^miMmi^iip' 
 
 yoQ 
 
 FATHER DAMIEN 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER TO THE 
 REV. DR. HYDE OF HONOLULU 
 
 FROM 
 
 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 (}P?tAa Statement by Mrs.Stevenson) 
 
 "' >oc zz:::z. 
 
University of California • Berkeley 
 
 In Memory of 
 Herman D. Nichols 
 
 From the Bequest of his Wife 
 Dorothy L. Nichols 
 
 mmsfi 
 
Jfatljer Bamten 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2008 with funding from 
 
 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/fatherdamienopenOOstevrich 
 
Jfatfjer 2Samien 
 
 Hn Open Xetter to tbe 
 
 •RcvercnD H)r. SHgDc of Honolulu trom 
 
 ■Robert Xouis Stevenson 
 
 [WITH A STATEMENT BY MRS. STEVENSON] 
 
 XTbe Hve /Ibatia press 
 
 •ftotre ©ame, "BnMana 
 TH. S. », 
 
$ublis(f)er'£( preface. 
 
 <y|P^HE constant demand for the far-famed 
 4^v "Open Letter" in durable rather than 
 dainty form, but more especially the 
 reiterated assertion that Stevenson regretted 
 this production and would have recalled it 
 had recall been possible, are the raison d'itre 
 of the present reprint. An American author 
 of some repute has had the hardihood to 
 declare in one of his books that "Stevenson 
 did not really b^l ve what he wrote, neither 
 did he intend to 'rite what he did. . . . Steven- 
 son could not hr,vc been honest at heart when 
 he wrote his j2tier to Dr. Hyde." It is well, 
 perhaps, for t^is worthy that the pen of the 
 man whom he thus defames is now powerless. 
 Feeling sure that, some day when "in 
 his resting grave" the defender of Father 
 Damien would need to be defended himself, 
 we took care several years ago to secure from 
 Mrs. Stevenson a statement regarding the 
 "Open Letter to the Rev. Dr. Hyde." In 
 answer to our inquiry as to the truth of the 
 assertion, so often repeated, that her husband 
 regretted the letter, and that before his death 
 his opinion of Father Damien had undergone 
 a change, Mrs. Stevenson entered an indig- 
 nantly emphatic denial which is presented 
 on another page. This testimony, we think, 
 should forever settle the matter. The inquiry 
 
publiabcr's preface. 
 
 was made through the late Charles Warren 
 Stoddard, who was then contemplating a 
 new and enlarged edition (since published) 
 of his own beautiful tribute to Father Damien, 
 "The Lepers of Molokai." Mrs. Stevenson's 
 letter is in our possession. 
 
 It will further enhance the value and 
 interest of the present edition of Stevenson's 
 powerful apologia to state that it is an exact 
 reprint of the original issue, now of extreme 
 rarity, which has a few corrections in the 
 writer's own hand. The "Open Letter" was first 
 printed in a small pamphlet of thirty-two 
 pages, at Sydney, N. S. W., on March 27, 1890. 
 Many editions of it had been published before 
 Mr. Stevenson's death, and it is worth recalling 
 that he persistently refused to accept pay- 
 ment from any source for this defence of the 
 Apostle of Molokai. He once wrote to a 
 London pubHsher: "The letter to Dr. Hyde 
 is yours, or any man's. I will never touch a 
 penny of remuneration. I do not stick at 
 murder; I draw the line at cannibalism. I 
 could not eat a penny roll that piece of bludgeon- 
 ing brought me." 
 
 The use of the Rev. Dr. Rawnsley's exquisite 
 sonnet, from the collection of poems entitled 
 "Valete," is with his kind permission. 
 
 Notre Dame, Ind. 
 Jan. 10, 191 1. 
 
Statement 
 
 ... As to the "Open Letter to Dr. 
 Hyde," nothing can make me beUeve that 
 Louis ever regretted the subject - matter of 
 that piece of writing. To me, up to his 
 last hours, he spoke always in the same 
 strain. His admiration for the work and 
 character of "that saint, that martyr," 
 as he invariably called Father Damien, 
 remained unchanged; and any mention 
 of the cowardly attack on the dead man's 
 memory brought a flush of anger into his 
 face and a fire to his eye that were 
 unmistakable. . . . 
 
^atber Bamfen 
 
 nn ©pen Xctter to tbc IRevcrenD Dr. SH^Dc of 
 Donolulu from TRobcrt Xoufs Stcvcngon 
 
 Sydney, February 25, 1890. 
 
 j^< I R , — It may probably occur 
 ^F* to you that we have met, 
 and visited, and conversed ; 
 on my side with interest. You may 
 remember that you have done me 
 several courtesies for which I was pre- 
 pared to be grateful. But there are 
 duties which come before gratitude, and 
 offences which justly divide friends, far 
 more acquaintances. Your letter to the 
 Reverend H. B. Gage is a document 
 which, in my sight, if you had filled me 
 ^4th bread \vhen I was starving, if you 
 
Ifatbcr Damien, 
 
 had sat up to nurse my father wrhen he 
 lay a-dying, would yet absolve me from 
 the bonds of gratitude. You know- 
 enough, doubtless, of the process of 
 canonization to be aware that, a hun- 
 dred 3^ears after the death of Damien, 
 there w^ill appear a man charged with 
 the i^ainful office of the deviVs advocate. 
 After that noble brother of mine, and of 
 all frail clay, shall have lain a century 
 at rest, one shall accuse, one defend him. 
 The circumstance is unusual that the 
 devil's advocate should be a volunteer, 
 should be a member of a sect immedi- 
 ately rival, and should make haste to 
 take upon himself his ugly office ere 
 the bones are cold; unusual, and of a 
 taste v^rhich I shall leave my readers 
 free to qualify; unusual, and to me in- 
 spiring. If I have at all learned the 
 trade of using words to convey truth 
 and to arouse emotion, you have at 
 
•Robert Xouis Stevenson. 
 
 last furnished me with a subject. For 
 it is in the interest of all mankind and 
 the cause of public decency in every 
 quarter of the world, not only that 
 Damien should be righted, but that 
 you and your letter should be displayed 
 at length, in their true colors, to the 
 public eye. 
 
 To do this properly, I must begin 
 by quoting you at large: I shall then 
 proceed to criticise your utterance from 
 several points of view, divine and 
 human, in the course of which I shall 
 attempt to draw again and with more 
 specification the character of the dead 
 saint whom it has pleased you to 
 vilify : so much being done, I shall say 
 farewell to you forever. 
 
 ''Honolulu, Aug. 2, 1889, 
 *' Rev. H. B. Gage. 
 
 ''Dear Brother: — In answer to your 
 inquiries about Father Damien, I can 
 
^atbcr Damien. 
 
 only reply that "we ^vho knew the man 
 are surprised at the extravagant new^s- 
 paper laudations, as if he was a most 
 saintly philanthropist. The simple 
 truth is, he v^as a coarse, dirty man, 
 headstrong and bigoted. He was not 
 sent to Molokai, but \vent there with- 
 out orders; did not stay at the leper 
 settlement ( before he became one him- 
 self), but circulated freely over the 
 whole island ( less than half the island 
 is devoted to the lepers ), and he came 
 often to Honolulu. He had no hand 
 in the reforms and improvements in- 
 augurated, v^hich wrere the work of 
 our Board of Health, as occasion re- 
 quired and means were provided. He 
 was not a pure man in his relations 
 with \sromen, and the leprosy of Avhich 
 he died should be attributed to his vices 
 and carelessness. Others have done 
 much for the lepers, our own ministers. 
 
TRobcrt Xouis Stevenson. 
 
 the govemment j^liysicians, and so 
 forth, but never with the catholic 
 idea of meriting eternal life. 
 '*\otirs, etc., 
 
 "C. M. Hyde."* 
 
 To deal fith' A\4th a letter so ex- 
 traordinary^, I must dra\Y at the outset 
 on my private knowledge of the signa- 
 tory and his sect. It may offend others ; 
 scarcely you, who have been so busy to 
 collect, so bold to publish, gossip on 
 your rivals. And this is perhaps the 
 moment when I may best explain to 
 you the character of what you are to 
 read: I conceive you as a man quite 
 beyond and below the reticences of 
 civility: with what measure 3'ou mete, 
 with that shall it be measured you 
 again; with 3'ou at last, I rejoice to 
 feel the button off the foil and to plunge 
 
 *From the Sydney Presbyterian^ October 26, 
 1889. 
 
jfatber Damicn. 
 
 home. And if in aught that I shall say, 
 I should offend others, your colleagues, 
 whom I respect and remember with 
 affection, I can but offer them my re- 
 gret; I am not free, I am inspired by 
 the consideration of interests far more 
 large; and such pain as can be in- 
 flicted by anything from me must be 
 indeed trifling when compared with the 
 pain with which they read your letter. 
 It is not the hangman, but the criminal, 
 that brings dishonor on the house. 
 
 You belong, sir, to a sect — I believe my 
 sect, and that in which my ancestors 
 labored — which has enjoyed, and partly 
 failed to utilize, an exceptional advan- 
 tage in the islands of Hawaii. The 
 first missionaries came; they found the 
 land already self- purged of its old and 
 bloody faith; they were embraced, al- 
 most on their arrival, with enthusiasm ; 
 what troubles they supported came far 
 
TRobcrt Xoui6 Stevenson. 
 
 more from whites than from Hawraii- 
 ans; and to these last they stood (in 
 a rough figure ) in the shoes of God. 
 This is not the place to enter into the 
 degree or causes of their failure, such 
 as it is. One element alone is pertinent, 
 and must here be plainly dealt with. In 
 the course of their evangelical calling, 
 they — or too many of them — grew 
 rich. It may be news to you that the 
 houses of missionaries are a cause of 
 mocking on the streets of Honolulu. 
 It will at least be news to you that, 
 when I returned your civil visit, the 
 driver of my cab commented on the 
 size, the taste, and the comfort of your 
 home. It would have been news cer- 
 tainly to myself had any one told me 
 that afternoon that I should live to 
 drag such matter into print. But you 
 see, sir, how you degrade better men 
 to your own level; and it is needful 
 
ifatbcr Damicn. 
 
 that those who are to judge betwixt 
 you and me, betwixt Damien and the 
 devil's advocate, should understand 
 your letter to have been penned in a 
 house which could raise, and that very 
 justly, the env}- and the comments of 
 the passers-by. I think (to employ a 
 phrase of yours, which I admire) it 
 ** should be attributed" to you that 
 you have never visited the scene of 
 Damien's life and death. If you had, and 
 had recalled it, and looked about your 
 pleasant rooms, even your pen perhaps 
 would have been stayed. 
 
 Your sect ( and, remember, as far as 
 any sect avows me, it is mine ) has 
 not done ill in a worldly sense in the 
 Hawaiian Kingdom. When calamity 
 befell their innocent parishioners, when 
 leprosy descended and took root in the 
 Eight Islands, a quid pro quo was to 
 be looked for. To that prosperous mis- 
 
TRobcrt Xoute Stevenson. 
 
 sion, and fo you, as one of its adorn- 
 ments, God had sent at last an oppor- 
 tunity. I know I am touching here 
 upon a nerve acutely sensitive. I know- 
 that others of your colleagues look back 
 on the inertia of your church, and the 
 intrusive and decisive heroism of Da- 
 mien, with something almost to be 
 called remorse. I am sure it is so with 
 yourself; I am persuaded your letter 
 was inspired by a certain envy, not 
 essentially ignoble, and the one human 
 trait to be espied in that performance. 
 You were thinking of the lost chance, 
 the past day; of that which should 
 have been conceived and was not; of 
 the service due and not rendered. Time 
 waSy said the voice in your ear, in your 
 pleasant room, as you sat raging and 
 writing ; and if the words written were 
 base beyond parallel, the rage, I am 
 happy to repeat — it is the only com- 
 
10 3Fatbcr Damfcn. 
 
 pliment I shall pay ^^ou — the rage was 
 almost virtuous. But, sir, when we 
 have failed, and another has succeeded ; 
 when we have stood by, and another 
 has stepped in; when we sit and grow 
 bulky in our charming mansions, and 
 a plain, uncouth peasant steps into the 
 battle, under the eyes of God, and suc- 
 cors the afflicted, and consoles the 
 dying, and is himself^ afflicted in his 
 turn, and dies upon the field of honor 
 — the battle can not be retrieved as 
 your unhappy irritation has suggested. 
 It is a lost battle, and lost forever. 
 One thing remained to you in your 
 defeat — some rags of common honor; 
 and these you have made haste to cast 
 away. 
 
 Common honor; not the honor of 
 having done anything right, but the 
 honor of not having done aught con- 
 spicuously foul ; the honor of the inert : 
 
IRobcrt Xoufs Stevenson. ii 
 
 that was what remained to you. We 
 are not all expected to be Damiens; a 
 man may conceive his duty more nar- 
 rowly, he may love his comforts better ; 
 and none will cast a stone at him for 
 that. But will a gentleman of your 
 reverend profession allow me an ex- 
 ample from the fields of gallantry? 
 When two gentlemen compete for the 
 favor of a lady, and the one succeeds 
 and the other is rejected, and ( as will 
 sometimes happen) matter damaging to 
 the successful rival's credit reaches the 
 ear of the defeated, it is held by plain 
 men of no pretensions that his mouth 
 is, in the circumstance, almost neces- 
 sarily closed. Your church and Da- 
 mien's were in Hawaii upon a rivalry 
 to do well: to help, to edify, to set 
 divine examples. You having (in one 
 huge instance ) failed, and Damien suc- 
 ceeded, I marvel it should not have 
 
12 afatbct Damfcn. 
 
 occurred to you that you were doomed 
 to silence; that when you had been 
 outstripped in that high rivalry, and 
 sat inglorious in the midst of your well- 
 being, in your pleasant room — and 
 Damien, crowned with glories and hor- 
 rors, toiled and rotted in that pigsty 
 of his under the cliffs of Kalawao — you, 
 the elect who would not, were the last 
 man on earth to collect and propagate 
 gossip on the volunteer who would and 
 did. 
 
 I think I see you — for I try to see you 
 in the flesh as I write these sentences — 
 I think I see you leap at the word pig- 
 sty, a hyperbolical expression at the 
 best. "He had no hand in the re- 
 forms," he was "a coarse, dirty man"; 
 these -were your o\sm words; and you 
 may think it possible that I am come 
 to support you with fresh evidence. 
 In a sense it is even so. Damien has 
 
•Robert Xoufs Stevenson. 13 
 
 been too much depicted with, a conven- 
 tional halo and conventional features; 
 so drawn bj men who perhaps had not 
 the eye to remark or the pen to express 
 the individual; or v^ho perhaps were 
 only blinded and silenced by generous 
 admiration, such as I partly envy for 
 myself — such as you, if your soul were 
 enlightened, would envy on your 
 bended knees. It is the least defect of 
 such a method of portraiture that it 
 makes the path easy for the devil's 
 advocate, and leaves for the misuse of 
 the slanderer a considerable field of 
 truth. For the truth that is suppressed 
 by friends is the readiest weapon of the 
 enemy. The world, in your despite, 
 may perhaps owe you something, if 
 your letter be the means of substituting 
 once for all a credible likeness for a 
 wax abstraction. For, if that world 
 at all remember you, on the day when 
 
14 ifatbcr Damien. 
 
 Damien of Molokai shall be named 
 Saint, it ^11 be in virtue of one -work : 
 jour letter to the Reverend H. B. Gage. 
 You may ask on -what authority I 
 speak. It was my inclement destiny 
 to become acquainted, not with Da- 
 mien, but with Dr. Hyde. When I 
 visited the lazaretto, Damien was al- 
 ready in his resting grave. But such 
 information as I have, I gathered on the 
 spot in conversation with those who 
 knew him well and long: some indeed 
 who revered his memory; but others 
 who had sparred and wrangled with 
 him, who beheld him with no halo, 
 who perhaps regarded him v^ith small 
 respect, and through whose unpre- 
 pared and scarcely partial communica- 
 tions the plain, human features of the 
 man shone on me convincingly. These 
 gave me what knowledge I possess; 
 and I learned it in that scene where it 
 
•Robert Xouls Stevenson. 15 
 
 could be most completely and sensi- 
 tively understood — Kalawao, which 
 you have never visited, about which 
 you have never so much as endeavored 
 to inform yourself: for, brief as your 
 letter is, you have found the means 
 to stumble into that confession. " LfCSS 
 than one-half of the island," you say, 
 **is devoted to the lepers." Molokai 
 --'' Molokai ahina;' the ''gray," lofty, 
 and most desolate island — along all 
 its northern side plunges a front of 
 precipice into a sea of unusual pro- 
 fundity. This range of cliff is, from 
 east to west, the true end and frontier 
 of the island. Only in one spot there 
 projects into the ocean a certain tri- 
 angular and rugged down, grassy, 
 stony, windy, and rising in the midst 
 into a hill with a dead crater: the 
 whole bearing to the cliff that over- 
 hangs it, somewhat the same relation 
 
16 3Fatbcr H)amicn. 
 
 as a bracket to a wall. With this hint, 
 you will now be able to pick out the 
 leper station on a map; you will be 
 able to judge how much of Molokai 
 is thus cut off between the surf and 
 precipice, whether less than a half, or 
 less than a quarter, or a fifth, or a 
 tenth — or, say, a twentieth; and the 
 next time you burst into print you will 
 be in a position to share with us the 
 issue of your calculations. 
 
 T imagine you to be one of those per- 
 sons who talk with cheerfulness of that 
 place which oxen and wainropes could 
 not drag you to behold. You, who do 
 not even know its situation on the map, 
 probably denounce sensational descrip- 
 tions, stretching your limbs the while 
 in your pleasant parlor on Beretania 
 Street. When I was pulled ashore there 
 one early morning, there sat with me 
 in the boat two Sisters, bidding fare- 
 
IRobcrt Xonie Stevenson. 17 
 
 well ( in humble imitation of Damien ) 
 to the lights and joys of human life. 
 One of these wept silently ; I could not 
 withhold myself from joining her. Had 
 you been there, it is my belief that 
 nature w^ould have triumphed even in 
 you ; and as the boat drew but a little 
 nearer, and you beheld the stairs 
 crowded with abominable deforma- 
 tions of our common manhood, and 
 saw yourself landing in the midst of 
 such a population as only now and 
 then surrounds us in the horror of a 
 nightmare — what a haggard eye would 
 you have rolled over your reluctant 
 shoulder tow^ard the house on Bere- 
 tania Street! Had you gone on; had 
 you found every fourth face a blot 
 upon the landscape; had you visited 
 the hospital and seen the butt-ends of 
 human beings lying there almost un- 
 recognizable, but still breathing, still 
 
18 jfatber Damten. 
 
 thinking, still remembering ; you would 
 have understood that life in the laza- 
 retto is an ordeal from which the nerves 
 of a man's spirit shrink, even as his 
 eye quails under the brightness of the 
 sun; you would have felt it was (even 
 to-day) a pitiful place to visit and a 
 hell to dwell in. It is not the fear of 
 possible infection. That seems a little 
 thing when compared with the pain, 
 the pity, and the disgust of the visitor's 
 surroundings, and the atmosphere of 
 affliction, disease, and physical disgrace 
 in which he breathes. I do not think 
 I am a man more than usually timid ; 
 but I never recall the days and nights 
 I spent upon that island promontory 
 ( eight days and seven nights ), with- 
 out heartfelt thankfulness that I am 
 somewhere else. I find in my diary 
 that I speak of my stay as "a grind- 
 ing experience": I have once jotted m 
 
■Robert Xoui5 Stevenson. 19 
 
 the margin, *^ Harrowing- is the word"; 
 and when the Mokolii bore me at last 
 toward the outer world, I kept re- 
 peating to myself, Avith a new concep- 
 tion of their pregnancy, those simple 
 words of the song — 
 
 **'Tis the most distressful country 
 That ever yet was seen." 
 
 And observe: that which I saw and 
 suffered from was a settlement, purged, 
 bettered, beautified; the new village 
 built, the hospital and the Bishop 's- 
 Home excellently arranged ; the Sisters, 
 the doctor, and the missionaries all in- 
 defatigable in their noble tasks. It was 
 a different place when Damien came 
 there, and made his great renunciation, 
 and slept that first night under a tree 
 amidst his rotting brethren: alone 
 w^ith pestilence ; and looking forward 
 (with what courage, with what piti- 
 ful sinkings of dread, God only knows ) 
 
20 iPatber Damlen. 
 
 to a lifetime of dressing sores and 
 stumps. 
 
 You will say, perhaps, I am too 
 sensitive, that sights as painful abound 
 in cancer hospitals and are confronted 
 daily by doctors and nurses. I have 
 long learned to admire and envy the 
 doctors and the nurses. But there is 
 no cancer hospital so large and popu- 
 lous as Kalawao and Kalaupapa; and 
 in such a matter every fresh case, like 
 eveiy inch of length in the pipe of an 
 organ, deepens the note of the impres- 
 sion; for what daunts the onlooker 
 is that monstrous sum of human suf- 
 fering by which he stands surrounded. 
 Lastly, no doctor or nurse is called 
 upon to enter once for all the doors 
 of that gehenna ; they do not say fare- 
 well, they need not abandon hope, on 
 its sad threshold; they but go for a 
 time to their high calling ; and can look 
 
IRobcrt Xoui6 Stevenson. 21 
 
 forward as they go to relief, to recrea- 
 tion, and to rest. But Damien shut to 
 with his own hand the doors of his 
 owii sepulchre. 
 
 I shall now extract three passages 
 from my diary at Kalawao. 
 
 A. ''Damien is dead and already 
 somew^hat ungratefully remembered in 
 the field of his labors and sufferings. 
 'He w^as a good man, but very offi- 
 cious,' says one. Another tells me he 
 had fallen (as other priests so easily 
 do) into something of the ways and 
 habits of thought of a Kanaka; but 
 he had the wit to recognize the' fact, 
 and the good sense to laugh at" [over] 
 "it. A plain man it seems he was; I 
 can not find he was a popular." 
 
 B. "After Ragsdale's death" [Rags- 
 dale was a famous Luna, or overseer, 
 of the unruly settlement] "there fol- 
 lowed a brief term of office by Father 
 
22 jpatbcr Damicn. 
 
 Damien which served only to pubHsh 
 the weakness of that noble man. He 
 w^as rough in his ways, and he had no 
 control. Authority was relaxed; Da- 
 mien's life was threatened, and he was 
 soon eager to resign." 
 
 C. **0f Damien I begin to have an 
 idea. He seems to have been a man 
 of the peasant class, certainly of the 
 peasant type: shrewd, ignorant and 
 bigoted; yet v^rith an open mind, and 
 capable of receiving and digesting a 
 reproof if it v^ere bluntly administered ; 
 superbly generous in the least thing as 
 well as in the greatest, and as ready to 
 give his last shirt ( although not with- 
 out human grumbling) as he had been 
 to sacrifice his life ; essentially indiscreet 
 and officious, v^hich made him a trouble- 
 some colleague; domineering in all his 
 ways, which made him incurably un- 
 popular wth the Kanakas, but yet 
 
'Robert Xouid Stevenson, 23 
 
 destitute of real authority, so that his 
 boys laughed at him, and he must carry 
 out his wishes by the means of bribes. 
 He learned to have a mania for doctor- 
 ing; and set up the Kanakas against 
 the remedies of his regular rivals: per- 
 haps (if anything matter at all in the 
 treatment of such a disease) the worst 
 thing that he did, and certainly the 
 easiest. The best and worst of the man 
 appear very plainly in his dealings with 
 Mr. Chapman's money; he had original- 
 ly laid it out" [intended to lay it out] 
 ''entirely for the benefit of Catholics, 
 and even so not wisely; but after a 
 long, plain talk, he admitted his error 
 fully, and revised the list. The sad state 
 of the boys' home is in part the result 
 of his lack of control; in part, of his 
 own slovenly ways and false ideas of 
 hygiene. Brother officials used to call 
 it 'Damien's Chinatown.' *Well,' they 
 
24 Jatbcr Damien. 
 
 would say, 'your Chinatown keeps 
 gro^ng.' And he would laugh with 
 perfect good nature, and adhere to his 
 errors with perfect obstinacy. So much 
 I have gathered of truth about this 
 plain, noble human brother and Father 
 of ours ; his imperfections are the traits 
 of his face, by which we know him for 
 our fellow; his martyrdom and his ex- 
 amiple nothing can lessen or annul ; <ind 
 only a person here on the spot can 
 properly appreciate their greatness.' 
 
 I have set down these private pas- 
 sages, as you perceive, w^ithout correc- 
 tion; thanks to you, the public has 
 them in their bluntness. They are al- 
 most a list of the man's faults, for it is 
 rather these that I was seeking, with 
 his virtues, with the heroic profile of his 
 life, I and the v^orld were already suf- 
 ficiently acquainted. I v^as besides a 
 little suspicious of Catholic testimony; 
 
■Robert Xouis Stevenson. 25 
 
 in no ill sense, but merely because Da- 
 mien's admirers and disciples were the 
 least likely to be critical. I know you 
 \\411 be more suspicious still; and the 
 facts set down above were one and all 
 collected from the lips of Protestants 
 who had opposed the Father in his life. 
 Yet I am strangely deceived, or they 
 build up the image of a man, with all 
 his weaknesses, essentially heroic, and 
 alive with rugged honesty, generosity, 
 and mirth. 
 
 Take it for what it is, rough private 
 jottings of the worst sides of Damien's 
 character, collected from the lips of 
 those who had labored with and (in 
 your own phrase) ''knew the man," — 
 though I question whether Damien 
 would have said that he knew you. 
 Take it, and obser\^e with wonder how" 
 well you w^ere served by your gossips, 
 how ill by your intelligence and sympa- 
 
26 jfatbcr Damicn. 
 
 thy; in how many points of fact we 
 are at one, and how widely our appre- 
 ciations vary. There is something 
 wrong here; either with you or me. 
 It is possible, for instance, that you, 
 who seem to have so many ears in 
 Kalawao, had heard of the affair of 
 Mr. Chapman's money, and were singly 
 struck by Damien's intended wrong- 
 doing. I was struck with that also, 
 and set it fairly down ; but I was struck 
 much more by the fact that he had the 
 honesty of mind to be convinced. I 
 may here tell you that it was a long 
 business ; that one of his colleagues sat 
 with him late into the night, multiph^- 
 ing arguments and accusations; that 
 the Father listened as usual with '* per- 
 fect good nature and perfect obstinacy"; 
 but at the last, when he was persuaded 
 — ''Yes," said he, ''I am very much 
 obliged to you; j^ou have done me a 
 
■Robert Xouis Stevenson. 27 
 
 service; it would have been a theft." 
 There are many (not Catholics merely) 
 who require their heroes and saints to 
 be infallible; to these the story will be 
 painful ; not to the true lovers, patrons, 
 and servants of mankind. 
 
 And I take it, this is a type of our 
 division: that you are one of those 
 who have an eye for faults and failures ; 
 that you take a pleasure to find and 
 publish them; and that, having found 
 them, you make haste to forget the 
 overvailing virtues and the real success 
 which had alone introduced them to 
 your knowledge. It is a dangerous 
 frame of mind. That you may under- 
 stand how dangerous, and into what 
 a situation it has already brought you, 
 we will (if you please) go hand-in-hand 
 through the different phrases of your 
 letter, and candidly examine each from 
 
28 iFatber Damicn. 
 
 the point of view of its truth, its 
 appositeness, and its charity. 
 
 Damien was coarse. 
 
 It is very possible. You make us sorry 
 for the lepers, who had only a coarse 
 old peasant for their friend and Father. 
 But you, who were so refined, why 
 were you not there to cheer them with 
 the lights of culture ? Or may I remind 
 you that we have some reason to doubt 
 if John the Baptist were genteel; and, 
 in the case of Peter, on whose career 
 you doubtless dwell approvingly in the 
 pulpit, no doubt at all that he was a 
 "coarse, headstrong" fisherman! Yet, 
 even in our Protestant Bibles, Peter is 
 called Saint. 
 
 Damien was dirty. 
 
 He was. Think of the poor lepers 
 annoyed with this dirty comrade ! But 
 the clean Dr. Hyde was at his food in 
 a fine house. 
 
•Robert Xouis Stevenson. 29 
 
 Damien was headstrong. 
 
 I believe you are right again; and I 
 thank God for his strong head and 
 heart. 
 
 Damien was bigoted. 
 
 I am not fond of bigots myself, be- 
 cause they are not fond of me. But 
 what is meant by bigotry, that we 
 should regard it as a blemish in a 
 priest? Damien believed his own re- 
 ligion with the simplicity of a peasant 
 or a child; as I would I could suppose 
 that you do^ For this, I w^onder at him 
 some way off; and had that been his 
 only character, should have avoided 
 him in life. But the point of interest in 
 Damien, which has caused him to be so 
 much talked about and made him at 
 last the subject of your pen and mine, 
 was that, in him, his bigotry, his in- 
 tense and narrow faith, wrought 
 potently for good, and strengthened 
 
30 jpatbcr Damlen. 
 
 him to be one of the world's heroes 
 and exemplars. 
 
 Damien was not sent to Molokaiy 
 hut went there without orders. 
 
 Is this a misreading ? or do you really 
 mean the words for blame? I have 
 heard Christ, in the pulpits of our 
 Church, held up for imitation on the 
 ground that His sacrifice was volun- 
 tary. Does Dr. H^^de think otherv^ise? 
 
 Damien did not stay at the settle- 
 ment j etc. 
 
 It is true he was allowed many in- 
 dulgences. Am I to understand that 
 you blame the Father for profiting by 
 these, or the officers for granting them ? 
 In either case, it is a mighty Spartan 
 standard to issue from the house on 
 Beretania Street; and I am convinced 
 you will find yourself with few sup- 
 porters. 
 
•Robert Xouis Stevenson. 3i 
 
 Damien had no hand in the reforms y 
 etc. 
 
 I think even you will admit that I 
 have already been frank in my descrip- 
 tion of the man I am defending; but 
 before I take you up upon this head, 
 I will be franker still, and tell you that 
 perhaps nowhere in the world can a 
 man taste a more pleasurable sense of 
 contrast than when he passes from Da- 
 mien's ** Chinatown " at Kalawao to the 
 beautiful Bishop's-Home at Kalaupapa. 
 At this point, in my desire to make 
 all fair for you, I will break my rule 
 and adduce Catholic testimony. Here 
 is a passage from my diary about my 
 visit to the Chinatown, from which 
 you will see how it is (even now) re- 
 garded by its own officials : ** We went 
 round all the dormitories, refectories, 
 etc. — dark and dingy enough, with a 
 superficial cleanliness, which he" [Mr. 
 
32 JTatbcr iDamien, 
 
 Button, the lay brother] 'Mid not seek 
 to defend. *It is almost decent,' said 
 he ; * the Sisters will make that all right 
 when we get them here.'" And yet 1 
 gathered it was already better since 
 Damien was dead, and far better than 
 when he was there alone and had his 
 own (not alwrays excellent) w^ay. I 
 have now come far enough to meet 
 you on a common ground of fact ; «and 
 I tell you that, to a mind not prejudiced 
 by jealousy, all the reforms of the Laza- 
 retto, and even those which he most 
 vigorously opposed, are properly the 
 work of Damien. They are the evidence 
 of his success; they are v^hat his hero- 
 ism provoked from the reluctant and 
 the careless. Many were before him in 
 the field; Mr. Meyer, for instance, of 
 whose faithful work we hear too little ; 
 there have been many since ; and -some 
 had more worldly wisdom, though none 
 
"Robert Xouis Stevenson. ,33 
 
 had more devotion, than our saint. Be- 
 fore his day, even you will confess, they 
 had effected little. It was his part, by 
 one striking act of martyrdom, to direct 
 all men*s eyes on that distressful 
 country. At a blow, and with the 
 price of his life, he made the place 
 illustrious and public. And, that, if 3^ou 
 will consider largely, was the one re- 
 form needful; pregnant of all that 
 should succeed. It brought money; it 
 brought (best individual addition of 
 them all ) the Sisters ; it brought super- 
 vision, for public opinion and public 
 interest landed with the man at Kala- 
 wao. If ever any man brought reforms, 
 and died to bring them, it was he. 
 There is not a clean cup or towel in 
 the Bishop's -Home but dirty Damien 
 washed it. 
 
 Damien was not a pure man in his 
 relations with women, etc. 
 
34 jfatbcr Damfcn. 
 
 How do you know that? Is this 
 the nature of the conversation in that 
 house on Beretania Street which the 
 cabman envied, driving past? — racy 
 details of the misconduct of the poor 
 peasant priest, toiHng under the cliffs 
 of Molokai ? 
 
 Many have visited the station be- 
 fore me; they seem not to have heard 
 the rumor. When I was there I heard 
 many shocking tales, for my informants 
 were men speaking with the plainness 
 of the laity; and I heard plenty of 
 complaints of Damien. Why was this 
 never mentioned ? and how came it to 
 you in the retirement of your clerical 
 parlor ? 
 
 But I must not even seem to deceive 
 you. This scandal, when I read it in 
 your letter, was not new to me. I had 
 heard it once before; and I must tell 
 you how. There came to Samoa a man 
 
Kobcrt Xouls Stevenson. 35 
 
 from Honolulu; he, in a public-house 
 on the beach, volunteered the statement 
 that Damien had *' contracted the dis- 
 ease from having connection -with the 
 female lepers "; and I find a joy in telling 
 3^ou how the report was welcomed in 
 a public-house. A man sprang to his 
 feet; I am not at liberty to give his 
 name, but from what I heard I doubt 
 if you would care to have him to dinner 
 in Beretania Street. ** You miserable lit- 
 tle ,'* (here is a word I dare not print, 
 
 it would so shock your ears). "You 
 
 miserable little ," he cried," if the 
 
 story were a thousand times true, can't 
 you see you are a million times a lower 
 
 for daring to repeat it?" I wish 
 
 it could be told of you that when the 
 report reached you in your house, per- 
 haps after family worship, you had 
 found in your soul enough holy anger 
 to receive it with the same expressions ; 
 
36 iFatbcr Damicn. 
 
 ay, even with that one which I dare 
 not print; it would not need to have 
 been blotted away, like Uncle Toby's 
 oath, by the tears of the recording 
 angel; it \srould have been counted to 
 you for your brightest righteousness. 
 But you have deliberately chosen the 
 part of the man from Honolulu, and 
 you have played it with improvements 
 of your own. The man from Honolulu 
 — miserable, leering creature — communi- 
 cated the tale to a rude knot of beach- 
 combing drinkers in a public-house, 
 where (I will so far agree v^ith your 
 temperance opinions) man is not al- 
 ways at his noblest; and the man 
 from Honolulu had himself been drink- 
 ing — drinking, v^e may charitably fancy, 
 to excess. It was to your **Dear 
 Brother, the Reverend H. B. Gage," 
 that you chose to communicate the 
 sickening stor}^; and the blue ribbon 
 
KoDcrt Xoui6 Stevenson. 37 
 
 whicli adorns your portly bosom for- 
 bids me to allow you the extenuating 
 plea that you were drunk when it w^as 
 done. Your * * dear brother ' * — a brother 
 indeed — made haste to deliver up your 
 letter (as a means of grace, perhaps) 
 to the religious papers; where, after 
 many months, I found and read and 
 wondered at it; and whence I have 
 now reproduced it for the wonder of 
 others. And you and your dear brother 
 have, by this cycle of operations, built 
 up a contrast very edifying to examine 
 in detail. The man whom you would 
 not care to have to dinner, on the one 
 side; on the other, the Reverend Dr. 
 Hyde and the Reverend H. B. Gage ; the 
 Apia bar-room, the Honolulu manse. 
 But I fear you scarce appreciate how 
 you appear to your fellowmen: and 
 to bring it home to you, I will suppose 
 your story to be true, I will suppose 
 
38 Jfatbet jtt)amien. 
 
 — and God forgive me for supposing it 
 — ^that Damien faltered and stumbled 
 in his narrow path of duty ; I will sup- 
 pose that, in the horror of his isolation, 
 perhaps in the fever of incipient disease, 
 he, who was doing so much more than 
 he had sworn, failed in the letter of his 
 priestly oath — he, v^ho was so much a 
 better man than either you or me, who 
 did what we have never dreamed of 
 daring — he too tasted of our common 
 frailty. '' lago, the pity of it ! " The 
 least tender should be moved to tears; 
 the most incredulous to prayer. And 
 all that you could do was to pen your 
 letter to the Reverend H. B. Gage ! 
 
 Is it growing at all clear to you what 
 a picture you have dra-wn of your ov^n 
 heart? I will try yet once again to 
 make it clearer. You had a father: 
 suppose this tale were about him, and 
 some informant brought it to you, 
 
"Robert Xouig Stevenson. 39 
 
 proof in hand: I am not making too 
 high an estimate of your emotional 
 nature when I suppose you would re- 
 gret the circumstance ? that you would 
 feel the tale of frailty the more keenly 
 since it shamed the author of your 
 days? and that the last 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 goodness; and he was your 
 Father, too, if God had given you grace 
 ^^ see it. 
 
Jfatfier SBamten. 
 
 APRIL, 1889. 
 
 iO golden dome shines over Damien's sleep: 
 
 A leper's grave upon a leprous strand, 
 Where hope is dead, and hand must shrink 
 from hand, 
 Where cataracts wail towards a moaning deep, 
 And frowning purple cliffs in mercy keep 
 All wholesome life at distance, hath God 
 
 planned 
 For him who led his saintly hero band, 
 And died a shepherd of Christ's exiled sheep. 
 
 O'er Damien's dust the broad skies bend for 
 dome, 
 Stars burn for golden letters, and the sea 
 Shall roll perpetual anthem round his rest: 
 For Damien made the charnel-house life's home, 
 Matched love with death; and Damien's name 
 shall be 
 A glorious benediction, world-possest. 
 
 H. D. Rawnsley. 
 
9 Companton |3oob. 
 
 ("Ubc Xcpcra of /Rolofiai," b^ Cbarlcs "TOlarren Stobbart.) 
 
 AVE MARIA PRESS, NOTRE DAME. IND. 
 
 "Robert Louis Stevenson's 'Open Letter to 
 the Rev. Dr. Hyde of Honolulu* has pilloried 
 the defamer of the martyr for all time"; in 
 Charles Warren Stoddard's transporting volume, 
 the prologue to which is here presented, the martyr's 
 memory is forever hallowed. 
 
prologue. 
 
 ^IKHE afternoon was waning in the 
 ^ly tropical seaport; already the heat 
 was tempered and the glare softened by 
 the humidity of the slowly approaching 
 dusk. A little while and the sun would 
 sink silently into the immeasurable abyss 
 beyond the waves, and the brief, delicious 
 twilight, bathed for a moment only in 
 the splendor of the afterglow, would 
 adorn itself with clusters of trembling 
 stars. 
 
 At such an hour, beguiled with reveries 
 and soothed by the exquisite fragrance 
 that exhales at dew-fall, I was startled 
 by a piercing cry that seemed the last 
 agonizing protest of a riven heart. Not 
 one voice only broke upon the stillness, 
 but another and another, and yet another, 
 until a chorus of despair rang shrilly 
 over the low-roofed cottages in the grove 
 that stood between me and the not far- 
 distant shore. With no little emotion 
 I hurried seaward, and speedily over- 
 took a melancholy procession of weeping 
 
prologue. 
 
 women following a few silent people, 
 who were being conducted with decent 
 haste toward the esplanade of Honolulu. 
 
 The miserable beings, with a dazed 
 look of lingering death in their fearful 
 countenances, were soon disposed on the 
 deck of a small outward-bound craft; 
 and then, in the few moments that inter- 
 vened between the casting off of the 
 shoreline and the sudden impulse of 
 the little steamer as she swung about in 
 mid-stream, and made bravely for the 
 mouth of the harbor, the pitiful wail of 
 men, women and children was renewed. 
 Those grouped upon the extreme edge 
 of the wharf were wringing their hands 
 over the water, while rivers of tears 
 coursed down their ashen cheeks. The 
 others, upon the deck of the departing 
 vessel, brooded for a time as in dull 
 agony, but anon an unearthly cry rang 
 over the tranquil sea: it was their long 
 farewell. 
 
 The sun, just touching the horizon, 
 seemed to pause for a moment, while 
 the great deep burst into a sheet of 
 flame; tongues of fire darted and played 
 among the wavelets as they tossed in 
 
prologue. 
 
 the evening breeze; and the broad rays 
 shot from cloud to cloud, painting them 
 with glory, and crowning the peaks of 
 the beautiful island with red-gold. Even 
 the palm-trees were gilded, and their 
 plumes glistened as they swayed rhyth- 
 mically to the low melody of the tide 
 that ebbed beneath them. 
 
 So faded that ill-starred bark like 
 a mote in the shimmering sea. A few 
 moments only, and the splendor died 
 away — the twilight glow of the tropics 
 is as brief as it is intense — and the sudden 
 coming of night drew a veil over a picture 
 that, though frequent, is nevertheless 
 painful to the least sympathetic observer. 
 
 Darkness had come; the silence that 
 came with it was broken only by the 
 splash of ripples under the bow of some 
 passing canoe, or the low moan of the 
 water upon the distant reef. But the 
 mourners were still crouching upon the 
 edge of the dock, whence their eyes had 
 caught the last glimpse of the fading 
 forms of those whom they were never 
 again to behold in the flesh; for those 
 despairing but unresisting souls, swallowed 
 up in the transfiguration of the sunset, 
 
prologue. 
 
 were lepers, snatched from the breast 
 of sympathy and from the arms of love, 
 doomed to the hopeless degradation of 
 everlasting banishment, and borne in 
 the night to that dim island whose 
 melancholy shores are the sole refuge 
 of these hostages to death: an island 
 as solitary, as silent, as serene as dream- 
 land — mournful Molokai. 
 
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