pain with which they read
your letter. It is not the hangman, but the criminal, that brings
dishonour on the house.

You belong, sir, to a sect--I believe my sect, and that in which my
ancestors laboured--which has enjoyed, and partly failed to utilise, and
exceptional advantage in the islands of Hawaii. The first missionaries
came; they found the land already self-purged of its old and bloody
faith; they were embraced, almost on their arrival, with enthusiasm; what
troubles they supported came far more from whites than from Hawaiians;
and to these last they stood (in a rough figure) in the shoes of God.
This is not the place to enter into the degree or causes of their
failure, such as it is. One element alone is pertinent, and must here be
plainly dealt with. In the course of their evangelical calling, they--or
too many of them--grew rich. It may be news to you that the houses of
missionaries are a cause of mocking on the streets of Honolulu. It will
at least be news to you, that when I returned your civil visit, the
driver of my cab commented on the size, the taste, and the comfort of
your home. It would have been news certainly to myself, had any one told
me that afternoon that I should live to drag such a matter into print.
But you see, sir, how you degrade better men to your own level; and it is
needful that those who are to judge betwixt you and me, betwixt Damien
and the devil's advocate, should understand your letter to have been
penned in a house which could raise, and that very justly, the envy and
the comments of the passers-by. I think (to employ a phrase of yours
which I admire) it "should be attributed" to you that you have never
visited the scene of Damien's life and death. If you had, and had
recalled it, and looked about your pleasant rooms, even your pen perhaps
would have been stayed.

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 a