THE ROMISH PRIESTS AMONG THE LEPERS IN HAWAII.
By H. B. Gage
[The following article, which we take from the Occident of August 28, the leading Presbyterian paper of this coast, explains itself, and should, in the interests of truth and justice, have a wide circulation.] THE following paper was read a few days ago before the Ministerial Association of Riverside, and is published at their request. The article was written in February and printed in the Herald and Presbyter, Cincinnati, Ohio, before the death of Priest Damien, over whom the papers, particularly the Catholic papers, have pronounced such eulogies. This priest died of leprosy April 10, 1889, and many secular papers indulged in exceedingly laudatory accounts of him, drawing their information evidently from Roman Catholic sources, which have made much of him as a martyr, both in Europe and the United States. I would have only words of praise for any person, priest or nun, who labored to alleviate sorrow and suffering, or who braved danger and disease for their fellow-men. But there are some things to be said about the Romish priest at Molokai which are not generally known. It is generally known that a Romish priest is a Romish priest, and does what he does for Rome. If anyone doubt this, let him learn a little of history, or read the books and writings of the "Nun of Kenmare," or let him post himself concerning the working of the priests now in Boston and New York City, in the city government and the public schools. The priest at Molokai is no exception to the rule. While in the Hawaiian Islands last summer I met many who knew Father Damien personally, and have observed his workings, and Romanism as developed under his teachings among the lepers. There are less than one thousand lepers on the island, and not one in ten is a Romanist before he goes there. About four-fifths of them are nominally Protestants. The lepers are under the care of a government superintendent and his helpers, who are not lepers. Also a government physician and his assistants. So there is no use of a priest to look after the lepers so far as bodily care and nursing are concerned. The priest is not there as a nurse, nor is he there as a teacher, nor is he there as an instructor in civilization. The priests in the islands give the natives no more religion, education, and civilization than the old padres gave the Mission Indians in California. Again, there are two Protestant churches among the lepers,—one in each valley, about five miles apart,—so the lepers are not destitute of the means of grace, the Bible and the ordinances of the church. These two churches are supplied by native pastors who have become lepers. They have regular preaching on Sunday, Sunday-schools, prayer-meetings, day-schools, books, papers, as well or better supplied than any other community of natives in the islands. There are plenty of places larger in population, and more destitute in every way, to whom no priest is ever sent. I became personally acquainted with the government physician to Molokai, and had several long conversations with him, in the course of which I learned the following: This doctor is not a missionary, nor is he in any way connected with the Protestant missions. He was surgeon on one of the steamers plying between San Francisco and Honolulu before he received this government appointment.645 (a) He had no hesitation in saying he believed the priest was among the lepers "for the money there is in it." "When you remember the lepers are the pets of the kingdom, and more money is expended on them than is spent on the same number of natives who are not lepers themselves, you can see the priest's chance. The lepers have more money than those who are non-lepers, and with fewer opportunities of using it, and their slow disease and death is a priest's opportunity to secure "so much paying for so much praying." Penance, masses, and extreme unction are paying and preying. (b) A priest has very little to sacrifice in going to the lepers, as compared with a Protestant. He has no wife, no children, no home, and he lives at Molokai with every comfort and luxury supplied. He has little to leave, and every motive urged by Romanism to live a martyr and die a saint. It is well to remember too that Protestant missionaries have gone to the Lazarettos in Palestine and in India, where they could not have the comforts, much less the luxuries, of common living. (c) He had reason to believe that the priest was making large money for Rome, as we all know the priests do in poverty-stricken Ireland and Mexico. It is no slander to say that disease and death are the Romish priests' harvest season. (d) The physician said there was no reason for Damien's becoming a leper, "except his own dirty habits. He lives, sleeps, and eats with the lepers. His housekeeper and cook are lepers, and he himself is uncleanly." There is no more use of his living so than for a surgeon or a chaplain of a hospital living with the worst cases of disease. The lepers have two farming settlements, and live in homes and families just as they do in any thickly settled country neighborhood. The surgeon said he visited each settlement daily, but he neither eats nor sleeps in their homes, and he uses all the same, or similar, precautions against contracting the disease that surgeons do in fever or small-pox hospitals. The priest becomes a leper (so the doctor thinks) of his own neglect of common sanitary precautions. The new priest, who had just recently come, confessed that it was more than he had bargained for, when he found how Damien had contracted the disease, and expected him to dip his hand in the same dish into which he (Damien) was putting his leprous hands. (e) The physician assured me again that the priests favored those lepers who were Romanists, in the distribution of government supplies, and used this same power to influence people to become papists, and those who remained firm Protestants were often made to suffer for it. To such an extent was this true, he said he was using, and should continue to use, his official position to protect Protestant lepers against imposition from the priests. Rev. Dr. C. M. Hyde, who has charge of the native theological training school in Honolulu, gave me substantially the same facts, as he had gathered them during eleven years' residence in the islands, knowing Damien personally, knowing the native pastors who had become lepers, and in visiting the leper settlement as he had done, and in preaching and visiting among them. Every one of the missionaries told me the same story in substance. Romanism is Romanism, whether in Italy, poor Ireland, Quebec, America, or the islands of the sea. H. B. GAGE. Riverside, Feb. 20, 1889. P. S.—Since the above article was printed in our local paper, I have received a letter from Dr. C. M. Hyde, which I will copy in full. 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 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. Others have done much for the lepers, our own ministers, the government physicians, etc., but never with the Catholic idea of meriting eternal life.
Yours, etc.,
C. M. HYDE. Certainly such testimony is greatly damaging to the cause which the Romanists are trying to foist upon both our country and England. Yours, H. B. GAGE.
Riverside, August 12, 1889.