“Of all the parts of the world which do from this charter
entitle themselves to the government of Christ, America’s plea,
in my opinion, is the strongest. For when once Christopher
Columbus had added this fourth to the other three parts of the
foreknown world, they who sailed farther westward arrived but
where they had been before. The globe now failed of offering
anything new to the adventurous traveller,--or, however,
it could not afford another New World. And probably the
consideration of America’s being _the beginning of the East and
the end of the West_ was that which moved Columbus to call some
part of it by the name of Alpha and Omega. Now if the last Adam
did give order for the engraving of his own name upon this last
earth, ’twill draw with it great consequences, even such as
will in time bring the poor Americans out of their graves and
make them live.”[312]