Leper

“ That a leper is unclean, however, should be insisted upon; and the segregation of lepers, from what little is known of the disease, should be rigidly maintained. On the other hand, the awful horror with which the leper has been regarded in the past, and the frightful treatment he has received, have been unnecessary and cruel. In order to dispel some of the popular misapprehensions of leprosy, I want to tell something of the relations between the lepers and non-lepers as I observed them at Molokai. ”

“ A leper falls fainting by the way-side, he is seized by the police, and conveyed in a third-class hackney carriage to the asylum. As soon as he has had his wounds dressed, has gained a little strength, and finds himself able to do so, he walks out into the streets again to beg. ”

“ The horror and disgrace of a European leper woman begging in the streets was an idea that they could never have tolerated—anything rather than that. There is a certain amount of sympathy accorded to native lepers, but Europeans afflicted in like manner are regarded more as wild beasts than as human beings. ”

“ The chief horror of leprosy obtains in the minds of those who have never seen a leper and who do not know anything about the disease. At the hotel at Waikiki a lady expressed shuddering amazement at my having the hardihood to pay a visit to the Settlement. On talking with her I learned that she had been born in Honolulu, had lived there all her life, and had never laid eyes on a leper. That was more than I could say of myself in the United States, where the segregation of lepers is loosely enforced and where I have repeatedly seen lepers on the streets of large cities. ”

“ A leper's skin was deathly white, and his flesh was rotting, and he was sure to die of the disease. Nobody needed help more than a leper did, but no one would even touch him.
The people back in Nazareth were too proud to admit that the carpenter's son from down the street [82] might be the Messiah. But a leper did not have any pride. This leper came to Jesus, and fell on his face before him, crying out, "Lord, if you will do it, you can make me clean from this disease!" ”

“ In the salt-marshes live the lepers; they have houses of wattled reeds, and none may come nigh them. The beggars wander through the cities, and eat their food with the dogs. Canst thou make these things not to be? Wilt thou take the leper for thy bedfellow, and set the beggar at thy board? Shall the lion do thy bidding, and the wild boar obey thee? Is not He who made misery wiser than thou art? ”

“ Chapter 14 1 Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,
2 "This shall be the law of the leper in the day of his cleansing. He shall be brought to the priest, 3 and the priest shall go forth out of the camp. The priest shall examine him, and behold, if the plague of leprosy is healed in the leper, 4 then the priest shall command them to take for him who is to be cleansed two living clean birds, and cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop. 5 The priest shall command them to kill one of the birds in an earthen vessel over running water. ”

“ Once a leper, always a leper, is the sad outcome of my many years close observation, let the treatment be what it may. It behoves us, therefore, as human beings, simply to do all in our power, in whatever part of the world leprosy prevails, to establish retreats in which its victims can be housed in seclusion, apart from intercourse with the general public, where they can obtain proper shelter, be provided with suitable food and clothing, and where medical comforts can be placed at their disposal. ”

“ As soon as a man became a prey to the disease, his doom on earth was finally and irrevocably sealed. The laws, both civil and ecclesiastical, were awful in their severity to the poor Leper; not only was he cut off from the society of his fellow-men, and all family ties severed, but, he was dead to the law, he could not inherit property, or be a witness to any deed. According to English law Lepers were classed with idiots, madmen, outlaws, etc.
The Church provided a service to be said over the Leper on his entering a Lazar House [j] . ”

“ There is perhaps no subject of greater interest, nor one which awakens more sympathy, than that of the Leper; it affords a most curious, though painful topic of enquiry, particularly in the present day, when so much has been said and written, as to the probability and possibility of the loathsome scourge again obtaining a hold in this, our own country.
Much confusion and ignorance exists, as to what true Leprosy really is. I do not pretend, nor do I assume, to be in any way an authority on the disease, nor to be at all deeply versed in the matter ”

“ Leprosy may be interpreted as any veil that interveneth between man and the recognition of the Lord, his God. Whoso alloweth himself to be shut out from Him is indeed a leper, who shall not be remembered in the Kingdom of God, the Mighty, the All-Praised. We bear witness that through the power of the Word of God every leper was cleansed, every sickness was healed, every human infirmity was banished. He it is Who purified the world. Blessed is the man who, with a face beaming with light, hath turned towards Him. ”

“ But, before we proceed to a more particular consideration of the life and the status of the leper in the Middle Ages, it may be as well to say something of the history of his disease. Leprosy is supposed,—whether on sufficient grounds or not, we do not take upon ourselves to pronounce,—to have had its origin in Egypt. ”

“ Francis had a deep-rooted repugnance to a leper, and, in passing a lazaretto, always carefully covered up his nose lest any bad odour might reach him, and he always rode far away in the opposite direction, if he chanced to see one in the plains. Nothing shows the change in Francis more than his alteration towards the lepers. One day, when out riding, he saw a leper approaching. ”

“ He took with him his disciples or followers, that they might see his works and listen to his words. Great crowds of people came to hear him during this journey; and everywhere he cured all kinds of sickness and cast out of men evil spirits that were ruling them.
At one place a man came to Jesus who was covered with a dreadful disease called leprosy and was called "a leper." No one ever touched a leper or even came near him, for they feared that a touch might cause the disease. A leper was driven out of the home, to live with other lepers in a camp outside the city. ”

“ The plan of another of Graham’s chap-books, Fun upon Fun, or the Comical Tricks of Leper the Taylor, is very similar to that which has been pointed out as characteristic of Lothian Tom and John Cheap. Leper is a madcap whose impudent doings bear a strong resemblance to stories told of similar beings in this and other countries; and the design of the author seems to have been to lay before his readers a collection of tales grouped round one central figure, rather than to give a record of the life of any real person. ”

“ And this was the reason why, when Christ came down from the mount, where He had taught the Evangelical Law, He willed that His first miracle should be the cleansing of the leper, chiefly because the various stages of leprosy best represent the foulness and plague of sin, and the cleansing of leprosy the forgiveness of sins. And so Christ in His Passion assumed the appearance of a leper, that He might take upon Himself and heal the leprosy of our souls. Wherefore Isaiah says (liii. 4) , “Surely He Himself hath borne our sicknesses, and carried our griefs ”

“ Ackworth if any of our Protestant clergymen had visited the lepers, and he told me that although one had clamoured to have his name put on the Committee of the Institution, and had got this done; he had never visited its inmates or seemed to trouble himself any further about them! While we were talking, a native leper was led out of one of the male wards by an attendant. He sunk down near the building in a state of great exhaustion, and called out, in his own language, some words which Dr. Weir told me were to the effect that he was dying, and that he begged us to save him. Poor man! ”

“ After giving the above accurate description of the leprosy, Gordon, in a subsequent page,178 earnestly states, “No one ought to be adjudged as a leper unless there manifestly appear a corruption of the figure (corruptio figurae) , or that state which is indicated by his signa infallibilia. And I repeat to you this (he adds) , as often as I have occasion to mention the corruptio figurae, because, as it appears to me, lepers are at the present day very injudiciously adjudged. ”

“ Leprosy was contagious, and, on this account, lepers were avoided by everybody; sin also is contagious, and we ought to avoid the company of sinners and criminals. The leper had to show himself to the priest, exposing to him his breast, face and arms, before he could be pronounced clean and restored to the society of the faithful: the sinner must go to the priest, as the representative of God, and discover to him by a sincere confession his sinful thoughts, words and actions, before he can receive absolution, and be restored to the company of the children of God. ”

“ Lazarus, which, having existed at Jerusalem from an early period of the Christian era, was revived at the time of the crusades, consisted of knights devoted to the leper’s service. It is St. Lazarus who occasionally in the legends appears personally to thank those that have befriended the leper.
The number of the lazarhouses in Europe about the time of the thirteenth century, was almost beyond calculation. In our own country it was very great. Were the history of them minutely investigated, many curious facts respecting the leper’s life might be brought to light. ”

“ If leprosy be communicated generally, or even sometimes, by parent to child by heredity, how explain the striking fact, brought out by Hansen, that of the numerous offspring of 160 Norwegian lepers who emigrated to America not one has become a leper?—or, again, the equally well attested fact that children sometimes become lepers first, their parents afterwards? ”

“ We throw the poor things a few coppers in passing; but, as there are no lepers in England, the majority of us know little about the horrible disease from which they suffer, and are therefore inclined to regard them as ordinary beggars. I had read “Life and Letters of Father Damien,” and from that little book, which was lent me by the nuns of the Loretto Convent in Calcutta, I learned something of leprosy; just enough perhaps to make me wish to know more and to see for myself what was the condition of the sufferers. ”

“ It surely gives a deep intensity to the interest of the narrative to imagine the Leper and the raised dead man, seated at the same table together with their common Deliverer, glorifying their Saviour-God, with bodies and spirits they felt now to be doubly His! ”

“ The leper was St. Lazarus himself. During the night he made himself known, and promised the Cid a happy recompense for his charity.
We might quote many more cases in which men, in entertaining lepers, entertained angels unawares; and many more still, in which the generous deed was followed by no such dénouement, and the humble thanks of the recipient were the only acknowledgment of it. Thus, even the curse of leprosy oft-times produced a good and happy result. Some men, at least, it inspired with a generous pity, a holy charity, a divine sympathy ”

“ Some of the Lazar Houses were specially endowed for persons above the lower ranks who happened to [28] become affected with the disease. In 1491, Robert Pigot gave by will to the Leper House of Walsingham, in the Archdeaconry of Norwich, a house in, or near that town, for the use of two Leprous persons “of good families.”
Before considering the Royal Lepers, it will not be out of place to mention the death of S. Fiacre from Leprosy, in 665. He was the reputed son of Eugenius IV., King of Scotland, and is canonised in the Roman branch of the Church Catholic [u] . ”

“ Leper resolved to be even with him, so goes to the hay-loft where the groom slept, and takes his stockings, breeches and jacket, sews them altogether, and stuffs them full of hay, makes a head, puts a rope about the neck, and hangs it on a tree opposite to the Laird’s window, then goes to the Laird and tells him that his groom had hanged himself, and that if he would open his window, he would see him hanging ”

“ The divines, physicians, and chirurgeons that were there thought that by this sign he would have inferred that the Englishman was a leper. The counsellors, lawyers, and decretalists conceived that by doing this he would have concluded some kind of mortal felicity to consist in leprosy, as the Lord maintained heretofore. ”

“ Even the devil could think of no worse plague than leprosy wherewith to torment Job. In addition to the actual sufferings caused by the malady, we must take into consideration the hard conditions of the Jewish law. The leper was considered unclean, and not allowed to enter the Temple or offer sacrifice, or hold any intercourse with those who were clean. If an Israelite leper was cured of his disease, he had to report himself to a priest at Jerusalem, by whom he was taken to the Mount of Olives and there examined. ”

“ The lepero is emphatically the child of nature, the shining sun, the murmuring breeze, the smiling face of nature is his birthright and his property. Other men have houses, haciendas and lands. The world belongs to the lepero. ”