Very reluctantly Monsieur Damien gave his consent to this plan. He tried
in vain to induce Joseph to think it over and to go back with him; but
the young man was firm, and at length the father took leave of both his
sons, and with a heavy heart returned home to break the news to his
wife.

In this way Joseph Damien set about the work which was by and by to make
his name so famous, though to that he never gave a thought. He does not
seem to have dreamed dreams of greatness, like so many boys, or of
adventures of which he was always the hero. As far as we can guess,
Joseph Damien just did the thing that came next and lay ready to his
hand, and thus fitted himself unconsciously for what was greater and
better. Just now he had to study hard, and as soon as his father had
written to say that neither he nor his mother wished to hold back their
son from the life he had chosen, Joseph entered the same college where
his brother had received his training for the priesthood.

* * * * *

For some time--we do not know if it was years or only months--Joseph
studied hard, hoping that the harder he worked the sooner he would be
ready to go forth on 'active service' against the sin and misery of the
world. His brother's plans were already formed. He was to make one of a
band of priests starting for the islands in the South Seas, which more
than forty years before had been visited by a band of American
missionaries.

It was a strange state of things that prevailed in the lovely group of
the Sandwich Islands when the missionaries arrived there. The isles had
been discovered during the eighteenth century by Captain Cook, but from
the white men, chiefly merchants and traders, who followed him the
natives learned nothing but evil, and fell victims to horrible diseases
hitherto unknown there. To the Americans, who had left snow and ice
behind them, the islands of Hawaii--to use their native name--appeared
fairyland itself. Though the sun beat fiercely on them, cool streams
rushed down the mountain-side, and in the great forests there was
silence as well as darkness. Here the trees were bound together by ropes
of flowery creepers, while outside, in the light and air, were groves of
towering cocoa palms, standing with their roots almost in the water, and
sheltering the huts, which could hardly be seen for the huge clusters
of heliotropes, roses, and lilies that overshadowed them. But the sea!
the sea! it was t