And I take it, this is a type of our division; that you are one of those who have an eye for faults and failures; that you take a pleasure to find and publish them; and that, having found them, you make haste to forget the overvailing virtues and the real success which had alone introduced them to your knowledge.  It is a dangerous frame of mind.  That you may understand how dangerous, and into what a situation it has already brought you, we will (if you please) go hand-in-hand through the different phrases of your letter, and candidly examine each from the point of view of its truth, its appositeness, and its charity.

Damien was coarse.

It is very possible.  You make us sorry for the lepers, who had only a coarse old peasant for their friend and father.  But you, who were so refined, why were you not there, to cheer them with the lights of culture?  Or may I remind you that we have some reason to doubt if John the Baptist were genteel; and in the case of Peter, on whose career you doubtless dwell approvingly in the pulpit, no doubt at all he was a ‘coarse, headstrong’ fisherman!  Yet even in our Protestant Bibles Peter is called Saint.

Damien was dirty.

He was.  Think of the poor lepers annoyed with this dirty comrade! 
But the clean Dr. Hyde was at his food in a fine house.

Damien was headstrong.

I believe you are right again; and I thank God for his strong head and heart.

Damien was bigoted.

I am not fond of bigots myself, because they are not fond of me.  But what is meant by bigotry, that we should regard it as a blemish in a priest?  Damien believed his own religion with the simplicity of a peasant or a child; as I would I could suppose that you do.  For this, I wonder at him some way off; and had that been his only character, should have avoided him in life.  But the point of interest in Damien, which has caused him to be so much talked about and made him at last the subject of your pen and mine, was that, in him, his bigotry, his intense and narrow faith, wrought potently for good, and strengthened him to be one of the world’s heroes and exemplars.

Damien was not sent to Molokai, but went there without orders.

Is this a misreading? or do you really mean the words for blame?  I have heard Christ, in the pulpits of our Church, held up for imitation on the ground that His sacrifice was voluntary.  Does Dr. Hyde think otherwise?

Damien did not stay at the settlement, etc.

It is true he was allowed many indulgences.  Am I to understand that you blame the father for profiting by these, or the officers for granting them?  In either case, it is a mighty Spartan standard to issue from the house on Beretania Street; and I am convinced you will find yourself with few supporters.