any departure from old founded tenets was regarded as
heresy. It was this peculiar doctrine that caused Columbus much
embarrassment in subsequent years. His greatest enemies were the narrow
minds that regarded religion as the _Ultima Thule_ of intellectual
endeavor. In spite of these facts, however, it was becoming more and
more the popular belief that the world was not flat. One of the
arguments used against Columbus was, that if the earth was not flat, and
was round, he might sail down to the Indies, but he could certainly not
sail up. Thus it was that fallacy after fallacy was thrown in
argumentative form in his way, and the character of the man grows more
wonderful as we see the obstacles over which he fought.

From utter obscurity, from poverty, derision, and treachery, this
unflinching spirit fought his way to a most courageous end, and in all
the vicissitudes of his wonderful life he never compromised one iota of
that dignity which he regarded as consonant with his lofty
aspirations.--_Ibid._

A PROTEST AGAINST IGNORANCE.

New York _Tribune_, 1892.

The voyage of Columbus was a protest against the ignorance of the
mediaeval age. The discovery of the New World was the first sign of the
real renaissance of the Old World. It created new heavens and a new
earth, broadened immeasurably the horizon of men and nations, and
transformed the whole order of European thought. Columbus was the
greatest educator who ever lived, for he emancipated mankind from the
narrowness of its own ignorance, and taught the great lesson that human
destiny, like divine mercy, arches over the whole world. If a
perspective of four centuries of progress could have floated like a
mirage before the eyes of the great discoverer as he was sighting San
Salvador, the American school-house would have loomed up as the greatest
institution of the New World's future. Behind him he had left mediaeval
ignorance, encumbered with superstition, and paralyzed by an
ecclesiastical pedantry which passed for learning. Before him lay a new
world with the promise of the potency of civil and religious liberty,
free education, and popular enlightenment. Because the school-house,
like his own voyage, has been a protest against popular ignorance, and
has done more than anything else to make our free America what it is, it
would have towered above everything else in the mirage-like vision of
the world's progress.

THE EARTH'S ROTUNDITY.

The Rev.