Hawaii (24 page)

"He speaks better than I do," John Whipple whispered, but Abner was not amused, for he wished to be back at his books, feeling that he had come close to the heart of his essay on Theodore Beza when his professor insisted upon dragging him to the lecture by this barbarian from Owhyhee.

But when the brown-skinned giant launched into his message, not only Abner Hale but everyone else in the auditorium listened, for the engaging young savage told how he had run away from an idol-worshiping home, from polygamy, from immorality, from grossness and from bestiality to find the word of Jesus Christ. He recounted

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how, after landing from a whaling ship in Boston, he had tried to gain entrance to Harvard but had been laughed at, and how he had walked to Yale College and had met President Day in the street and had said to him, "I come seek Jesus." And the head of Yale had replied, "If you cannot find Him here, this college should be dissolved."

Keoki Kanakoa spoke for two hours. Sometimes his voice fell away to a whisper as he spoke of the evil darkness in which his beloved islands of Owhyhee festered. Again it rose like a thundering sea when he told the young men of Yale what they could do for Christ if they would only come to Owhyhee and circulate the word of God. But what had captured earlier audiences throughout New England, and what now completely absorbed the men of Yale, so that no one stirred even at the end of two hours, was Keoki's impassioned story of what it was like to live in Owhyhee without Christ. "When I was a boy," he began softly, in the fine English he had mastered in various church schools, "we worshiped dreadful gods like Ku, the god of battle. Ku demanded endless human sacrifices, and how did the priests find victims? Before a sacred day my father, the Governor of Maui, would tell his assistants, 'We require a man.' Before a battle he would announce, 'We require eight men,' and his assistants would then gather and say, 'Let's take Kakai. I am angry with him,' or perhaps, 'Now would be a good time to get rid of that one and take his lands.' And at night two conspirators would creep secretly from behind while a third would walk up boldly and say, 'Greetings, Kakai, how was the fishing?' and before he could reply . . ."

At this point giant Keoki had been coached by his missionary preceptors to pause dramatically, wait, then hold aloft in his enormous hands a lethal length of coconut-fiber rope. "While my father's agent smiled at the victim, one conspirator crept up and pinioned his arms. The other slipped this rope around his neck . . . like this." And slowly he twisted his two great hands together, compressing the rope into a tight knelt. Making a strangling noise in his throat, he allowed his big head to fall on his chest. After a pause, while his enormous frame seemed to burst from its ill-fitting American suit, he slowly raised his head and disclosed a face masked in pity. "We do not know Jesus," he said softly, as if his voice were coming from k sepulcher.

Then he swept into his peroration, his voice hammering like thunder and tears splashing down like rain, so that the terror of his youthful days became clearly visible throughout his body. "Young men of God!" he pleaded. "In my father's islands immortal souls go every night to everlasting hell because of you! You are to blame! You have not taken the word of Jesus Christ to my islands. We hunger for the word. We are thirsty for the word. We die for the word. Are ou, in your indifference, going to keep the word from us forever? s there no man here tonight who will rise up and say to me, 'Keoki Kanakoa, I will go with you to Owhyhee and save three hundred thousand souls for Jesus Christ'?"

y I

The gigantic man paused. In deep and honest grief his voice broke. President Day poured him a glass of water, but he brushed it aside and called, through choking sobs, "Will no one go with me to save the souls of my people?" He sat down, quaking in his chair, a man shattered by the revelation of God's word, and after a while President Day led him away.

The impact of Keoki Kanakoa's missionary sermon struck the roommates Hale of divinity and Whipple of medicine with stunning force. They left the lecture hall in shocked silence, brooding upon the misery depicted by the Owhyheean. In their room they did not bother to relight the lamp, but went to bed in darkness, weighed down by the indifference with which Keoki had charged them. When the awfulness of this indifference finally penetrated his conscience, Abner began to weep�for he had grown up in an age of weeping� and after a while John asked, "What is it, Abner?" and the farm boy replied, "I cannot think of sleep, seeing in my mind those human souls destined for all eternity to everlasting hell." From the manner in which he spoke, it was evident that he had been watching each separate soul plunge into eternal fire, and the misery was more than he could bear.

Whipple said, "His final call keeps ringing in my ears. 'Who will go to Owhyhee with me?'" To this Abner Hale made no reply.

Long after midnight, when the young doctor could still hear his roommate sobbing, he rose, lit the lamp, and began dressing. At first Hale pretended not to know what was happening, but finally he whipped out of bed and caught Whipple by the arm. "What are you going to do, John?"

"I am going to Owhyhee," the handsome doctor replied. "I cannot waste my life here, indifferent to the plea of those islands."

"But where are you going now?" Hale asked.

"To President Day's. To offer myself to Christ."

There was a moment's hesitation while the doctor, fully dressed, and the minister, in nightgown, studied each other. It was broken when Abner asked, "Will you pray with me?"

"Yes," the doctor said, and he kneeled beside his bed.

Abner, at his, prayed: "Father Almighty, tonight we have heard Thy call. From the starry wastes of the sky Thy voice has come to us, from across the boundless deep where souls rot in evil. Unworthy as we are to serve Thee, wilt Thou nevertheless accept us as Thy servants?" He continued for several minutes, issuing a prayer to a distant, living, full-bodied, vengeful yet forgiving God. If at that moment he had been asked to describe the Being to Whom he prayed he would have said, "He is tall, rather thin, with black hair and penetrating eyes. He is very serious, marks every transgression, and demands all humans to follow His precepts. He is a stem but forgiving Father, a harsh but just disciplinarian." And he would have described Gideon Hale in exactly the same terms. If anyone, at the end of his summary, should have asked, "Does this Father

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ever smile?" the question would have astonished young Abner as one he had not yet considered, but upon careful reflection he would have answered, "He is compassionate, but He never smiles."

When the prayer was ended John Whipple asked, "Are you coming with me?"

"Yes, but shouldn't we wait till morning to speak with President Day?"

" 'Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature,' " the young doctor quoted, and Hale, acknowledging the aptness of this admonition, dressed.

It was four-thirty when they knocked at President Day's door, and with no visible surprise he admitted them to his study, where he sat in coat and muffler hiding his nightgown. "I surmise that the Lord has spoken to you," he began gently.

"We are offering ourselves for Owhyhee," John Whipple explained.

"Have you considered this grave step?" Day asked.

"We have often discussed how we should spend our lives in God," Abner began, but he was taken by a fit of weeping, and his pale young features became red and his nose runny. President Day passed him a handkerchief.

"Some time ago we decided to dedicate our lives to God," Whipple said forcefully. "I stopped smoking. Abner wanted to go to Africa to rescue souls, but I thought I would work among the poor in New York. Tonight we realized where it was that we really wanted to go."

"This is not then the decision of the moment?" President Day pressed.

"Oh, no!" Abner assured him, sniffing. "My decision goes back to Reverend Thorn's sermon on Africa three years ago."

"And you, Mr. Whipple? I thought you wanted to be a doctor, not a missionary."

"I vacillated for a long time between medicine and seminary, President Day. I chose the former because I thought I could serve God in two capacities."

The president studied his two able students and asked, "Have you prayed on this grave problem?"

"We have," Abner replied.

"And what message did you receive?"

"That we should go to Owhyhee."

"Good," Day said with finality. "Tonight I was inspired to go myself. But my work remains here."

"What shall we do now?" Whipple asked, as spring dawn came over the campus.

"Return to your rooms, say nothing to anyone, and on Friday meet with the committee of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions."

"Will they be here so soon?" Abner gasped in obvious delight.

"Yes. They have found that they are often needed after Keoki Kanakoa speaks." But noticing the joy in the young men's faces he warned, "Reverend Thorn, the leader of the group, is most adroit in

uncovering young men who are guided by emotion and not by true dedication to Christ. If yours is not a profound commitment strong enough to sustain you for a lifetime, don't waste the time of Eliphalet Thorn."

"We are committed," Abner said firmly, and the two young men bade their president good night.

On Friday, John and Abner peered from behind curtains as the committee from the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions gravely marched into Yale to hold sessions with various young men whose imaginations had been captured by Keoki Kanakoa. "That's Reverend Thorn," Abner whispered as the leader appeared. He was a tall, thin man, in a frock coat that reached his ankles and a black beaver hat that stretched far in the opposite direction. He had bushy black eyebrows, a hooked nose and a forbidding chin. He looked like a judge, and the two young scholars were afraid.

But John Whipple's fear was misguided, for he had an easy time when he faced Eliphalet Thorn. The intense, gaunt face leaned forward, while the four lesser ministers listened, and Whipple heard the first kindly question: "Are you the son of Reverend Joshua Whip-pie, of western Connecticut?"

"I am," John replied.

"Has your father instructed you in the ways of piety?"

"He has." It was apparent that the committee recognized Whipple for what he was: a forthright, appealing, quick-witted young doctor from a God-fearing rural family.

"Have you experienced conversion?" Reverend Thorn asked quietly.

"When I was fifteen," John said, "I became much concerned about my future, and I vacillated between medicine and the clergy, and I chose the former because I was not certain in my heart that I understood God. I did not feel myself a pious youth, even though my father so reported me to the church. And then one day as I was trudging home from school I watched a whirling-broom of dust as it became larger and larger, and I am certain that I heard a voice say to me, 'Are you prepared to serve Me with your life?' and I said, 'Yes.' And I shook as I have never shaken before and the cloud of dust hovered about me for some time, but did not get into my nostrils. From that time on I have known God."

The five austere clergymen nodded approval, for this kind of sudden discovery of God had grown commonplace in New England, following the Great Awakening of 1740, and no man could guess how another would experience conversion, but Reverend Thorn bent his icy face forward and asked, "If you were originally confused, Mr. Whipple, between medicine and clergy, and if your confusion rose from the fact that you were not certain that you knew God, why, after God spoke directly to you, did you not change your decision and study for the ministry?"

"I was perplexed by this problem for a long time," Whipple con—

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fessed. "But I liked medicine and I concluded that as a doctor I could serve God in two capacities."

"That's an honest answer, Mr. Whipple. Return to your studies, and you will receive a letter from us within the week."

When John Whipple left the interview he was in a state of such exaltation that he neither looked at his roommate nor spoke to him. In fact, it was the most completely sublime moment in his life up to then and the one in which he felt closest to God. He had committed himself totally to God's work and he was certain that no power on earth could ever divert him from that commitment. Without speaking, he told his roommate that he had been accepted.

Abner Hale had an entirely different experience with the committee, for when he appeared with his ill-fitting suit, his stringy .blond hair pasted down, his sallow face flushed and his pinched shoulders bending forward too eagerly, one of the more worldly of the ministers asked himself, "Oh Lord, why dost Thou choose for Thy work such mangy men?"

"Are you converted?" Reverend Thorn asked impatiently.

"Yes," Abner said, but his explanation grew long-winded and turgid. He spent a good deal of time explaining just where the meadow was and how it lay in relation to the milking shed. But there was no doubt that he personally knew God.

"Why do you wish to serve as a missionary?" Reverend Thorn asked.

"Because ever since my conversion I have been determined to serve the Lord," Abner affirmed hastily, too eager to convince, and it was apparent to the other members of the committee that the young man was making a bad impression on Thorn, who was chairman because he had done work in Africa and knew the problems faced by missionaries. After a previous meeting with would-be missionaries from Williams College he had told his committeemen, "The type of man we must avoid is the unbalanced young gentleman who is so certain of his personal relationship with God that he refuses to accept his subordinate role in the mission community at large. If we can weed such excitable men out now, we will save the mission much expense in money and confusion later." It was apparent that he was about to do some weeding, for he interrupted Abner's flow of piety and pointed out: "I asked you why you wanted particularly to be a missionary. You haven't explained."