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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Father Damien by Robert Louis Stevenson: world, I kept repeating to myself, with a new conception of their
pregnancy, those simple words of the song -
" 'Tis the most distressful country that ever yet was seen."
And observe: that which I saw and suffered from was a settlement
purged, bettered, beautified; the new village built, the hospital
and the Bishop-Home excellently arranged; the sisters, the poctor,
and the missionaries, all indefatigable in their noble tasks. It
was a different place when Damien came there and made this great
renunciation, and slept that first night under a tree amidst his
rotting brethren: alone with pestilence; and looking forward (with
what courage, with what pitiful sinkings of dread, God only knows)
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