Father Damien | Page 3

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FATHER DAMIEN
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE REVEREND DR. HYDE OF
HONOLULU

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)
(1) From the Sydney PRESBYTERIAN, October 26, 1889.
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