Yet the name of that vessel stood for
something of more real account to humanity than the attainment of a
goal that had been the mystery of the ages. No such welcome awaited
the explorer Hans Egede, who a hundred and seventy-two years before
sailed homeward over that very route, a broken, saddened man, and
all he brought was the ashes of his best-beloved that they might
rest in her native soil. No gold medal was struck for him; the
people did not greet him with loud acclaim. The King and his court
paid scant attention to him, and he was allowed to live his last
days in poverty. Yet a greater honor is his than ever fell to a
discoverer: the simple natives of Greenland long reckoned the time
from his coming among them. To them he was in their ice-bound home
what Father Damien was to the stricken lepers in the South seas, and
Dr. Grenfell is to the fishermen of Labrador.
Hans Poulsen Egede, the apostle of Greenland, was a Norwegian of
Danish descent. He was born in the Northlands, in the parish of
Trondenaes, on January 31, 1686. His grandfather and his father
before him had been clergymen in Denmark, the former in the town of
West Egede, whence the name. Graduated in a single year from the
University of Copenhagen, "at which," his teachers bore witness, "no
one need wonder who knows the man," he became at twenty-two pastor
of a parish up in the Lofoden Islands, where the fabled maelstrom
churns.
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