Brethren, the other day I received the following e-mail:
DEAR THEO: I am 8 years old.This was my answer:
Some of my little friends say there is no Christopher Columbus.
Papa says, 'If you see it in Vivificat, it's so.'
Please tell me the truth; is there a Christopher Columbus?
VIRGINIA O'HANLON.
115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET.
HAPPY COLUMBUS DAY!VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the political correctness virus of a jaded, foolish age. They do not believe except [what] they deconstruct. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Christopher Columbus. He exists as certainly as honor and courage and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Christopher Columbus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no heroism to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in The New York Times. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
Not believe in Christopher Columbus! You might as well not believe in God! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all Columbus' Day Parades to catch Christopher Columbus, but even if they did not see Americans - native or otherwise - marching proudly, what would that prove? Nobody sees Christopher Columbus, but that is no sign that there is no Christopher Columbus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see God watching over you at all times? Of course not, but that's no proof that they He is not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.
You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, heroism, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
No Christopher Columbus! Thank God! He lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of men, women, and children in this America of ours, from the Bering Sea to Cape Horn.