Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 May 1892 — COLUMBUS’ FIRST CHURCH. [ARTICLE]

COLUMBUS’ FIRST CHURCH.

A Movement to Mark the Starting Point of Christian Clvtllia lon in America. A movement, first broached by Mr. Thomas H. Cummings of Boston and taken up by the Sacred Heart Review of that city, to erect a monument to Columbus on the site of his first settlement in the new world, at Isabella, in Santo Domingo, has progressed so far that committees are actively at work, and the statue is being modeled by Alois Buyens. The figure represents Columbus in an attitude of thanksgiving to God and pointing to the first settlement in the new world. The statue and pedestal are made from designs drawn at the State Normal Art School by Mr. R. Andrew, under the direction of Prof. George Jepson. It contemplates a figure eight feet two inches high, Including the plinth, mounted on a pyramid of coral and limestone twelve feet high, which, in its turn, is crowned by a capstone of dressed granite, on which the statue will rest.

The Dominican government when communicated with readily granted the site and the necessary privileges, including the free entry of material With these concessions in hand a committee came to Washington, D. C. and obtained from officials there assurances of co-operation and support. Mr. W. E. Curtis, the head of the bureau of American republics, was added to the monument committee. A committee of citizens has been formed at Puerta Plata to co-operate with the Boston coAmittee in appropriately celebrating the quadrocentennial. It is proposed to erect the monument on the site of Isabella over the ruins of the first Catholic clfurch in the new world. In view of the increasing interest in the object for which the committee are working, it is hoped to make the monument even more worthy of the event celebrated and to have a colossal statue in bronze the cost of which will be about SIO,OOO. The original plan contemplated an expenditure of only $3,000 or $5,000. This monument is intended to mark the starting point of Christian civilization in America.

The phonograph is successful in diplomacy. When Muley el Hassan, Sultan of Morocco, placed the tubes in his ears and heard “Annie Rooney* he at once told the World’s Fair agents to take what they wanted in his kingdom and leave him the phonograph. The devil has a hard fight to hold hiß own in the home where there is a praying mother.