to his superiors, volunteering to go to the
Sandwich Islands in place of Father Pamphile, and soon a letter was
received consenting to the new arrangement. Wild with delight he told
his brother of what had taken place and at once commenced making his
preparations for the voyage.

The islands to which Father Damien was bound are of the greatest
tropical beauty, and the natives have become known all over the world
for their strange customs, their unusual music and their skill in
swimming the deep blue waters that surround the land where they live.
At that time, however, they were suffering from the ravages of the most
terrible disease, perhaps, in the entire world,--certainly the one most
feared from the times of the Bible down to the present day. This was
the disease of leprosy.

Leprosy was not a native disease in the Hawaiian Islands originally,
but had been carried there by merchants or voyagers from the Far East
where was its home, but it spread so rapidly among the natives that
before long it seemed as if the Hawaiian Islands themselves had been
the cradle of this terrible scourge. This was due, we are told, to the
hospitable habits of the islanders, who lived closely together, and to
their kindness in persisting in keeping with them those members of
their families who had already fallen its victims. At about the time
that Father Damien reached the islands, however, the Government had
taken the matter in hand, and all the lepers that could be found were
torn from their families and carried to a lonely island named Molokai.
Here they were outcasts, deserted by their friends and relatives,
living in wretchedness and desolation and, in that time, provided only
with the barest necessities of life.

After a voyage of five months, in which his ship contended with many
gales and much rough weather, Father Damien arrived in the Sandwich
Islands and was at once made a full priest and given a parish in a wild
part of the country--a parish so large that it took him days to go from
one end of it to the other. He worked hard and soon became well known
among the natives under his care, and to his fellow churchmen as a man
of great earnestness and much physical strength.

One day Father Damien happened to be at a meeting of churchmen which
was being addressed by the Bishop who said that he deeply regretted
that he could spare no priest to send to the Island of Molokai to the
unfortunate lepers, who seemed to be cast off there