Hawaii - James Michener [238]
At first Reverend Thorn wanted to interrupt the exhibition as unnecessary; he would accept Abner's word that the boy could perform this feat, but when the golden words began to pour forth, the gaunt old missionary sank back and listened to their pregnant promises. He was struck by the boy's feeling for language and was unhappy when he stopped, so that he asked, "How does such a passage sound in Hawaiian?"
"I can't speak Hawaiian," Micah explained. When the boy was gone, Thorn said, "I'd like to meet some of the Hawaiian ministers."
"We have none," Abner replied.
"Who is to carry on the work when you go?" Thorn asked, in some surprise.
"I am not going," Abner explained. "But the vitality of the church?" Thorn pressed. "You can't trust Hawaiians to run a church," Abner insisted. "Has anyone told you about Keoki and his sister Noelani?"
"Yes," Eliphalet Thorn said coldly. "Noelani told me ... in Honolulu. She now has four lovely Christian children."
Abner shook his head, trying to keep all things in focus, but for a moment he could not exactly place where he had known Eliphalet Thorn before, and then it became clear to him, and he recalled the manner in which the grave, gaunt man had gone from college to college in the year 1821. "What you must do, Reverend Thorn," Abner explained eagerly, "is go back to Yale and enlist many more missionaries. We could use a dozen more here at least."
"We have never intended sending an unlimited supply of white men to rule these islands," Thorn replied severely, and his accidental use of the word rule reminded him of his major responsibility in visiting Hawaii, but the subject was difficult to broach, and he hesitated.
Then he coughed and said bluntly, "Brother Abner, the Board in Boston is considerably displeased over two aspects of the Hawaiian mission. First, you have set up a system of bishoprics with central control in Honolulu, and you must know that this is repugnant to Congregationalism. Second, you have refused to train up Hawaiians to take over their churches when you depart. These are serious defects, and the Board instructed me to rebuke those responsible for these errors."
Abner stared coldly at his inquisitor and thought: "Who can know Hawaii who has not lived here? Reverend Thorn can throw down rebukes, but can he justify them?"
Thorn, having met the same kind of stubborn resistance in Honolulu, thought: "He is accusing me of intemperate judgment on the grounds that I know nothing of local conditions, but every error begins with a special condition."
Eliphalet Thorn was not at ease in delivering rebukes, and having warned Abner, he turned to happier topics, saying, "In Boston the tides of God seem always to run high, and I wish you could have witnessed the phenomenal changes in our church during the past few years. Our leaders have brought to the fore God's love and have tended to diminish John Calvin's bitter rectitude. We live in a new world of the spirit, Brother Abner, and although it is not easy for us older men to accommodate ourselves to change, there is no greater exaltation than to submit to the will of God. Oh, I'm convinced that this is the way He intends us to go." Suddenly, the inspired minister stopped, for Abner was looking at him strangely, and Thorn thought: "He is a difficult, custom-ridden man and cannot possibly understand the changes that have swept Boston."
But Abner was thinking: "Jerusha instituted such changes, and greater, in Lahaina seven years ago. Without the aid of theologians or Harvard professors she found God's love. Why is this tall man so arrogant?" A single conciliatory word from Thorn would have encouraged Abner to share with him the profound changes Jerusha had initiated in his theology, but the word was not spoken, for Thorn, noticing Abner's aloofness, thought: "I remember when I interviewed him at Yale. He was excitable and opinionated then. He's no better now. Why are the missions cursed with such men?"
Then, driven by that perverse luck which