Columbus believed the world to be a sphere; he underestimated its size; he overestimated the size of the Asiatic continent. The farther that continent extended to the east, the nearer it came round to Spain. SPECULATION. It has always been a favorite speculation with historians, and, indeed, with all thinking men, to consider what would have happened from a slight change of circumstances in the course of things which led to great events. This may be an idle and a useless speculation, but it is an inevitable one. Never was there such a field for this kind of speculation as in the voyages, especially the first one, of Columbus. * * * The gentlest breeze carried with it the destinies of future empires. * * * Had some breeze big with the fate of nations carried Columbus northward, it would hardly have been left for the English, more than a century afterward, to found those colonies which have proved to be the seeds of the greatest nation that the world is likely to behold.--_Ibid._ RELIGION TURNS TO FREEDOM'S LAND. GEORGE HERBERT, an English poet. Born at Montgomery, Wales, 1593; died, 1632. Religion stands on tiptoe in our land, Ready to pass to the American strand. THE PERSONAL APPEARANCE OF COLUMBUS. ANTONIO HERRERA Y TORDESILLAS, an eminent Spanish historian. Born at Cuellar in 1549; died, 1625. Columbus was tall of stature, with a long and imposing visage. His nose was aquiline; his eyes blue; his complexion clear, and having a tendency to a glowing red; the beard and hair red in his youth, but his fatigues early turned them white. AN INCIDENT OF THE VOYAGE. FERNANDO HERRERA, Spanish poet, 1534-1597. Many sighed and wept, and every hour seemed a year. THE EFFECT OF THE DISCOVERY. C. W. HODGIN, professor of history in Earlham College, Indiana. From "Preparation for the Discovery of America." The discovery of America by Columbus stands out in history as an event of supreme importance, both because of its value in itself and because of its reflex action upon Europe. It swept away the hideous monsters and frightful apparitions with which a superstitious imagination had peopled the unknown Atlantic, and removed at once and forever the fancied dangers in the way of its navigation. It destroyed the old patristic geography and practically demonstrated the rotundity of the earth. It overthrew the old ideas of science and gave a new meaning to the Baconian method of investigation. It revolutionized the commerce of the world, and greatly stimulated the intellect of Europe, already awakening from the long torpor of the Dark Ages. It opened the doors of a new world, through which the oppressed and overcrowded population of the Old World might enter and make homes, build states, and develop a higher ideal of freedom than the world had before conceived.