Hero Worship by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Nov 21, 1892

Hero Worship.

By Editor

Very much has been made, and is being made just now, of Christopher Columbus, and all the glamour of romance is thrown around him. The inhabitant of another world just now arriving on this planet would conclude that the man was some great demigod. It might be well for some of these enthusiasts to ask the question in sober thought which Mark Twain asked, as recorded in his "Innocents Abroad," of his tremolo-staccato guide, "Who is he?" The fact is that the man was a poor, low-down buccaneer of the worst type, and the "noble Isabella," who is said to have pawned her crown jewels to raise the money to fit out Columbus, in reality did nothing of the kind. According to Prof. Herbert B. Adams, of the Johns Hopkins University, Queen Isabella took the money, without the knowledge of Ferdinand, from the imperial cash box, funds which he had drawn from the Jews of Aragon, to the extent of $120,000. The Jewish Exponent remarks: "That the money of Jews should have aided, and the science of Jews furnished the very instruments of navigation which made the discovery possible, is not unimportant in summing up the contributions that we have made to the progress and welfare of the world."

It was under Ferdinand and Isabella that the "Holy Office" of the Inquisition was re-instituted in Spain, with Torquemada inquisitor general. In 1481, 3,000 persons were burned in the beautiful province of Andalusia, and 17,000 suffered other penalties, because they did not profess the faith of the Roman Catholic Church, and of their "most Christian" majesties, Ferdinand and Isabella. America was discovered more than six centuries before Columbus set foot thereon. Protestant Americans could do better work than honoring such a man, sent out by such sovereigns. Let Catholics canonize Columbus if they will; we presume that he would make as good a "saint" as St. Dominic, the first inquisitor general.