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."
"I always wanted to serve God," Abner repeated, "but I did not know that I was called to the mission field until the night of August 14, 1818."
"What happened then?" Reverend Thorn asked impatiently.
"You spoke on Africa, at the Congregational Church of Marlboro, Massachusetts. I date my true awakening from that night." Eliphalet Thorn dropped his head and pinched his long nose, wondering what to ask next.
"What particularly did Reverend Thorn say that impressed you?" the worldly minister inquired waspishly.
"It is easy to answer that, sir, because ever since, his words have lived in my heart as an ideal. He spoke of the mission in Africa and said, 'We were as one family in Christ, each contributing his gifts each dedicating himself to the common cause of saving souls.' From that night I started to train myself to become a member of such a family in Christ. I have learned to saw straight and to build, against the day when I was sent where there were no houses. I've taught myself to sew and to cook, and to keep accounts. From the time Reverend Thorn spoke I have never thought of myself only as a college student or as a seminary scholar. I have been in solemn training to become one humble member of a family sent to some far place to serve Christ."
The young man's statement was so unexpectedly contrite and so choked with the spirit of Christ's discipleship that even the worldly minister who had earlier classified Abner as mangy, which he decidedly was, awoke to his possibilities. "One of the members of the faculty," this minister said, gracefully concealing President Day's name, "has reported to us, Mr. Hale, that you are vain of your sanctity."
"I am," Abner confessed bluntly, "and I know I must fight against it, but none of my brothers or sisters are pious. Most of the young men here at Yale are not. From these comparisons I did acquire a sense of vanity. I said, 'The Lord has chosen me, but not those others.' I am ashamed that even my teachers saw this failing in me, But, sir, if you ask them again, I think you will find that they were speaking of me as I used to be. I have repeated over and over again the text, 'Every one that is proud in heart is an abornination to the Lord,' and I have taken it to heart."
Reverend Thorn was deeply impressed by the changes that seemed to have taken place in this young minister's character, for Abner's reference to August 14, 1818, awakened in the older man vivid reflections. He well remembered that meeting, for he had reported on it to his companions in Boston: "I spent the evening addressing a group in Marlboro, and I was distressed by the smug indifference of these well-stuffed farmers from their well-stuffed farms. I might as well have been preaching to their cattle, for all they understood of missionary zeal." Yet in that indifferent audience there had been one sallow-faced youth acquiring the dedication which now brought him before this committee. The coincidence was too great, Reverend Thorn thought, and on the sudden he saw Abner not merely as a stringy-haired, pasty-faced young man with obvious tendencies toward identifying himself with God, but as a heaven-sent answer to a most pressing problem within the Thorn family. So the leader of the committee of inquiry leaned far forward and asked, "Mr. Hale, are you married?"
"Oh, no, sir!" the young man replied with what could have been interpreted as distaste. "I have never sought the companionship . . ."
"Were you aware that the Board will send no minister abroad who is not married?"
"No, sir. I told you that I had learned to sew and cook . . ."
Reverend Thorn pressed his inquiry. "Do you perchance know some dedicated young female, someone who has experienced conversion, who has thought of going . . ."
"No, sir. I know no females."
Reverend Thorn appeared to sigh with relief and indicated that he had no further questions, but after the committee had advised Abner to wait at Yale for a week, pending their decision on his case, their leader made a slight correction: "It may take us longer than a week to discover our minds in your case, Mr. Hale. Don’t become impatient." And after the young man had returned to his room, somewhat dazed by the complexity of the questions he had been asked, he found worse confusion, for his roommate reported how relatively simple his examination had been.
"They asked me a few questions about my faith," John Whipple recounted, "and then told me to get married as soon as the letter arrived next week."
"Whom will you marry?" Abner asked.
"My cousin, of course."
"Butyou've never spoken to her!"
"I will. Whom will you many?"
"The committee treated me much differently," Abner confessed. "I really don't know what was in their minds.
A knock came at the door, and when Whipple answered it, towering Reverend Thorn, his Adam's apple dancing, said, "Will you please excuse us, Mr. Whipple?"
"Please sit down, sir," Abner stammered.
"I shall only be a moment," the gaunt reverend replied, and then with the directness for which he was noted, asked, "I wish to verify my report. I understand that if the Board nominates you for Hawaii, you know of no young female whom you could invite . . ."
Abner was appalled at the idea that his careful life's plan should be frustrated in the bud because he knew no girls, so he said quickly, "Reverend Thorn, if that's all that's going to keep me ... Reverend, I know I could ask my father . . . He's a very strong judge of character, sir, and if he picked a girl . . ."
"Mr. Hale, please. I didn't say that you would be forbidden to go. I didn't even say that you could go in the first place. I merely asked you, ‘If we select you, do you know some appropriate female whom you could marry . . . well, rather promptly?' And you said no. All right."
"But, Reverend Thorn, if you would give me only two weeks," Abner pleaded, near tears, "I know my father . . ."
"I am much impressed with your piety, Mr. Hale," the older man began, on an entirely new tack.
"Then there's a chance?"
"What I wanted to speak to you about, Abner," said the tall, stern man in as kindly a manner as he could command, "is the fact that my sister in Walpole happens to have a daughter . . ." He paused in some embarrassment, hoping that Abner would anticipate his message and make its full delivery unnecessary. But honest Abner, with his hair pasted flat over his temples, could not imagine why the forbidding missionary was speaking of his sister, or his sister's daughter, and he looked with disarming innocence at Reverend Thorn, waiting for him to proceed.
The tall missionary swallowed his Adam's apple several times and wiped his forehead. "So if you know of n
o young female . . ." he began.
"I'm sure my father could find one," Abner interrupted.
"And if the Board selects you . . ." Eliphalet Thorn doggedly continued.
"I pray it will!" Abner cried.
"I was wondering if you would entertain it kindly if I were to speak to my niece on your behalf?" The tall reverend swallowed heavily and stared at the sallow young man.
Abner gaped, then blurted, "You mean that you would help me to find a wife? Your own niece?" He thrust his hand out eagerly and pumped Reverend Thorn's for almost a minute. "That would be more than I dare ask," he cried joyously. "Really, Reverend Thorn . . ."
Withdrawing his hand, the gaunt missionary interrupted the effusive flow and added, "Her name is Jerusha. Jerusha Bromley. She is a year older than you, but a most devout young woman."
The mention of a specific name, and attributing to that shadowy name a corporeal being with a given age, quite overcame Abner and he started to weep, but quickly he mastered himself and said, "Reverend Thorn, too much has been happening today. Could we pray?" And in the small room at Yale College the experienced missionary and the emotional boy stood with their heads raised to heaven as Abner prayed: "Dear gentle and supervising Lord, I am unable to comprehend all that has occurred today. I have talked with Thy missioners, and they have said that perhaps I may join them. One of Thy servants has volunteered to speak to a young female of his family on my behalf. Beloved and powerful God, if these things come to pass through Thine aid, I shall be Thy servant to the end of my days, and I shall carry Thy word to the farthest islands." He dropped his head in humility and Reverend Thorn breathed a husky "Amen."
"It will take about two weeks," he said as he left.
Tact was something Abner Hale would never have. "John Whipple said that he would know within a week," he reminded the committeeman.
"Your case is different," Thorn replied.
"Why?" Abner demanded.
Reverend Thorn wanted to blurt out the truth: "Because you're an offensive, undernourished, sallow-faced little prig, the kind that wrecks any mission to which he is attached. There's not a man on my committee that really thinks you ought to be sent overseas, but I have a niece who has got to get married one of these days. And maybe if I can talk to her before she sees you, possibly I can force her into marrying you. That, young man, is what requires two weeks." Instead, with the self-control he had acquired in Africa, the sagacious minister recovered quickly and offered what he considered a rather clever explanation: "You see, Mr. Hale, Dr. Whipple will be going to Owhyhee as missionary doctor. If we accept you, and if you can find a bride, you will be going as an ordained minister. That's why your case requires more careful investigation." The answer was so reasonable that Abner accepted it at once, and when John Whipple received his letter of acceptance and immediately dispatched both an acknowledgment to-the Board in Boston and a proposal of marriage to his cousin in Hartford, Abner smugly smiled at his roommate's excitement, repeating over and over to himself the reassuring thought: "Anyone can be a missionary doctor. But to be a fully ordained minister requires careful investigation." But whenever he indulged in this vanity he invariably recalled his Biblical antidote and he recited this, too: "Every one that is proud in heart is an abornination to the Lord," after which he recalled the powerful word from Job: "Behold every one that is proud, and abase him. Look on every one that is proud, and bring him low." Thus his two natures warred.
REVEREND THORN, as soon as his interrogations at Yale College were completed, hurried back to Boston and caught the stage running out to Marlboro, Massachusetts, to make inquiries as to the character and prospects of Abner Hale. Even as the coach neared Marlboro, he felt his old distaste for the village returning. The smug white barns in the smug spring landscape bespoke generations of thrifty, cautious people, proud of their possessions and deaf to the teachings of the Lord. His earlier impressions were fortified when he found the townspeople as smug as the outlying barns.
The school principal reported, airily: "Abner Hale! Ah, yes! There are so many Hale children it's rather difficult to keep them separated in one's mind. Abner, stringy hair, no good in games, worse in math, but rather gifted in the verbal processes that mark the cultivated mind. An austere young man who never pared his nails. Had good teeth, though."
"Was he pious?" Thorn pressed.
"To a fault," the airy schoolteacher replied. Then, sensing that this could be construed by his visitor to be a slur against piety, he quickly added, "By that I mean he was inclined toward priggishness, which I hold to be a fault, for does not the Bible counsel us: 'Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savor: so doth a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honor'?" And he held his hands up and smiled ingratiatingly.
"Would he make a good missionary?" Thorn asked in some anger, for he had been unable to follow the Biblical citation.
"Ah, yes!” the teacher cried. "To plunge into the unknown. To carry the good Word to the heathen. Yes, I think Abner Hale . . . Do I have the right boy? He was Gideon Hale's oldest? Bad complexion . . . really, an unlovely child? Yes, that's the one. Oh, yesl He'd make a fine missionary. Likes odd places and being alone."
The local minister was no better, and Reverend Thorn, schooled in the hard fields of Africa, could quickly spot where Abner had learned to weep. The doddering old man wheezed: "Little Abner Hale! I remember the year he found the Lord. It was in his father's meadow, and he stood transfixed . . ."
"Would he make a good missionary?" Thorn interrupted.
"Missionary!" the old man snapped. "Why should he leave Marlboro? Why not come back here and take my place, where he could do some good? Somebody ought to send some missionaries to Marlboro. Atheism, Deism, Unitarianism, Quakerism. Pretty soon there won't be a decent follower of John Calvin in all New England. If you want my opinion, young man, and I can see by your red face that you don't, you oughtn't to be coming here seducing our young men to go to Ceylon and Brazil and such places. Let 'em stay here and do some missionary work. But I haven't answered your question. Abner Hale'd make a wonderful missionary. He's gentle yet obstinate in the right. He's hard-working yet poetic in his love of nature. He's pious and he respects his parents. He's much too good to be sent to Ceylon."
On the dusty walk to the Hale farm, Reverend Thorn just about decided to give up his complex plan of first convincing the Board that they ought to take Abner and then convincing his niece Jerusha that she should do the same. All he had so far heard about the boy confirmed his committee's suspicions that Abner was a difficult, opinionated young man who was bound to cause trouble wherever he went, but then the gaunt missionary came upon the home of Abner Hale, and his mind was quickly changed.
From the road a line of maples led along a narrow lane to a wandering New England farmhouse with barn attached. For nearly a hundred and fifty years the buildings had known no paint and now stood grayish brown in the New England sun, which instead of brightening what could have been a lovely grassed-in square served instead to underscore the bleakness of the buildings. It was, recalled Reverend Thorn, the kind of Christian house in which he had been raised, the archetype in which to produce true piety. He understood Abner better from having seen merely the harsh outlines of his home.
Gideon Hale, angular and hard, completed the picture. Wrapping his skinny left leg completely around his right, so that one ankle locked into the other, he put his guest at ease by saying, "If you take Abner for Owhyhee you aren't getting an unmixed blessing, Reverend Thorn. He's not an average boy. He's not too easy to handle, either. He was pretty reasonable until he found conversion. Then he was certain that it was he and not me that was to interpret God's will. But he has enormous character. If you saw his marks in the Marlboro School, you'd find he started out poor in figures. But have you seen what he accomplished at Yale College? Only the best. In many ways he's an indifferent boy, Reverend Thorn, but where the right is concerned he's a rock. All my children are."
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At supper Eliphalet Thorn saw the kind of granite from which Abner had been hewn. The nine little Hales, with no dirt on their faces and dressed in the cheapest kind of homespun, filed dutifully in and sat at a table marked by spotless cleanliness and very little food. "We will say prayers," wiry, hawk-eyed Gideon announced, and all heads were bowed. One by one the nine children recited appropriate verses from the Bible, after which Mrs. Hale, an almost dead bundle of bones, mumbled briefly, "God bless this house," which was followed by a five-minute prayer from her husband. These preliminaries over, Hale said, "And now will our guest consent to bless us with a word of prayer?". And the scene was so reminiscent of his own childhood that Reverend Thorn launched into a ten-minute blessing in which he recalled the pious highlights of his youth in a Christian family.
After the meager meal Gideon Hale took his entire brood into the front room, where a particularly dank smell proved that no fire was ever wasted, and he proposed formal evening prayers. His wife and daughters led in a spirited version of "All hail the power of Jesus' name," after which Gideon and the boys sang a hymn quite popular at the time: "Oh, for a closer walk with God." When they came to the stirring verse about idols, Reverend Thorn joined in forcefully, for the words could almost serve as the dominant motive of his life:
"The dearest idol I have known, Whate'er that idol be, Help me to tear it from Thy throne, And worship only Thee."
Prayers by Gideon and his oldest boy followed, then an invitation to the visitor to say a few words. Reverend Thorn spoke long and passionately of the influence a Christian home can have upon a young man, or, as he remembered his sisters and the strong women into which they grew, upon a young female. "It is from homes like this," he said, "that God picks those who are to carry forward His work on earth." And in the fullness of his talk he committed himself to sponsoring Abner Hale, for he knew then that while it must be granted that the young man was unpleasant now, in the future he was going to be a great and solid implement of the Lord.
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