【英文原著类】FATHER DAMIEN(达明老头).pdf

FATHER DAMIEN
FATHER DAMIEN
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE REVEREND DR. HYDE OF
HONOLULU
1
FATHER DAMIEN
SYDNEY, FEBRUARY 25, 1890.
Sir, - It may probably occur to you that we have met, and visited, and
conversed; on my side, with interest. You may remember that you have
done me several courtesies, for which I was prepared to be grateful. But
there are duties e 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