Omaha daily bee., 1889-05-19
THE CHRIST OF THE lEPERS
A Priests Noble Work on the Island
Of Molokai.
HIS HERoisM WAS SUBLIME
How Father Damien in the Flush of
Youth and Hope ExiIed Himself
Forever at Kalawao's Prison.
Hospital
A Modern Nazarine.


The story of Rev. Father Damien, the
lepcr priest of Molol1ai who died at Hawaii
on April1, Is one of the most Impressive Of
any time or age, says the New York Sun.
In 1878. when he was but thirty-threc
years old, in full possession of health and
fortune, a man of education and refinement,
"a prince coming to his kingdom Damien
deliberately offered himself as missionary to
the outcast lepers of the Sandwich Islands,
knowing full well that he in time would be-
come leper too. In 1884 the first symptoms
of the horrible disease manifested them
selves in Damien. and since that time the
heroic priest has been dying the most
LINGERING AND FRIGHTFUL DEATH
known to man-the death to which he will
ingly condemned himself His decease has
been daily expected for months past.
Damien's story has been often told to the
world, but never before as the Sun tells it
to-day. The Sun prints Damien's own story
of his life among the lepers as he wrote it,
with unthinking heroiSm in cold report to
the Hawaiin government. This IS the first
and only account ever given by Father
Damien of his life at Molokai The story of
Damien, as told by himself is Of course, the
record which history will preserve of his
noble life: while the modesty, humility, the
gentle and kindly spirit of the man, utterly
forgetting itself in love and care for others
IN u word-Damien's absolutely ideal her.
oism, is here fully though unconsciously dis
| played.
| Mololsli, which is generally spoken of as
| the leper settlement is an island of the Ha-
| waian group, ana Kalawao, village on the
| island, is the lepers' home. AS is well
] known, the settlement is simply prison hos
pital, none of the people living there being
permitted to depart A prison H. name Kai-
| awao is prison in reality. So far as isola-
tion is concerned, no better place for the
| leper settlemept could have been imagined.
| Kalawao is simply tongue of land, washed
| on three sides blythe ocean, and thrust out
there from a line OF cliffs 1000 feet hiffh. No
one has ever escaped from Kalawao. The
little peninsula, is three miles long and a
mile wide. II is treeless, and exposed, naked,
| to the full force of, the northeast trade wind.
| During the winter months the climate OF
| Kalawao Is bleaR, cold and rainy. In the
summer time the sun beats down fercely.
The mountains hang over the little peninsula
| like giants. ~.
The lepers We're brought here in 1855. For
| decades before 1860 leprosy had prevailed IN
| the Hawaiian islands, but not extensively.
In 1850 the disease became scourge, and q
| few years later the leper colony was estab
lished, ard all the lepers on the Sandwich
islands were ordered to be removed thence.
Parents were separated from their children,
| husbands from their wives and brothers and
sisters from each other. The friends and
relatives Of those infected with the disease
| IN many instances secreted the sufferers, and
the officers charged with enforcing the claw
| of segregation often had To capture theII
victims by stealth in the dead OF night. In
| nearly every case the officers had TO use
force In April of last year there were 74t
lepers there.
/ ORIGINS OF DESPAIR.
The lepers first taken TO KalaWao were in
q condition little better than that of the hap
less seaman who mad been "marooned" OF
put ashore by their comrades upon desert