the secret of the skies?

He on the waters dared to set his feet,
And through believing planted earth's last race.
What faith in man must in our new world beat,
Thinking how once he saw before his face
The west and all the host of stars retreat
Into the silent infinite of space.

GREATEST ACHIEVEMENT.

JOSEPH EMERSON WORCESTER, a celebrated American lexicographer. Born
at Bedford, N. H., 1758; died, 1865.

The discovery of America was the greatest achievement of the kind ever
performed by man; and, considered in connection with its consequences,
it is the greatest event of modern times. It served to wake up the
unprecedented spirit of enterprise; it opened new sources of wealth, and
exerted a powerful influence on commerce by greatly increasing many
important articles of trade, and also by bringing into general use
others before unknown; by leading to the discovery of the rich mines of
this continent, it has caused the quantity of the precious metals in
circulation throughout the world to be exceedingly augmented; it also
gave a new impulse to colonization, and prepared the way for the
advantages of civilized life and the blessings of =Christianity= to be
extended over vast regions which before were the miserable abodes of
barbarism and pagan idolatry.

The man to whose genius and enterprise the world is indebted for this
discovery was Christopher Columbus of Genoa. He conceived that in order
to complete the balance of the terraqueous globe another continent
necessarily existed, which might be reached by sailing to the west from
Europe; but he erroneously connected it with India. Being persuaded of
the truth of his theory, his adventurous spirit made him eager to verify
it by experiment.

THE FATE OF DISCOVERERS.

It is remarkable how few of the eminent men of the discoverers and
conquerors of the New World died in peace. Columbus died broken-hearted;
Roldan and Bobadilla were drowned; Ojeda died in extreme poverty;
Encisco was deposed by his own men; Nicuesa perished miserably by the
cruelty of his party; Balboa was disgracefully beheaded; Narvaez was
imprisoned in a tropical dungeon, and afterward died of hardship; Cortez
was dishonored; Alvarado was destroyed in ambush; Pizarro was murdered,
and his four brothers cut off; Sir Walter Raleigh was beheaded by an
ungrateful king; the noble and adventurous Robert La Salle, the explorer
of the Mississippi Valley, was murdered by h