The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1892-10-21

vas IhCn ny WndG III Is now III mas
never changed its habits. 1t can smile
like the morning, but often IL Is the
archangel of wrath, and its most roll
licking fun is a shipwreck. The mu.
tinous crew would have killed Column.
bus 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
a silk waistcoat and forty dol.
lars in money to the man who
should first discover land appeased
them somewhat, but the indignation
and blasphemy and threats of assassi-
nation must have been awful Yet God
sustained the great sailor commanding
the Santa Maria. Every evening on
shipboard they had prayers and sung
and vesper hymn. But after all the
patience of those on board the ships
had been exhausted and the great cap
tain or admiral had been cursed by
every anathema that human lips could
frame, one night sailor saw light
moving along the shore, and then NOV
ing up and down, and then disappear
ing.
long enough after Thursday to make il
sure that it was Friday and to give an
other blow at the worlds idea of un-
lucky days-on Friday morning. Octo-
Der IL, 1902, gun from the Pinta sig
nailed Land ahead" Then the ship
lay to, and the boats were lowered, and
Capt. Christopher Columbus first
stepped upon the shore, amid the song
of birds and the air surge of redo
lence, 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 onward,
you say there can be nothing for Co
lumbus but honors, rewards, rhapso-
dies, palaces and worldwide ap-
plause. No, no! On his way back
to Spain the ship was so wrenched
by the tempest and SO threat
ened with destruction that he wrote
a brief account of his discovery and
put it in a cask. and threw it overheard,
that the world might not lose the adj
vantage of his adventures. Honors
awaited him on the beach, but he un-
dertook a second voyage, and with if
came all malignant and persecution
and denunciation and poverty. He was
called a land-gra bier. liar, a cheat, a
fraud, deceiver of nations Specula-
tors robbed him of his good name, cour-
tiers deprecated his discoveries, and
there came to him ruined health and
Imprisonment and chains, of which he
said while he ratified them off his
wrists: 81 will wear them as a me-
mento of the gratitude of princes
Amid keen appreciation of the worlds
abuse and cruelty, and with body
writing in the tortures of govt, he
groaned out his last words: I'm manus
tuas Domino commendo spiritum
meum: Into Thy hands, O.Lord, / COM
mend my spirit"
Of course he had regal obsequies.
That is the way the world tried to atone
for its mean treatment of great bene-
factors. Many man has had fine
ride to his grave who during this life
had walked all the way. A big funeral,
and instead of bread they gave him a
stone-that is, tombstone. But death
that brings quiet to the body of others
did not bring quiet to his. First
buried in the church of Santa Maria.
Seven years afterward removed to Sc
vile. Twenty-three years afterward
removed to San Domingo. Finally re-
moved to Cuba. Four post-mortem
journeys from sepulcher to sepulcher.
wish his bones might be moved just
once more, and now that they have
come so near to America as Cuba, they
might during the great Columbian
year be transported to our own shores,
where they belong, and that in the
fifth century after his decease the
American continent might build a
mausoleum worthy of him who picked
this jewel of hemisphere out of the
sea and set it in the crown of the
worlds geography.
But the bright MONDAY sun of that
old sailors prosperity went down in
thickest night. and though here and
there a monument has been lifted in
his memory. and here and there a city
called after him, the continent that he
was the means of founding was named
after another name, and no fitting com
memora ton of his work has been pro-
posed until nearly four hundred years
!
imposing demonstration now being
made in his honor on the Atlantic
coast, and to be made next year in his
honor mid-continent, be brilliant
enough and far-resounding enough and
Christian enough and magnificent
enough to atone for the neglect of CEN
turtles. May the good Lord allow that
most illustrious sailor of all time to
look over the amethystine battlcments
long enough to see some of the gar
lands wreathed around his name and
hear something of the hemisphere
shout that shall greet his memory.
What most impresses me in all that
wondrous life, which for the next
twelve months we will be commence
rating by sermon and song and mill
tary parade and Worlds fair and Con-
gress of Nations, is something l have
never heard stated. and that is that
the discovery of America was a re-
ligious discovery and in the name of
God. Columbus, by the study of the
prophecies, and by what Zachariah and
Micah and David and Isaiah had said
about the lends of the EARTH" was
persuaded to go out and find the lends
of the EARTH" and he felt himself
called by God to carry Christianity to
the lends of the earth Then the adj
ministration of the Last Supper before
they left the gulf of Cadiz, and the
evening prayers during the voyage,
and the devout ascription as soon as
they saw the new world, and the dox-
ologies with which they landed confirm
me in saying that the discov-