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Show : THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC. Delivering the valedictory address at the commencement com-mencement exercises of Holy Cross College, Worcester, Wor-cester, Mass., James M. Hoy said, in part: "It is the plain duty of every Catholic to make it known that the Catholic is pre-eminently an American. Why consider Catholicity's part in the discovery of this America of ours. That tremendous tremen-dous event, that "finding of a new world and the vast results that flowed to humanity" can be traced directly to the Roman Catholic church and to the Roman Catholic church alone. Let every Catholic therefore challenge the students and schol-lars schol-lars to search the archives of Spain, the libraries of Europe. The deeper the research the more glory will adorn the brow of Catholicity. "Was not it a pious Catholic that conceived the mighty thought; Was it. not a cardinal that interceded inter-ceded with the sovereigns of Spain i Was it not a Catholic king who fitted out the ships ; Was it not a Catholic queen who offered her jewels as a pledge? And it was a Catholic Columbus and a Catholic I crew that sailed out of an unknown sea where ship bad never sailed before. It was a hymn to the queen of angels and of men that closed the perils of the day and inspired with hope the morrow. It was the holy cross, the emblem of Catholicity that was carried to the shore and planted on the newfound new-found world. It was the holy sacrifice of the Mass that was the first, and for a hundred years the only Christian worship on this continent that a Catholic named America. "It was priests, aye Jesuits and Dominicans, missionaries, that first sought and explored our land, penetrated its wildernesses, gave sainted names to its locations, bays, lakes and rivers..' It was by a Catholic, Lord Baltimore, that that liberty the essence of all liberty, freedom to worship God. was first established on this continent aud that almost al-most a hundred years before Massachusetts or the constitution proclaimed it. A signer of the Declaration Declar-ation of Independence was a Catholic. The. name of the first Archbishop of Baltimore is indissolubly 1 inked with that of Ben Franklin. "Whose but Catholic brawn was it that opened up the wonderful resources of our country?- Who built our railroads? Whose was the blood that hallowed the fiery ridges of our country's every battlefield? Does the Catholic not love this laud? How can he help loving it when three hundred, of its cities from shore to shore, from mountain,, to river bear the names of Catholic Saints? .St. Augustine guards the Atlantic coast. St. Francis sits by the Golden Gate! Far to the north the Croat St. Paul keeps watch! Down at the gulf sweet St Antonio safely guides! In our country's every heart throbs St. Louis, king and saint,! Near by St. Joseph and on the farther side our gracious grac-ious mother. Notre Dame, queen of all ! "Truly the Catholic sl is set upon this land forevcri Let the Catholic prove faithful to the duties imposed upon him by his church, always, the mother of morals, ever the friend of order, and others oth-ers then will only too gladly recognize his claims upon the title American and others then will only too willingly give him the name he richly merits the American Catholic." |