The Birmingham age-herald., 1902-09-14

companion picture he found, to his as- tonishment, that the two models were the same. The model of "Depravity' was the once beautiful child, who had become deprayed by the fatal disease of lepros sin, which had wrought the horri- ble transformation in face and figure, in body and soul. So, my brother, though this disease of leprous sin may take many years to develop, yet it will surely permeate the mind and soul until both perish in horrible and loathsome cor ruption.
 Leprosy is an infectious disease. It is infectious as the scarlet fever germ is infectious. It Is spread throughout a community only by the leprous germ of one physical body .being brought in con- tact with another physical body when the latter is in a condition favorable for the development of that leprous germ. Thus, in the Lazar house established in New Brunswick, Canada, in 1865, 1t was found by investigation that every one of the ninety patients confined within that lep- rous hospital had contracted the disease of leproSy within radius of seventy miles from the point where the first case of Canadian leprosy was discovered. Convinced of It's infectious character Dr. Emerson, who was for many years in the employ of the Hawaiian govern ment gave as his testimony that it is
 
 ease in any other way than by isolation.
 The Terrors of Leprosy.
 To isolate the lepers of the Hawaiian Islands, Molokai, the leper reservation for the islands of the Pacific was es- ta--lshed. In the Holy Land. the Jews and gentiles alike drive their own lep- rous ldth and kin from their sides into isolation. They exclude them from the cities and towns. As you travel through the east those lepers. some with their arms and teeth gone, some on crutches, some sightless some with cracked and bleeding lips, come down the mountain side and in hoarse, piping voices beg for food and money. It seems to be a very heartless method thus to isolate the lep- CTS, but the orientals say, better that few men and women should starve and die, better that a few infectious lepers be exilsd from civilization, than that a whole community sicken and be de- stroyed.'
 The poet has we'll described the isola- tion of the infectious lepers in the east lest the rest of the community might be st-icken:
 Room for the leper, room," and as he
 came
 The cry passed on. Room for the leper.
 room.'
 And he went forth alone, not one of all IldHy WlOin ue lOsSu HUT SI6 WHOSe
 name
 Was woven in the flores of his heart to
 come and speak
 Comfort unto him. Yea, he went forth
 his way
 Sick and heart broken and alone to die, For God had cursed the leper.
 As the disease of leprosy Is fatally infectious, so are the leprous germs of sin. The evil which Is within us is very apt to become the evil which shall dwell within others The wrongs we do against our own selves are truly apt to become the sins which others shall do unto them selves also, and as this infection applies that to scatter the germs of sin we must come in contact with others it Is not a startling reflection that the people whom we are most liable to destroy by our sins are those who may be nearest and dear est to us? It will be the mother herself stricken with the leprosy of sin, who will destroy her own daughter the father his own son; the brother his own brot her; the wife her sister Kindred ties and eompanionship will only serve to facili- tate the transmission of the deadly in- lection. Therefore should we not feel as did Robert F. Lee when he was one win ter morning walking over the snows of Arlington? As he looked back he sa-v his ten-year-old boy trying to stretch his legs to step in his fathers tracks. Then said the greatest man the south has pro- duced for many a year, "If my boy Is going to walk in the path I am walking in, I must walk very careful that I al- ways walk in the path of purity and truth and honor and right" If our dear ones. those closest to us in life. are those