Hawaii - James Michener [80]
"Abner!” a stentorian voice called from the hallway. "It is your duty to hear Keoki Kanakoa." The door was thrust open, revealing a chunky little professor in a waistcoat too tight and a stock too dirty. "In the interests of your soul you should hear the message of this remarkable young Christian." And the man came over to the desk, blew out the light, and dragged his reluctant pupil to the missionary lecture.
Abner found the seat which handsome John Whipple had saved for him, and the two young men, so unlike in all ways, waited for the chairs on the college platform to be occupied. At seven-thirty President Jeremiah Day, calm but glowing with spiritual fire, led to the farthest chair a brown-skinned, white-toothed, black-haired young giant in a tight-fitting suit. "It is my honor to present to the students of Yale College," President Day said simply, "one of the most powerful voices in the world today. For when Keoki Kanakoa, son of a ruler of Owhyhee speaks, he speaks to the conscience of the world; to you young men who have already committed yourselves to Christ's ministry, the voice of Keoki Kanakoa brings particular challenges."
At this, the young giant, standing about six feet five and weighing more than two hundred and fifty pounds, rose and graced his audience with a dazzling smile, after which he raised his hands like a minister and prayed: "May the good Lord bless what I am about to say. May He open all hearts to hear."
"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 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