The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1911-10-14
CATHOLIC EXPLORERS
PRAISED BY TAFT
President Taft at the x. Of C. BANQUET
in Peoria, ILL.,, Paid Tribute to
Catholic DISCOVERIES and
Missionaries.

At the close of his visit to Peoria.
ILL.,, on October 6, President Taft was
the guest of Spalding Council Knights
of Columbus. In the course of his
address the President spoke in appre-
ciative terms of Columbus and other
Catholic discoveries and explorers and
paid glowing tribute to the work of
Catholic missionaries in the Philippine
Islands. He said in part:
"The purpose of your organization
is to promote the usefulness of, and
give wider influence to, the moral and
religious forces of the Roman Catholic
Church. You propose to make more
evident in the lives of the young
members of that church the effect of
her teaching, and the personal uplift
that the following of her guidance by
individuals will involve. You wish to
be a force for righteousness in the
community, and one of the primary
principles that you follow is the one
! which your Church upholds of re-
spect for constituted authority, and a
love of country, which, instead of be-
| ing inconsistent with your love of
God and your Church, is accentuated
and strengthened by it. You have
| taken the name of the discoverer of
America. You doubtless have done so
after study of his character and in
recognition of the greatness and dig
nifty OF the man, the high ideals that
prompted his almost superhuman eff
forts, the patience and tenacity that
attended every Encouragement, the
loyalty to his sovereigns when put to
grievous test and the final resigna-
ton to the will of God in the sad end
ing of a tried, tempestuous, but most
notable and useful life.
Christopher Columbus.
ct is most difficult for us by any
effort of the imagination to take in
the problem which Columbus solved.
The erroneous ideas that were held of
geography and of the physical char
acteristics of the world, the exaggera-
ton of the dangers-great as they
Were-which superstition and legend
prompted, made the proposition of Co.
lumbus to sail out into the dark
ocean, as the Atlantic was then
called, to the eastern shore of Asia,
on the theory that the world was
round, an instance of courage that
finds few parallels in the worlds his
tory. He knew, as every mariner
knew, the tremendous power of ma
ture in a storm, and he could not but
fully realize the impending and con-
slant danger to vessels of the size of
his cockle-shells in an ordinary strug-
gle with the usual winds and storms
Six times did he cross the ocean
alive; twice were his bones taken
from one side to the other to find a
resting place. The story of his life
reveals defects of temperament and
the existence of some motives under
temptation that show him human, but
the impression left, after an examina-
ton of his long, sad life, is that of
high ideal, nobility of temperament,
moral courage, clearness of intellect,
and patience and tenacity worthy of
the highest cause.
ut is true that there were other ma
riners as skilled as Columbus, as
brave in exposing themselves to dan
ger as he, in that heyday of Italian,
Spanish and Portuguese manhood;
and the risks they ran, the dangers
they encountered and survived, arouse
in the mariner of the present day
amazement and profound admiration; /
but the unique merit was his, to do
first that which, until he did it, pre-
sented great terrors to the adven-
turous spirits of his age.
after Columbus came Magellan,
Balboa and Vasco de Cana, and
Legaspi and others. The circumnavi-
cation of the globe in vessels in
which it took months and years to
make the voyage show a spirit of adj
venture, a desire for knowledge, a
willingness to sacrifice everything for
it that make real, distinct period in
the worlds history.
In the Philippines.
my attention was drawn to this pc
Rod more particularly by my Philip
pine experience, and reading of the
history of the Philippine Islands, to
which responsibility in their govern
ment naturally led me.
when Legaspi and Urdaneta and
five monks landed at Manila, they found
traces of Mohammedan missionaries,
and proceeded to convert seven
eighths of the population of the Island
without force, and by kindly treatment,
by the teaching of agriculture, and by
the extension over them of a firm but
equitable and charitable government,
they succeeded. Through the regular
orders-the Augustinians, the Jesuits,
the Recollets, the Dominicans and
the Franciscans-the people of the
Philippine Islands were made Chris
tian people and have continued to be
so down to the present day. OF the
100000 in the islands there are but
half q million of Mohammedans and
non-C Christian tribes The FiIininos