The Rev. John Lord, LL. D., a popular American lecturer and Congregational minister. Born in Portsmouth, N. H., December 27, 1810.
Wrapped up in those glorious visions which come only to a man of superlative genius, and which make him insensible to heat and cold and scanty fare, even to reproach and scorn, this intrepid soul, inspired by a great and original idea, wandered from city to city, and country to country, and court to court, to present the certain greatness and wealth of any state that would embark in his enterprise. But all were alike cynical, cold, unbelieving, and even insulting. He opposes overwhelming universal and overpowering ideas. To have surmounted these amid such protracted opposition and discouragment constitutes his greatness; and finally to prove his position by absolute experiment and hazardous enterprise makes him one of the greatest of human benefactors, whose fame will last through all the generations of men. And as I survey that lonely, abstracted, disappointed, and derided man—poor and unimportant; so harassed by debt that his creditors seized even his maps and charts; obliged to fly from one country to another to escape imprisonment; without even listeners and still less friends, and yet with ever-increasing faith in his cause; utterly unconquerable; alone in opposition to all the world—I think I see the most persistent man of enterprise that I have read of in history. Critics ambitious to say something new may rake out slanders from the archives of enemies and discover faults which derogate from the character we have been taught to admire and venerate; they may even point out spots, which we can not disprove, in that sun of glorious brightness which shed its beneficent rays over a century of darkness—but this we know, that whatever may be the force of detraction, his fame has been steadily increasing, even on the admission of his slanderers, for three centuries, and that he now shines as a fixed star in the constellation of the great lights of modern times, not only because he succeeded in crossing the ocean when once embarked on it, but for surmounting the moral difficulties which lay in his way before he could embark upon it, and for being finally instrumental in conferring the greatest boon that our world has received from any mortal man since Noah entered into the ark.
BY THE GRACE OF GOD HE WAS WHAT HE WAS.
Rossely de Lorgues, a Catholic biographer.
Columbus did not owe his great celebrity to his genius or conscience, but only to his vocation, to his faith, and to the Divine grace.
IN HONOR OF COLUMBUS.
Archbishop Janssens of New Orleans has issued a letter to his diocese directing a general observance of the 400th anniversary of the discovery of America. The opening paragraph reads:
"Christopher Columbus was a sincere and devout Catholic; his remarkable voyage was made possible by the intercession of a holy monk and by the patronage and liberality of the pious Queen Isabella. The cross of Christ, the emblem of our holy religion, was planted on America's virgin soil, and the Te Deum and the holy mass were the first religious services held on the same. It is, therefore, just and proper that this great event and festival should be celebrated in a religious as well as a civil manner."
The Pope having set the Julian date of October 12th for the celebration, and the President October 21st, the archbishop directs that exercises be held on both these days—the first of a religious character, the second civic. October 12th a solemn votive mass will be sung in all the churches of the diocese, with an exhortation, and October 21st in the city of New Orleans the clergy will assemble at the archiepiscopal residence early in the morning and march to the cathedral, where services will be held at 7.30 o'clock. Sermons of ten minutes each are to be preached in English, French, Spanish, German, and Italian.