[Faith-talk] Daily Thought for Saturday, October 12, 2013

[Paul]

Hello all of you out there in cyberspace, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of our heavenly King-Father and saints of the Most High God, no matter where in this world you happen to reside.  I hope that your day is going well, about to end or about to begin, depending on when you read this.

As promised yesterday in the Daily Thought message, I'm going to treat today as Columbus Day, despite what the U.S. federal government says.  The following was written many years ago by Chauncey M. Depew and is entitled "The Columbian Oration," rendered as follows:

This day belongs not to America, but to the world.  The results of the event it commemorates are the heritage of the peoples of every race and clime.  We celebrate the emancipation of man.  The preparation was the work of almost countless centuries; the realization was the revelation of one.  The Cross on Calvary was hope; the cross raised on San Salvador was opportunity.  But for the first, Columbus would never have sailed; but for the second, there would have been no place for the planting, the nurture, and the expansion of civil and religious liberty.

The spirit of Columbus hovers over us today.  Only by celestial intelligence can it grasp the full significance of this spectacle and ceremonial.

>From the first century to the fifteenth counts for little in the history of progress, but in the period between the fifteenth and twentieth is crowded with romance and reality of human development.  Life has been prolonged, and its enjoyment intensified.  The powers of the air and the water, the resistless forces of the elements, which in the time of the discoverer were the visible terrors of the wrath of God, have been subdued to the service of man.  Arts and luxuries which could be possessed and enjoyed only by the rich and noble, the works of genius which were read and understood only by the learned few, domestic comforts and surroundings beyond the reach of lord or bishop, now adorn and illumine the homes of our citizens.  Serfs are sovereigns and the people are kings.  The trophies and splendors of their reign are commonwealths, rich in every attribute of great states, and united in a republic whose power and prosperity and liberty and enlightenment are the wonder and admiration of the world.

All hail, Columbus, discoverer, dreamer, hero, and apostle! We, here, of every race and country, recognize the horizon which bounded his vision and the infinite scope of his genius.  The voice of gratitude and praise for all the blessings which have been showered upon mankind by his adventure is limited to no language, but is uttered in every tongue.  Neither marble nor brass can fitly form his statue.  Continents are his monument, and unnumbered millions present and to come, who enjoy in their liberties and happiness the fruits of his faith, will reverently guard and preserve, from century to century, his name and fame.

Merely judging from his writing, Chauncey Depew wrote in the 19th century, although I'm not quite sure.  Anyway I hope that you enjoyed his piece.

And now may the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob just keep us safe, individually and collectively, in these last days in which we live.  Lord willing tomorrow we will have another Daily Thought message for you to ponder and "chew on." Your Christian friend and brother, Paul