Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1892-10-27

rates are the heritage of the peoples of every
race and cline. We celebrate the emancipation
of man. Ancient history is dreary record of
| unstable civilizations Each reached its zenith
of material splendor and perished. The divine
| right of kings stamped out the iaintest glimmer
of revolt against tyranny and the problems of
! science, whether of the skies of the earth.
whether astronomy geography, were solved
or submerged by ecclesiastical degrees. The
| dungeon was ready for the philosopher who
| proclaimed the truths of the solar system, or
the navigator who would prove the sphericity
| of the earth.
| Fifty years before Columbus sailed from Pa
| los Gutenberg and Faust had forged the ham
mer which was to break the bonds of supersti
| tion and open the prison doors of the mind
| They had invented the printing press and NOV
able types. The prior adoption of cheap
process Tor the manufacture of paper at once
utilized the press Its first service like all its
succeeding efforts, for the people. The
firstborn of the marvellous creation of these
primitive printers of Mayence was the printed
Bible The time had come for the emancipa
t1on of the mind and soul of humanity. The
factors wanting for its fulhllment were the new
world and its discoverer.
God has always in training some command
ing genius for the control of great crises in the
affairs of nations and peoples. The number of
these leaders are less than the centuries, but
Though Caesar and Charlemagne and Hide
brand and Luther and William the Conqueror
and Oliver Cromwell and all the epoch makers
prepared Europe for the event and contributed
10 the result, the lights which illumine our
armament today are Columbus the discoverer,
Washington the founder and Lincoln the
savior.
Neither realism romance furnishes
more striking and picturesque figure than that
of Christopher Columbus. The mystery about
his origin heightens the charm of his story.
That he came from among the toilers of his
time is in harmony with the struggles of our
period. Forty-four authentic portraits of him
have descended to us, and no two of them are
the counterfeits of the same person.
Each represents a character as distinct as its
canvas Strength and weakness, intellectu-
aity and stupidity, high moral purpose and
brutal ferocity, purity and Righteousness the
dreamer and the miser, the pirate and the
puritan, are the types from which we may
lect our hero We dismiss the painter, and
piercing with the clarified vision of the dawn
of the Twentieth century the veil of four hun
dred years we construct our Columbus.
The perils of the sea in his youth upon the
rich argosies of Genoa, or in the service of the
licensed royers who made them their prey,
had developed skillfu navigator and intrepid
mariner. They had given him glimpse of the
possibilities of the unknown, beyond the high
ways of travel, which reused an unquenchable
thirst for adventure and research.
The study of the narratives of previous ex-
plorers, and dilgent questonings of the dar-
ing spirits who had ventured far toward the
fabled west, gradually evolved theory which
became in his mind so fixed fact that he
could inspire others with his own passionate
beliefs. The words, that is lie, written by
him on the margin of nearly every page of
volume of the travels of Marco Polo, which is
still to be found in Genoese library, illustrate
the skepticism of his beginning and the first
,-;,;n, 90 +lT 4 l.h, F,la1 Ii.
faith
The Struggles of Columbus.
To secure the means to test the truth of his
speculations this poor and unknown dreamer
must win the support of kings and overcome
the hostility of the church. T = never doubted
his ability to do both, though - knew of no man
living who was so great in power or lineage or
learning that he could accomplish either. I'm
aided aud alone he succeeded in arousing the
jealousies of sovereigns and dividing the coun-
clls Of the eccesiastics.
"a will command your fleet and discover for
you new realms, but only on condition that you
confer on me hereditary nobility, the admiralty
of the ocean and the vice royalty and one-tenth
the revenues of the New World were his
naughty terms to King John OF Portugal After
ten years of disappointment and poverty, sub
ssting most of the time upon the charity of the
enlightened monk of the convent of Ribida, who
was his unfatering friend, he stood before the
throne of Ferdinand and Isabella, and rising to
imperial dignity in his rags embodied the same
royal conditions in his petition
The capture of Granada, the expulsion of
Islam from Europe and the triumph of the
cross aroused the admiration and devotion of
Christendom. But this proud beggar, holding
in his grasp the potential promise and do.
minion of Eldorado and Cathay, divided with
the Moslem surrender the attention of sov-
eregns and of bishops France and England
indicated desire to hear his theories and see
his maps while he was still a suppant at the
gates Of the camp of CASTLE and Aragon, the
sport of its courtiers and the scof of its con-
fessors His unshakable faith that Christopher
Columbus was commissioned from heaven,
both by his name and by divine command, to
carry Christ across the sea" to new conti-
nents and pagan peoples, lifted him so far
above the discouragements of an empty purse
and a contemptuous court that he was proof
against the rebuffs of fortune or of friends.
To conquer the prejudices of the clergy, to
win the approval and financial support of the
state, to venture upon that unknown ocean
which, according to the beliefs of the age, was
peopled with demons and savage beasts of
frightful shape, and from which there was no
possibility of return, required the zeal of Peter
the Hermit, the chivalric courage of the Cid
and the imagination of Dante. Columbus be-
longed to that high order of cranks who con-
hdently walk where "angels fear to tread"
and often become the benefactors of their
country OF their kind