DAMIEN, FATHER

This article appears in Volume V07, Page 788 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: DAH-DEM

DAMIEN, FATHER , the name in religion of JOSEPH DE VEUSTER (1840-1889), Belgian missionary, was born at Tremeloo, near Louvain, on the 3rd of January 184o. He was educated for a business career, but in his eighteenth year entered the Church, joining the Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary (also known as the Picpus Congregation), and taking Damien as his name in religion. In October 1863, while he was still in

minor

orders, he went out as a missionary to the Pacific Islands, taking the place of his brother, who had been prevented by an illness. He reached

Honolulu

HONOLULU

in March 1864, and was ordained priest in Whitsuntide of that year. Struck with the sad

condition

CONDITION (Lat. condicio, from condicere, to agree upon, arrange; not connected with conditio, from condere, conditum, to put together)

of the lepers, whom it was the practice of the Hawaian government to deport to the

island

ISLAND (O.E. ieg =isle, +land')

of Molokai, he conceived an

earnest

EARNEST (probably a corruption of the obsolete arles or erles, adapted from Lat. equivalent arrha, due to a confusion with the adjective " earnest," serious, O. Eng. eornust, cognate with Ger. ernst)

desire to mitigate their lot, and in 1873 volunteered to take spiritual charge of the

settlement

SETTLEMENT
SETTLEMENT, ACT OF

at Molokai. Here he remained for the rest of his life, with occasional visits to

Honolulu

HONOLULU

, until he became stricken with leprosy in 1885. Besides attending to the spiritual needs of the lepers, he managed, by the labour of his own hands and by appeals to the Hawaian government, to improve materially the water-

supply

SUPPLY (through Fr. from Lat. supplere, to fill up)

, the dwellings, and the victualling of the

settlement

SETTLEMENT
SETTLEMENT, ACT OF

. For five years he worked alone; subsequently other

resident

RESIDENT

priests from time to time assisted him. He succumbed to leprosy on the 15th of April 1889. Some ill-considered imputations upon Father Damien by a Presbyterian minister produced a memorable

tract

TRACT (from Lat. tractare, to treat of a matter, through Provencal tractat and Ital. trattato)

by Robert Louis Stevenson (An Open

Letter

LETTER (through Fr. lettre from Lat. littera or litera, letter of the alphabet; the origin of the Latin word is obscure; it has probably no connexion with the root of linere, to smear, i.e. with wax, for an inscription with a stilus)

to the Rev. Dr Hyde, 1890).
See also lives by E. Clifford (1889) and Fr. Pamphile (1889).
(J. M`F.)

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