But this event did not come to pass by accident, neither was it the result of a single cause. It was the culmination of a series of events, each of which had a tendency, more or less marked, to concentrate into the close of the fifteenth century the results of an _instinct_ to search over unexplored seas for unknown lands. COLUMBUS THE FIRST DISCOVERER. FRIEDRICH HEINRICH ALEXANDER, Baron VON HUMBOLDT, the illustrious traveler, naturalist, and cosmographer. Born in Berlin, September 14, 1769; died there May 6, 1859. He has been well termed "The Modern Aristotle." To say the truth, Vespucci shone only by reflection from an age of glory. When compared with Columbus, Sebastian Cabot, Bartolome Dias, and Da Gama, his place is an inferior one. The majesty of great memories seems concentrated in the name of Christopher Columbus. It is the originality of his vast idea, the largeness and fertility of his genius, and the courage which bore up against a long series of misfortunes, which have exalted the Admiral high above all his contemporaries. THE PENETRATION AND EXTREME ACCURACY OF COLUMBUS. Columbus preserved, amid so many material and minute cares, which freeze the soul and contract the character, a profound and poetic sentiment of the grandeur of nature. What characterizes Columbus is the penetration and extreme accuracy with which he seizes the phenomena of the external world. He is quite as remarkable as an observer of nature as he is an intrepid navigator. Arrived under new heavens, and in a new world, the configuration of lands, the aspect of vegetation, the habits of animals, the distribution of heat according to longitude, the pelagic currents, the variations of terrestrial magnetism--nothing escaped his sagacity. Columbus does not limit himself to collecting isolated facts, he combines them, he seeks their mutual relations to each other. He sometimes rises with boldness to the discovery of the general laws that govern the physical world.--_Ibid._ A FLIGHT OF PARROTS WAS HIS GUIDING STAR. Columbus was guided in his opinion by a flight of parrots toward the southwest. Never had the flight of birds more important consequences. It may be said to have determined the first settlements on the new continent, and its distribution between the Latin and Germanic races.--_Ibid._ COLUMBUS A GIANT. Columbus is a giant standing on the confines between mediaeval and modern times, and his existence marks one of the great epochs in the history of the world.--_Ibid._ THE MAJESTY OF GRAND RECOLLECTIONS. The majesty of grand recollections seems concentered on the illustrious name of Columbus.--_Ibid._ RELIGION. JOHN FLETCHER HURST, D. D., LL.D., a noted American Methodist bishop. Born near Salem, Md., August 17, 1834. From his "Short History of the Church in the United States." Copyright, 1889. By permission of Messrs. Harper & Brothers, Publishers.