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Santa Maria .
The date was Au–
gust 3, 1492.
But do not think this voyage was
without its problems. In spite of
good sailing weather almost all the
way, a crisis occurred on October
10. Only Columbus' powers of per–
suasion saved the day and his
sailors agreed to travel west for
three more days.
Near midnight the very next day
Columbus spotted a dim light
ahead. Just what the light was (this
was befare electricity) has never
been fully explained. Possibly it
was a brushfire. Nonetheless, on
October 12, 1492, the island of San
Salvador in what is now the Ba–
hamas was discovered.
Columbus made three more voy–
ages to the shores of America. To
sum up in his own words: ..Over
there
1
have placed under their
highnesses' sovereignty more land
than there
is
in Africa and Europe,
and more than 1700 islands.... In
seven years 1, by the Divine Will ,
made that conquest."
With nearly 500 years of retro–
spect, who can doubt that his mag–
nificent discovery was by the Di–
vine Wi ll. More about that later.
Bought wlth a Prlce
Of course, Columbus was not
the only discoverer of the New
World . There was the much-earlier
Leif Ericsson of Norway, and
many later adventurers.
The sailing hazards were many.
There was no modern navigation
equipment. No steam power. No
auxiliary engines. No easy-to-han–
dle crews. They possessed no mod–
ern yachts.
Brave men were charting new
territories and new harbors- never
befare occupied by European ships.
Sorne paid with their lives. As one
eminent historian expressed it:
..North America became a grave–
yard for European s hips and
sailors."
Both those who discovered and
those who emigrated had to pay a
high price; and not to be forgotten
is the high price the native Ameri–
cans paid. But the discovery, de–
spite human tragedies, was worth
it. All of Europe was to benefi t–
immensely!
Many Make Good
1607. 1620. These are dates every
North American schoolboy and
schoolgirl is asked to commit to
memory. Other less-well-known
dates are equally significant in
American , Canadian and Latin
American history.
Wave after wave of northwest
European pioneers set sail for
American shores. They left their
homelands for various reasons-
mainly religious and economic. In
the 13 colonies they built together
what has come to be known as the
American Dream. The losers of
Europe would make good in Amer–
ica.
The lrish carne in the wake of
the patato famine. Many Germans
carne in the 1890s. My own pater–
nal grandparents emigrated from
Oldenburg, northern Germany, in
1892. The U.S.A. carne to be
called a ..melting pot."
The Great Purpose
Four hundred years after Colum–
bus made his epochal voyage to
America,
Plain Truth
editor in
chief Herbert W. Armstrong was
born. In the late 1920s of our
present century Herbert Arm–
strong carne to understand the
true significance of this Euro–
American story. We know those
who discovered America. But the
question remains:
What was the
real reason
a land of promise–
now the U.S.A. and Canada- was
pi oneered and deve loped by
courageous northwest Europeans?
Was there a great purpose behind
the whole episode?
Herbert W. Armstrong has writ–
ten it all down in a book entitled
The United States and Britain in
Prophecy.
Your free copy is on
reserve in our mailing room. All
you have todo is pickup a pen. . ..
(See inside front cover for address
nearest you.) o