CATHOLICITY IN THE UNITED STATES. 321
way for the Christian faith into new lands and new seas- Keeping this thought constantly in view, his first solici- tude, wherever he disembarked, was to plant upon the shore the sacred emblem of the cross. Wherefore, hke as the Ark of Noe, surmounting the overflowdng waters, bore the se£d of Israel together vnih. the remnants of the human race, ^en thus did the barks launched by Columbus upon the ocean carry into regions beyond the seas as well the germs of mighty States as the principles of the Catholic religion.
This is not the place to give a detailed account of what thereupon ensued. Very rapidly did the Hght of the Gos- pel shine upon the savage tribes discovered by the Ligu- rian. For it is sufficiently well known how many of the children of Francis, as well as of Dominic and of Loyola, were accustomed during the two following centuries to voyage thither for this purpose; how they cared for the colonies brought over from Europe; but primarily and chiefly how they converted the natives from superstition to Christianity, seahng their labors in many instances with the testimony of their blood. The names newly given to so many of your towns and rivers and mountains and lakes teach and clearly witness how deeply your beginnings were marked with the footprints of the Cath- olic Church.
Nor, perchance, did the fact which We now recall take place without some design of divine Providence. Pre- cisely at the epoch when the American colonies, having, with Catholic aid, achieved Hberty and independence, coalesced into a constitutional Republic the ecclesiastical hierarchy was happily established amongst you; and at the very time when the popular suffrage placed the great Washington at the helm of the Republic, the first bishop v:as set by apostolic authority over the American Church. The well-known friendship and famihar intercourse which subsisted between these two men seems to be an evidence that the United States ought to be conjoined in concord
