Part 8 (1/2)
From time to tis, and over two hundred years ago a beautiful island in the aegean Sea, called Leros, was set apart for them, and a band of nuns opened a hospital or lazar-house, as it was called, to do what they could to lessen their sufferings, and sooner or later to share their fate
nobody, except perhaps the nuns' own relations, thought much about them--people in those days considered illness and ht The world was busy with discoveries of new countries and ars of conquest or religion, and those who had no strength for the march fell by the wayside, and were left there
Nowadays it is a little different; there are ood Samaritans and fewer Levites; the wounded ht out in their own homes, and are taken to hospitals, where they are tended free of cost
It is the story of a ave himself up to the saddest of lives and theto tell you
On a cold day in January 1841 a little boy was born in the city of Louvain, in Belgium, to Monsieur and Madame Damien de Veuster He had already a brother a few years older, and for soer in all ways looking up to the elder, who see We have no idea what sort of lives they led, but theirchurch in the town, and no doubt took her sons with her, and taught the others and giving up their oills than to strive for riches or honours Their father, too, bade them learn to endure hardness and to bear without coht befall them And the boys listened to his counsel with serious faces, though they could be h at times
The lessons of their early years bore fruit, and one day the elder boy informed his parents that he wished to become a priest It hat both father and mother had expected, and reed to his desire Arrangee, where he would have to live until he was old enough to be ordained
Joseph, the younger, reatly He loved his father and hts and drea the quiet moments that he passed in church Yet, from e know of his after-life, wealoof fro; he watched with interest while the work down the pipes which were to carry the water from the river to some dry field; he noted how the doctor bound up wounds and treated sores; and indeed no sort of knowledge that aDamien As to what he would do when he was aeither
On January 3, 1860, Joseph was nineteen, and Monsieur Damien proposed to take him as a birthday treat to see his brother, and to leave the two together while he went to the town on so time since they had met, and there was much to ask and hear We do not know exactly what took place, but when Monsieur Damien returned to fetch Joseph, his son told him that he had made up his mind to follow in his brother's steps, and to be a priest also
Monsieur Das were tending He would perhaps have liked to keep one son with hie for himself and he did not intend to make any objection Still, he was hardly prepared for the boy's announceht he would best spare his rown accusto permission to come to see her for the last time before he becaave his consent to this plan He tried in vain to induce Joseph to think it over and to go back with hith the father took leave of both his sons, and with a heavy heart returned home to break the news to his wife
In this way Joseph Damien set about the hich was by and by to ht He does not seereatness, like so many boys, or of adventures of which he was always the hero As far as we can guess, Joseph Da that came next and lay ready to his hand, and thus fitted hireater and better Just now he had to study hard, and as soon as his father had written to say that neither he nor his mother wished to hold back their son froe where his brother had received his training for the priesthood
For some time--we do not know if it was years or onlythat the harder he worked the sooner he would be ready to go forth on 'active service' against the sin and misery of the world His brother's plans were already for for the islands in the South Seas, which more than forty years before had been visited by a band of As that prevailed in the lovely group of the Sandwich Islands when the missionaries arrived there The isles had been discovered during the eighteenth century by Captain Cook, but from the white men, chiefly merchants and traders, who followed hi but evil, and fell victims to horrible diseases hitherto unknown there To the Americans, who had left snow and ice behind them, the islands of Hawaii--to use their native nah the sun beat fiercely on thereat forests there was silence as well as darkness Here the trees were bound together by ropes of flowery creepers, while outside, in the light and air, were groves of towering cocoa pal with their roots al the huts, which could hardly be seen for the huge clusters of heliotropes, roses, and lilies that overshadowed thereatest e, blue and scarlet; corals, seaweeds of every colour, creatures of every form and shape, whose names no white man knew
Afterwards, the missionaries learned that volcanoes were scattered over the islands, so wide blacklava, which even in the sunshi+ne take on a scarlet hue, and in the night gleam a yellohite Besides these wonders, there were also the curious customs of the people to be studied; and it was very necessary to know these, or a ht break the law and incur the penalty of death without having the slightest idea that he was doing any haro to pay a friendly visit to a chief, on whoht lose his way, and seeing a hut surrounded by a palisade would hasten to ask the shortest road to his tent, not guessing that he was entering the sacred home of a chieftain If he offered a tired child a drink of cocoa-nut ht about her death as certainly as if he had put the rope round her neck But shortly before the arrival of the Ah no doubt they still lingered in out-of-the-way places
The reigningin the ht hiers had landed Full of politeness, like all the islanders, the king at once hastened to greet them, followed by the ladies The missionaries felt a little aard, which was foolish, as the Hawaiians seldo uests were ill at ease, and deterain So when they had taken leave of him, he sent for one of his servants and bade hi to a trader who had died in the palace
A pair of silk stockings was found and a tall and curly briton wearing after the battle of Waterloo The king smiled and nodded, and the very next afternoon he put on the hat and the stockings, and highly pleased with himself set out to call upon his visitors Theinside with his wife, having just put up in one corner a bed which they had brought with theure that they stood silently staring; but when, in the act of greeting theot the object of his visit 'What a delicious soft-looking thing, to be sure!' he said to hi he landed upon the bed, and jumped up and dohile the tall hat rolled away and settled in a corner
Like un to i Liholiho was very particular in seeing that he was not put to shame by his own family The missionary's ore clothes, and it was necessary, therefore, that his own ladies should not go uncovered; so orders were given accordingly, and when the white lady caer hut than the rest--she found the brown ladies sitting up in great state to receive her, one of the s of the late king being dressed in a garment made of seventy thicknesses of bark from the trees
Such were the islands to which Joseph's elder brother longed to go His own Church had sent out missionaries over twenty years before, who had noritten ho the first, and had been accepted, when he was suddenly stricken with fever, and forbidden by the doctor to think of carrying out his plan In vain did he argue and entreat; the doctor was firm 'You would be a hindrance, and not a help,' he said, and in a paroxys the bedclothes, where Joseph found hihed the boy, when his brother had poured out the tale of his disappointain, you know, and only strong o instead; I dare say I shall not do as well, but, at any rate, I will do e that no student should post a letter without the superior having first read it Joseph knew this as well as anyone, but was far too excited and too ht say to pay any attention to it So he wrote secretly to the authorities ere preparing to send out the ht be allowed to take his brother's place, although he had not yet passed the usual examinations for the priesthood Perhaps candidates for the South Sea Islands were not very plentiful just then, or thereuncommon about Joseph's letter At all events he was accepted, and when the neas told hiht, but rushed out of doors, running and jureatly astonished his bishop, could he have seen it
For several years he worked hard a friends with the people, to who priest knew soive them simple remedies, so that they learned to look up to hi of Christianity He was sociable and pleasant, and always ready to help in any way he could, and he elcoious views differed fro there without finding out that the disease of leprosy was terribly common, and that the Government had set apart the island of Molokai as a home for the lepers, in order to prevent the spread of the disease; but the work given him to do lay in other directions, and in spite of the intense pity he felt for these poor outcasts he did not take any part in actual relief
In the year 1873 Father Dareat volcano has burnt itself out, and while he was there the bishop came over to consecrate a chapel which had just been built In his sermon he spoke of the sad condition of the colony at Molokai, and how greatly he wished to spare them a priest ould devote himself entirely to them But there was much to do elsewhere, and it was only occasionally that one could go even on a visit Besides, added the bishop, life in Molokai meant a horrible death in a few years at latest, and he could not take upon himself to send any man to that