prevision. Christopher Columbus was not so
named _after_ his achievements, like Scipio Africanus. The name was his
from infancy, though human ingenuity could not have conceived one more
wonderfully suggestive of his after career.

Columba means a dove. Was there anything dove-like about Columbus?
Perhaps not, originally, but his many years of disappointment and
humiliation, of poverty and contempt, of failure and hopelessness, were
the best school in which to learn patience and sweetness under the
guiding hand of such teachers as faith and piety. Was anything wanting
to perfect him in the unresisting gentleness of the dove? If so, his
guardian angel saw to it when he sent him back in chains from the scenes
of his triumph. He then and there, by his meekness, established his
indefeasible right to the name _Columbus_--the right of conquest.

[Illustration: THE WEST INDIES]

And Christopher--_Christum-ferens_--the Christ-bearer? A saint of old
was so called because one day he carried the child Christ on his
shoulders across a dangerous ford. People called him _Christo-pher_. But
what shall we say of the man who carried Christ across the stormy
terrors of the unknown sea? Wherever the modern Christopher landed,
there he planted the cross; his first act was always one of devout
worship. And now that cross and that worship are triumphant from end to
end, and from border to border, of that New World. The very fairest
flower of untrammeled freedom in the diadem of the Christian church is
to-day blooming within the mighty domain which this instrument of
Providence wrested from the malign sway of error. Shall not that New
World greet him as the Christ-bearer? Indeed, there must have been more
than an accidental coincidence when, half a century in advance of
events, the priest, in pouring the sacred waters of baptism, proclaimed
the presence of one who was to be truly a Christopher--one who should
carry Christ on the wings of a dove.

CIRCULAR LETTER OF THE ARCHBISHOP OF NEW ORLEANS ON THE CHRISTOPHER
COLUMBUS CELEBRATION.

From the _Morning Star and Catholic Messenger_, New Orleans, August
13, 1892.

REVEREND AND DEAR FATHER: The fourth centenary of the discovery of
America by Christopher Columbus is at hand. It is an event of the
greatest importance. It added a new continent to the world for
civilization and Christianity; it gave our citizens a home of liberty
and freedom, a country of plenty and prosperity, a