FATHER DAMIEN DEFENDED.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVIII, Issue 2, 9 May 1890, Page 5

FATHER DAMIEN DEFENDED.

Mr. Julios A. Palmer, jr., of Boston, deserves tbe thanks not only of all Catholics, but all who have at heart the honour of human nature, for his complete vindication of the character of Father Damien, so cruelly aspersed by the Boston Congregatiotialist in the Boston Transcript of March 1. His past residence and extensive acquaittance in Honolulu peculiarly qualified him for the task. He gives lei ters from Dr. Prince, A. Morrow, Father Damien's physician ; tbe Bishop of Olba, Father Damien's ecclesiastical superior ; N. 8., Emersou, president of the Honolulu Board of Health ; Mr Damon, Minister of Finance at Hawaii, and the Hon. H. A. P. Carter, Hawaiian Minister to the U.S. Government, attesting and thus refuting the charges published by the Congregationalist, the martyrpriest's personal purity, his authorised mission, correct habits, and activity in sanitary reforms at Molokai. Indirectly, these letters prove the truth of Mr Palmer's hypothesis, that religious jealousy is at tha bottom of the cowardly slanders. The Catholic missionaries have suffered overt or covert persecution at the bands of Protestantism in Hawaii ever since their advent thither as regular workers in 1827. Yet, strangely enough, Catholics preceded all others in preaching Christ, to the Hawaiians. In 1 8 1 8, the chaplain of the French corvette converted and baptised two high officials of King Kamehameha 11. Says Mr. Palmer, in conclusion :—": — " With seven generations of New England Puritan ancestry on the side of each of my parents, gladly, devoutly, and tearfully I would come as an humble brother in the faith of Father Damien to lay this tribute on the silent tomb of the martyr whose voice cannot be beard on earth, but whose works will neverceasetofollowhim. To those who in the language of the creedßtill repeated each Sunday in the chancels of the English Church, " believe in the communion of saints." it is a holy thought that there is nothing which we might have done to make the martyred pneat happier on earth, in the distant and isolated spot where be dwalt, which is forbidden to us to do in memory of him, and for his happiness in the mansions of the blessed to-day It is m this spirit that I have tried to write of his virtue. It is not permitted to all to spring into the gap from whence falls the death-stricken soldier, but it is permitted to any comrade to resent the slanders of the cowardly oilumniator who was silent until the noble warrior fell ia defence of the cause to which his life and services had long been given."