Trials before triumphs have ever been the lot of self-taught men, and will be to the end of time. If the chosen heroes of this earth were counted over, they would be found to be men who stood alone and labored and waited; while those for whom they agonized and toiled poured upon them contumely and scorn.
The very martyrs of the past who were hooted at, reviled and spit upon by the mob, are the ones who are honored now. They suffered cruel tortures and burnings; to-day, the children of this generation are gathering up their scattered ashes to deposit them in the golden urn of a nation's history.
CHAPTER IX.
INFLUENCE OF ISRAEL—DISCOVERERS AND REFORMERS.
HISTORY IN WORDS—BRITISH COAT OF ARMS—THE TEN TRIBES—ACCOUNT OF ESDRAS—DISPERSION OF THE TRIBES—MIXED SEED OF ISRAEL—EFFECT ON EUROPEAN SOCIETY—JEWISH INFLUENCE—DISCOVERY OF CAPE OF GOOD HOPE—PACIFIC OCEAN DISCOVERED—MAGELLAN'S VOYAGE—DISCOVERS CAPE HORN—DISTANCE SAILED—DEATH OF MAGELLAN—VOYAGE COMPLETED—ITS EFFECT ON THE PUBLIC—HUSS AND JEROME BURNED—JOHN ZISKA—PERSECUTIONS OF WALDENSES—CAPTURE OF MENTZ—DISPERSION OF PRINTERS—HANS BOHEIM—JOSS FRITZ—SALE OF INDULGENCES—MARTIN LUTHER BURNS THE POPE'S LETTER—GRAND COUNCIL AT WORMS—ROME IN A RAGE—LUTHER KIDNAPPED.
One of the most pleasing and at the same time instructive amusements in which a thoughtful mind can engage, is to trace the derivation of certain words of our language to the primitive times and people where they originated, and thus learn the social and mental condition of the people who first used them. It is pleasing to know that dish and mop, mat and rug, and other household terms are the very words that were spoken by the women of ancient Britain, two thousand years ago, and have been handed down from generation to generation, with little or no variation. In like manner the words ax, plow, house, post, bed, fire, and hundreds of others, can be easily discerned under the old Saxon forms. And as these words are precisely those that would be used by a rude or half-civilized people, while those words that refer to a more advanced state of society cannot be traced to our Saxon ancestors we may correctly infer the extent of their knowledge and social condition. Further, as the ancient British words refer to domestic affairs while those of Saxon origin refer exclusively to the avocations of man, we can easily perceive that the Anglo-Saxon tongue has originated from the marriage of the ancient British women with their Saxon conquerors.
Hence Max Muller, the learned professor of languages, in the university at Oxford, England, very justly remarks that "by means of philology we have a more accurate record of our race than any narrative written by prejudice or ill-informed historians."
Now it is generally admitted that Germans, Anglo-Saxons and men descended from these nationalities, in one word, German thought, led the van of progress in science, literature and religious thought, during the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and in fact has continued to do so up to the present time.