ould be displayed at length, in their true colours,
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 for ever.

"HONOLULU,
"_August_ 2, 1889.

"Rev. H. B. GAGE.

"Dear Brother,--In answer to your inquires about Father Damien, I can
only reply that we who knew the man are surprised at the extravagant
newspaper laudations, as if he was a most saintly philanthropist. The
simple truth is, he was a coarse, dirty man, headstrong and bigoted.
He was not sent to Molokai, but went there without orders; did not
stay at the leper settlement (before he became one himself), 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 inaugurated, which were the work of
our Board of Health, as occasion required and means were provided. He
was not a pure man in his relations with women, and the leprosy of
which he died should be attributed to his vices and carelessness.
Other have done much for the lepers, our own ministers, the government
physicians, and so forth, but never with the Catholic idea of meriting
eternal life.--Yours, etc.,

"C. M. HYDE" {1}

To deal fitly with a letter so extraordinary, I must draw at the outset
on my private knowledge of the signatory 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 you mete, with that shall it be measured you again; with you, at
last, I rejoice to feel the button off the foil and to plunge 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
regret; I am not free, I am inspired by the consideration of interests
far more large; and such pain as can be inflicted by anything from me
must be indeed trifling when compared with the