The Independent. [volume] (Honolulu, H.I.) 1895-1905, 1902-06-30
Father Damion's Memory.
Continued from LIST paae.)

named Saint, it will be In virtue of
one work--your letter to the Rever-
end H. B. Gage
stevenson, writing nine years ago
and without the knowledge of the true
light which has since been thrown up
on the life and character of Father
Damien, takes up seriatim the charges
of Hyde against the martyr-priest that
he was coarse, that he was dirty, that
he was bigoted, ETC., etc, and re-
| Piled:
Damien was coarse.
1t is very possible. You make us
sorry for the lepers who had only
coarse old peasant for their frieend
and father. But you, who were SO
refined, why were you not Their to
| cheer them with the lights of culture?
Or may remind you that we have
some reason to doubt If John the Bap-
fist was genteel; and in the cast of
Peter, on whose career you doubtless
dwell approvingly in the pulpit, no
doubt at all he was a coarse, head
strong fisherman! Yet even in our
Protestant Bibles Peter is called
Saint
He condoles with the poor lepers
for having been annoyed with such "a
dirty comrade, but the clean DR..
Hyde was at his food in fine house
If Damien was bigoted, the essayist
thanks God for bigotry which pro-
duced such good results and made the
bigot one of tn worlds heroes and
eXamplers.'
There was another and viler
charge; that Damien was an immoral
man. Stevenson says that he had not
heard of any such charge outside of
Dr.. Hyde's clerical parlor save one.
and that was in tavern at Apia in
Samao and the man who made it was
beach-comber from Honolulu;
find a joy, continues Stevenson,
in telling you how the report was well
coined in public house. A man
sprang to his feet; | am not at liber-
ty to give his namc, but from what |
heard | doubt If you would care to
have him to dinner in Beretania
Street You miserable little -
(here Is q word | dare not print. it
would shock your ears. J You misera,
BILE little - he cried, If the story
were thousand times true, can't you
see you are million times lower
for daring to repeat it, | wish it could
daring to repeat it?' | wish it could
be told of you that when the report
reached you in your house perhaps
after family worship, you had found
in your soul enough holy anger to
receive it with the same expressions,
ay, even, with that one which | dare
not print; 1t would not need to have
been blotted away, like Uncle Toby's
oath, by the tears of the recording
angel; it would have been counted to
YOU for your brightest righteousness.
God forgive me for supposlng it, |
says Stevenson; but for the sake of |
argument, he does suppose that Dami-
on ever faltered in his priestly duty, !
and thus closes his Open Letter with |
this argumentum ad hominem, Rev.
DIR. Hyde, who, u he had had the least
spark of manhood in his composition,
would have been ashamed in his in
most heart by the scorn of the rebuke:
You had father; suppose this
tale were about him. and some infor-
mant brought 1t to you, proof in hand
am not making TOO high an estimate
of your emotional nature when I SUD.
pose you would regret the circum-
stance. that you would feel the tale
of frailty the more keenly since 1t
shamed the author of your days, and
that the last thing you would do
that the elast thing you would do
would be to publish it in the religious
press? Well. the man who tried to
do what Damien did is my father and
the father of the man in the Apia bar.
and the father of all who love good
ness; and he was your father, too,
If God had given you grace to see it,
Some good Catholics were Offend