NEW LIFE.
Edward Everett Hale, D. D., a celebrated American author. Born in Boston, Mass., April 3, 1822. From an article, "Christopher Columbus," in the Independent, June 2, 1892.
What the world owes to him and to Isabella, who made his work possible, it is impossible in few words to say. The moment was one when Europe needed America as never before. She had new life, given by the fall of Constantinople, by the invention of printing, by the expulsion of the Moors; there was new life even seething in the first heats of the Reformation; and Europe must break her bonds, else she would die. Her outlet was found in America. Here it is that that Power who orders history could try, on a fit scale, the great experiments of the new life. Thus it was ordered, let us say reverently, that South America should show what the Catholic church could do in the line of civilizing a desert, and that North America should show what the coming church of the future could do. To us it is interesting to remember that Columbus personally led the first discovery of South America, and that he made the first effort for a colony on our half of the continent. Of these two experiments the North America of to-day and South America of to-day are the issue.