So it is not in the actual things done by the Prince's efforts
that we can measure his importance in history. It is because his work
was infinitely suggestive, because he laid a right foundation for the
onward movement of Europe and Christendom, because he was the leader of
a true Renaissance and Reformation, that he is so much more than a
figure in the story of Portugal.
[Illustration: COLUMBUS AS S. CHRISTOPHER, CARRYING THE CHRISTIAN FAITH,
IN THE FORM OF THE INFANT JESUS, ACROSS THE OCEAN.]
There are figures which are of national interest: there are others which
are less than that, figures of family or provincial importance; others
again which are always dear to us as human beings, as men who felt the
ordinary wants and passions and lived the ordinary life of men with a
brilliancy and an intense power that was all their own; there are other
men who stand out as those who have changed more or less, but changed
vitally and really, the course of the world's history; without whom the
whole of our modern society, our boasted civilisation, would have been
profoundly different.
For after all the modern Christian world of Europe has something to
boast of, though its writers spend much of their time in reviling and
decrying it.
Pages:
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385