Hawaii

When it comes time for Jerusha to deliver her baby, the birth goes normally, and Abner is relieved to have a healthy son and a wife who survives the ordeal. He is also intent on building his church, but he wants it to be designed in the New England style, as a closed building. He disputes with the local holy men, the kahunas, about the proper location of the door, overriding their insistence that he has put it in the wrong spot. All the American missionaries also persist in wearing heavy woolen clothing and eating the same diet they maintained at home. “Perspiring in unbelievably heavy clothing, eschewing the healthful foods that surrounded them, they stubbornly toiled and grew faint and lost their health and died” (410).

Keoki, who originally asked Abner to come to Hawaii, puts pressure on Abner to ordain him, but the missionary is unwilling to trust the souls of the Indigenous people in the care of one of their own. “‘I am older than you were when you became a minister,’ the Hawaiian pointed out. ‘Yes, but I grew up in a Christian family. I was …’ ‘A white man?’ Keoki asked bluntly” (446).