Latest / The American Soul: America's Christian Heritage / Firsthand Portraits Of Christopher Columbus

Transcript

Firsthand Portraits Of Christopher Columbus · The American Soul: America's Christian Heritage

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Luke twenty-four, twenty-five through twenty-seven.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: And beginning it, Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Hey folks, this is Jesse Cope, back with another episode of America's Christian Heritage.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: And sure to appreciate y'all joining me here, and also those of y'all who uh join over on the American Soul podcast that we do most days each week.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: And for those of y'all who have found the Countryside Book Series, thank you for that.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Hope y'all are enjoying that.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: And most of all, for those of y'all who pray for me and my family and the writing and the podcasting.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Very, very grateful for your prayers.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Father, thank you for today.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for you, Father, and your son Jesus Christ and your Holy Spirit.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for your love and your mercy, your grace, and your forgiveness of sins.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Through the merit of your son Jesus Christ alone.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Help us, Father, not to be slow of heart.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: Help us to believe the prophets, to believe your son Jesus Christ.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: To love him in truth by actions and deeds, not just words.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: To love you with our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength, to love our neighbors as ourselves.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Forgive us our sins, Father.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Forgive us our greed and our selfishness, our pride, our judgment of others.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Forgive us when we get our priorities out of order, Father, when we worry more about the things of this world and the treasures here, instead of storing up for ourselves treasures in heaven with you and making sure that our priorities are lined up with you.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Be with those listening to the podcast, Father, please.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Grant them peace.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: Give them comfort.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Help them to feel your joy.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Feel whatever hurts and illnesses there are.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: If it be your will, Father, and if not, in all cases, bring us home safely to you along the narrow road.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Be with our leaders in the pulpit and in the state.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: Be with those who protect us and defend us, our military, law enforcement, firefighters, EMS, keep them safe.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Be with their families, their wives and their children.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: And God, my words here, Father, please.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: In your son's name we pray.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: So a couple things.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I'll mention this again at the end, just to remind.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: But if you would like to, the next couple weeks on the podcast here, we're actually going to read The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: At least that's the plan, God willing.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even begin to complain uh claim to be the greatest uh narrator, but I really enjoy that.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's a fun October read.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: This is October.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's a fun Halloween read to me, uh, and it's old American history heritage.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: So if you would like to, uh we'll spend the next couple weeks.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: We'll probably read it over the next two podcasts after this.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: So, but Columbus Day is coming up very soon.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: So it seemed appropriate to do a podcast on the longer side here.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we talk about Columbus on the American Soul podcast for about a week each year around Columbus Day, before or after, depending on if I remember it or not, before or after.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but I'm gonna read a couple things today, uh, particularly descriptions of Columbus by people who actually knew him.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because there's so much misinformation out there today.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: They're just outright lies.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: The left has done such a good job of infecting our education system over the last really 50 to 80 years, you know, a little bit more with each passing year.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: We see it today so clearly, those of us who are willing to look.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but it it really was subtle at the beginning, and it's just picked up pace here at the end, which is a great analogy for what they they do when they gain political power, folks, both the left and Muslims.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's really subtle at first until you get to the end, and then it's not subtle at all.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: And and then often it's just too late when you look around the world.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, they have power and they use it cruelly, as much as they're able in every single scenario.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: So the left has done a great job of vilifying Christopher Columbus.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Christopher Columbus was not perfect, no human being is, save Jesus Christ.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: There has not been another perfect human being in the world save Jesus Christ.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm not, I'm not gonna pretend that he is perfect.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what this podcast is for.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: But there are a couple things that I would recommend you think about while we read these, and we're gonna do a little bit more if we have time, but but definitely these two accounts of Christopher Columbus for sure.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: Remember uh that we're not perfect, first, right, as Christians, and nobody is.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and two, remember the time frame.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so you've got to look at what were the predominant actions of the day, and and how did he compare to that, right?
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: I heard this just within the last year, actually.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: I think I've shared it on the other podcast.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um I believe it was a pastor.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, you know what?
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: I know one place I've heard it is C.S.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Lewis.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: I can't remember what book it was, but he made the analogy or he gave the example of what if you had two people?
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, maybe John and Mary.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Or John and Dave, you know, you pick, doesn't really matter, men or women or whatever.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: And one of them was a pretty decent individual, and the other one was was kind of a so-and-so, right?
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so one of them you look at and you go, yeah, that's good that guy's a pretty stand-up guy, and the other one you look at and go, man, I wouldn't, I don't want to hang around that guy at all.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: But what Lewis said and what I heard somebody else say too is what if what if you look at the background and and the guy that John, right, that's really such a good guy.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: Man, he had everything, and I'm not talking about financial opportunity here, folks.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about love.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: He had parents that loved him, aunts and uncles that were around him, people that raised him right, taught him discipline, taught him honor, taught him perseverance, character, right?
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: And and what if the other one, Dave, what if he grew up without love?
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: What if he grew up, you know, with maybe just one parent?
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Or even if he had both parents, uh, they didn't like him very much.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: They weren't very loving or caring or kind, right?
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: And and so what's the point of this?
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: The point is maybe the the first man or woman, if you want to use that, John, isn't near as good as he should have been.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe the second man or woman again, Dave, is a lot better than he should have been, given the circumstances that he grew up in.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: And again, I'm not talking about what you hear so often that the left tries to use about money and all that nonsense.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really talking about character and morality and discipline and just love in those people as they grew up.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I I've thought this often uh as I've gotten older in a lot of ways.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: The older I get, I feel like a failure because I had very loving parents uh that exemplified uh great role models as both a father and a mother.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: And more than that, I was surrounded.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: I had aunts and uncles that were upstanding people.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: I had grandparents that were phenomenal, uh a couple of great aunts and uncles that were phenomenal.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so some often, sadly, I look at myself and kind of go, man, Cope, you you should be a lot better off than you are today.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but just kind of think about that as we're reading through these descriptions on Columbus.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so, and and remember that the people that are talking today that want to vilify Columbus, uh, A, they didn't know him.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: B, they ignore a lot of the firsthand accounts that he wrote and that people wrote of him.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: C, they ignore the time frame completely.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: They act like if they would have lived back there, they would have been these saints, right?
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: Which is total horse manure.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then lastly, realize that a lot of these people have an agenda.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: They do not like Christianity.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: They're secularists, uh, progressives, not in a positive sense.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and they want to see America torn down because she was founded on the principles of Christ.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: And and no way in the world they would have had the courage and the fortitude to step off into the complete unknown.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Folks, this wasn't even like sending a spaceship out into space because we we have telescopes.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: We can at least look out there and see.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: Columbus had nothing.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: He he had a page that had, it was basically white space.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: It was just a blank, and he was heading off into it.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: So just keep all those things in mind.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: So the first one I want to read, read a couple little things, actually.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Christopher Columbus, in his own words, in his book of prophecies, said, My hope in the one who created us all sustains me.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: He is an ever-present help in trouble.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: When I was extremely depressed, he raised me with his right hand, saying, Oh man of little faith, get up.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: It is I.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Do not be afraid.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I wanted to read one more thing here.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to go back to Lincoln's second inaugural address.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: I think this will make sense.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's just a little snippet of it.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which is already attained.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself itself should cease.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: Each looked for an easier triumph and a result less fundamental and astounding.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes his aid against the other.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: It may seem strange that any man should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: The prayers of both could not be answered, that of neither has been fully answered.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: The Almighty has his own purposes.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's his second inaugural address from 1865.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I just remember that when you're thinking about Lincoln.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, about uh Christopher Columbus, right?
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: Judge not lest we not be judged.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: You got to remember the time frame, okay?
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm pulling uh this out of America's God and Country Encyclopedia of Quotes by William J.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: Feder, a great resource.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I know there's a little bit in the Founders Bible by the Wall Builders Association on Columbus, a couple quotes at least.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: And there may be some on the American Patriots Bible, too.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: Always great resources if you get a chance.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh another one that I have used a little bit of is uh Christopher Columbus, The Four Voyages, right, in his own words.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then a little bit, Christopher Columbus The Hero by Raphael.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then one that I've had that uh has been recommended is uh a biography by Washington Irving.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I recommend it.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't read it, but it is before all of this revisionist history, obviously.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: So also wrote Sleepy Hollow, right, which we're gonna read.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, this is the description by Ferdinand Columbus, uh Christopher Columbus's son.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: He wrote this in the biography of his father, the life of the Admiral Christopher Columbus, and he was talking about the meaning of his name.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: So the surname of Colon, Italian form of Columbus, which he revived, was a fitting one, because in Greek it means member, and by his proper name Christopher, men might know that he was a member of Christ, by whom he was sent for the salvation of these people.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: And if we give his name its Latin form, which is Christophorus Colonus, we may say that just as Saint Christopher is reported to have gotten that name because he carried Christ over deep waters with great danger to himself, and just as he conveyed over people whom no other could have carried, so the Admiral Christophorus Colonus, asking Christ's aid and protection in that perilous pass, crossed over with his company that the Indian nations might become dwellers in the triumphant church of heaven.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: There is reason to believe that many souls that Satan expected to catch because they had not passed through the waters of baptism were by the Admiral made dwellers in the eternal glory of paradise.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: The Admiral was a well-built man of more than average stature, his face long, the cheeks somewhat high, his body neither fat nor lean.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: He had an aquiline nose and light colored eyes.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: His complexion, too, was light and tending to bright red.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: In his youth, his hair was blonde, but when he reached the age of thirty, it all turned white.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: In eating and drinking, and in adornment of his person, he was very moderate and modest.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: He was affable in conversation with strangers and very pleasant to the members of his household, though with a certain gravity.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: He was so strict in matters of religion that for fasting and saying prayers, he might have been taken for a member of a religious order.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: He was so great an enemy of swearing and blasphemy that I give my word I never heard him utter any oath other than by Saint Ferdinand.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: And when he grew very angry with someone, his rebuke was to say, God take you for doing or saying that.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: If he had to write anything, he always began by writing these words.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not even going to pretend to translate the Latin here, folks.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so fine was his hand that he might have earned his bread by that skill alone.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: Another description of Columbus comes from Bartolome de las Casas.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: He was a priest, later given the name the Apostle of the Indies, because he was so concerned about the oppressed and enslaved natives.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: I actually read an interesting comment by him in Columbus's book, The Four Voyages.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: I think he actually maybe went and edited it, or he's the one that put it together.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: Anywhere, somewhere in there, he made the comment that if Christopher Columbus had known of the second and third degree results of his discovery of the islands, he's not sure that he would have gone along and done this.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: And what he was trying to say is that he said that, you know, Christopher Columbus was a good man, according to him.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so he didn't think that he would have been willing to even to discover the indies if he would have known the pain that was going to come from that, the second and third order effects.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: I've often I've heard my father among others, but a number of people talk about that that way with FDR and welfare.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: If he could look at what the system has become today, uh whether he would have ever gone along with it long ago, last century.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: So this is the description of Bartholomew Bartolome de las Casas.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: He knew Columbus personally, right?
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: That makes a little bit of a difference, folks, besides the people that are teaching you today.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: And also his father and his uncle were shipmates and columnists under Admiral Columbus as well.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: And he wrote a history of the Indies describing Christopher Columbus.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: In matters of the Christian religion, without doubt he was a Catholic and of great devotion.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: For in everything he did and said or sought to begin, he always interposed, in the name of the Holy Trinity, I will do this or launch this, or this will come to pass.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: In whatever letter or other thing he wrote, he put at the head, Jesus and Mary be with us on the way.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: And of these writings, of his and in his own hand, I have plenty now in my possession.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: His oath was sometimes, I swear, by Saint San Fernando, when he sought to affirm something of great importance in his letters, an oath on oath, especially in writing to the sovereigns, he said, I swear that this is true.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: He observed the fasts of the church most faithfully, confessed and made communion often, read the canonical offices like a churchman or member of a religious order, hated blasphemy and profane swearing, seemed very grateful to God for benefits received from the divine hand, wherefore, as in the proverb, he hourly admitted that God had conferred upon him great mercies as upon David.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: He was extraordinarily zealous for the divine service.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: He desired and was eager for the conversion of these people, the Native Americans, and that in every region the faith of Jesus Christ be planted and enhanced.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: And he was especially affected and devoted to the idea that God should deem him worthy of aiding somewhat in recovering the holy sepulchre.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: I know I didn't pronounce that right.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: He was a gentleman of great force of spirit, of lofty thoughts, naturally inclined, from what we may gather of his life, deeds, writings, and conversation, to undertake worthy deeds and signal enterprises, patient and long suffering, as later shall appear, and a forgiver of injuries, and wish nothing more than that those who offended against him should recognize their errors, and that the delinquents be reconciled with him, most constant and endowed with forbearance in the hardships and adversities which were always occurring, and which were incredible and infinite, ever holding great confidence in divine providence.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: And verily, from what I have heard from him and from my own father who was with him when he returned to colonize Hispaniola in 1493, and from others who accompanied and served him, he held and always kept on terms of intimate fidelity and devotion to the sovereigns.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: The first island he landed on was San Salvador, meaning holy savior, right?
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: And he knelt and prayed, O Lord, Almighty and Everlasting God, by thy holy word, thou hast created the heaven and the earth and the sea.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: Blessed and glorified be thy name, and praised to be thy majesty, which hath dined to use us, thy humble servants, that thy holy name may be proclaimed in this second part of the earth.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: And on each island where he landed, he would have his men erect a large wooden cross as a token of Jesus Christ our Lord and in honor of the Christian faith.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: The other, and I can't remember why this.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: Popped into my head.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: But somewhere in here it was talking about, oh, when Bartolome said from Columbus's what we make other from his life, deeds, writings, and conversation, it struck me when I was reading that that that's exactly what the left refuses to do today in history.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we do on the podcast all the time on the American Soul Podcast.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: We actually go back and look at the writings, deeds, conversations, commentary of these men.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it's overwhelmingly Christian.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: And you have to completely ignore that in order to pretend that America is not a Christian republic, right?
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so in order to paint Columbus as this holy villain, villainous person, you have to ignore these firsthand commentaries.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: You have to ignore his own writings.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: You have to ignore a lot of his actions and just pretend either that they don't exist at all, or you have to be a total cynic and just assume that he was playacting the entire time when he did these things.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't really believe in Jesus Christ.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: He just wanted to plant those crosses to act like it.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't really want to spread the gospel.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's just what he wrote time and time and time again so that others would believe that.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to hear the last words that are recorded that he uttered to his son Ferdinand.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I think this is great.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: This kind of goes hand in hand with what we talk about so often with the founders when we go back and look at their last wills and testaments.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: This is such a great thing to leave to the next generation, right?
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: He said in Latin, which I'm not going to try the Latin, but the translation is into your hands, Father, I commend my soul.
• 24:04
  unknown: Right?
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm turning it all over to you.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: I got nothing left.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's only it's only you, Father, and your son Jesus Christ.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: You got it, right?
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: So and then another thing that I think is really encouraging, and we have time to read it, so we'll go into he wrote a letter to the sovereigns from Jamaica in 1503.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I think this was part of his fourth voyage.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and they had become stranded on Jamaica for almost a year.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: June of 1503 to June of 1504.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: He was sick, and he was writing this letter.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: Didn't know if anybody was even going to read it, right?
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: It was, it was, man, it was really just bad.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're going to read a couple of excerpts.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we'll start with the latter one.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: If we have time, I'll go back and read the first one.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: But I want to make sure we read this second, this later section of the letter.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason I'm I offer this to encourage you is so often today, I think, I know for myself, we worry about our timing, not God's timing.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: We want things to happen on our scale timeline.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: And we don't worry about God's timeline near as much as we should or trust it.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: And Columbus, even at the end of his life here, he felt like a failure in a lot of ways.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: He had never discovered the path to the Indies.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: And as he was writing this letter, he had no idea if anybody was even going to read it, you know.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: And he's recounting, he's telling the story of a lot of these trials in this letter.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: The tempest was terrible and separated me from my other vessels that night, putting every one of them in desperate straits, with nothing to look forward to but death.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: Each was certain the others had been destroyed.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: What man ever born, not excepting Job, who would not have died of despair, when in such weather, seeking safety for my son, my brother, shipmates, and myself, we were forbidden access to the land and the harbors which I, by God's will and sweating blood, had won for Spain.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: I was taken prisoner and thrown with two brothers into a ship, weighed down with irons, stripped of my clothing, cruelly treated, and without being called before a court of justice for a hearing.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: I began my service to you, he's talking to the sovereigns, the king and queen.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: I began my service to you at twenty-eight, and I now have not a single hair on my head that is not white, my body is infirm, and all that was left to me and to my brothers, even to our coats, was taken and sold without hearing or trial to my great dishonor and injury.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because of the very sincere intentions I have always had in serving your majesties, Queen Isabel and King Ferdinand, and the most unmerited affronts I have suffered.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: I cannot remain silent much as I might wish to do.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: As I have said, I am now worn out.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: Heretofore I have wept for others.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: May heaven now have pity upon me, and may the earth weep for me.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: In things temporal I have not even a farthing for the offering.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: And as to spiritual things, I have stayed here in the Indies in the manner I have described, isolated in this sorrow ill, daily awaiting death, and surrounded by a horde of savages and enemies of ours, and so far removed from the holy sacraments of the Holy Church that my soul would be forgotten by it if it were to part from my body.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: Let those who have charity, justice, and truth weep for me.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: I did not come on this voyage for gain, honor, or wealth, that is certain.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: For then the hope of all such things was dead.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: I came to your highnesses with honest purpose and sincere zeal, and I do not lie.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: I humbly beseech your highnesses that if it please God to take me from this place, you will have the goodness to arrange for me to go to Rome and on other holy pilgrimage.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: May the Holy Trinity guard your life and exalt your high station.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: Christ bearer.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: From his book of prophecies.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: My hope in the one who created us all sustains me.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: He is an ever-present hope in trouble.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: When I was extremely depressed, he raised me with his right hand, saying, O man of little faith, get up.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: It is I.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: Do not be afraid.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: And one more, this is why we read Luke at the very beginning of the podcast.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: The same letter, letters to the sovereigns in July of 1503.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: At length, groaning with exhaustion, I fell asleep and heard a compassionate voice saying, O fool, and so slow to believe and serve thy God, the God of every man.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: What more did he do for Moses or for David his servant than for thee?
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: From thy birth he hath ever held thee in special charge.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: When he saw thee at man's estate, marvelously did he cause thy name to resound over the earth.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's great.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: I wish we had more time, folks.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that other section of the letter is uh is pretty wonderful, too.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe we'll read it uh on the American Soul podcast if we have time.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: Overall, folks, just again, Columbus wasn't perfect, but he's not near the villain that the left has tried to make him out to be over the last several decades.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: He deserves to be remembered and honored for courage and bravery and doing what almost no other man assuredly would have done, sailing off into the unknown.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: And it it deserves to be acknowledged that his main goal, or at least one of his top two for sure, was spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: And these are accounts, firsthand accounts, not listening to people hundreds of years later, who have an axe to grind.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: Hope you come back.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: The next couple weeks, as I said, we're going to spend reading through Sleepy Hollow.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: Feel like that's a pretty good bit of American heritage and history.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it'll be fun for October.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: So hope you enjoy that.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: And lead us not to temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is a kingdom of the power and the glory forever and ever.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: God bless y'all.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: God bless your families, your marriages, your children, your nation, wherever you are around the world listening.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: God bless America.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: We'll talk to y'all again real soon, folks.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: Looking forward to it.