Hawaii - James Michener [81]
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 you, in your indifference, going to keep the word from us forever? Is 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'?"
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 stern but forgiving Father,