A Remarkable Case of Religious Devotion and Self-Sacrifice

REMARKABLE CASE OF RELIGIOUS DEVO- TION AND SELF-SACRIFICE. BY PRESIDENT W. W. CLUFF, OF SUMMIT STAKE.

Some years ago, when the government of the Sandwich Islands decided to remove the natives afflicted with leprosy from among the people, and establish a leper colony, quarantining them on the north of the island of Molokai, Father Damien, a Catholic priest, volunteered to go and live at the leper colony and minister religious consolation to those unfortunate and afflicted mortals. It

was certainly a most noble and self-sacrificing act. The whole world lauded the brave devotion of Father Damien, saying that he had gone to his inevitable doom for the sake of devotion to relig- ious duty and to his God. A chapel and a dwelling house were built just outside of the leper village by the government for the priest, and for several years he preached to that afflicted people, and administered the last sacrament and funeral rites to hundreds of the unfortunates. Finally he took the loathsome disease and died a leper. Quite parallel cases of devotion and zeal to religious duty, and love for humanity, can be related of other servants of God, although their heroic deeds are unwritten in history, and therefore are not recognized nor applauded by the world. Only a few years previous to the events above related, events which had received world-wide proclamation, twenty-four young elders of the Mormon Church were laboring as missionaries on the same islands. At that time the lepers were living and mingling with the people in their homes, not a village, and scarcely a family of the natives, that did not have a leper. For over four years those twenty-four youug Elders traveled and lived among the people, sleeping in their

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houses, eating their food, and administering to the sick lepers, often sleeping on the same mats where, perchance, a leper slept the night before. Their only reliance for protection was their implicit faith in the promises which the Lord had made to his hum- ble servants, when he sent them out into the world to preach the Gospel of repentance, that if you "eat or drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt you." However remarkable it may seem, every one of these Elders escaped the loathsome and dreadful, disease, and lived to return to their homes and friends. Some years after, a number of them were sent back to these islands on a second mission, after the lepers had been sent by the 'government to the leper colony, and then again asked for and obtained permission from the government officials to visit said colony as ministers of the Gospel. Among them were Elders Alma L. Smith, H. P. Rich- ards and F. A. Mitchell. Each of these elders spent several days, at the colony, at different times, while Father Damien was there. He kindly invited them to remain with him while they were there, and during their stay they visited the members of the Church, comforting and encouraging each of them, held public meetings, administering the ordinances of the Gospel and doing the unfortun- ate people in their wretched condition all the good they possibly could. Father Damien lived very comfortably in a house which was built and fitted up expressly for him, and he had a servant to cook and serve his food which was never handled by any who were afflicted with the leprosy. So while his devotion and self-sacrifice were commendable and deserving of all praise, certainly it must be admitted, that those young Elders, who had left their comfortable homes, their parents and friends, and in several instances, wives and children, for the Gospel's sake and who in their zeal and love for the Gospel and the cause of humanity thus dwelt among and administered to the afflicted, made as great a self-sacrifice as did Father Damien. Contrasting the difference in the manner of liv-

ing of Father Damien and the Mormon Elders, it will readily be admitted that they made even a greater self-sacrifice, and surely it must be admitted that their zeal and devotion to their religion and to the cause of humanity, and to their duty to their God, were fully equal to, if not greater, than that of Father Damien.