FIFTH READING BOOK

I

THE CHARACTER OF COLUMBUS

REV. A. G. KNIGHT, S. J.

Columbus certainly bears from all a high character. About his general honesty of purpose and deep sense of religion there has never been a doubt since the petty jealousies of personal ill-will were hushed in death. Prescott says, "The finger of the historian will find it. difficult to point to a single blemish in his moral character. His correspondence breathes the sentiment of devoted loyalty to his sovereigns. His conduct habitually displayed the utmost solicitude for the interests of his followers. He expended his last maravedi in restoring his unfortunate crew to their native land. His dealings were regulated by the nicest principles of honor and justice. His last communication (from the Indies) to his sovereigns remonstrates against the use of violent measures in order to extract gold from the natives, as a thing equally scandalous and impolitic. The grand object to which he dedicated himself seemed to expand his whole soul, and raised it above the petty shifts and artifices by which great ends are sometimes sought to be compassed. There are some men in whom

Prescott: American historian (1796–1859).
maravedi: a small copper Spanish coin.

rare virtues have been closely allied, if not to positive vice, to degrading weakness. Columbus's character presents no such humiliating incongruity. Whether we contemplate it in its public or private relations, in all its features it wears the same noble aspect. It was in perfect harmony with the grandeur of his plans and their results, more stupendous than those which Heaven has permitted any other mortal to achieve."

What Washington Irving says of him at one stage of his life (about 1470) has a deep meaning for his Catholic readers, more particularly considering that it expresses the outcome of what might have been supposed, in the disappointing absence of all details, to have been almost the wild, boisterous life of a modified buccaneer. "He was moderate and simple in diet and apparel, eloquent in discourse, engaging and affable with strangers, and of an amiableness and suavity in domestic life that strongly attached his household to his person. His temper was naturally irritable, but he subdued it by the magnanimity of his spirit, comporting himself with a courteous and gentle gravity, and never indulging in any intemperance of language. Throughout his life he was noted for a strict attention to the offices of religion, observing rigorously the fasts and ceremonies of the Church; nor did his piety consist in mere forms, but partook of that lofty and solemn enthusiasm with which his whole character was strongly tinctured.”

That Columbus was a man of blameless life, a fervent Christian, careful to keep his soul in the state of grace, and habitually acting upon very high motives.