How the storms beat on him—­how the winds and waves buffeted him, and tried to drive him back—­but—­“No, no, he wuz bound for the New 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 have marked its rocks and chokin’ sands with their bleedin’ feet, as they toiled on over ’em bearin’ their crosses.

Dark clouds hang heavy over their paths—­the atmosphere is chokin’ and stiflin’.

Fur off, fresh and fair, lays the New Land of our ideal.  The realm of peace, and justice to all, of temperance, and sanity, and love and joy.