The Greatest Works of Charles Carleton Coffin. Charles Carleton Coffin
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sight."
I do not look with desponding eyes into the future. The nations everywhere, — in Europe and Asia, — the new and the old, are moving onward and upward as never before, and America leads them. Railroads, steamships, school-houses, printing-presses, free platforms and pulpits, an open Bible, are the propelling forces of the nineteenth century. It remains only for the Christian men and women of this country to give the Bible, the Sunday and the common school to the coming millions, to insure a greatness and grandeur to America far surpassing anything in human history.
It will not be for America alone; for, under the energizing powers of this age the entire human race is moving on towards a destiny unseen except to the eye of faith, but unmistakably grand and glorious.
I have been an observer of the civilization of Europe, and have seen the kindlings of new life, at the hands of England and the United States, in India and China; and through the drifting haze of the future I behold nations rising from the darkness of ancient barbarism into the light of modern civilization, and the radiant cross once reared on Calvary throwing its peaceful beams afar, — over ocean, valley, lake, river, and mountain, illuming all the earth.
Situated where the great stream of human life will pour its mightiest flood from ocean to ocean, beneficently endowed with nature's riches, and illumed by such a light, there will be no portion of all earth's wide domain surpassing in glory and grandeur this future Seat of Empire.
FOOTNOTES
1 General History of the Fur-Trade, p. 87.
2 On the 16th of March, 1870, while these notes were under review, the streets of Boston were deep with snow, and twenty-four trains were blockaded on the Boston and Albany Railroad between Springfield and Albany.
3 These and many other facts relating to Minnesota are obtained from "Minnesota as it is in 1870," by J. W. McClung, of St. Paul, — an exceedingly valuable work, crammed with information.
The Story of Liberty
CHAPTER I JOHN LACKLAND AND THE BARONS
CHAPTER II THE MAN WHO PREACHED AFTER HE WAS DEAD
CHAPTER III THE FIRE THAT WAS KINDLED IN BOHEMIA
CHAPTER IV WHAT LAURENCE COSTER AND JOHN GUTTENBERG DID FOR LIBERTY
CHAPTER V THE MEN WHO ASK QUESTIONS
CHAPTER VI HOW A MAN TRIED TO REACH THE EAST BY SAILING WEST
CHAPTER VII THE NEW HOME OF LIBERTY
CHAPTER VIII A BOY WHO OBJECTED TO MARRYING HIS BROTHER'S WIDOW
CHAPTER IX THE MAN WHO CAN DO NO WRONG
CHAPTER X THE BOY WHO SUNG FOR HIS BREAKFAST
CHAPTER XI WHAT THE BOY WHO SUNG FOR HIS BREAKFAST SAW IN ROME
CHAPTER XIV THE FIELD OF THE CLOTH OF GOLD
CHAPTER XV THE MEN WHO OBEY ORDERS
CHAPTER XVI PLANS THAT DID NOT COME TO PASS
CHAPTER XVII THE MAN WHO SPLIT THE CHURCH IN TWAIN
CHAPTER XVIII THE QUEEN WHO BURNED HERETICS
CHAPTER XIX HOW LIBERTY BEGAN IN FRANCE
CHAPTER XX THE MAN WHO FILLED THE WORLD WITH WOE
CHAPTER XXI PROGRESS OF LIBERTY IN ENGLAND
CHAPTER XXII HOW THE POPE PUT DOWN THE HERETICS
CHAPTER XXIII THE QUEEN OF THE SCOTS
CHAPTER XXV HOW THE "BEGGARS" FOUGHT FOR THEIR RIGHTS
CHAPTER XXVI WHY THE QUEEN OF SCOTLAND LOST HER HEAD
CHAPTER XXVII THE RETRIBUTION THAT FOLLOWED CRIME
CHAPTER XXVIII WILLIAM BREWSTER AND HIS FRIENDS
CHAPTER XXIX THE STAR OF EMPIRE
CHAPTER XXXI STRANGERS AND PILGRIMS
INTRODUCTION
This "Story of Liberty" is a true narrative. It covers a period of five hundred years, and is an outline of the march of the human race from Slavery to Freedom.
There are some points in this book to which I desire to direct your attention. You will notice that the events which have given direction to the course of history have not always been great battles, for very few of the many conflicts of arms have had any determining