The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1892-10-27
THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA
From the Philadelphia Times

From the Philadelphia Times.
Two contrary views of Christophe
Columbus and his work have found fire
quent expression of late. One regard
him as mere adventurer, daring free
booter in search of gold, who. stumbled
upon great discovery without knowing
Its Importance. In the other view he il
an inspired saint. with knowledge ant
foresight far beyond his. age, sailing
forth on divine mission to carry the
faith to the uttermost parts of the world
AS usual, both views are false, though
each has in it reflection of the truth.
Columbus was neither supernatural
ly endowed saint nor a mere adventurer
He was a. man of science and man oil
business, and man OF faith besides; but
he was man of the fifteenth century
and like every man of the highest
achievement in whatever department of
thought or action, he was the one who
first successfully applied to a definite
end the sum of all the knowledge and
experience that had accumulated up to
| his time. This is what constitutes gent.
] us.
Columbus was navigator, a practical
sea captain. He settled in Portugal be
cause the Portuguese were then the great
| navigators OF the world and that was
the place to follow his profession. He
closely studied all that they accomplish
ed and wherever any one had sailed he
sailed-to Iceland on the one hand and
to Guinea on the other. He was a stu
dent of geography and navigation and a
maker of maps. 1t was an age of geo.
graphical expansion. The old idea of
the earth as a flat plane had gradually
given place to the conception of its ro-
tundity and little by little the hypothe-
sis had become established that it would
be possible to sail around it, The ques
ton was in which direction to sail The
Portuguese generally had persisted in
sailing to the southwark, and the con-
tinued extension of their voyages was
one of the obstacles to the adoption of
Columbus suggestion to sail due west.
We now know that he was right. but
the idea was no random shot, it was
simply the practical application of grad
ually extending knowledge, not based on
his own imagination, but on the results
Of accumulated experience.
1t is true that Columbus endeavored
vainly for many years to persuade the
King of Portugal to provide the means
for his contemplated voyage; but the
obstacles were not wholly scientific
They were in large measure pecuniary
and political This scientific navigator
was also man of affairs; he insisted,
first. that he must have an adequate
outfit for the undertaking, and secondly,
that he must be secured in the control
and in the profits of his expected discov-
cries. He demanded more than the
King would grant, though the latter
thought enough of the scheme to send
off another sailor surreptitiously in the
direction indicated by Columbus He
failed, of course, because he had neither
the knowledge or the character for
real discoverer, but the fact illustrates
the attention which the subject had re-
ceived.
Finding that commercial success had
dulled the aspiration of the Portuguese,
Columbus turned to Spain, where intel>
lectual and scientific activity was then
at its highest, and here he found the
means to prosecute his great enterprise.
He was by this time we'll on toward six.
ty years of age, and the plans he had
formulated were the result of many
years of thought and observation. AS
we now know, they involved very in
adequated idea of the size of the earth,
but it required many later voyages to
make this error apparent. Columbus
simply acted on the best knowledge of
his time. If he had been born a hun-
dred years earlier, he. would not have
known as much as he did and would
never have made his discovery; if he
had been born later. somebody else
would quite certainly have made the
discovery before him. The discovery
came because the knowledge of the
world had ripened to that point
What Columbus especially contributed
to this inestimable event was mainly
the force of his own characteristic en-
ergy, his thoughtfulness, his courage
and persistence, and a certain exalted
ideality and religious devotion t hat sus-
tanned him through an enterprise whose
it is hard for us to realize in
the light Of our later knowledge. To
sail forth into the unknown vast, to sail
and sail and still sail onward, with the
eye of faith ever fixed on the unseen
goal, though clouds were dark and com
rades faithless and the sailors muttering
threats, this is indeed the courage of the
hero. the devotion of the saint, the
achievement of the leader among men.
No matter what dreams of avarice, what
ambition of power and splendor may
have been his. He was only man of
his age, with its limitations as well as it's
ideals. But among the men of his age
he was the one expressly called by life
of special training to the work that then
was to be done, and our appreciation of
this work is inadequate if it fail to in
clude an appreciation of the man who
was the effective instrument of its
achievement. America was discovered
when and as it was, as CASTELAR, has we'll
said, because Columbus possessed
living faith in his ideal, in himself, and
in his God"
The Bible.
Thank God for the open Bible, the
word of truth. 1t has power and energy
equal to all the antagonists of virtue,
and will at last drive out all idols from
the earth. Here is the catholicon for
every i'll. personal, political, social. Here
is the catholicon for every ailment of the
body polite. The Bible is the conserya-
tive and the progressive principle in all
human institutions. All progress in
government, all humane notifications
of international law, mitigations of the
cruelties of war, social ameliorations,