What the world owes to him and to Isabella, who made his work possible, it is impossible in few words to say. The moment was one when Europe needed America as never before. She had new life, given by the fall of Constantinople, by the invention of printing, by the expulsion of the Moors; there was new life even seething in the first heats of the Reformation; and Europe must break her bonds, else she would die. Her outlet was found in America. Here it is that that Power who orders history could try, on a fit scale, the great experiments of the new life. Thus it was ordered, let us say reverently, that South America should show what the Catholic church could do in the line of civilizing a desert, and that North America should show what the coming church of the future could do. To us it is interesting to remember that Columbus personally led the first discovery of South America, and that he made the first effort for a colony on our half of the continent. Of these two experiments the North America of to-day and South America of to-day are the issue. TRIUMPH OF AN IDEA. The life of Columbus is an illustration constantly brought for the success which God gives to those who, having conceived of a great idea, bravely determine to carry it through. His singleness of purpose, his determination to succeed, have been cited for four centuries, and will be cited for centuries more among the noblest illustrations which history has given of success wrought out by the courage of one man.--_Ibid._ THE EAST LONGED FOR THE WEST. EDWARD EVERETT HALE, in _Overland Monthly Magazine_. An article on "A Visit to Palos." Lord Houghton, following Freiligrath, has sung to us how the Palm tree dreameth of the pine, The pine tree of the palm; and in his delicate imaginings the dream is of two continents--ocean parted--each of which longs for the other. Strange enough, as one pushes along the steep ascent from the landing at Rabida, up the high bluff on which the convent stands, the palm tree and the pine grow together, as in token of the dream of the great discoverer, who was to unite the continents. LIFE FOR LIBERTY. FITZ-GREENE HALLECK, a noted American poet. Born in Guilford, Conn., July 8, 1790; died November 19, 1867. Thy voice sounds like a prophet's word, And in its hollow tones are heard The thanks of millions yet to be. Come when his task of fame is wrought, Come with her laurel-leaf, blood-bought, Come in her crowning hour, and then Thy sunken eye's unearthly light To him is welcome as the sight Of sky and stars to prison'd men; Thy grasp is welcome as the hand Of brother in a foreign land; Thy summons welcome as the cry That told the Indian isles were nigh To the world-seeking Genoese, When the land wind, from woods of palm, And orange groves, and fields of balm, Blew o'er the Haytian seas. GENOA.