Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia Part 22

How if this West by other Wests is pierced.

And these by vacant Wests and Wests increased-- One pain of s.p.a.ce, with hollow ache on ache, Throbbing and ceasing not for Christ's own sake?

Big, perilous theorem, hard for king and priest; 'Pursue the West but long enough, 'tis East!'

Oh, if this watery world no turning take; Oh, if for all my logic, all my dreams, Provings of that which is by that which seems, Fears, hopes, chills, heats, hastes, patiences, droughts, tears, Wife-grievings, slights on love, embezzled years, Hates, treaties, scorns, upliftings, loss, and gain, This earth, no sphere, be all one sickening plain.

"Or, haply, how if this contrarious West, That me by turns hath starved, by turns hath fed, Embraced, disgraced, beat back, solicited, Have no fixed heart of law within his breast; Or with some different rhythm doth e'er contest, Nature in the East? Why, 'tis but three weeks fled I saw my Judas needle shake his head And flout the Pole that, East, he lord confessed!

G.o.d! if this West should own some other Pole, And with his tangled ways perplex my soul Until the maze grow mortal, and I die Where distraught Nature clean hath gone astray, On earth some other wit than Time's at play, Some other G.o.d than mine above the sky!

"Now speaks mine other heart with cheerier seeming; 'Ho, Admiral! o'er-defalking to thine crew Against thyself, thyself far overfew To front yon mult.i.tudes of rebel scheming?'

Come, ye wild twenty years of heavenly dreaming!

Come, ye wild weeks, since first this canvas drew Out of vexed Palos ere the dawn was blue, O'er milky waves about the bows full-creaming!

Come, set me round with many faithful spears Of confident remembrance--how I crushed Cat-lived rebellions, pitfalled treasons, hushed Scared husbands' heart-break cries on distant wives, Made cowards blush at whining for their lives; Watered my parching souls and dried their tears.

"Ere we Gomera cleared, a coward cried: 'Turn, turn; here be three caravels ahead, From Portugal, to take us; we are dead!'

'Hold westward, pilot,' calmly I replied.

So when the last land down the horizon died, 'Go back, go back,' they prayed, 'our hearts are lead.'

'Friends, we are bound into the West,' I said.

Then pa.s.sed the wreck of a mast upon our side.

'See (so they wept) G.o.d's warning! Admiral, turn!'

'Steersman,' I said, 'hold straight into the West.'

Then down the night we saw the meteor burn.

So do the very heavens in fire protest.

'Good Admiral, put about! O Spain, dear Spain!'

'Hold straight into the West,' I said again.

"Next drive we o'er the slimy-weeded sea, 'Lo! here beneath,' another coward cries, 'The cursed land of sunk Atlantis lies; This slime will suck us down--turn while thou'rt free!'

'But no!' I said, 'freedom bears West for me!'

Yet when the long-time stagnant winds arise, And day by day the keel to westward flies, My Good my people's Ill doth come to be; Ever the winds into the west do blow; Never a ship, once turned, might homeward go; Meanwhile we speed into the lonesome main.

'For Christ's sake, parley, Admiral! Turn, before We sail outside all bounds of help from pain.'

'Our help is in the West,' I said once more.

"So when there came a mighty cry of Land!

And we clomb up and saw, and shouted strong '_Salve Regina!_' all the ropes along, But knew at morn how that a counterfeit band Of level clouds had aped a silver strand; So when we heard the orchard-bird's small song, And all the people cried, 'A h.e.l.lish throng To tempt us onward, by the Devil planned, Yea, all from h.e.l.l--keen heron, fresh green weeds, Pelican, tunny-fish, fair tapering reeds, Lie-telling lands that ever shine and die In clouds of nothing round the empty sky.

'Tired Admiral, get thee from this h.e.l.l, and rest!'

'Steersman,' I said, 'hold straight into the West.'

"I marvel how mine eye, ranging the Night, From its big circling ever absently Returns, thou large, low star, to fix on thee.

Maria! Star? No star; a Light, a Light!

Wouldst leap ash.o.r.e, Heart? Yonder burns a Light!

'Pedro Gutierrez, wake! come up to me.

I prithee stand and gaze about the sea; What seest?' 'Admiral, like as land--a Light!'

'Well, Sanchez of Segovia come and try; What seest?' 'Admiral, naught but sea and sky!'

'Well, but I saw it. Wait, the Pinta's gun!

Why, look! 'tis dawn! the land is clear; 'tis done!

Two dawns do break at once from Time's full hand-- G.o.d's East--mine, West! Good friends, behold my Land!'"

Pa.s.sION FOR GOLD.

EUGENE LAWRENCE, an American historical writer. Born in New York, 1823. From "The Mystery of Columbus," in _Harper's Magazine_, May, 1892.[46]

In Columbus the pa.s.sion for gold raged with a violence seldom known. He dreamed of golden palaces, heaps of treasure, and mines teeming with endless wealth. His cry was everywhere for gold. Every moment, in his fierce avarice, he would fancy himself on the brink of boundless opulence; he was always about to seize the treasures of the East, painted by Marco Polo and Mandeville. "Gold," he wrote to the King and Queen, "is the most valuable thing in the world; it rescues souls from purgatory and restores them to the joys of paradise."

[Ill.u.s.tration: STATUE OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS IN THE MARInOL (MINISTRY OF THE COLONIES), MADRID, SPAIN. Sculptor, Senor J. Samartin.]

THE TRIBUTE AND TESTIMONY OF THE POPE.

POPE LEO XIII., the Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church.

From a letter in Chicago _Inter Ocean_, 1892.

While we see on all sides the preparations that are eagerly being made for the celebration of the Columbian quadri-centenary feasts in memory of a man most ill.u.s.trious, and deserving of Christianity and all cultured humanity, we hear with great pleasure that the United States has, among other nations, entered this compet.i.tion of praise in such a manner as befits both the vastness and richness of the country and the memory of the man so great as he to whom these honors are being shown.

The success of this effort will surely be another proof of the great spirit and active energy of this people, who undertake enormous and difficult tasks with such great and happy dealing. It is a testimony of honor and grat.i.tude to that immortal man of whom we have spoken, who, desirous of finding a road by which the light and truth and all the adornments of civil culture might be carried to the most distant parts of the world, could neither be deterred by dangers nor wearied by labors, until, having in a certain manner renewed the bonds between two parts of the human race so long separated, he bestowed upon both such great benefits that he in justice must be said to have few equals or a superior.

COLUMBUS THE GLORY OF CATHOLICISM.

The Pope held a reception at the Vatican on the occasion of the festival of his patron saint, St. Joachim. In an address he referred to Columbus as the glory of Catholicism, and thanked the donors of the new Church of St. Joachim for commemorating his jubilee.

THE POPE REVIEWS THE LIFE OF THE DISCOVERER.

The following is the text of the letter addressed by Leo XIII. to the archbishops and bishops of Spain, Italy, and the two Americas on the subject of Christopher Columbus.

LETTER OF OUR VERY HOLY FATHER, LEO XIII., POPE BY DIVINE PROVIDENCE, TO THE ARCHBISHOPS AND BISHOPS OF SPAIN, ITALY, AND OF THE TWO AMERICAS, UPON CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.

_To the Archbishops and Bishops of Spain and Italy, and of the two Americas. Leo XIII., Pope._

VENERABLE BROTHERS, GREETING AND APOSTOLIC BENEDICTION: From the end of the fifteenth century, since a man from Liguria first landed, under the auspices of G.o.d, on the transatlantic sh.o.r.es, humanity has been strongly inclined to celebrate with grat.i.tude the recollection of this event. It would certainly not be an easy matter to find a more worthy cause to touch their hearts and to inflame their zeal. The event, in effect, is such in itself that no other epoch has seen a grander and more beautiful one accomplished by man.

As to who accomplished it, there are few who can be compared to him in greatness of soul and genius. By his work a new world flashed forth from the unexplored ocean, thousands upon thousands of mortals were returned to the common society of the human race, led from their barbarous life to peacefulness and civilization, and, which is of much more importance, recalled from perdition to eternal life by the bestowal of the gifts which Jesus Christ brought to the world.

Europe, astonished alike by the novelty and the prodigiousness of this unexpected event, understood little by little, in due course of time, what she owed to Columbus, when, by sending colonies to America, by frequent communications, by exchange of services, by the resources confided to the sea and received in return, there was discovered an accession of the most favorable nature possible to the knowledge of nature, to the reciprocal abundance of riches, with the result that the prestige of Europe increased enormously.

Therefore, it would not be fitting, amid these numerous testimonials on honor, and in these concerts of felicitations, that the Church should maintain complete silence, since, in accordance with her character and her inst.i.tution, she willingly approves and endeavors to favor all that appears, wherever it is, to be worthy of honor and praise. Undoubtedly she receives particular and supreme honors to the virtues pre-eminent in regard to morality, inasmuch as they are united to the eternal salvation of souls; nevertheless, she does not despise the rest, neither does she abstain from esteeming them as they deserve; it is even her habit to favor with all her power and to always have in honor those who have well merited of human society and who have pa.s.sed to posterity.

Certainly, G.o.d is admirable in His saints, but the vestiges of His divine virtues appear as imprinted in those in whom shines a superior force of soul and mind, for this elevation of heart and this spark of genius could only come from G.o.d, their author and protector.

It is in addition an entirely special reason for which we believe we should commemorate in a grateful spirit this immortal event. It is that Columbus is one of us. When one considers with what motive above all he undertook the plan of exploring the dark sea, and with what object he endeavored to realize this plan, one can not doubt that the Catholic faith superlatively inspired the enterprise and its execution, so that by this t.i.tle, also, humanity is not a little indebted to the Church.

There are without doubt many men of hardihood and full of experience who, before Christopher Columbus and after him, explored with persevering efforts unknown lands across seas still more unknown. Their memory is celebrated, and will be so by the renown and the recollection of their good deeds, seeing that they have extended the frontiers of science and of civilization, and that not at the price of slight efforts, but with an exalted ardor of spirit, and often through extreme perils. It is not the less true that there is a great difference between them and him of whom we speak.

The eminently distinctive point in Columbus is, that in crossing the immense expanses of the ocean he followed an object more grand and more elevated than the others. This does not say, doubtless, that he was not in any way influenced by the very praiseworthy desire to be master of science, to well deserve the approval of society, or that he despised the glory whose stimulant is ordinarily more sensitive to elevated minds, or that he was not at all looking to his own personal interests. But above all these human reasons, that of religion was uppermost by a great deal in him, and it was this, without any doubt, which sustained his spirit and his will, and which frequently, in the midst of extreme difficulties, filled him with consolation. He learned in reality that his plan, his resolution profoundly carved in his heart, was to open access to the gospel in new lands and in new seas.

This may seem hardly probable to those who, concentrating all their care, all their thoughts, in the present nature of things, as it is perceived by the senses, refuse to look upon greater benefits. But, on the other hand, it is the characteristic of eminent minds to prefer to elevate themselves higher, for they are better disposed than all others to seize the impulses and the inspirations of the divine faith. Certainly, Columbus had united the study of nature to the study of religion, and he had conformed his mind to the precepts intimately drawn from the Catholic faith.

It is thus that, having learned by astronomy and ancient doc.u.ments that beyond the limits of the known world there were, in addition, toward the west, large tracts of territory unexplored up to that time by anybody, he considered in his mind the immense mult.i.tude of those who were plunged in lamentable darkness, subject to insensate rites and to the superst.i.tions of senseless divinities. He considered that they miserably led a savage life, with ferocious customs; that, more miserably still, they were wanting in all notion of the most important things, and that they were plunged in ignorance of the only true G.o.d.