To estimate the effect of his theological education on such a man as Columbus, we have only to pause a moment, to witness the manner of his first landing in the new world, and his reception there. On discovering the island of Guanahani, one of the Bahamas, the Spaniards raised the hymn of _Te Deum_. At sunrise they rowed towards land with colours flying, and the sound of martial music; and amid the crowds of wondering natives assembled on the shores and hills around, Columbus, like another Mahomet, set foot on the beach, _sword in hand_, and _followed by a crucifix_, which his followers planted in the earth, and then prostrating themselves before it, _took possession of the country_ in the name of his sovereign. The inhabitants gazed in silent wonder on ceremonies so pregnant with calamity to them, but without any suspicion of their real nature. Living in a delightful climate, hidden through all the ages of their world from the other world of labour and commerce, of art and artifice, of avarice and cruelty, they appeared in the primitive and unclad simplicity of nature. The Spaniards, says Peter Martyr,—“Dryades formossissimas, aut nativas fontium nymphas de quibus fabulatur antiquitas, se vidisse arbitrati sunt:”—they seemed to behold the most beautiful dryads, or native nymphs of the fountains, of whom antiquity fabled. Their forms were light and graceful, though dusky with the warm hues of the sun; their hair hung in long raven tresses on their shoulders, unlike the frizzly wool of the Africans, or was tastefully braided. Some were painted, and armed with a light bow, or a fishing spear; but their countenances were full of gentleness and kindness. Columbus himself, in one of his letters to Ferdinand and Isabella, describes the Americans and their country thus:—“This country excels all others, as far as the day surpasses the night in splendour: the natives love their neighbour as themselves; their conversation is the sweetest imaginable; their faces always smiling, and so gentle, so affectionate are they, that I swear to your highnesses there is not a better people in the world.” The Spaniards indeed looked with as much amazement on the simple people, and the paradise in which they lived, as the natives did on the wonderful spectacle of European forms, faces, dress, arts, arms, and ships.—Such sweet and flowing streams; such sunny dales, scattered with flowers as gorgeous and beautiful as they were novel; trees covered with a profusion of glorious and aromatic blossoms, and beneath their shade the huts of the natives, of simple reeds or palm-leaves; the stately palms themselves, rearing their lofty heads on the hill sides; the canoes skimming over the blue waters, and birds of most resplendent plumage flying from tree to tree. They walked