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Show United States a Catholic Country. It cannot be too often demonstrated that America Amer-ica is. as it ought to be. a Catholic country; and it is gratifying to note that some, of our Catholic contemporaries nalize the wisdom and importance of this policy. It is good to be reminded ourselves, and to have our non-Catholie fellow citizens reminded, re-minded, thai the discoverer of this hemisphere. Christopher Columbus, was a Catholic; and that of tin same religion was Isabella of Spain, the queen and the country which gave him ihe means 16 un-dern-.':e the voyage of discovery. After Columbus came numerous Catholics to explore the Now World. What they did may best be told with the aid of a map of the L'nited States. Ma:ne was settled set-tled by French Catholics. Vermont was discovered and part, of its territory traversed and peopled in ihe year WW by the French under Chair.phiin. Maryland, 1 ho home- of religious freedom, was settled by Catholic.-., and by the benefieenee of its hw? it became the most prosperous of ih colonics. Alabama wa.s explored by J)e Soto in l."ii, and was "subsequently settled bv the French. Illinois was discovered and explored by Father Marquette and it became a permanent French colony. Tlie French wen-The first and for a long time the only settlers in Missouri. Michigan- was colonized by French Calholi' missionaries: and a settlement made in K'.:::). The iirs 1 settlement of Iowa was made in IT.'-S by a Frenchman. The Jesuits we're tin1 pioneers' pio-neers' of civilization in Minnesota, hey first came in V.'A3. Kansas was settled by the French. Nebraska Ne-braska was first visited by Father Marquette in the lalter part of th" seventeenth ceutury. Oregon was first "prospected"' by a Spanish navigator, Catholics Cath-olics also founded settlements in the south and west. Piltsburg Observer. : ' |