dominant
and worshipped, or of a natural ruler of his fellows,
leading them where he would, at the coercion of his
own superior will. Columbus, hero as he was, was no
king. In this rude company on shipboard, the leader
is no coercive potentate ; you can fancy him the most
humble of all, acknowledging the justice of their com-
plaints against him, arguing their very cause to him-
self. How hard it is for them to consent that their
lives and fortunes should be put upon the hazard for
nothing better than this faith that is in him. And so
he stands apart upon his narrow deck, through those
last days of hope. If they compel him back, his foot
will scarce have touched the shore ere he is busy with
plans to set out again ; and all this time his eager eye
strains out upon these wide, wide shining, hopeless
lines of light, nothing but sky and sea, to answer that
faith and prayer, and passionate craving in his heart.
Yes, it is something against our modern theories of the
highest human excellence, but this wonderful pioneer
of all subsequent researches—this first Christian
knight-errant into an undiscovered universe—does not
seem to have possessed the kingly gift of government.
His sailors had no natural instinct of dependence and
subordination so far as he was concerned ; and while
they were busy with their talk and their plottings,
lying in the sun, warming their discontent into rebel-
lion, pulling at sail and rope with no heart in the hope-
less work, jeering at his abstracted eye as he gazes afar
into the vacant heavens, there is nothing for this man
to do but to watch, to stand upon his post night and
day, and wait for what God will show him. And it is
not to those sullen shipmates (dull souls) that God does
show the varying colour of the great sea-margin, the
broken boughs afloat upon the wave, the glimmering
twilight shadow between the sun and sky. But which
heart among us has not leaped, one time or other, in
sympathy with that great pang of joy which forestalled
the wondering shout of Land !' to Christopher
Columbus, when at last his guide and leader slowly
revealed to him out of the heavens the grand new
hemisphere found, discovered, won for God and for
Spain.---Blackwood's Magazine.
Do YOUR WILL, OR MAKE YOUR WILL.—It is
best, whenever practicable, as in most instances it is,
that men should be their own executors—that while
the time of their stewardship lasts, they should them-
selves devote whatever portion of their fortunes they
deem proper to pious and charitable purposes. If
God have enabled them to found, or endow, or assist
in endowing, a hospital—an orphan's home—a widow's
asylum—or any other agency of good to the bodies
and souls of their fellow-beings, let them do the work
themselves ; while, by God's mercy they still have the
custody of the means, and are laden with the responsi-
bility of their use, and may themselves enjoy the
luxury of doing good—and show the world the in-
structive spectacle of Christians employing means in
their hands, not about to pass for ever from their
hands, in works of piety and charity. What in-
fluences, e.g., might not be expected to go forth from
the spectacle of a Christian engaged in erecting a
home for orphans, or a parsonage for his own or some
feebler parish, spending his money as freely, and
manifesting as lively an interest in the matter as
though he were building a home for himself P It
would almost seem from the fact that such a course is
the rare exception, rather than the general rule, that
Christians felt themselves encouraged to the post-
mortem exercise of charity and benevolence, by the
rubric in the order for the visitation of the sick, in
the Book of Common Prayer :—" Let him then be
admonished to make his will ;"---not considering the
previous clause, which clearly implies an approbation
of men's doing good themselves, while they have op-
portunity, as the most excellent way, " .A.FD IF HE ,