Dominic and Francis in the New World

Extract

I am not over-assured as to the happiness of my title. For the New World, especially of late, is becoming more like the Old World to which we look for tradition. Indeed, I would venture the opinion that the eagerness on the part of the Old World to shed her ancient traditions is parallelled only by the desire of thinkers in the New World to gather up the best lessons of European history before they perish.

Again, I fear that territorially, at any rate, I am going to be confined to a very small and, if we are to credit authoritative American critics, a very unrepresentative portion of the New World—New York City. Personally I am satisfied with the conviction that New York is American and of the New World; for only America could produce New York City.

Furthermore, centuries before the happenings of the facts which I try to appreciate here, practically the whole of the New World knew Dominic and Francis. It knew these thirteenth century patriarchs of religion through the numerous friars who, together with the intrepid sons of the great Ignatius, preached the faith in Northern and Southern America. Your American high-school child, Catholic or Protestant, knows the associations of the friars with Christopher Columbus even as he knows the history of the civilizing influences of the Jesuits, especially in North America.

As a matter of fact a source of bewilderment to me, after many years spent in the United States, is exactly why the term ‘ New World’ is applied to-day to the vast lands lying on the other side of the Atlantic.