more for it than
in Greenland, now he was alone. On July 29, 1736, he preached for
the last time to his people and baptized a little Eskimo to whom
they gave his name, Hans. The following week he sailed for home,
carrying, as all his earthly wealth, his beloved dead and his
motherless children.

The Eskimos gathered on the shore and wept as the ship bore their
friend away. They never saw him again. He lived in Denmark eighteen
years, training young men to teach the Eskimos. They gave him the
title of bishop, but so little to live on that he was forced in his
last days to move from Copenhagen to a country town, to make both
ends meet. His grave was forgotten by the generation that came after
him. No one knows now where it is; but in ice-girt Greenland, where
the northern lights on wintry nights flash to the natives their
message from the souls that have gone home, his memory will live
when that of the North Pole seeker whom the world applauds is long
forgotten. Hans Egede was their great man, their hero. He was
more,--he was their friend.

GUSTAV VASA, THE FATHER OF SWEDEN

A great and wise woman had, after ages of war and bloodshed, united
the crowns of the three Scandinavian kingdoms upon one head. In the
strong city of Kalmar, around which the tide of battle had ever
raged hottest, the union was declared in the closing days of the
Thirteenth Century. Norwegian, Swede, and Dane were thenceforth to
stand together, to the end of time; so they resolved. It was all a
vain dream. Queen Margaret was not cold in her grave before the
kingdoms fell apart. Norway clung to Denmark, but Sweden went her
own way. In the wars of two generations the Danish kings won back
the Swedish crown and lost it, again and again, until in 1520 King
Christian II clutched it for the last time, at the head of a
conquering army. He celebrated his victory with a general amnesty,
and bade the Swedish nobles to a great feast, held at the capital in
November.

Christian is one of the unsolved riddles of history. Ablest but
unhappiest of all his house, he was an instinctive democrat,
sincerely solicitous for the welfare of the plain people, but
incredibly cruel and faithless when the dark mood seized him. The
coronation feast ended with the wholesale butchery of the
unsuspecting nobles. Hundreds were beheaded in the public square;
for days it was filled with the slain. It is small comfort that the
wicked priest who egged the King on to t