by your gossips, how ill by your
intelligence and sympathy; in how many points of fact we are at one, and
how widely our appreciations 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, multiplying arguments
and accusations; that the father listened as usual with "perfect
good-nature and perfect obstinacy"; but at the last, when he was
persuaded--"Yes," said he, "I am very much obliged to you; you have done
me a 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 understand 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 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 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.

Damien was _headstrong_.

I believe you are right again; and I