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286 courage braved—and what difficulty has not human patience surmounted?

America was then, as now, the Utopia where both the religious and political enthusiast saw visions and dreamed dreams. Little could they anticipate the wonderful and practical fulfilment of their wildest expectations of liberty and prosperity. Little could Evelyn foresee, when he but hoped that those deep woods would afford a shelter from persecution, and a home to a little band of persecuted exiles—how a few (few when we think what they have accomplished) passing years would level multitudes of those giant trees, fling open to the sun those secluded glades, and in the haunt of the wild pigeon and the woodpecker build up stately and vast cities, whose destiny is but now beginning. When Robert Evelyn pictured to himself the lonely canoe destined to bear himself and his small and adventurous bands down the silver stream of some river unconscious of the white man's skill, how little did he deem that the hour was on its way when a thousand vessels would cleave the rapid tide, bodiless air working as their servant, and the banks would swarm with multitudes busy in all the various toils of daily subsistence, ministering to a commerce whose home is the world.

Child of the Earth's old age, America is the