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diff --git a/281-0.txt b/281-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..aee52bb --- /dev/null +++ b/281-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,524 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 281 *** + + + + +FATHER DAMIEN +AN OPEN LETTER TO THE REVEREND DOCTOR HYDE OF HONOLULU +FROM +ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON + + +1914 +LONDON +CHATTO & WINDUS + +A new impression +All rights reserved + +SYDNEY, +_February_ 25, 1890. + +Sir,--It may probably occur to you that we have met, and visited, and +conversed; on my side, with interest. You may remember that you have +done me several courtesies, for which I was prepared to be grateful. But +there are duties which come before gratitude, and offences which justly +divide friends, far more acquaintances. Your letter to the Reverend H. +B. Gage is a document which, in my sight, if you had filled me with bread +when I was starving, if you had sat up to nurse my father when he lay a- +dying, would yet absolve me from the bonds of gratitude. You know +enough, doubtless, of the process of canonisation to be aware that, a +hundred years after the death of Damien, there will appear a man charged +with the painful office of the _devil's advocate_. After that noble +brother of mine, and of all frail clay, shall have lain a century at +rest, one shall accuse, one defend him. The circumstance is unusual that +the devil's advocate should be a volunteer, should be a member of a sect +immediately rival, and should make haste to take upon himself his ugly +office ere the bones are cold; unusual, and of a taste which I shall +leave my readers free to qualify; unusual, and to me inspiring. If I +have at all learned the trade of using words to convey truth and to +arouse emotion, you have at last furnished me with a subject. For it is +in the interest of all mankind, and the cause of public decency in every +quarter of the world, not only that Damien should be righted, but that +you and your letter should be displayed at length, in their true colours, +to the public eye. + +To do this properly, I must begin by quoting you at large: I shall then +proceed to criticise your utterance from several points of view, divine +and human, in the course of which I shall attempt to draw again, and with +more specification, the character of the dead saint whom it has pleased +you to vilify: so much being done, I shall say farewell to you for ever. + + "HONOLULU, + "_August_ 2, 1889. + + "Rev. H. B. GAGE. + + "Dear Brother,--In answer to your inquires about Father Damien, I can + only reply that we who knew the man are surprised at the extravagant + newspaper laudations, as if he was a most saintly philanthropist. The + simple truth is, he was a coarse, dirty man, headstrong and bigoted. + He was not sent to Molokai, but went there without orders; did not + stay at the leper settlement (before he became one himself), but + circulated freely over the whole island (less than half the island is + devoted to the lepers), and he came often to Honolulu. He had no hand + in the reforms and improvements inaugurated, which were the work of + our Board of Health, as occasion required and means were provided. He + was not a pure man in his relations with women, and the leprosy of + which he died should be attributed to his vices and carelessness. + Other have done much for the lepers, our own ministers, the government + physicians, and so forth, but never with the Catholic idea of meriting + eternal life.--Yours, etc., + + "C. M. HYDE" {1} + +To deal fitly with a letter so extraordinary, I must draw at the outset +on my private knowledge of the signatory and his sect. It may offend +others; scarcely you, who have been so busy to collect, so bold to +publish, gossip on your rivals. And this is perhaps the moment when I +may best explain to you the character of what you are to read: I conceive +you as a man quite beyond and below the reticences of civility: with what +measure you mete, with that shall it be measured you again; with you, at +last, I rejoice to feel the button off the foil and to plunge home. And +if in aught that I shall say I should offend others, your colleagues, +whom I respect and remember with affection, I can but offer them my +regret; I am not free, I am inspired by the consideration of interests +far more large; and such pain as can be inflicted by anything from me +must be indeed trifling when compared with the pain with which they read +your letter. It is not the hangman, but the criminal, that brings +dishonour on the house. + +You belong, sir, to a sect--I believe my sect, and that in which my +ancestors laboured--which has enjoyed, and partly failed to utilise, an +exceptional advantage in the islands of Hawaii. The first missionaries +came; they found the land already self-purged of its old and bloody +faith; they were embraced, almost on their arrival, with enthusiasm; what +troubles they supported came far more from whites than from Hawaiians; +and to these last they stood (in a rough figure) in the shoes of God. +This is not the place to enter into the degree or causes of their +failure, such as it is. One element alone is pertinent, and must here be +plainly dealt with. In the course of their evangelical calling, they--or +too many of them--grew rich. It may be news to you that the houses of +missionaries are a cause of mocking on the streets of Honolulu. It will +at least be news to you, that when I returned your civil visit, the +driver of my cab commented on the size, the taste, and the comfort of +your home. It would have been news certainly to myself, had any one told +me that afternoon that I should live to drag such a matter into print. +But you see, sir, how you degrade better men to your own level; and it is +needful that those who are to judge betwixt you and me, betwixt Damien +and the devil's advocate, should understand your letter to have been +penned in a house which could raise, and that very justly, the envy and +the comments of the passers-by. I think (to employ a phrase of yours +which I admire) it "should be attributed" to you that you have never +visited the scene of Damien's life and death. If you had, and had +recalled it, and looked about your pleasant rooms, even your pen perhaps +would have been stayed. + +Your sect (and remember, as far as any sect avows me, it is mine) has not +done ill in a worldly sense in the Hawaiian Kingdom. When calamity +befell their innocent parishioners, when leprosy descended and took root +in the Eight Islands, a _quid pro quo_ was to be looked for. To that +prosperous mission, and to you, as one of its adornments, God had sent at +last an opportunity. I know I am touching here upon a nerve acutely +sensitive. I know that others of your colleagues look back on the +inertia of your Church, and the intrusive and decisive heroism of Damien, +with something almost to be called remorse. I am sure it is so with +yourself; I am persuaded your letter was inspired by a certain envy, not +essentially ignoble, and the one human trait to be espied in that +performance. You were thinking of the lost chance, the past day; of that +which should have been conceived and was not; of the service due and not +rendered. _Time was_, said the voice in your ear, in your pleasant room, +as you sat raging and writing; and if the words written were base beyond +parallel, the rage, I am happy to repeat--it is the only compliment I +shall pay you--the rage was almost virtuous. But, sir, when we have +failed, and another has succeeded; when we have stood by, and another has +stepped in; when we sit and grow bulky in our charming mansions, and a +plain, uncouth peasant steps into the battle, under the eyes of God, and +succours the afflicted, and consoles the dying, and is himself afflicted +in his turn, and dies upon the field of honour--the battle cannot be +retrieved as your unhappy irritation has suggested. It is a lost battle, +and lost for ever. One thing remained to you in your defeat--some rags +of common honour; and these you have made haste to cast away. + +Common honour; not the honour of having done anything right, but the +honour of not having done aught conspicuously foul; the honour of the +inert: that was what remained to you. We are not all expected to be +Damiens; a man may conceive his duty more narrowly, he may love his +comforts better; and none will cast a stone at him for that. But will a +gentleman of your reverend profession allow me an example from the fields +of gallantry? When two gentlemen compete for the favour of a lady, and +the one succeeds and the other is rejected, and (as will sometimes +happen) matter damaging to the successful rival's credit reaches the ear +of the defeated, it is held by plain men of no pretensions that his mouth +is, in the circumstance, almost necessarily closed. Your Church and +Damien's were in Hawaii upon a rivalry to do well: to help, to edify, to +set divine examples. You having (in one huge instance) failed, and +Damien succeeded, I marvel it should not have occurred to you that you +were doomed to silence; that when you had been outstripped in that high +rivalry, and sat inglorious in the midst of your well-being, in your +pleasant room--and Damien, crowned with glories and horrors, toiled and +rotted in that pigsty of his under the cliffs of Kalawao--you, the elect +who would not, were the last man on earth to collect and propagate gossip +on the volunteer who would and did. + +I think I see you--for I try to see you in the flesh as I write these +sentences--I think I see you leap at the word pigsty, a hyperbolical +expression at the best. "He had no hand in the reforms," he was "a +coarse, dirty man"; these were your own words; and you may think it +possible that I am come to support you with fresh evidence. In a sense, +it is even so. Damien has been too much depicted with a conventional +halo and conventional features; so drawn by men who perhaps had not the +eye to remark or the pen to express the individual; or who perhaps were +only blinded and silenced by generous admiration, such as I partly envy +for myself--such as you, if your soul were enlightened, would envy on +your bended knees. It is the least defect of such a method of +portraiture that it makes the path easy for the devil's advocate, and +leaves the misuse of the slanderer a considerable field of truth. For +the truth that is suppressed by friends is the readiest weapon of the +enemy. The world, in your despite, may perhaps owe you something, if +your letter be the means of substituting once for all a credible likeness +for a wax abstraction. For, if that world at all remember you, on the +day when Damien of Molokai shall be named a Saint, it will be in virtue +of one work: your letter to the Reverend H. B. Gage. + +You may ask on what authority I speak. It was my inclement destiny to +become acquainted, not with Damien, but with Dr. Hyde. When I visited +the lazaretto, Damien was already in his resting grave. But such +information as I have, I gathered on the spot in conversation with those +who knew him well and long: some indeed who revered his memory; but +others who had sparred and wrangled with him, who beheld him with no +halo, who perhaps regarded him with small respect, and through whose +unprepared and scarcely partial communications the plain, human features +of the man shone on me convincingly. These gave me what knowledge I +possess; and I learnt it in that scene where it could be most completely +and sensitively understood--Kalawao, which you have never visited, about +which you have never so much as endeavoured to inform yourself; for, +brief as your letter is, you have found the means to stumble into that +confession. "_Less than one-half_ of the island," you say, "is devoted +to the lepers." Molokai--"_Molokai ahina_," the "grey," lofty, and most +desolate island--along all its northern side plunges a front of precipice +into a sea of unusual profundity. This range of cliff is, from east to +west, the true end and frontier of the island. Only in one spot there +projects into the ocean a certain triangular and rugged down, grassy, +stony, windy, and rising in the midst into a hill with a dead crater: the +whole bearing to the cliff that overhangs it somewhat the same relation +as a bracket to a wall. With this hint you will now be able to pick out +the leper station on a map; you will be able to judge how much of Molokai +is thus cut off between the surf and precipice, whether less than a half, +or less than a quarter, or a fifth, or a tenth--or, say a twentieth; and +the next time you burst into print you will be in a position to share +with us the issue of your calculations. + +I imagine you to be one of those persons who talk with cheerfulness of +that place which oxen and wain-ropes could not drag you to behold. You, +who do not even know its situation on the map, probably denounce +sensational descriptions, stretching your limbs the while in your +pleasant parlour on Beretania Street. When I was pulled ashore there one +early morning, there sat with me in the boat two sisters, bidding +farewell (in humble imitation of Damien) to the lights and joys of human +life. One of these wept silently; I could not withhold myself from +joining her. Had you been there, it is my belief that nature would have +triumphed even in you; and as the boat drew but a little nearer, and you +beheld the stairs crowded with abominable deformations of our common +manhood, and saw yourself landing in the midst of such a population as +only now and then surrounds us in the horror of a nightmare--what a +haggard eye you would have rolled over your reluctant shoulder towards +the house on Beretania Street! Had you gone on; had you found every +fourth face a blot upon the landscape; had you visited the hospital and +seen the butt-ends of human beings lying there almost unrecognisable, but +still breathing, still thinking, still remembering; you would have +understood that life in the lazaretto is an ordeal from which the nerves +of a man's spirit shrink, even as his eye quails under the brightness of +the sun; you would have felt it was (even today) a pitiful place to visit +and a hell to dwell in. It is not the fear of possible infection. That +seems a little thing when compared with the pain, the pity, and the +disgust of the visitor's surroundings, and the atmosphere of affliction, +disease, and physical disgrace in which he breathes. I do not think I am +a man more than usually timid; but I never recall the days and nights I +spent upon that island promontory (eight days and seven nights), without +heartfelt thankfulness that I am somewhere else. I find in my diary that +I speak of my stay as a "grinding experience": I have once jotted in the +margin, "_Harrowing_ is the word"; and when the _Mokolii_ bore me at last +towards the outer world, I kept repeating to myself, with a new +conception of their pregnancy, those simple words of the song-- + + "'Tis the most distressful country that ever yet was seen." + +And observe: that which I saw and suffered from was a settlement purged, +bettered, beautified; the new village built, the hospital and the Bishop- +Home excellently arranged; the sisters, the doctor, and the missionaries, +all indefatigable in their noble tasks. It was a different place when +Damien came there and made this great renunciation, and slept that first +night under a tree amidst his rotting brethren: alone with pestilence; +and looking forward (with what courage, with what pitiful sinkings of +dread, God only knows) to a lifetime of dressing sores and stumps. + +You will say, perhaps, I am too sensitive, that sights as painful abound +in cancer hospitals and are confronted daily by doctors and nurses. I +have long learned to admire and envy the doctors and the nurses. But +there is no cancer hospital so large and populous as Kalawao and +Kalaupapa; and in such a matter every fresh case, like every inch of +length in the pipe of an organ, deepens the note of the impression; for +what daunts the onlooker is that monstrous sum of human suffering by +which he stands surrounded. Lastly, no doctor or nurse is called upon to +enter once for all the doors of that gehenna; they do not say farewell, +they need not abandon hope, on its sad threshold; they but go for a time +to their high calling, and can look forward as they go to relief, to +recreation, and to rest. But Damien shut-to with his own hand the doors +of his own sepulchre. + +I shall now extract three passages from my diary at Kalawao. + +_A_. "Damien is dead and already somewhat ungratefully remembered in the +field of his labours and sufferings. 'He was a good man, but very +officious,' says one. Another tells me he had fallen (as other priests +so easily do) into something of the ways and habits of thought of a +Kanaka; but he had the wit to recognise the fact, and the good sense to +laugh at" [over] "it. A plain man it seems he was; I cannot find he was +a popular." + +_B_. "After Ragsdale's death" [Ragsdale was a famous Luna, or overseer, +of the unruly settlement] "there followed a brief term of office by +Father Damien which served only to publish the weakness of that noble +man. He was rough in his ways, and he had no control. Authority was +relaxed; Damien's life was threatened, and he was soon eager to resign." + +_C_. "Of Damien I begin to have an idea. He seems to have been a man of +the peasant class, certainly of the peasant type: shrewd, ignorant and +bigoted, yet with an open mind, and capable of receiving and digesting a +reproof if it were bluntly administered; superbly generous in the least +thing as well as in the greatest, and as ready to give his last shirt +(although not without human grumbling) as he had been to sacrifice his +life; essentially indiscreet and officious, which made him a troublesome +colleague; domineering in all his ways, which made him incurably +unpopular with the Kanakas, but yet destitute of real authority, so that +his boys laughed at him and he must carry out his wishes by the means of +bribes. He learned to have a mania for doctoring; and set up the Kanakas +against the remedies of his regular rivals: perhaps (if anything matter +at all in the treatment of such a disease) the worst thing that he did, +and certainly the easiest. The best and worst of the man appear very +plainly in his dealings with Mr. Chapman's money; he had originally laid +it out" [intended to lay it out] "entirely for the benefit of Catholics, +and even so not wisely; but after a long, plain talk, he admitted his +error fully and revised the list. The sad state of the boys' home is in +part the result of his lack of control; in part, of his own slovenly ways +and false ideas of hygiene. Brother officials used to call it 'Damien's +Chinatown.' 'Well,' they would say, 'your Chinatown keeps growing.' And +he would laugh with perfect good-nature, and adhere to his errors with +perfect obstinacy. So much I have gathered of truth about this plain, +noble human brother and father of ours; his imperfections are the traits +of his face, by which we know him for our fellow; his martyrdom and his +example nothing can lessen or annul; and only a person here on the spot +can properly appreciate their greatness." + +I have set down these private passages, as you perceive, without +correction; thanks to you, the public has them in their bluntness. They +are almost a list of the man's faults, for it is rather these that I was +seeking: with his virtues, with the heroic profile of his life, I and the +world were already sufficiently acquainted. I was besides a little +suspicious of Catholic testimony; in no ill sense, but merely because +Damien's admirers and disciples were the least likely to be critical. I +know you will be more suspicious still; and the facts set down above were +one and all collected from the lips of Protestants who had opposed the +father in his life. Yet I am strangely deceived, or they build up the +image of a man, with all his weakness, essentially heroic, and alive with +rugged honesty, generosity, and mirth. + +Take it for what it is, rough private jottings of the worst sides of +Damien's character, collected from the lips of those who had laboured +with and (in your own phrase) "knew the man";--though I question whether +Damien would have said that he knew you. Take it, and observe with +wonder how well you were served by your gossips, how ill by your +intelligence and sympathy; in how many points of fact we are at one, and +how widely our appreciations vary. There is something wrong here; either +with you or me. It is possible, for instance, that you, who seem to have +so many ears in Kalawao, had heard of the affair of Mr. Chapman's money, +and were singly struck by Damien's intended wrong-doing. I was struck +with that also, and set it fairly down; but I was struck much more by the +fact that he had the honesty of mind to be convinced. I may here tell +you that it was a long business; that one of his colleagues sat with him +late into the night, multiplying arguments and accusations; that the +father listened as usual with "perfect good-nature and perfect +obstinacy"; but at the last, when he was persuaded--"Yes," said he, "I am +very much obliged to you; you have done me a service; it would have been +a theft." There are many (not Catholics merely) who require their heroes +and saints to be infallible; to these the story will be painful; not to +the true lovers, patrons, and servants of mankind. + +And I take it, this is a type of our division; that you are one of those +who have an eye for faults and failures; that you take a pleasure to find +and publish them; and that, having found them, you make haste to forget +the overvailing virtues and the real success which had alone introduced +them to your knowledge. It is a dangerous frame of mind. That you may +understand how dangerous, and into what a situation it has already +brought you, we will (if you please) go hand-in-hand through the +different phrases of your letter, and candidly examine each from the +point of view of its truth, its appositeness, and its charity. + + Damien was _coarse_. + +It is very possible. You make us sorry for the lepers, who had only a +coarse old peasant for their friend and father. But you, who were so +refined, why were you not there, to cheer them with the lights of +culture? Or may I remind you that we have some reason to doubt if John +the Baptist were genteel; and in the case of Peter, on whose career your +doubtless dwell approvingly in the pulpit, no doubt at all he was a +"coarse, headstrong" fisherman! Yet even in our Protestant Bibles Peter +is called Saint. + + Damien was _dirty_. + +He was. Think of the poor lepers annoyed with this dirty comrade! But +the clean Dr. Hyde was at his food in a fine house. + + Damien was _headstrong_. + +I believe you are right again; and I thank God for his strong head and +heart. + + Damien was _bigoted_. + +I am not fond of bigots myself, because they are not fond of me. But +what is meant by bigotry, that we should regard it as a blemish in a +priest? Damien believed his own religion with the simplicity of a +peasant or a child; as I would I could suppose that you do. For this, I +wonder at him some way off; and had that been his only character, should +have avoided him in life. But the point of interest in Damien, which has +caused him to be so much talked about and made him at last the subject of +your pen and mine, was that, in him, his bigotry, his intense and narrow +faith, wrought potently for good, and strengthened him to be one of the +world's heroes and exemplars. + + Damien _was not sent to Molokai_, _but went there without orders_. + +Is this a misreading? or do you really mean the words for blame? I have +heard Christ, in the pulpits of our Church, held up for imitation on the +ground that His sacrifice was voluntary. Does Dr. Hyde think otherwise? + + Damien _did not stay at the settlement_, _etc._ + +It is true he was allowed many indulgences. Am I to understand that you +blame the father for profiting by these, or the officers for granting +them? In either case, it is a mighty Spartan standard to issue from the +house on Beretania Street; and I am convinced you will find yourself with +few supporters. + + Damien _had no hand in the reforms_, _etc._ + +I think even you will admit that I have already been frank in my +description of the man I am defending; but before I take you up upon this +head, I will be franker still, and tell you that perhaps nowhere in the +world can a man taste a more pleasurable sense of contrast than when he +passes from Damien's "Chinatown" at Kalawao to the beautiful Bishop-Home +at Kalaupapa. At this point, in my desire to make all fair for you, I +will break my rule and adduce Catholic testimony. Here is a passage from +my diary about my visit to the Chinatown, from which you will see how it +is (even now) regarded by its own officials: "We went round all the +dormitories, refectories, etc.--dark and dingy enough, with a superficial +cleanliness, which he" [Mr. Dutton, the lay-brother] "did not seek to +defend. 'It is almost decent,' said he; 'the sisters will make that all +right when we get them here.'" And yet I gathered it was already better +since Damien was dead, and far better than when he was there alone and +had his own (not always excellent) way. I have now come far enough to +meet you on a common ground of fact; and I tell you that, to a mind not +prejudiced by jealousy, all the reforms of the lazaretto, and even those +which he most vigorously opposed, are properly the work of Damien. They +are the evidence of his success; they are what his heroism provoked from +the reluctant and the careless. Many were before him in the field; Mr. +Meyer, for instance, of whose faithful work we hear too little: there +have been many since; and some had more worldly wisdom, though none had +more devotion, than our saint. Before his day, even you will confess, +they had effected little. It was his part, by one striking act of +martyrdom, to direct all men's eyes on that distressful country. At a +blow, and with the price of his life, he made the place illustrious and +public. And that, if you will consider largely, was the one reform +needful; pregnant of all that should succeed. It brought money; it +brought (best individual addition of them all) the sisters; it brought +supervision, for public opinion and public interest landed with the man +at Kalawao. If ever any man brought reforms, and died to bring them, it +was he. There is not a clean cup or towel in the Bishop-Home, but dirty +Damien washed it. + + Damien _was not a pure man in his relations with women_, _etc._ + +How do you know that? Is this the nature of conversation in that house +on Beretania Street which the cabman envied, driving past?--racy details +of the misconduct of the poor peasant priest, toiling under the cliffs of +Molokai? + +Many have visited the station before me; they seem not to have heard the +rumour. When I was there I heard many shocking tales, for my informants +were men speaking with the plainness of the laity; and I heard plenty of +complaints of Damien. Why was this never mentioned? and how came it to +you in the retirement of your clerical parlour? + +But I must not even seem to deceive you. This scandal, when I read it in +your letter, was not new to me. I had heard it once before; and I must +tell you how. There came to Samoa a man from Honolulu; he, in a public- +house on the beach, volunteered the statement that Damien had "contracted +the disease from having connection with the female lepers"; and I find a +joy in telling you how the report was welcomed in a public-house. A man +sprang to his feet; I am not at liberty to give his name, but from what I +heard I doubt if you would care to have him to dinner in Beretania +Street. "You miserable little -------" (here is a word I dare not print, +it would so shock your ears). "You miserable little ------," he cried, +"if the story were a thousand times true, can't you see you are a million +times a lower ----- for daring to repeat it?" I wish it could be told of +you that when the report reached you in your house, perhaps after family +worship, you had found in your soul enough holy anger to receive it with +the same expressions; ay, even with that one which I dare not print; it +would not need to have been blotted away, like Uncle Toby's oath, by the +tears of the recording angel; it would have been counted to you for your +brightest righteousness. But you have deliberately chosen the part of +the man from Honolulu, and you have played it with improvements of your +own. The man from Honolulu--miserable, leering creature--communicated +the tale to a rude knot of beach-combing drinkers in a public-house, +where (I will so far agree with your temperance opinions) man is not +always at his noblest; and the man from Honolulu had himself been +drinking--drinking, we may charitably fancy, to excess. It was to your +"Dear Brother, the Reverend H. B. Gage," that you chose to communicate +the sickening story; and the blue ribbon which adorns your portly bosom +forbids me to allow you the extenuating plea that you were drunk when it +was done. Your "dear brother"--a brother indeed--made haste to deliver +up your letter (as a means of grace, perhaps) to the religious papers; +where, after many months, I found and read and wondered at it; and whence +I have now reproduced it for the wonder of others. And you and your dear +brother have, by this cycle of operations, built up a contrast very +edifying to examine in detail. The man whom you would not care to have +to dinner, on the one side; on the other, the Reverend Dr. Hyde and the +Reverend H. B. Gage: the Apia bar-room, the Honolulu manse. + +But I fear you scarce appreciate how you appear to your fellow-men; and +to bring it home to you, I will suppose your story to be true. I will +suppose--and God forgive me for supposing it--that Damien faltered and +stumbled in his narrow path of duty; I will suppose that, in the horror +of his isolation, perhaps in the fever of incipient disease, he, who was +doing so much more than he had sworn, failed in the letter of his +priestly oath--he, who was so much a better man than either you or me, +who did what we have never dreamed of daring--he too tasted of our common +frailty. "O, Iago, the pity of it!" The least tender should be moved to +tears; the most incredulous to prayer. And all that you could do was to +pen your letter to the Reverend H. B. Gage! + +Is it growing at all clear to you what a picture you have drawn of your +own heart? I will try yet once again to make it clearer. You had a +father: suppose this tale were about him, and some informant brought it +to you, proof in hand: I am not making too high an estimate of your +emotional nature when I suppose you would regret the circumstance? that +you would feel the tale of frailty the more keenly since it shamed the +author of your days? and that the last thing you would do would be to +publish it in the religious press? Well, the man who tried to do what +Damien did, is my father, and the father of the man in the Apia bar, and +the father of all who love goodness; and he was your father too, if God +had given you grace to see it. + + + + +Footnotes + + +{1} From the Sydney _Presbyterian_, October 26, 1889. + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 281 *** |