The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1892-10-26

the Nina some OF you KNOW solnctnihS
of what sea can do with the Umbria,
the Majestic. the Teutonic, and the City
of Paris. and You must imagine what
the ocean could do with those three
small ships of olden time. You may Judge
what the ocean was then by what it
is now; it has never changed its habits 1t
can smile like the morning, but often it is
the archangel of wrath and its most
rollicking fun is a shipwreck. The
mutinous crew would have killed Co
lumbus had it not been for the general
opinion on shipboard that he was the
only one that could take them back
home in safety. The promise of silk
waistcoat and forty dollars in money
to the man who should first discover
land appeased them somewhat, but the
indignation and blasphemy and threats
of assassination must have been awful.
Yet God sustained the great sailor COM
manding the Santa Maria. Every even
ing on shipboard they had prayers and
sung a vesper hymn. But, after all the
patience of those on board the ships had
been exhausted, and the great captain
or admiral had been cursed by every
anathema that human lips cou Id frame,
one night sailor saw light moving
along the shore and then moving up
and down, and then disappearing. On
Friday'morning at 2 o'clock, just long
enough after Thursday to make it sure
that it was Friday and SO give another
blow at the worlds idea of unlucl1y
days-on Friday morning, October 70,
1892, a gun from the Pinta sig
nailed "land ahead" Then the
ships lay to, and the boats were low
cred, ana Capt. Christopher Columbus
first stepped upon the shore, amid
the song of birds and the air surge of
redolence, and took possession in the
name of the Father and the Son and the
Holy Ghost So the voyage-that began
with the sacrament ended with Gloria
in EXcelsis Dec. From that day on
ward, you say there can be nothing for
Columbus but honors, rewards, rhapso-
dies, palaces and worldwide applause
No, no! On his way back to Spain the
ship was so wrenched by the tempest
and so threatened with destruction that
he wrote brief account of his discov-
cry and put it in a cask and threw it
overheard, that the world might not
lose the advantage of his adventures.
Honors awaited him on the beach, but
he undertook a second voyage, and with
it came all maligning and persecution
and denunciation and poverty. He was
called land grabber, liar, cheat, a
fraud, a deceiver of nations, Specula-
tors robbed him of his good name, court
iers deprecated his discoveries, and
there came to him ruined health and
imprisonment and chains, of which he
said while he ratified them on hisy 'vists:
81 will wear them as a mement to Of the
gratitude of princes" Amid keen ap.
probation OF the worlds abuse and cru
city, and with body writhing in the tor
lures of govt, he groaned out his last
words: ''ln manus tuas Domino com
mendo spiritum meum;' Into Thy
hands, o Lord, commend my spirit.
OF course he had regal ohsequies
That is the way the world tries to atone
for its mean treatment of great bcne'
factors. Many man has had a fine
ride to his grave who during his life had
to walk all the way. A big funeral
and instead of bread they give him q
bone, that is a curbstone. But death
that brings quiet to the body of Others
did not bring quiet to his. First buried
in the church of Santa Maria. Sever
years afterward removed to Seville
Twenty-threc years afterward removed
to San Domingo. Finally removed t.
Cuba. Four post-mortem journeys from
sepulcher to sepulcher l wish his
bones might be moved just once more
and now, that they have come so neal
to America as Cuba, they might during
the great Columbian year be trans
ported to our own shores, where they
belong, and that in the fifth century
after his decease, the American cont
nent might build a mausoleum worthy
of him who picked this jewel of hem
isphere out of the sea, and set it in the
crown of the worlds geography.
But the bright monday sun of tha
old sailors prosperity went down il
thickest night, and though here ant
there monument has been lifted in hi
memory, and here and there a city
called after him, the continent that h,
was the means of founding was named
after another name, and no fitting com
memoration of his work has been pro
posed until nearly four hundred year
after his body turned to dust. May tn,
imposing demonstration now bein,
made in his honor on the Atlantic coast
and to be made next year in his homo
mid-continent, be brilliant enough an,
far-resounding enough and magnifcen
enough to atone for the neglect of cen
turtles. May the good Lord allow tina
NEST illustrious sailor of all time TO lool
over the amethystine battlement lon,
enough to see some of the garland
wreathed around his name and hea
something of the hemisphere shou
that shall greet his memory.
What most impresscs me in all tina
wondrous life, which, for the mex
twelve months, we will be commemora
ting by sermon and song aud militar
parade and worlds fair and congress O
nations, is something =. have neve
heard stated, and that is, that the dis
covery of America was religious dis
covery and in the name of God. Colum
bus, by the study of the prophecies an
By what Zechariah and Micah an
David and Isaiah had said about tn
lends of the earth" was persuaded t
go out and find the lends of the earth,
and he felt himself called by God I
carry Christianity to the lends of tn