Written in the Phillipines, Culasi, Antique Province
OBISPADO
DE
JARO-ILOILO.
Islas Filipinas
Culasi, Antique Province,
8 Dec. 1914.
Rev. and dear Mother Beatrix:
The last time I wrote you I was on a diocesan visitation of the extreme eastern part of this diocese; now I am on a visitation of the extreme western part; and shall not return to Jaro until shortly before Christmas, after an absence of five weeks.
Your kind letter of October 24th, 1914, reached me here a few days ago. I answer now, but shall have to wait until I get home in order to post my letter. For there is a lack of postal communication where I am.
I prize the postal card which you so kindly sent me, in which is shown the breaking of the ground by Father Morrissey assisted by Father Moore, for your new chapel. I congratulate you on the undertaking and most sincerely hope and pray that it will have a special blessing of God.
Since my return to the Philippines from the U.S. I have done something to make known here The Little Flower. At the entrance to our present provisional hospital we have an enlarged photograph of her; and when our new hospital building is up, I shall name a ward after her. The Assumption Sisters, in charge of a Girls’ College; the Sisters of Charity, in charge of our orphan Asylum; and the Sisters of St. Paul of Chartres, in charge of our hospital, have a great devotion to her. It may interest you to hear this story. We had in charge of the medical and surgical department of the hospital an Orangeman named Dr Carson, a relative to Sir Edward Carson, the leader of the Ulsterites. The Doctor is queer; he gets brainstorms; and so made the Sisters’ lives intolerable. After putting up with him for several years we finally determined to get rid of him as chief doctor and surgeon. But we feared to dismiss him, lest we should not only lose his patients, who constitute a great part of our patrons, but lest, also, he should try to kill the hospital. I asked the hospital Sisters to pray that God would adjust matters, so that the Doctor would resign amicably. What was my astonishment to get unsolicited a letter of resignation from him within a few days, saying that he could no longer stand the impertinence of the assistant physician, a Filipino! But he continues to patronize us with his sick! I asked the Sisters how they got the result. They confessed to me that they had put a relic of The Little Flower in his hat, which they found hanging on the rack, and that he so carried the relic on his head, unconscious of it or its purpose. And so the Sisters got their wish. Please do not let this story get beyond yourselves, lest, if published, it reach Dr Carson.
I thank you sincerely for the prayers of yourself and community for me and my work and I beg of you to have the charity to continue them. I am greatly in need of them.
Please thank your Sisters for me and give them my regards and best wishes.
Hoping you are all well,
I remain,
Devotedly in Xt.
+D. J. Dougherty.