who have fully treated of this history, are both Protestants. It will be easily conceived that athwart the prejudices of sect, they could not judge soundly of the spirit and the acts of the man in whom the most ardent Catholicity was personified. The history of this servant of God has been exclusively presented to the public by two men opposed to his faith, to the yearnings of his heart, to the aspirations of his soul. The biography of Columbus has remained in the hands of his natural enemies. They have presented him to us such as they have made him, far from us, without restraint, without control.
The vast success obtained by the work of Irving, and the great name of Humboldt, have deterred persons from all efforts in the way of vindication or of rectification; that which issued from their Protestant pens has appeared to be the definitive judgment of history. For the last twenty-eight years, academicians, learned societies, biographies, reviews, encyclopædias, repeat, with respect, facts and opinions derived from these two writers; and there is scarcely in the whole world a single line printed on Columbus that has not been, with docility, borrowed from one or other of these two sources. Whence it follows that the view taken of it by Protestantism is the only one by which people have judged of the most vast, and evidently, the most superhuman achievement of Catholic genius. Hence it again follows that prejudice, enmity, and hostility against the Catholic Church, have the incredible privilege of teaching the Catholic world the life of a man who is one of its most shining glories.
Is not such an anomaly as strange as it is irrational? Even before any examination, is it not evident that prejudice must have wormed itself into the appreciation that Protestantism could make of the herald of the Catholic Church, who was sent by her inspiration to the inhabitants of unknown regions? The Protestant school could not comprehend the character and the mission of Columbus. To the obstacle arising from religious belief, must be joined
