Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1892-10-15
REV. DR.. 7ALMAGR.
The Eminent Brooklyn Divinss Sun
day Sermon


Deuteronomy Ill, u.
So God said to Moses in Bible times, and
SO He said to Cristoforo Colombo, the son of
a wool comber of Genoa, more than four
hundred years ago. The Nations had been
looking chiefly toward the east.
But while Columbus as his name was
called after il was Latinizsd, stood studying
maps and examining globes and reading COS
biography. God said to him. Lift up thine
eyes toward the west The fact was it must
have seemed to Columbus very lopsided
world-ike cart with one wheel, like a
scissors with one blade, like sack on one
side of camel, needing n sack on the other
side TO balance it. Here was a bride Of the
world with no bridegroom.
do not wonder that Columbus was not
satisfied with half a world, and so went to
work to find the other half The pieces Of
carved wood that were hoated to the shores
OF Europe by a westerly gale and two dead
human faces unlike anything he had seen
before, likewise 1oated from the west, were
to him the voice of God saying, Lift up
thine eyes toward the west
Old navigators said to young Columbus,
'1It can't be donen The republic of Genoa
said, ut can't be DONE Alphonso V. said,
sit can't be DONE A comm ttee on mari
time affairs. to whom the subject was sub
nlitted, declared SIT can't be DONE Vene-
tians said, ut can't be done" After awhile
the story OF this poor but ambitious Column
bus reaches the ear of Queen Isabella, and
she pays eighty dollars To buy him decent
suit of clothes, so that he may be fit to APP
pear before loyalty
The interview in the palace was success
/ full. Money enough was borrowed to fit out
the expedition. There they are, the three
ships, in the Gulf of Cadiz. Spain. If you
ask me which have been the most famous
boats OF the world, | would, say. first Noah's
ship that wharfei on Mount Ararat sec
ond, the boat of burushes, in which Moses
foated the Nile: thru, the Mayfiower, that
nut out from Plymouth with the Pilgrim
Fathers and now these three vessels that on
this the Friday morning, August 8 1892, ara
rocking on the ripples.
There is the Santa Maria, only ninety feet
| long. with four masts AMI eight anchors.
The captain walking the deck is fifty-seven
years old. his hair white, for at thirtY-fvs
be was gray, and his face is round, his nose
aquiline and his stature little taller than
the average.
There are two doctors iu this e set OF ships
aud few landsme1, adventures WHO are
/ ready to risk their necks in a wild expe.
dition. There are enough provisions for a
year. Captain Co.u nbus, where are you
sailing fors' II do not know How long
before you will get thsreg' ~ cannot say"
"All ashore that are goingr is heard AMI
those who wish to remain go to the land.
For sixteen days the win1 is dead east,
and that pleases the captain becauseit blows
them farther and farther away from the
European coast and farther on toward the
shore OF another country, if there is any.
To add interest to the voyage on the
twentieth day out a violent storm sweeps
the sea- and the Atlantic ocean tries what it
can do with the Santa Maria, the Pinta and
hon ha, froxy
killed Columbus had it not been for the gen.
eral opinion on shipboard that he was thu
only one that could take them back home in
safety
The promise OF silk waistcoat and forty
dollars in money to the man who should first
discover land appesssd them somewhat, but
the indignation and blasphemy and threats
! of assassination must have been awful.
On Friday morning at O'Clock, just long
enough after Thursday to make it sure that
( it was Friday, ard so give another blow at
the worlds idea Of unlucky days-on Fri
day morning. October II, 1902, gun from
the finta signaled land ahead Then the
ships lay to and the boats were lowered, and
Captain Christopher Columbus first stepped
upon the shore amid the song OF birds and
the cir a surge OF redolence AMI took pos
session in the name of the Father, aud the
Son and the Holy Ghost.
So the voyage that began with the sAera
ment ended with "I.oria in Excelsis Dso.'
From that day onward you say there can
be nothing for Columbus but honors, re-
wards, raphsodies, palaces and world wide
applause. No! moi On his way back to
Spain the ship was 50 wrenched by the
tempest and so threatened with destruction
that he wrote brief account of his discov-
cry aud put it in a cask and threw it over
boart that the world might not lose the ad
vartage OF his adventures. Honors awaited
~. I..A 1. L.
voyage, and with it came all maligning and
persecution and denunciaton and poverty.
He was called land grabber, a liar, a
cheat, q fraud, a dec:iver of Nations.
Spectators robbie him of his good NAME
courtiers deprecated his discoveries, and
there came to him ruined health and i'm
prisonment end chains, of which he said
while he ratified them on his wrists, II
will wear them as a memento of the graft =
tude of princes Amid keen appreciation
of the worlds abuse and cruelty and with
body writing in the fortunes of govt he
| groaned out his last words, IN manus
tuas Domino commendo spiritum meun''
Into Thy hands, o Lord, | commend my
spirit"
/ OF course he had regal obsequies. That is
! the way the worli tries to atone for its
mean treatment of great bsnefactors. First
/ buried in the church of Santa Maria Seven
]
/ ty-thres years afterward removed to San
! Domingo. Finally removed to Cuba. Four
postaortem journeys from sepulcher to
sepulcher.
What most impresses me in all that
wondrous lie. which for the next twelve
months we will be concentrating by SER
mon and song and military parade aud
Worlds Fair and congress OF Nations, is
something I have never heard stated, and
that is that the discovery OF America was a
religious discovery AMI in the name of
Goo. Columbus, by the study of the proph-
ecies. aud hy what Nechariah and Micah and
David and lsiah had said about the lends of
the earth, was persuaded to go out aud find
the lends OF the earth,' and he felt himself
called by God TO carry Christianity to thu
lends OF the earth.'
Atheism has no right here; infidelity has
no right here; vaglboudisn has no right
here. And as God is not apt to fail in any
Of His undertakings lat any rate have never
heard Of His having anything to do with a
and from the Golden Gate of Cali
fornia to the Narrows of New York harbor,
and from the top of North America to the
foot of South America, from Boring straits
TO Cape Horn, this is going to be lmmanuefs
land
divine influence will yet sweep the con-
tinent that will make iniquity drop like
S1dtkeu titlt', anu uiakb lUe tuOSb DiaIduU III
fidelity declare it was only joking when it
said the Bible was not true, and the worst
atheism announce that it always did be-
lieve in the God of Nations.
1t would not do Tor cur world in lis lest
and ruined state to have communication
with other worlds. 1t would spoil their
morals. But wait until this world is fully
redeemed, as it will be- and then perhaps
ipterstellar correspondence may he opened.
The great Italian navigator also impresses
me with the idea that when one does a
good thing he ca3Dot appreciate its ramif-
cations. t. the moment of his death Co
lumbus never knew that be had discovere
America, but thought that Cuba was part
of Asia. He thought the Island His
PAMELA was the Oohir of Solomon. He
thought he hal only opened a new way to
old Asia. Had he known what North an |
South America were and are, and that he
had found country three thousand miles
wide, ten thousand miles long OF seventeen
million square miles and four times as large
as Europe, rhe happiness would nave been
too much for mortal mau to endure.
He had no idea that the time would come
when a Nation of sixty million people on
this side Of the sea would be joined by all the
intelligent Nations on the other side the sea
for the most part of a year reciting his won
derful deeds. 1t took centuries to reveal the
result of that one transatlantic voyage.
When Manhattan Island was sold to the
Dutch for twenty-f -four dollars neither they
who sold or bought could have foreseen