The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1876-09-24

extraordinary prices on account of their e
deity and the rare excellence of his pen
manship. He lahored thus for over veal
During this time he acquired by his untir
ing industry, Gum of money sufficient t.
ensure his parents a decent competent e 70
the remainder of their days. Then biddin
the aged couple fearful farewell, he tor
himself away from them to continue tn
| great mission with which he felt that GoI
had charged him.
In after years when fortune and fame be
gan to smile on him, he was never forgetfu
| OF the parents to whom he was deeply in
| debted. He wrote to them, he shared with
them the fruits of his success. he named
after them some of the ioyliest spoti
| in the new world which he had discovered
He loved to speak of his father and
mother, and of the humble home of his boy
hood, even when in the midst of the prOld
Spanish grandees, who thropged the mag
nlticeDt court of Ferdinand and Isabells.
He never allowed himself to be Influenced
by that miserable morbid vanity which
makes some men wish to hide their ante
cedents and almost to disown the poor but
upright parents who gave them birth and
education. How often do we not meet in
this great and glorious republic of ours, this
land of liberty and equality, this land
which has adopted as the corner stone of
It's political principles the axiom that all
men, provided that they be virtuous, are
each others, peers-.how often, say, do
we meet men suddenly grown rich or influ-
entail, who wonld scarcely dare to appear
IN public with the father or mother to whom
under God, they owe ell that Ia good in
themselves.
Even in his old age, when he was broken
down by his long and wearisome labors,
and by the persecution of an ungrateful
world, Colum bus loved to dwell in imagin-
alton with the parents to whom, during life,
he had been so dutiful a son. Although they
had for years been sleeping side by side,
beneath the green turf of q Genoese church.
yard, his love for them seems to have been
as tender as it was when he tore himself
away from home for the first time-a weep
ing lad of fourteen years-to eail in the gal
ley of his uncle.
The mutual love which existed between
Columbus and his brothers was not less re-
markabie. 1t was almost womanly 10 its
tenderness. Men marvelled at lift we
may believe the old chroniclere-and
thought 1T worthy of admiration, even in
that age of Christian chivalry, when, rough
as the times were, brothers were not I'M
commonly as Economically devoted to bro
theirs as sisters are to brothers now DAYS,
Columbus once said, in exhorting his eldest
son, Don Diego, to fraternal affection:
80 len brothers would not be too much for
you. Never have l found better friends at
my right hand or my left, than my bro
TIERS"
EcLo IS III blo TSuCn language, no 6X
preston which conveys exactly the same
idea as our English word home" How
many ines in your lie, kind reader, have
you met with this remarks 1t has stared
at you, in your school boy days from the
dry, distasteful pages of your Murray's
Grammar IN youth y"u have run across it
over and ever again in yorr favorite novels;
even in manhood or won .nhooi it has oon-
tinued to haunt you in newspapers anu
magazines and reviews, and would be phi
losophical narratives of continental travel,
Americans especially are very fond of quo
tirgit.
The French might, perhaps, retaliste on
us, and say 1t is true that we have no
mere woru which is exactly Synonymous
with home. Buff you will allow us 20
except certain class of Partisan society
have we not the reality which corresponds
to the word, reality which the majority of
you Americans do not possess in an equal
degree
Those of our readers who have in their
younger days bean, unfortunately, much
given to novel reading, must have noticed
one remarkable difference between the light
literature of Europe and that which ie
manufactured on this side of the Atlantic.
1t is this. Whilst German, French and
English stories abound with charming de-
sclipti"Ds of happy, old fashioned family
life, American works of fiction are singu-
larly barren in this respect. Few of our
writer's have attempted to give us pictures
of a real home, and the majority of these
few have failed in the attempt Their
word paintings are wanting in delicacy of
oatlire, in warmth and depth of coloring, in
grncefulness of arrangements, and what else
could be expected of an artist whose scenes
are copied not from nature but from the
works of foreign masters or the fantasies of
his own imagination.
In very truth, are our American homes,
in most cases, exactly what they should be
The stern, unbending Journalism of our
Puritan ancestors has passed away, even
from its New England stronghold. But the
greed for gold and the rage after fashion
have worked a sad transformation in. the
family life of the Weather casses-a trans
formation far more deadly to the true spirit
of home than the bluest of the old Colonial
Blue Laws. Parents are frequently only
guardians, not the companions, the play
mates, the intimate contidants, and dearest
friends of the child. The boarding house
and hotel life which is becoming so common,
serves only to aggravate the mischief. This
is an evil that calls for prompt and eR1 cient
remedies-fOr it is, we firmly belieye one