ay remember that you have
done me several courtesies, for which I was prepared 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 with
bread when I was starving, if you had sat up to nurse my father when he
lay a-dying, would yet absolve me from the bonds of gratitude. You know
enough, doubtless, of the process of canonisation to be aware that, a
hundred years after the death of Damien, there will appear a man charged
with the painful office of the _devil's 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
immediately rival, and should make haste to take upon himself his ugly
office ere the bones are cold; unusual, and of a taste which I shall
leave my readers free to qualify; unusual, and to me inspiring. If I
have at all learned the trade of using words to convey truth and to
arouse emotion, you have at 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
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 inquiries 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