saturated with corruption; he cannot raise his bloated eyelids, but,
with his head thrown back, looks downward over his cheeks. Two of these
lepers are as astonishing specimens as any that have ever come under my
observation, yet I have morbidly sought them from Palestine to Molokai.
In these cases the muscles are knotted, the blood curdled; masses of
unwholesome flesh cover them, lying fold upon fold; the lobes of their
ears hang almost to the shoulder; the eyes when visible have an inhuman
glance that transfixes you with horror. Their hands are shapeless stumps
that have lost all natural form or expression.

Of old there was a law for the leprosy of a garment and of a house; yet,
in spite of the stringency of that Mosaic law, the isolation, the
purging with hyssop, and the cleansing by fire, St. Luke records: "There
met Him ten men who were lepers, who stood afar off; and they lifted up
their voices and cried, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us! " And today,
more than eighteen hundred years later, lepers gather on the slopes of
Mount Zion, and hover at the gates of Jerusalem, and crouch in the
shadow of the tomb of David, crying for the bread of mercy. Leprosy once
thoroughly engrafted on our nation, and nor cedar-wood, nor scarlet, nor
hyssop, nor clean birds, nor ewes of the first year, nor measures of
fine flour, nor offerings of any sort, shall cleanse us for evermore.

Let us turn to pleasanter prospects - the Joss House, for instance, one
of the several temples whither the Chinese frequently repair to
propitiate the reposeful gods. It is an unpretentious building, with
nothing external to distinguish its facade from those adjoining, save
only a Chinese legend above the door. There are many crooks and turns
within it; shrines in a perpetual state of fumigation adorn its nooks
and corners; overhead swing shelves of images rehearsing historical
tableaux; there is much carving and gilding, and red and green paint. It