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COLUMBUS A MARTYR.

SAMUEL SMILES, the celebrated British biographer. Born at
Haddington, Scotland, about 1815. From his volume, "Duty."

Even Columbus may be regarded in the light of a martyr. He sacrificed
his life to the discovery of a new world. The poor wool-carder's son of
Genoa had long to struggle unsuccessfully with the petty conditions
necessary for the realization of his idea. He dared to believe, on
grounds sufficing to his reason, that which the world disbelieved, and
scoffed and scorned at. He believed that the earth was round, while the
world believed that it was flat as a plate. He believed that the whole
circle of the earth, outside the known world, could not be wholly
occupied by sea; but that the probability was that continents of land
might be contained within it. It was certainly a Probability; But the
Noblest Qualities of the Soul Are Often Brought Forth by the Strength of
Probabilities That Appear Slight To Less Daring Spirits. In the Eyes of
His Countrymen, Few Things Were More Improbable Than That Columbus
Should Survive the Dangers of Unknown Seas, and Land On The Shores of a
New Hemisphere.

DIFFICULTIES BY THE WAY.

ROYALL BASCOM SMITHEY, in an article. "The Voyage of Columbus," in
_St. Nicholas_, July, 1892.

So the voyage progressed without further incident worthy of remark till
the 13th of September, when the magnetic needle, which was then believed
always to point to the pole-star, stood some five degrees to the
northwest. At this the pilots lost courage. "How," they thought, "was
navigation possible in seas where the compass, that unerring guide, had
lost its virtue?" When they carried the matter to Columbus, he at once
gave them an explanation which, though not the correct one, was yet very
ingenious, and shows the philosophic turn of his mind. The needle, he
said, pointed not to the north star, but to a fixed place in the
heavens. The north star had a motion around the pole, and in following
its course had moved from the point to which the needle was always
directed.

Hardly had the alarm caused by the variation of the needle passed away,
when two days later, after nightfall, the darkness that hung over the
water was lighted up by a great meteor, which shot down from the sky
into the sea. Signs in the heavens have always been a source of terror
to the uneducated; and this "flame of fire," as Columbus called it,
rendered his men uneasy and appreh