The Irish standard., 1902-05-03

1t is so generally believed that Co.
lumbus was the first discoverer of this
continent that to question or doubt it
requires considerable moral courage,
and seems at the same time to reflect
on his memory and to tarnish his
fame. Strange as it may appear, there
is good reason to believe that Colum-
bus was not the first to discover Amer
lea; that there were in fact three sets
of discoverers prior to his time. This,
however, in no way lessons his credit,
for, as Bancroft points out in his his
tory of America, when speaking Of the
earlier discoveries of the new conti-
nent, if Columbus were not the first to
discover America he was the first to
make it's existence generally known to
the world, and in this sense he was
it's true and first discoverer. A Chris
tian tradition has held that st. Thomas,
one Of the disciples of Our Lord, was
the first to visit this continent The
Scripture says that the Gospel was
preached during the lifetime of the dis
ciples to all the nations of the world.
and thus must. of course, have includ-
ed America. If it be asked how the
Saint reached here, 1 can only answer
by asking another question: If Asia
be the cradle land of the human fam
lily, as the Scriptures say, how did the
aboriginal inhabitants reach here?
writes Patrick J. Conlan in the Boston
Pilot.
We cannot tell. But from certain
facts which are known we may draw
reasonable conclusions. We know, for
instance, that in certain places the
ocean is constantly making encroach-
ments on the land and that in others
the land is displacing the ocean; in
other words, the land and water are
constantly changing their relative posi-
tions. A striking proof of this was
given in England few years ago
when number Of distinguished Eng
lish Catholic ecclesiastics made pill
grimage to the place where history and
tradition said st. Augustine had landed
when he went to preach the Gospel in
England, and, strange to relate, the
place was found to be about three
miles from the shore. In other words,
the sea had there receded three miles.
1t is unreasonable to suppose that at
the extreme northwest where Alaska
and Asia, where Siberia and Alaska
came nearest together and where we
now find the sea, Behring'S Strait, there
may have been in the times of the
apostles and earlier, land--land upon
which the Indian may have reached
here; and that st. Thomas followed in
his footsteps later.
The first definite mention of America
that we find in the Morse chronicles is
found in what we would call the Ice
land dooms-day book; or, as they call
it, the Land-na-ma-bok, where, at page
132, it says that one Ari Maisen was
shipwrecked on the coast of what we
call Florida. in the year 9S3. From
other Icelandic sources we learn that
this Maisen was one of the principal
chiefs in Iceland, that was the great
grandson of O'Carroll, King of Dublin,
Ireland; that when cast on the Florida
coast he found white people there, that
some of them knew him, that they re-
fused to let him return. that he became
man of eminence among them, and
that he called the country White-man's
and Greater Ireland. From these facts
it appears that the people who knew
him, and who were white must have
been natives Of Iceland and Of Ireland
since he was connected with both coun.
tries
From all this it is apparent that
America was known to some Of the
outside nations of the world in the
very early Christian ages; certainly tc
the Danes and to the Irish. Nor need
we wonder at this, for from the earli
est records we have of the Danes, they
are shown to have been sea-farine
people.