It is one thing to be told that Remesal uses the language cited by Navarette, and quite another thing to learn from Las Casas that he had seen a letter written by Columbus himself, in which he told the king of Spain that their majesties owed their possession of the Indies to the Dominican monk Diego de Deza.
Nothing, however, need surprise us from a historian who undertook the desperate task of extenuating the notorious injustice of Ferdinand toward Columbus. In its execution Navarette has needlessly and shamefully outraged the truth of history and the memory of the Great Discoverer.
Daybreak
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Chapter VIII.
The Lord Answered Job Out Of A Whirlwind.
Mr. Southard was perfectly confident in his expectation of being able to convince Miss Hamilton of her mistake. He knew her well enough to be sure that she would fearlessly acknowledge her error as soon as it should be made plain to her; and he did not doubt that the power to produce that conviction on her mind would be given him.
He would not allow that first twinge of wounded personal pride and dignity of office, with which he had seen how light she held his authority in matters of religion, to stand in the way of his endeavors. The first dignity of his office was to perform its duties. Exacting respect was secondary.
Mr. Southard had one confident: his journal. The day the books were left on his table he wrote in it: "Tonight I am to read Milner's End of Controversy. O my God! may I read it by the light of thy Gospel! May a ray of heavenly truth fall on each page, expose its hidden falsehood, and teach me how best to prove that falsehood to this stray lamb who has been lured from thy fold into the den of the wolf."
Two or three days passed, the book was read, and read again; but the refutation was not ready. Mr. Southard was too honest and too manly to think that personal abuse was a proper answer to theological argument. He remembered that when St. Michael set his foot upon the neck of Satan, and chained him to the rock, he did not use infernal weapons, or walk in loathsome ways; but his sword was tempered in heaven, and there was no mire upon his sandals.