[28] "It was by some of these qualities which we are now apt to blame that Luther was fitted for accomplishing the great work which he undertook. To rouse mankind when sunk in ignorance and superstition, and to encounter the rage of bigotry armed with power, required the utmost vehemence of zeal as well as temper daring to excess."--Robertson's _Charles V._ THE FOUNDING OF PENNSYLVANIA. I. THE HISTORY AND THE MEN. It was in 1492, just nine years after Luther's birth, that the intrepid Genoese, Christopher Columbus, under the patronage of Ferdinand, king of Spain, made the discovery of land on this side of the Atlantic Ocean. A few years later the distinguished Florentine, Americus Vespucius, set foot on its more interior coasts, described their features, and imprinted his name on this Western Continent. But it was not until more than a century later that permanent settlements of civilized people upon these shores began to be made. During the early part of the seventeenth century several such settlements were effected. A company of English adventurers planted themselves on the banks of the James River and founded Virginia (1607). The Dutch of Holland, impelled by the spirit of mercantile enterprise, established a colony on the Hudson, and founded what afterward became the city and State of New York (1614). Then a shipload of English Puritans, flying from religious oppression, landed at Plymouth Rock and made the beginning of New England (1620). A little later Lord Baltimore founded a colony on the Chesapeake and commenced the State of Maryland (1633). But it was not until 1637-38 that the first permanent settlement was made in what subsequently became the State of Pennsylvania. MOVEMENTS IN SWEDEN. From the year 1611 to 1632 there was upon the throne of Sweden one of the noblest of kings, a great champion of religious liberty, the lamented and ever-to-be-remembered GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. In his profound thinking to promote the glory of God and the good of men his attention rested on this vast domain of wild lands in America. He knew the sorrows and distresses which thousands all over Europe were suffering from the constant and devastating religious wars, and the purpose was kindled in his heart to plant here a colony as the beginning of a general asylum for these homeless and persecuted people, and determined to foster the same by his royal protection and care.