Daily tobacco leaf-chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1890-1895, 1890-04-03
RISKING THEIR LIVES.
A PARIS LETTER WHICH TELLS OF
THE APOSTLES TO THE LEPERS.

THE APOSTLES TO THE LEPERs.
Jesuit Priests Who Work Among the Vic
Tins of the Awful Disease-Christ the
Ideal of the knights of st. Lazarus-The
Hospital in Madagascar.
Heroic as was the devotion OF that apostle
of the lepers, Father Damien de Veuster, and
most deserved as were the praises bestowed
on the self sacrificing priest 10y the world,
this voluntary martyr to duty was only one |
among multitude of men and women who,
ever since the Christian religion began its
career, claimed as their dearest privilege to
care for the victims OF ieprosy.
Without going back 10 the early ages,
where we meet so many examples of this
same self sacrificing spirit, the history of me
dieval and modern Europe furnishes us at
every page with the names of institutions
especially established for the victims OF this
awful disease In Jerusalem, when it fell
into the possession Of the Crusaders, while
the Knights Hospitaers of St John devoted
their lives to the care of the sick and plague
stricken in general the Knights of st. Laza-
rus, an association of German noblemen,
consecrated their existence to the victims OF
leprosy, so numerous in the east.
This institution had for members only per-
sons of the highest nobility. In these old
feudal times it was thought that generosity
of disposition always accompanied gentle
blood. Noblesse oblige was the motto OF the
true representatives of ancient houses The
risks to which they were exposed who under
took to bring light and hope into the dark
and despairing life of the leper were beyond
/ IL H. l. arln-
est degree Of natural and religious hero!sm to
dedicate ones self by vow to the service of
these outcasts Of the human race, and the
loftiest honor and conscientiousness to perse-
we're in a calling which was a life long cruel
fixion
Christ, who was so tender TO the poor lep-
ers wherever he met them, and in his passion
is likened by the Prophet Isaiah to leper,
was the ideal whom these knights of St
Lazarus set before themselves. Indeed, it
was Christ whom they loved to behold i'll
every one of these hideous sufferers which
ancient society, both Jews and Gentiles, cast
forth from its midst
All Americans who come to Paris will re-
member the st. Lazare railway station. 1t
is so called from n leprosy hospital of the
Middle Ages with its adjoining monastery,
which existed down to the last century. 1t
was only one of several similar establish
ments founded here and there in France by
kings, mobiles or prelates, in which none but
persons of royal OF noble blood were allowed
to take monastic vows What was done in
France, after the example set in Palestine by
the German knights, was done in every coun-
try of Christendom exposed to the ravages of
leprosy, This general spirit of self sacrifice,
prompted by the Christian religion, and the
hoet Inns cam tn1
from the outside world were one principal
cause of drying up this fearful disease in
Christian and continental Europe. In Asia,
Africa and Oceanca laprosy under hun
dred forms continued its ravages.
Certain it is that wherever our missionaries
have labored outside of Europe ii the east,
and over the adjoining continents, either be-
fore the discoveries of Vasco dc CANA or Co
Iumbus or after them, they invariably met
with the plague Of leprosy, and had in their
charity TO care for the souls and bodies of
these wretched outcasts, treated as criminals
by both pagans and Mohammedans.
In the well known publication, Les Missions
Catholiques, which relates only very linn
tied portion of the labors performed under
the direction of the propaganda, it is author
itatively stated that the terrible and incura-
BILE infrmity of leprosy is devotedly and ten
derby cared for by our missionaries at Trini-
dad, in Japan, in China, in India and else
where. The herosm which has so startled
our pleasure loving world at Molokai is only
one manifestation of the same apostolic spirit
which finds the subjects of its devotion on
every island group in the vast Pacific as well
as on the neighboring maiulauds,
Here is one great leprosy hospital, in the
service of which several missionaries have
sacrificed health and life, that would not now
be heard of were it not that the sad state OF
affairs in France compels the missionaries to
call for pecuniary help to meet the needs OF
an ever increasing number of lepers,
The hospital is in Madagascar, that won
derful island so near the coast of Africa, and,
rs science proves, the sole remaining frag'
ment Of continent long ago submerged by
the surrounding ocean. The missionaries
all French Jesuits-appealed, in their dis
tress, to the great Society for the Propaga-
ton of the Faith, established long ago in
Lyons; hence the appearance in Les Missions
Catholiques of the name of n great and good
work, which deserves TO be made known to
the American public.
In Madagascar, as everywhere in heathen-
DOM every man, woman and child tainted
with leprosy was pitiessly driven from every
human habitation and obliged to live or per
first stay in France, from 1870 to 1859, listen
ing to more than one marvellous narrative of
missionary devotion, of devotion especially
to the victims of eprosy The French Jesuits
had a long and hard battle to fight in the
island, not only against the savage jealousy
of the idoutrous Hovas, but also against the
emiSsarics of the Protestant societies and the
misrepresentation which painted these priests
ms the fororuuners of French conquest and
domination,
Banished again and again from the island,
they managed to return. OF course, from the
beginning they had no thought of Sinking the
labor Of cvangelizing the lcpcrs, Of whom
large numbers wandered about in tho mag
nidcrnt forests, Stunned by all, and more
dreaded than wero the wild beasts and ser.
penis
At length the missionaries founded hos
pital asylum for these wretched wanderers at
Amhouloutara 1t was soon afterward trans
ferred to Ambahivoraka.-Be Bernard O'Reillys
Paris Letter.
The Doctors Fee.
The late DR. James A. Hahn, who used to
he surgeon of the Michigan Central read,
used to travel over the road very often. He
H.