Page:The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII.djvu/273

 Christian name and the benefits of Christian charity to the West, as is abundantly proved by the history of the whole undertaking. For when he first petitioned Ferdinand and Isabella, the sovereigns of Spain, for fear lest they should be reluctant to encourage the undertaking, he clearly explained its object: "That their glory would grow to immortality, if they resolved to carry the name and doctrine of Jesus Christ into regions so distant."

And in no long time ha\ang obtained his desires, he bears witness: "That he implores of God that, through His divine aid and grace, the sovereigns may continue steadfast in their desire to fill these new missionary' shores with the truths of the Gospel." He hastens to seek missionaries from Pope Alexander VI., through a letter in which this sentence occurs: "I trust that, by God's help, I may spread the Holy Name and Gospel of Jesus Christ as widely as may be." He was carried away, as we think, with joy, when on his first return from the Indies he wrote to Raphael Sanchez: "That to God should be rendered immortal thanks, who had brought his labors such prosperous issues; that Jesus Christ rejoices and triumphs on earth no less than in heaven, at the approaching salvation of nations innumerable, who were before hastening to destruction."

And if he moved Ferdinand and Isabella to decree that only Catholic Christians should be suffered to approach the New World and trade with the natives, he brought forward as reason, "that he sought nothing from his enterprise and endeavor but the increase and glor}' of the Christian religion." And this was well known to Isabella, who better than any had understood the great man's mind; indeed it is evident that it had been clearly laid before that most pious, masculine-minded, and great-souled woman. For she had declared of Columbus that he would boldly thrust himself upon the vast ocean, "to achieve a most signal thing, for the sake of the divine glory." And to Columbus himself, on his second return, she writes: "That the expenses she had