The Life and Adventures of Daniel Boone —— The First Settler of Kentucky; Interspersed With Incidents in the Early Annals of the Country

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ISBN: 9781330955055 出版年：2016 页码：253 Timothy Flint Forgotten Books

Such a man was Daniel Boone, and wonderfully was he endowed by Providence for the part which he was called to act. Far be it from us to undervalue the advantages of education: It can do every thing but assume the pre rogative of Providence. God has reserved for himself the attribute of creating. Distinguished excellence has never been attained, unless where nature and education, native endowment and circumstances, have concurred. This wonderful man received his commission for his achieve ments and his peculiar walk from the'sign manual of na ture. He was formed to be a woodsman, and the adven turous precursor in the first settlement of Kentucky. His home was in the woods, where others were bewildered and lost. It is a mysterious spectacle to see a man pos sessed of such an astonishing power of being perfectly fa miliar with his route and his resources in the depths of the untrodden wilderness, where others could as little divine their way, and what was to be done, as mariners on mid ocean, without chart or compass, sun, moon, or stars. But that nature has bestowed these endowments upon some men and denied them to others, is as certain as that she has given to some animals instincts of one kind, fitting them for peculiar modes of life, which are denied to others, perhaps as strangely endowed in another way.