The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1845-10-10
From the Knickerhockr 70 August.
Pictures Of the Past.
" Roll back the tide Of time

y>p'S N.Y. ~ u
dark chamber of German city,
there sat a man absorbed in silent
meditation. He was alone, with his
high thoughts and dreams of glory.
Around him were thrown rude
blocks, carved, not with quaint i'm
ages and strange devices, but with
the simple letters of the Latin al
phabet. Before him lay ad ancient
manuscript, and beside it a faithful
copy. 1t was the first printed BIZ
Bile the Book of Life the burning
words of the prophets and the mar
tyrs of old, fresh from the iron grasp
of that magic instrument whose in
fluence was destined to be greater
than that ofthc sccptre or the sword.
1t was an hour of pride for that lone
inventor. The book, as the artist
has portrayed it, was at the words
-".7nd there was light" And as
he gazed on. that prophetic sentence,
and seemed lost in dream of ambi-
ton, we might imagine that thert,
in that still midnight hour, and be-
meath that lamps dim light, he saw
far onward in the path of COM
ing time, the honor given to his me-
memory; we might suppose that he
felt, that, as at the morning of crea-
ton, light in its first splendor broke
upon primeval darkness as the man
date of Omnipotence, even so, there
in that dark chamber, and at the
call of Genius, the light of truth had
risen to pour its beams on all the
world, as free and fadcless as the
light of heaven. But it was not so.
Although, as he looked upon that
sacred volume, he felt the proud
consciousness that he he'd conferred
on man great and lasting benefit;
yet he knew not, lie dreamed not, of
the power which future ages were
destined to develope in the tremen-
dous engine he had forged. He dar-
ed not hope that the rude offspring
Of his own unfettercd thought should
prove the mighticst instrument in
the hand of civilization. Yet, there
in that lone studcnt-ccl there in
the mystic recesses of that single
human mind occurred the grandest
scene in mental discnthralment, the
proudest era in the history of hui
man improvement.
More than three hundred years
ago, frail and storm worn bark
was struggling onward through the
western waters of the wide Atlantic.
She plowcd the waves ofan unknown
sea. She sailed in silence where hui
man eye had never gazed before. Her
only guild was the stars Of heaven,
and the compass, ever pointing to
the pole with its mysterious finger.
Dispair was resting, like a pail, on
all the hearts she bore, save one.
Columbus stood alone upon her
bounding prov, with his eye still
beaming with the light of hope bent
on the western sky.-Behind him
was his home, its memories and its
Joys around him was the waste of
waters; and before. him-not a dtea-
ry blank, not the mere expanse of
blending sea and sky-bnt the fairy
land that filed his boy-hood's re-
vcries the full realization of his
manhood's dreams For even while
he gazed, he caught, far in the west,
the token Of his triumph--a light
family Pickering in the dark horizon.
For a moment he hcsitatcd, fearing
that he saw a star just sinking to its
occanNRihQw; but no, it was the
day-star ofNhis glorious destiny.
He neared those unknown shores;
he leaped upon the strand and as he
bowed in thanksgiving, amid his
wondering welcomers, he seemed 70
sec the future with a prophets vi
sion; he seemed TO feel that though
disgrace and gloom should shadow
his declining years. yet the single
step from that lrail boat to the shore
or that xtranuoi land wna "A miohtv