Hawaii Holomua, Volume II, Number 35, 10 February 1894 — CHARITY! [ARTICLE]

CHARITY!

Father Damien.'s Dofamer. To the Editor of the Evexi.\g Post: Sir: In ihe Krfning I'oft this week vou refer to a certain “Rev. C. M. Hyde, who introduces hiroself as 'the only resident missionary of the A. B. C. F. M.’ aud principal of the training school of Hawaiian pastors and missionaries.’ ” Is this the same Rev. H\de who, some few years since, obtamed ui.enviable notoriety by his atteiupt to tarnish with charges whieh he failed to ! substautiate the posthumous fame of Father Damien, the devotcd “resident n)issionary” araong the exiled lepers? Perhaps the poor Hawaiians will not now be grunted a defender so convincir.g as the disting- i uisbed author who replird to the j detractor of the dead victim of . zeul for the lepers; but the charges of the former defamer of the nohle Damien may well be received with suspicion. C. W. S. New York, Jan. 5. The assailant of the good name of Futher Damicn was the Rev. C. M. Hyde, to whose attack Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson roplied ! in a raemorable letter. Of Father Damien Mr. Hyde wrote: The sira])le truth is, he was a coar.se, dirty man, headstrong aud bigoted. He was not sent to Molokai, bnt weut there without orders; did not stay at the leper settlement (before he heeame one himself [s?V]), but circulated freely over the whole islaud (less than half the island is devoted to tho lepers), and he eame often to Honolulu. He had no hand in the reforms aud iraproveraents inaugurated, whieh were the work of our Board of Health, as occnsion required and meaus were provided. He was not a pure mau in his relations with women, and the leprosy of whieh he died should be attnbuted to his vices and carelessness. The St. James Ga:ette, eom raentiug on Mr. Stoveuson’s letter ; (whieh got into priut iu 1890), ( said: The ignorant, bigoted, rather rauddle-headed man who does what Damien did issurely greater than the man of education who 1 beors all manner of voices prick- i ing him to the glory of selfsacrifice. There was uo self- * consciousness of that kind about Father Damien: and Mr. Steven- i son’s removal of him from araong ’ the saints makes his deeds, if 1 that be possible, even more noble \ < aud exemplary than they seemed before. Tr.e Evtning PoM added to this: , That is a very just summary, < and the eud of tho whole matter. { But iu what a plaee the Rev. Dr. * Hvde aud the Rev. Mr. Gage ' • O have put themselves r Yet tbey ( may have done a service unwit- j tingly to the cause of religion. i Thoy have at least added new * force to a romark made receutly 1 coneerning Elders Harrison and Wanamaker, that Christianity | mu6t be of divine origin, to sor- j vive the condoct of some of its 1 most prominent professors.” The Rev. C. M Hvde’s (A. B. ' C. F. M.) aeeouui of his house, ( in his statoment to Mr. Bloont, is ( iollowa: “X eame here at the ]

eipenae of tle Aroerican Board. To kind friends amor.gthe foreign residents I am indebted for the comfortable — not luiarions — hnme tbeir hc«pitality has provided for an overbordened worker interested in everything tbat concerns the welfare of the coromonity.” —-V. i. Post.