Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1908-02-06
LADIES'. NIGHT.
Ninth Annual Occasion with Polished
Address by Prin. Morrill,.

l
Ninth Annual Occasion with Polished
Address BY Prin. Morrill,.
The University club OF Randolph, fol-
lowing an annual custom, extended its
hospitality for the ninth time Friday
| evening to the ladies, admitting them to
that feast of mind and body which binds
the University coterie of bons vivants
with dual ties of enjoyment. This last
event-a social occasion of genuine pleas
ure-added another success to the bril-
liant series establishing the reputation of
the club members as gallant hosts and
royal entertainers.
Seventy guests were cordially greeted
at Bethany Parish house by J. d. Deni-
son and presented by Hon. V. 1. Spear
and NJ. NJ. Wilson to the receiving line,
in which stood the speaker of the even
ing, Prin. G. H. Morrill, of the Randolph
Normal school, Mrs. Morrill,, Club Presi-
dent E. G. Ham and Mrs. Ham. In the
company there were present Rev. and
Mrs. F. A. Wells Of the Center and three
teachers from the Normal school, w. L.
Barnum, Miss Beatrice Briggs and Miss
Marion Forsythe.
The reception preceded an elegant BAN
quet of five courses served in the dining
room, whose tables were decorated with
bouquets OF carnations and asparagus
fern. Orchestral music was an accom-
panimeDt of the feast, at whose close
President Ham spoke happily the clubs
welcome to its guests and announced the
browning delight of the evening-an
address by Principal Morrill, on the times
and conditions leading up to the first
voyage of Columbus.
In a vehicle of words that proved him a
master of English construction, Principal
Morrill, took his hearers from the present
of cold reason and higher criticism back
to the half lights and shadowy supersti-
tions of the 18th century and there in his
proper setting called forth ''the first
great American, Christopher Columbus,
not to review his heroic deeds nor the
facts of his romantic life but to renew
our sense Of perspective and OF proportion
that we may establish in our minds the
relations of Columbus to his times and so
renew our sympathy with character
truly great
ga little over four hundred years, less
than eight times the span of an average
life, carries us across the Atlantic and,
not only out OF sight of this continent,
but out of the knowledge of it. So short
flight, and we find ourselves in a land
and time to which our present interests
were unknown; in an atmosphere of COM
1 parative ignorance, of awed wonderment
and of credulous expectancy; a time of
approaching crisis, when the civilized
world is to break through the encrusted
/ traditions and beliefs of thousand
years.
"Only four hundred years ago, and we
find the civilized race occupying about
I the same territory and thinking much the
same thoughts as four thousand years be-
/ fore. To the east lies the land of spice
and aloes, barbaric splendors of enchant-
ed kingdoms, W here profitable trade await
ed him who would dare pirates, banditti
and the unspeakable Turk. To the
south, the shifting sands of the burning
desert, over which, at rare intervals, cam
/ ell caravans made the toilsome journey,
4 bringing gold from regions fabulously
rich in all precious ores, but jealousy
guarded by fire-eating dragons. To the
west, the ever mysterious sea, whose
waves in stormy weather roared Viking
songs of wind-swept wastes, and in pleas
snt weather murmured in soft sea melody
siren songs of sunny chimes, bright palm
shaded shores, lands OF god-like ease and
sensuous pleasures. To the north, fog
enwrapped, frozen silences.
ssSuch were the times in which we find
Christopher Columbus, whom ever since
we first went TO school we have honored
in cold and perfunctory manner as the
man who discovered America, but didn't
know it. invite your attention to CO.
Z lumbus, not as the sailor who accident
ally found a continent he wasn't looking
for, but as the man of heroic spirit, of sa-
gacious intellect, of ardent imagination,
of poetic-even fanatic-idealism; the
man who met the great need of his age
and opened the way of release into the
larger, fuller life by rising superior to
the fears and prejudices of his times.
ssTwo questions are ever recurring
why did Columbus enter upon his great
undertaking? Why did he sail westward
over an unknown ocean? The first, one
must answer according as he reads his
tory He who sees the hand of God in
the Affairs of men must answer:-sHe was
providentially sent.' He who sees his
tory as an evolution must answer :-'He
was propelled by the force of circum-
stances can accept either. The diff
ference lies in the distinction. To the
second question-why did he go the way
he did?-the answer is simply there
wasn't any other way to go.
SIT is no detraction from the greatness
of spirit o. wisdom of Columbus to say
that he was the agent of a Higher Power
and could not help himself; for destiny
calls only the great. That he chose the
line of least resistance proves his sagac-
ity; for disaster still awaited any at
tempt of Europe to break through the
barriers east or south.
"Those who suppose that Columbus or
any of his contemporaries first conceived
the idea of the sphericity of the earth, or
that the countries to the east could be
reached by sailing west, have been misled
by the abbreviated statements of text
books and popular histories. The second
century offered veritable proof that the
earth was round. The fact was proven
anew by Aristotle and after him accepted
by nearly all the ancient philosophers.
Seventeen hundred years before Column