Father Damien an Open Letter to the Reverend Dr Hyde of Honolulu
Platanus Publishing
Your sect and remember as far as any sect avows me it is mine has not done ill in a worldly sense in the Hawaiian Kingdom When calamity befell their innocent parishioners when leprosy descended and took root in the Eight Islands a quid pro quo was to be looked for To that prosperous mission and to you as one of its adornments God had sent at last an opportunity I know I am touching here upon a nerve acutely sensitive I know that others of your colleagues look back on the inertia of your Church and the intrusive and decisive heroism of Damien with something almost to be called remorse I am sure it is so with yourself I am persuaded your letter was inspired by a certain envy not essentially ignoble and the one human trait to be espied in that performance You were thinking of the lost chance the past day of that which should have been conceived and was not of the service due and not rendered
