New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1889-05-12
THE LEPER MARTYR.


Every schoolboy" to use Macaulays favor
ite phrase, remembers his touching tribute to
the self-sacrifice of the jesuit. Z" II his min
istry was needed in some country where his
life was more insecure than that OF VOL,
where II was a crime to harbor him, where tho
heads and quarters Of his brethren, fixed IN tho
public places, showed him what he had to ex-
pect he went without remembrance or heslta-
ton to his doom. Nor Is this heroic spirit yet
extinct. When, In our time, new and terrible
pestilence passed round the globe, when, in
some great cities, fear had dissolved oil the
ties which hold society together, when the
secular Clergy had forSaken their hocks, when
medical suocor was not to be purchased by gold
when the strongest natural affections had yleld-
ed to the love OF life, even then the jesuit was
found by the pallet which bishop and ourate,
physician and nurse, father and mother hao
deserted, bending over infected lips TO eaten
the faint accents Of confession, and holding up
10 the last before the expiring penitent, the
image Of the expiring Redeemer"
The newspapers have Just recorded the close
~ a career OF self sacrifice even more remark
able, and ranking Us hero among the great
martyrs. II is true that Father Damien was
not the first man 10 dedicate his lie to tho
service of the victims of perhaps the most
loatbsome and hopeless Of lingering diseases,
The records Of the Middle Ages, when this dis
order, now stamped out from the earth except
In n few plague-spots was q general scalrgo
covering the face Of Europe with pest-hou
and asyIums where is miserable victims were
shut up from contact with mankind arc full Of
such evidences OF heroic unselfshness. But ID
is safe to say that in tho whole history OF tho
r1ce no man ever entered upon the service OF
the most abjectly miserable OF his teho"-
creatures under circumstances involving more
comnlete self-abnegation than did Father
Damien. There was no glttering ceremonial
20 stimulate his purpose. The mission was
absolutely unattended by any element OF the
picturesque and spectacular, such as has often
no doubt. mingled even in the piou' dreams OF
saints. The scene Of his labors was 20 be
narrow strip Of sand in the Pacific Ocean, and
his only associates during his exile "A swarm Of
wretches, whose bodies had been rendered
hideous by the nvages OF leprosy' and whose
souls had been brutalized by sense OF tho
hopelessness Of their doom and OF their utter
isolation from their fclow-mcn.
II was not as man broken either by age or
sorrow that Damien resolved literally TO give
his Hfe 20 these outcasts. lie was only thirty
three. al a period when the pulse Of healthy
man beats highest. lie was endowed with a
splendid physique. lie had already ATTRACTED
the attention Of his superors and Was regarded
as a nan Of marked promise in the Priesthood
He knew that when he had once taken his place
among the epers Of Molokni he must remain a
prisoner with them til the end Of his life ana
that, in all probability, he would die mel
death. The brutal Indifference Of the la
Naiian Government had thrust those poor
creatures away on barren peninsula from
which escape waS impossible. Damien found
them n colony OF men and women forgetting
cd and hating man, utterly wretched IN hedS
and mind, and abandoned in their desperation
to every form Of wickedness. The task OF
bringing order out Of chaos Ike this might
we'll have appalled, even Drawer soul than his
but no set about il promptly. lie first en-
deayored 20 improve their physical condition
as tho best preparation for moral amehHra
ton. He worked like slave with his own
hands at everything, from the building OF their
houses 10 the digging Of their graves. change
for the better in their way Of living, combined
with the influence Of his own lofty character
and the constant incubation Of the principles
Of religion, in time transformed this nest OF
disen &C. stricken sayages into Christian cont
munity. After eleven years passed In this
work the blight fastened itself upon him also.
and the five years that have elapsed since that
time have been passed in tho lingering death
Of leprosy. Surely few men who have given
L.. A,1 IN aud ira On
much and so long.
lie was not, however, without disciple
Some years ago a young priest, Father Con-
| rardy. Joined him. ready 20 take mp his work
when he should lay it down. Revelations Of
atter.day heroism such as these kinde new
faith in humanity.