HEROIC JESUIT APOSTLES

New Zealand Tablet, 10 April 1913, Page 53

HEROIC JESUIT APOSTLES

The heroic devotion of Father Damien, the apostle of the lepers, is well known to English readers Protestants and Catholics alike duly recognised the example of self-sacrifice that was given to the world by one who cheerfully faced a lingering and horrible death in the service of his afflicted flock (writes a .special correspondent of the Catholic Times). But Father Damien has had many disciples. Although during their life-time they avoided notice and sought to be forgotten, two Jesuits have lately attracted the attenion of the French press by their generous devotion to the lepers of Madagascar. Both, after years of patient suffering, died of tne hideous disease three months ago. The first was a Pole, Father Beyzim, who arrived at Tananarive in 1898. He was then forty-eight years of age, a gentleman by birth, and in appearance tall and strong, who had obtained his superior's permission to devote himself completely to the worst cases among the lepers, to those whose condition was such that they were separated from their companions. In the lepers' hospital of Ambahivoraka he was at once the sick nurse, the cook, and the general servant of his charges. His dream was to build a new hospital for the lepers, where, if they could not be cured, they might, at any rate, be relieved and cared for, soul and body, till death released them from their sufferings. He found a suitable spot in the country of the Betsileos, and, with the alms sent to him by his friends and relatives in Poland, he Began to Build a Hospital, large enough to receive two hundred lepersone hundred men and one hundred women. The chapel was to be in the centre; and so keenly did Father Beyzim long to see the work finished that he helped the workmen with his own hands to ra ; se the walls of his lepers' future home. But, in the meantime, the disease insidiously laid hold of the big, strong, active Northerner. At first no visible signs appeared, but to a visitor who congratulated him on his escape, Father Beyzim replied by pulling up his sleeve and pointing to some dark stains on his arm. ' No one knows it yet,' he said, ' but look here.' Day and night he continued to live among his lepers, caring for them, encouraging them, tending their wounds. A photograph represents him surrounded by miserable wrecks of humanity, whose hideous deformities Pere Beyzim looked upon with infinite love and pity. When his own condition became more serious he was obliged to sacrifice the society of his fellow-religious and, except in cases of urgent necessity, he could no longer communicate with the Fathers of the mission. The lepers, to whom he had given his life, became more than ever, his constant companions; A Bond of Physical Suffering now united them more closely to one who had become a leper for their sakes. Father Beyzim died among them on October 1, 1912, and it was a touching sight to see with what reverent love his leper children honored him to the last. They laid him out in the choir of the church that he had built, and at his head they placed a crucifix and a picture of the famous Polish Madonna of Czestochowa; around him they laid sheafs of fragrant lilies. They insisted that he should be buried among them; with their own hands they dug his grave and laid him to rest in the shadow of the big hospital built by him, with which his memory will for ever be connected. Eight days after Father Beyzim, died another Jesuit, a Frenchman, Father Isidore Dupuy. During the campaign of Madagascar, Father Dupuy acted as military chaplain to General Voyron's troops, and his valuable services earned for him the Cross of the Legion of Honor. But his mind was set on a service less brilliant in the eyes of men than that of military chaplain, and, as soon as peace was signed, he devoted himself to the lepers of Ambohimohazo, where he soon caught the rmalady. He knew he would die a leper, and he cheerfully retired to a little cabin, where he was visited only by those who, being already touched by the disease, had nothing to fear from him. Instead of complaining of his lot, he considered himself as singularly fortunate.

In one of his letters he wrote: In former days the lepers were driven into the woods; they carried a little basket of food and a bell that warned travellers to keep aloof. Charity has changed all this. Instead of wandering in the woods, I live in a comfortable room, I do not need a basket, for my provisions are renewed three times a day. A little bell is at hand, but when I -ring it, instead of anyone running away from me, my wants are immediately attended to. It is humiliating to be so kindly treated and to be able to give in return only a little gratitude.' Like Father Beyzim, Father Dupuy accepted the solitude and humiliation of his terrible malady with joyful equanimity; he was not only resigned, but Content to Lay Down His Life in so good a cause. Alluding to the honor bestowed upon him as a reward for his devotion during the campaign, he signed his last, letter Isidore Dupuy, Knight of Leprosy.' The same Government that, for once, recognised the patriotic services of a Jesuit, has nevertheless done its best to ruin the religious foundations of Madagascar. The narrow, sectarian policy of certain high officials—M. Augagneur, for examplehas led them to commit acts of sheer cruelty, of which the natives, even more than the French religious, have been the victims. In 1906 the Franciscan Nuns, who devote their lives to the sick, were brutally expelled from the hospital of Ambohidratimo, where they tended eight hundred lepers. Many of these were Catholics; they were broken hearted when they discovered that henceforth they were to be Deprived of the Sacraments, and those who were able to walk used to escape from the hospital at night to seek the missionaries, whose attendance was forbidden. The Bishop, Mgr. de Sauve, had to use his authority to prevent them from thus infringing the rules of the hospital, where the presence of a priest is tolerated only when the patient is at his last gasp. In 1906 the Jesuits, who direct the College of St. Michael, were forced to send away all their European pupils. That same year, in November, nine hundred schools belonging to the mission were closed, for no other reason but the Government's good pleasure, and at the present moment an attempt is being made by the authorities to confiscate all the property belonging to the religious Orders. Several lawsuits touching the matter have been commenced. If the Government officials have their will, the religious Orders in Madagascar will be treated as they are in Francerobbed, and perhaps expelled. This sectarian policy is not only unjust and cruel; it is glaringly impolitic. All the French statesmen who have not been blinded by a party spirit recognise the fact that French influence in the island is powerfully aided by the example and popularity of the French missionaries. A former governor of Madagascar, M. le Myre de Vilers, went further. 'lt is, he wrote, * an undeniable fact that if we are in possession of Madagascar, we owe it to the missionaries.' -