The Opelousas courier., 1889-05-25
"A Modern MARTYR.

Ho1oism mas not been confined To anv
one age or people, but in this matter ri
Iacs INC selfish generation the achieve.
Inens OF heroic aud unselfsh deeds has
come to be regarded as out of fashion
nevertheless, bad as the age is claimed 10
20, IL is not totally devoid of its heroes NOR
arsRne heights to which their daring and
seiI-sacr1hce have raised them a whit he
low the level of the martyrs of more
chivalrous days. The heroic spirit that
prompts men to deeds of great daring and
nerolc self.sacrifce, though possibly
iouoed by the selfshness of the times. Is
YET not extinct, as conspicuous EXAMPLES
occasionally remind us.
1ne newspapers have Just chronicled
Tue close OF a career of sell. sacrifice and
nefolsm that is rem srkable even among
tne mort of the deeds of the old. time
martyrs. They gave their lives as q PLEDGE
OF tnelr faith in a great principle. But
NOT sven In the record of all the fortunes
they are said to have endured was there
sucn degree of self, sacrifice REQUIRED as
Inat displayed by the leper priest. Father
IL is true that other men before Father
mi have dedicated their lives to the
service OF the plague-stricken, but never
perhaps has there been a case where a
greater degree of mastery over all human
feeling was necessary than in this one,
winch for many long years condemned,
with his own consent. an able-bedied man
TO the sole society of leprous and deprsfed
savages confined on q narrow strip of sand
In the Pacific ocean. Here there was
nothing to lessen the horror of his sur
roundlngs or temper the rigors OF his
self-imposed torture.
Commenting on this remarkable case. a
New York paper pays the following de-
served and eloquent tribute to the leper
martyr: -
ut was not as a man broken either by
age or sorrow that Damien resolved liter
ally to give his life to these outcasts. He
was only 33, at a period when the pulse
OF a healthy man beats highest. He was
ndowed with a splendid physique. He
had already attracted the attention of his
superiors, and was regarded as a man of
marked promise in the priesthood. He
knew that when he had once taken his
place among the lepers of Molokai he
must remain prisoner with them till the
end of his life. and that, in all probability,
he would die that death. The brutal in
difference of the Hawaiian government had
thrust these poor creatures away on q
barren peninsula from which escape was
impossible. Damien found them a colony
OF men and women forgetting God and
hating man, utterly wretched in body and
mind, and abandoned in their desperation
to every form of wickedness. The task of
bringing order out of chaos like this might
well have appalled, even q drawer soul
than his, but he set about it promptly. He
frstsendeavored TO improve their physical
condition as the best preparation for a
moral amelioration. He worked like a
slave with his own hands at everything,
from the building of their houses to the
digging of their graves. A change for the
betserin their way of living, combined
with the influence of his own lofty char
acter and the e9nstant incubation of the
principles of religion, in time transformed
this nest of disease stricken savages into a
Christian community. 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 the lingering death of
leprosy. Surely few men who have given
their lives for others have had to endure
so much and so long"
Despite the horrors of his fate, Father
Damien found q successor ready to take
up his task as soon as ID should lay it
down. Such examples of modern charity
serve to rekindle faith in humanity and
conclusively prove that the spirit of hero
ism in man, though dormant, is not al
gether dead.-N. o. Picayune.