Suddenly he raised his gun-softly, softly-for meat was scarce he could not miss his shot-and the big leaves were stirring now with something more persistent than the wind. He half rose from his haunches, while his finger twitched the trigger back-and then, just in time to be saved the Unimaginable Sin, his eyes were opened, and he saw.

Saw a figure as of a man-yet not a man, but shadowy, semi-translucent, as of ethereal stuff-saw it part the big leaves, come out through the bowing reeds-descend into the little pool and bathe. And then, just as the first ray of the sun shot through the forest, the witness saw it arise again from the water, and, lo-no longer shadowy, but shining white -all glistening.

And so, all glistening, did it disappear, in silence, as it had

come.

The hunter, as soon as his limbs would carry him, ran back to his barrio with the story. That night five neighbours returned with him to the forest, and, from as far away as they could see the water-hole, awaited the hour.

Their reward was great. For they, too, saw the Vision, exactly as their companion had done.

"It is the Christ!" they whispered, and, having prayed, themselves descended to the sacred pool and bathed.

Then they went home and told their world. Thereafter each night some chosen few lay awaiting the vision that always came with dawn. And each day, all day, hundreds bathed in that little pool, stirring the water till it was thick, crowding it full-while the fame of it spread on and

on.

On till it reached the ears of a young American constabulary lieutenant of the sort that made the name of the Force. And this young person conceived it to be his duty to look into the case.

So, taking a man or two from his detachment, he repaired to the forest. There, duly hidden, but close beside the spot at which the Vision was wont to descend, he, too, lay still and

watched, though the people, in their far concealment, knew nothing of his presence.

The hour came-and the miracle. Truly enough, in all things as had been told, a shadowy, silent figure, parting the big-leaved plants and the bowing reeds, stepped forth and down, into the pool, and bathed. Then, with the sun, did it rise again, all shining, glistening white, and vanish into the bush.

Yet not this time in silence-for silence fled before a boy's clear ringing laugh and a frightened cry. He had made a dash for the Vision-had that American officer boy-and it had shrieked in fear.

For the Vision was naught but a poor out-cast leper, a brown man like the rest, whose sick flesh, being wet, shone white in the level sun.

With such material had our health officers to deal. Under such dangers from themselves did the people of the Philippines live. Nor has either condition materially changed since our occupation. Twenty-five years of public schools cannot wipe out the inheritance of all time. Yet, measured by the microscope the clock of ages-there is an advance.

Dr. Heiser, at Culion, built up a great preventive and palliative work. His colony, started with 600 members, grew rapidly, and although the sick still hid and were hidden, to the menace of all the world, yet more and more of them gave themselves up, lured by the comforts of Culion and by the hope of cure.

But there was no cure.

"I have never felt so ashamed and humiliated," says Dr. Heiser, "as I used to feel when going through that huge leper hospital, unable to give any real hope. I found no record, anywhere, of leprosy cured, not any record of great scientific effort made. The care of lepers, since history began, had always been left to charity. It was high time to set science to work.

"It was then that I heard of chaulmoogra oil, with its sur

misable possibilities. But the nature of the stuff, as we soon proved, made it practically unassimilable. And, hypodermically given, it would not absorb. So, we called upon a great German firm for aid. They suggested adding ether, or camphor. We added ether. The mixture did absorb—and then, for the first time in the world's ken, came progress."

"But the great difficulty so far," Dr. Heiser continued, "was that it took six months to get results. About this time-1915 -I joined the Rockefeller Foundation and went to India. There I found a great Englishman, Sir Leonard Rogers, knighted for his work in dysentery, and asked him to take up our leprosy question.

"We have found the first rung in the ladder of cure,' I said, 'but we can't, grope as we will, find the second. Help!' "So Sir Leonard fell to work. And his gift was a cut of the period from six months to three.

"Soon afterward Doctors Hollman and Dean, who were working on leprosy in Honolulu under a Congressional appropriation, made further progress.

"They isolated the ethyl esters and successfully used them in the treatment of leprosy.

"And this is the medicament that is actually curing lepers to-day-one of the most satisfactory achievements in medical discovery.

"I have visited most leper colonies in the world. They used to be heartbreaking. Now, having introduced the treatment in a given place, I come back a few months later to find faces all alight with hope and patients eager and anxious to tell all about it--about when they are getting out of hospital, about what they are going to do with their lives in the world that has been given back to them.

"Of those who contract leprosy henceforth it is reasonable to hope that over 20 per cent may be cured; in over 60 per cent the malady will be so arrested as to disappear clinically; and in the remainder it will go no farther-if it is taken up within the first three or four years of its onset."

Chapter XV

THE PRAYER OF THE LIVING DEAD

BUT while these glorious things were shining forth in the broad wide world, down upon the Philippine Islands thick darkness had settled. Harrison had come. Filipinization, sweeping through every branch of public work, was rapidly destroying all that America's science and service had accomplished. And the defenceless victims in Culion must share the doom of the rest. The simple truth of this may be sufficiently illustrated by the case of the Culion children.

It is established, then, that children born of leprous parents not only are born clean, but also grow up clean, if removed from the parents and protected from exposure. In Honolulu, during the entire thirty years of American control, not one child of leprous parentage has developed the dis

ease.

In Culion, as in Honolulu, our practice was to isolate all children so born. And in Culion as in Honolulu, of those so protected not a single child contracted the malady.

Then came Mr. Harrison's régime, general Filipinization, Dr. Heiser's departure and, in Culion as elsewhere, the consequent disregarding or discarding of modern standards. During this period over three hundred children born in Culion fell victim to the curse.

All scientific work, whether pathological or alleviative, died down or out, and the legislature that voted "money to burn" into the Philippine National Bank-and freely burned it there -had little indeed to spare to the prisoners of death. In 1918, when Dr. Denny, last American superintendent, gave up his hopeless struggle and left, two physicians constituted

Culion's medical corps, charged with the study and care of nearly 4,000 sick.

Then, March 5, 1921, came the disappearance of Harrison. Two months later the Wood-Forbes Commission, landing in Manila, turned its searchlight on the Islands. And its rays swept the chill of fear into the souls of the caciques, seven fat years care-free. So they actually appropriated $50,000 for Culion, and sent four of their doctors down to administer the

cure.

But service that serves is wont to spring from roots other than fear.

Now, if you stop to look over the main elements in the matter, you get something like this:

Leprosy, from the day that Moses commanded the stricken to cry out "unclean!" has been the loathing and the terror of the world.

Leprosy, for reasons as yet undetermined, spreads more rapidly in some places than in others, and spreads in the Philippines with extreme speed; so that the Filipinos, as has already been stated, suffer more generally from its ravages than do many other recorded people.

Leprosy, so science holds, is transmitted only by contact, and can be utterly stamped out by segregation of the afflicted. Leprosy can lie dormant and hidden for fifteen years or more after the infection, and, during all that period, can be carried about and transmitted to others by the infected person. America, at home, receives Filipinos into her schools and colleges, into her domestic service, into many close contactsreceives them freely, and desires so to do. Filipinos and Filipino goods travel freely in all countries by all conveniences. The Philippines are visited by the ships of the world. And the American Government, as holding supreme authority in the Philippines, is responsible to its own American people and to all mankind for safety in these personal contacts and business dealings for due observance of laws of common weal.

Finally, to American science and devotion, brilliantly aided