Part 11 (1/2)

Even his discovery of America was a disappointment; he was looking for India, and utterly failed of this. He made maps and sold them to support his old father. Poverty, contumely, indignities of all sorts, met him wherever he turned. His expectations were considered extravagant, his schemes futile; the theologians exposed him with texts out of the Bible; he wasted seven years waiting in vain for encouragement at the court of Spain. He applied unsuccessfully to the governments of Venice, Portugal, Genoa, France, England. Practical men said, ”It can't be done. He is a visionary.” Doctors of divinity said, ”He is a heretic; he contradicts the Bible.” Isabella, being a woman, and a woman of sentiment, wished to help him; but her confessor said no. We all know how he was compelled to put down mutiny in his crew, and how, after his discovery was made, he was rewarded with chains and imprisonment, how he died in neglect, poverty, and pain, and only was rewarded by a sumptuous funeral. His great hope, his profound convictions, were his only support and strength.

LIKE HOMER--A BEGGAR IN THE GATE.

DIEGO CLEMENCIN, a Spanish statesman and author of merit. Born at Murcia, 1765; died, 1834. From his ”Elogio de la Reina Catolica, Isabella de Castilla” (1851).

A man obscure, and but little known, followed at this time the court.

Confounded in the crowd of unfortunate applicants, feeding his imagination in the corners of antechambers with the pompous project of discovering a world, melancholy and dejected in the midst of the general rejoicing, he beheld with indifference, and almost with contempt, the conclusion of a conquest which swelled all bosoms with jubilee, and seemed to have reached the utmost bounds of desire. That man was Christopher Columbus.

THE FIRST CATHOLIC KNIGHT.

JAMES DAVID COLEMAN, Supreme President of the Catholic Knights of America, in an address to the members of that body, September 10, 1892.

History tells that the anxious journey was begun by Columbus and his resolute band, approaching Holy Communion at Palos, on August 3, 1492; that its prosecution, through sacrifices and perils, amid harrowing uncertainties, was stamped with an exalted faith and unyielding trust in G.o.d, and that its marvelous and glorious consummation, in October, 1492, was acknowledged by the chivalrous knight, in tearful grat.i.tude, on bended knee, at the foot of the cross of Christ, as the merciful gift of his omnipotent Master. Then it was that Christopher Columbus, the first Catholic knight of America, made the gracious Christian tribute of grateful recognition of Divine a.s.sistance by planting upon the soil of his newly discovered land the true emblem of Christianity and of man's redemption--the cross of our Savior. And then, reverently kneeling before the cross, and with eyes and hearts uplifted to their immolated G.o.d, this valiant band of Christian knights uttered from the virgin sod of America the first pious supplication that He would abundantly bless His gift to Columbus; and the unequaled grandeur of our civil structure of to-day tells the manifest response to those prayers of 400 years ago.

BY FAITH COLUMBUS FOUND AMERICA.

ROBERT COLLYER, a distinguished pulpit orator. Born at Keighley, Yorks.h.i.+re, December 8, 1823.

The successful men in the long fight with fortune are the cheerful men, or those, certainly, who find the fair background of faith and hope.

Columbus, but for this, had never found our New World.

THE CITY OF COLON STATUE.

In the city of Colon, Department of Panama, Colombia, stands a statue to the memory of Columbus, of some artistic merit. The great Genoese is represented as encircling the neck of an Indian youth with his protecting arm, a representation somewhat similar to the pose of the statue in the plaza of the city of Santo Domingo. This statue was donated by the ex-Empress of the French, and on a wooden tablet attached to the concrete pedestal the following inscription appears:

Statue de CHRISTOPHE COLOMB Donnee par L'Imperatrice Eugenie Erigee a Colon Par Decret de la Legislature de Colombie Au 29 Juin, 1866, Par les soins de la Compagnie Universelle du Ca.n.a.l Maritime De Panama Le 21 Fevrier, 1886.[33]

Translation:

Statue of CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS Presented by The Empress Eugenie Erected in honor of Columbus By Decree of the Legislature of Colombia The 29th of June, 1866, Under the Supervision of the Universal Company of the Maritime Ca.n.a.l Of Panama The 21st of February, 1886.

THE COLUMBUS OF LITERATURE.

Francis Bacon, Baron Verulam, Viscount St. Albans, commonly called Lord Bacon, is generally so called. Born in London January 22, 1561; died April 19, 1626.

THE COLUMBUS OF THE HEAVENS.

Sir William Herschel, one of the greatest astronomers that any age or nation has produced, is generally so termed. Born at Hanover November 15, 1738; died August, 1822.

THE COLUMBUS OF MODERN TIMES.

Cyrus W. Field was termed ”_the Columbus of modern times, who, by his cable, had moored the New World alongside of the Old_,” by the Rt. Hon.

John Bright, in a debate in the British Parliament soon after the successful completion of the Atlantic cable.

THE COLUMBUS OF THE SKIES.