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They had the greatest difficulty in getting him to accept a bed. "And how poorly off he was; he who had spent so much money to relieve the lepers had so forgotten himself that he had none of the comforts and scarcely the necessaries of life." Sometimes he suffered intensely; sometimes he was partly unconscious. He said that he was continually conscious of two persons being present with him.
The wild boar roots up the corn in the valley, and the foxes gnaw the vines upon the hill. The pirates lay waste the sea-coast and burn the ships of the fishermen, and take their nets from them. In the salt-marshes live the lepers; they have houses of wattled reeds, and none may come nigh them. The beggars wander through the cities, and eat their food with the dogs.
There was probably a wall screening off the lepers. The first church of which any illustration is preserved has a curious tower, capped by a round dome. The view of this church, dated 1560, is taken after the dissolution of the hospital, when it had become entirely parochial.
Through his efforts a hospital was finally provided and a doctor came to Molokai, and following his example sisters of mercy and brave missionaries came there to work, but for a long time Father Damien was alone with his charges, performing rough tasks with none to aid him, except the aid that he obtained from the lepers themselves.
If the lepers had been afflicted with a disease easily cured, they might have said, "Any one could have healed us," but only Christ could restore them to health, and yet, when they had received of His cleansing power, they apparently felt no sense of obligation; at least, they expressed no gratitude.
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 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.
That description of mental or spiritual sorrows under the imagery of bodily sicknesses is intensified in the subsequent terrible picture of Him as one from whom men hide their faces with disgust at His hideous appearance, caused by disease. Possibly the meaning may rather be that He hides His face, as lepers had to do.
May the nine great Gods forgive me! but he who is in there is loving, pious and brave, and pleases me and thou, thou, who didst think yesterday to purge away the taint of his touch with a word what prompts thee today to cast him with the lepers?"
And so he put his affairs in order, and went around to all his friends and bade them good-bye, and sailed in the leper ship to Molokai. There he died the loathsome and lingering death that all lepers die. "Poor lepers!
Back against the stream of fugitives to the lepers and torch-bearers he hastened, shouting to each division, "Saved! Saved! They have gained the goal. Moses' staff is staying the waves. Many have already reached the shore. Thank the Lord! Forward, that you, too, may join in the rejoicing! Fix your eyes on the two red beacons! The rescued ones lighted them!
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