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Themes Cure for Sin THE LAST LEPER Somewhere in the world there lives a man (or woman) who is the world's last leper. The World Health Organization thinks that sometime in the next year or two, some man or woman will be the last person to get leprosy. No one will ever get leprosy again. The world will wait while all the lepers die. Leprosy is not a deadly disease. Lepers often live to very old ages. So it may 50 years or more before the last leper dies. By the year 2100, leprosy, as old as time and more feared than any other disease, will pass into history. Already this is happening. In the U.S., the average leper is 67 years old. There are no new lepers. The lepers at Carville know this well. Sixty miles north of New Orleans, and a bit south of Baton Rouge, the Mississippi River makes a hairpin turn to create a "thumb" of land just west of Carville. Since opening in 1894, the Louisiana Leper Home has been the country's home for lepers. (The Home was built when the people of New Orleans grew tired of the many filthy lepers who lived in that city.) Perhaps "home" is not the best word. For the first sixty years, Carville was almost a prison. Even today, its long, concrete halls have the feeling of a prison. Lepers came, but they never left. Carville was the home of lies. Lepers, even today, do not use their real names, or tell where they came from. In its closing century, leprosy is still a dark secret. The graveyard at Carville is filled with stones that have only initials, numbers, or the false names of people whose bodies lie beneath. Beginning in the 1950's, doctors realized that keeping lepers in colonies made little sense. Ninety-five out of one hundred people could not be infected with leprosy even if they tried to be. So, the gates to Carville were thrown open. Many of its residents left. Now Carville's long hallways echo with the tap-tap-tap of the canes of the very old. Most of the buildings have been closed forever. Carville is so huge that there are three acres of land for every leper that still lives there. The giant old place will close long before the last leper dies. The Bible compares sin to leprosy. Did you ever stop to think that sin, like leprosy, will someday end? Most people go about sinning, often enjoying it, and imagining that it will go on forever. Someday, this world will be burned with what the Bible calls "fervent heat." Then, sin and sinners, will be banished forever from the sight of God. Today, sinners can come to Christ for cleansing from sin in this life. Those who do not will spend eternity in the empty loneliness of Hell. The Lord Jesus suffered, shed His blood and died on the cross. He invites sinners to come to Him for cleansing and salvation. The Lord Jesus says, "Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out" (John 6:37).
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Peter Orasuk
