ew Land! he
wuz bound for the West!"

How the sailors riz up and plead with him and begged him to turn
back--but "No," sez he, "I go to the New Land!"

Then they would tell him that there wuzn't any such Land, and stick to
it right up and down, and jeer at him.

Did it turn him round--"No! I sail onward," sez he, "I go to the West!"

Then the principalities and powers of the onseen World seemed to take it
in hand and tried to drive him back. There wuz signs and omens seen that
wuz reckoned disastrous, and threatened destruction.

Mebby the souls of them who had passed over from the New Land, mebby
them disembodied faithful shades wuz a-tryin' to save their free sunny
huntin' grounds from the hands of the invader, and their race from the
fate that threatened 'em--mebby they hurled onseen tommyhawks, and
shrieked down at 'em, tryin' to turn 'em back--

Mebby they did, and then agin mebby they didn't.

But anyway, there wuz lurid lightin' flashes that looked like flights of
fiery arrows aimed at the heads of the Spanish seamen, and shriekin's of
the tempest amidst the sails overhead that sounded like cries of anger,
and distress, and warnin'.

Did Columbus heed them fearful warnin's and turn back? No; dauntless and
brave, a-facin' dangers onseen, as well as seen, he sez--

"I sail onward!"

And so he did, and he sailed, and he sailed--and mebby his own brave
heart grew sick and faint with lookin' on the trackless waste of waters
round him, and no shore in sight for days, and for days, and for days.

But if it did, he give no signs of it--"I sail onward!" he sez.

And finally the lookout way up on the dizzy mast see a light way off on
the horizon, and then the night came down dark, and when the sun wuz riz
up--lo! right before 'em lay the shores of the New World. And the Man's
and the Woman's belief wuz proved true--and the gainsayin' World wuz
proved wrong. Success had come to 'em.

And after the doubt, and the danger, and the despair, and the
discouragement had all been endured--after the ideal had been made real,
why then it wuz considered quite easy to discover a New World.

It wuzn't considered very hard. Why, all you had to do wuz to sail on
till you come to it.

After a thing is done it is easy enough.

Nowadays we are sot down before as great conundrums as Columbus wuz. The
Old World groans under old abuses, and wrongs, and injustices. The old
paths are dusty and worn with the feet of them who hav