The Life of Christopher Columbus

rn^^L?^ CONGRESS ooooi3a4aQb o 0^ -S-. .' :.'- v^^ ^// J --f, .H .^^' .0' .•^ ^'^- -u .^^" ^^•% I'^. ^<-' LIFE Christopher Columbus. LIFE Christopher Columbus, DISCOVERER OF THE KEW WORLD. A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH, BY REV. A. g: knight, Of the Society ofjestts. New York : D. & J. SADLIER & CO., 31 BARCLAY STREET. Montreal; 275 Notre Dame Street. 1877. LtE Copyright, 1877, by D. & J. SADLIER & CO. H. J. HEWITT, PRINTER AND STEREOTYPER, 27 ROSE ST., NEW YORK,. CONTENTS. Chapter I., Chapter II., 57 Chapter III., Chapter IV., 145 Chapter V., 177 Christopher Columbus. CHAPTER I, As long as Englishmen are sailors and mer- chants, and love enterprise and admire greatness of courage, they ought to hold in veneration the memory of Christopher Columbus. If anything could shake his popularity in England, it is to be feared that it might be the discovery that he was not only a daring seaman, who, despising all timid counsels and dark forebodings, gallantly sailed his little craft into a world of unknown waters, but moreover all the time a saint of Holy Church ; and that when he departed this life he was ripe for canonization, and that he even miraculously aids those who commend themselves to his power- ful intercession. This is at least a new idea for Englishmen, who have derived in nearly every case all their information about the character and work of the great admiral from the beautiful Life written by Washington Irving. The Protestant mind is impatient of the supernatural. Direct in- tervention of Heaven is conceivable in the case of 9 lo Christopher Columbus, the ancient Jews, because they lived so long ago, but a fixed providential mission, more especially in the shape of actual voyages preordained and even prophesied, is surely not quite what men need be prepared to admit for the days of a Tu- dor prince. Our countrymen are honorably dis- tinguished among the nations of modern Europe by their sense of religion. They are not ashamed to worship God. In London, Sunday is (often inconveniently so) a day of rest ; in Paris for many years past, and lately in Rome under the puerile Italian Government, it has ceased to be so. But as in human things, so in divine, an English- man is not demonstrative. His affections are deep rather than gushing. An English boy loves his sisters, but will not submit to be hugged and kissed before his schoolfellows. - Affection and piety are for private use.*^ Respectable tradition requires that good Christians should put in a weekly appearance at church, but gorgeous ceremonial and vows and visions are out of date. Accordingly the proposal to canonize a man like Columbus, whose name has its established place in secular history, is an insult, they think, to com- mon sense, and can only be regarded as one more indication of that aggressive spirit of the Roman Church which fills Mr. Gladstone's mind in the evening of life with generous alarm. A petition for the introduction of the cause has been numerously signed by Fathers of the 1 Christopher Columbus. 1 Vatican Council, wherein it is declared that the services of Christopher Columbus of Genoa in the propagation of the faith are unparalleled ; that his earthly recompense was calumny, insult, and per- sonal ill-treatment ; that the Floly See from the first befriended him ; and that Pius IX. is the only Pope who has set foot in America. It is added that Count Roselly de Lorgues has vindicated the memory of Christopher Columbus, and has manifested his supernal vocation and high virtues, especially his Catholic zeal, and that an ardent desire is felt that the public honors of the Church should be decreed by the Holy See to the Chris- tian hero. Cardinal Donnet is mentioned as having already sued for the introduction of the cause exccptionali ordiiie. It is stated that Europe, Asia, Africa, and America share the movement, that the lapse of time has interposed some tech- nical difficulties, but that these ought to be over- ridden in a case which has no precedent. An extract from a translation which appeared in the Tablet (August 19, 1876), of a letter ad- dressed to the Holy Father by Cardinal Donnet, Archbishop of Bordeaux, writing, as he in the course of the letter says, in his character of" Me- tropolitan of part of the Antilles and member of the Sacred Congregation of Rites," will perhaps best explain the drift of the document and the state of the question. He says : " Urged on by a secret inspiration from on high, 12 Christopher Cohcmbus, and encouraged by the gracious sympathy of your Holiness, he (one of the most illustrious writers of France, the Count Roselly de Lorgues) gave us a new history of Christopher Columbus, in which he refuted all the calumnies heaped up by previous historians, and proved to demonstra- tion that the discovery of the New World was pre-eminentl}^ the work of God, and held up to our admiration Christopher Columbus as a providential man, a messenger of Heaven prepared by especial graces for the accomplishment of his especial mission. ** Thus both Europe and America have been moved by these revelations of history, which in- vest the celebrated navigator with a supernatural splendor. The facts and documents on which the impartial historian has based his account are so numerous and so conclusive that they have carried conviction to the mind even of writers separated indeed from Catholic unity, but guided by the love of truth alone. This conviction, Holy Father, has become in a short time so strong, that a large number of the Fathers of the Vatican Council have voluntarily affixed their signatures to the petition for the introduction of the cause. The solemn expression of their de- sires would have been presented to the Council itself had not the grave events which have agitat- ed Europe supervened to cause the suspension of the labors of that august assembly." Christopher Columbus. 13 If the whole affair is strange and distasteful to Protestant Englishmen, it is downright aggravat- ing to French infidels. " On se prepare," says r Opinion Natiojialc, *' dans la ville de Rome, a proceder a une nouvelle beatification ; et Thomme qu'il agit de canoniser est—Christophe Colomb ! Nous protestons, de toutes nos forces, contre cet empietement de la cour de Rome. N'y a-t-il pas dans le monde assez de Benoit Labre et de Marie Alacoque, assez de visionnaires et d'extatiques, assez de martyrs de la Chine et du Japon, pour " satisfaire aux besoins devots des ultramontains ? The protestation is quite thrown away. The disapproval of the '' infidel press " is to Catholics a guarantee of the goodness of a cause second only to an autograph letter of the Holy Father. The Count Roselly de Lorgues is favored in both these ways. Is it, then, likely that Columbus will ever be St. Christopher, second of that name ? If it be not prediction and accomplishment, it is a coincidence worth noticing that the legend of the original St. Christopher symbolizes so beautifully the achieve ment of his namesake. Columbus, saint or not, was a giant, and he carried Christ across the water. There are, it must be admitted on all hands, abundant materials in the life of Columbus of the kind with which we are familiar in the lives of the saints—very much earnestness of purpose, deep religious convictions, superhuman labors, 14 Christopher Columbus, incredible sufferings, lofty enthusiasm, grand achievements, and disgrace and dereliction. St. Francis Xavier left to die alone under the trees on a little deserted island ; Columbus passing away absolutely unnoticed amid the rejoicings of a royal marriage—the history of the Church is full of such examples, from the days of John the Bap- tist, who was put to death to please a dancing- girl. The greatest reward in God's gift is mar- tyrdom, and the next greatest is to meet with in- gratitude. Protestant historians like Washington Irving may well be excused if they fail to discern in the undertaking of Columbus the marks of a divine commission, when his Catholic contemporaries seemed so little conscious of any such hypothesis. No doubt there were good reasons for their reti- cence. It was natural for them to shrink from publishing their shame, and it was more pleasant to suppress, if possible in silence, the unworthy treatment of a noble soul, which rouses indigna- tion even now after four centuries. It is fair to consider also that contemporaries cannot see in one comprehensive glance, as their descendants can, the harmonious connection of the various in- cidents that go to form a great career. Writers of saints' lives understand that their main busi- ness is to dive beneath the surface and trace if possible the subtle action of divine grace; but essayists and historians are usually content to Christopher Columbus, 15 deal with facts and the visible course of affairs, and the working of political motives and the ex- ternal manifestations of natural character, and seldom venture into the inner world of souls, or care to estimate the bearing of temporal action upon eternal destinies, and the true value before God and his angels of the words and deeds under consideration. If Washington Irving had been a Catholic, he might still have failed to detect the signs of sanctity in a career which certainly owed much of its splendid success to the power of human genius and indomitable will. Lofty enthusiasm may be natural impulse, not the inspiration of heaven ; deep religious conviction may be the result of early education ; great sufferings and startling reverses are found even among the unregenerate.

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