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白鲸|Moby Dick (The Whale)

9．布道| CHAPTER 9. The Sermon.

属类： 双语小说 【分类】双语小说 -[作者: 赫尔曼·麦尔维尔] 阅读：[15531]
《 字+字- 行+行- 页+页- 字+字- 行+行- 页+页- 》
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梅普尔神甫站起来，用一种谦和的长者口气，不紧不慢地下着命令：

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“请右舷的靠向左舷，左舷的靠向右舷，大家各就其位！”

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挪凳子的声音、鞋与地的磨擦声、衣服的窸窸窣窣声响过之后，又恢复了刚才的宁静，大家齐刷刷地望着高高在上的梅普尔神甫。

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略事歇息，他闭上了眼睛、抬起了头、跪下了身子，两手交叉在胸前，虔诚地做起了祷告。

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祷告完毕，他开始庄严地朗诵圣诗，那音调稳重而飘逸，像一只在迷雾中航行的船上的钟声。

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在圣诗即将结束的时候，他的音调一下子变得激越昂扬起来：

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巨鲸的恐怖，

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笼罩在我心中，

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神秘的光泽普照万顷波涛，

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我于其间升腾，又于其间坠落。

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地狱之门洞开，

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那里面是痛苦的海！

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何人能助我自拔，

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不要让我陷入绝望的深渊？

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在无望的绝望中，

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当我信心丧失殆尽时，

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我呼吁我主，

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他俯耳倾听之际，

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巨鲸从我身旁掠过。

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主啊，你骑着灿烂的海豚，

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风驰电掣般地来救我；

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你救世救难的面容，

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放射着光华与永恒。

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我用我的歌来铭记，

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那阴森的恐怖和得救的快乐；

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荣耀归于上帝，

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感谢他的无所不能。

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大家都随着他唱起了圣歌，歌声袅袅，淹没了暴风雨的咆哮。

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待大家平静下来以后，梅普尔神甫慢慢地翻动《圣经》，按住要讲的那一页，说：

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“亲爱的船友们，请听《约拿书》第一章最后一节：‘耶和华安排一条大鱼吞了约拿。’”

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他的声音和缓稳重，不急不慢。

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“船友们，这部分，共有四章——四支纱——是这本大缆索似的圣书中最小的一股。”

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“约拿的心声是如此深沉！鱼腹中的祷告书又是那么高贵！”

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“涛鸣浪涌，洪水盖顶而至，我们随船坠入了深渊，海草在我们周围舞动。”

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“《约拿书》告诫我们，要吸取教训，我们这些犯了罪的人要吸取教训，我这个舷工也要吸取教训。”

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“这里讲到了约拿的犯罪、他的没有良心、他的突然醒悟以及他的恐惧，突然而至的惩罚让他忏悔、让他祷告，他终获拯救，他因此而兴高采烈。”

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“和我们所有的人犯的罪一样，这个亚米太的儿子也是因为任性、因为违反了上帝的旨意而犯了罪！”

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“上帝的旨意我们不可怀疑，不要问那旨意的含义或意义，那是上帝让我们做的事，那是他的命令，不是他的劝说。”

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“约拿认为那命令难以执行，其实，上帝给我们的命令都个是那么容易执行的。让我们遵从上帝而不惜违背自己吧，或许，正是因为这种对自己的违背，才让你有了执行上帝的旨意很困难的感觉啊！”

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“约拿抗命不遵、逃避责任、藐视上帝，他以为人所造的船可以带他到没有上帝的地方，只有船长而没有上帝。”

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“他东躲西藏，好不容易在码头上找到了一艘开往塔施的船。”

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“船友们，这里我提请你们的注意了。塔施是现代的加得斯城——有学问的人都这么认为——那么，加得斯城在哪里呢？”

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“加得斯在西班牙！那时候，大西洋几乎还是个无人所知的大海，约帕走水路抵达西班牙的加得斯，可以说走了两点之间最远的一条线！”

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“约帕就是现在的杜发，在地中海的最东边，叙利亚境内，从那儿到塔施，或者说到加得斯，就要西行两千多英里，才能抵达直布罗陀海峡的外侧！”

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“约拿想远走他乡，躲开他的上帝！”

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“这个神色慌张的家伙，把帽子拉得低低的，在码头上贼眉鼠眼地游荡。他自知有罪，感到周围有无数双眼睛在盯着他！”

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“如果当时有警察的话，早就把他抓住了，等不到他踏上任何一艘船！因为他太可疑了，没有行李，没有送行者，一副左躲右闪的下作样儿！”

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“最后，他找到了那艘就要装完货的去塔施的船，一上船，水手们就都停下了手里的活儿，紧紧地盯住了他！”

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“约拿意识到了自已被人怀疑了，努力镇定地微笑了一下，装出些若无其事的样子来。可这些掩饰不住的骨子里的贼像，水手们交头接耳地议论开了：

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“他一定是刚抢了一个寡妇！”

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“‘他是个重婚者！’”

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“‘他是个越了狱的奸夫！’”

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“‘他是个刚刚杀了人的谋杀犯！’”

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每个人有每个人的判断，每个判断对这个卑鄙的人来说都不过分。有个水手跑到码头上去看那个画影图形的通缉弑君者的告示去了，那上面的悬赏是五百金币。他看看告示，看看约拿；看看约拿，看看告示。

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“水手们将约拿团团围住，等待着码头上的伙伴的判断。

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“约拿彻底慌了手脚，手足无措地站在了那里，等待着水手的审判。直到那边打了个否定的手势，他才被允许走上船去。

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“约拿狼狈地走下船舱，他要去见船长。”

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“‘你是谁？’正在填写关单的船长很随便地问道。

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“约拿却被这普通的问话吓破了胆，他几乎要撒腿逃跑了！最后，他终于鼓足了勇气，开口道：

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“‘船长，我只是想问一问，这船什么时候开？我，我想到塔施去！’”

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“听到这样慌张的声音，船长猛地抬起了头：

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“‘潮水上来我就开船。’”

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“‘再早一点不行吗？’”

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“‘对任何一个正派的船客来说，那时候开船都是适宜的。’”

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“约拿嗅出了船长的话外之音，他赶紧顺从地答道：

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“‘好，好，我就搭你的船了！船钱是多少？我马上付。’”

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“船友们，我讲的这个细节是上了《圣经》的。《圣经》上说：‘他就给了船钱，上了船。’”

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“船友们，约拿上的那条船的船长，警惕性是很高的，可是他利欲熏心，被几个钱遮住了眼睛！”

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“船友们，能拿出钱来的罪犯不需要什么护照之类的东西就可以畅通无阻；相反，一个正直的人，只要他没钱，那也是寸步难行的啊！”

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“船长看了看约拿的钱包，大概估计了他有多少钱，然后开了一个三倍于普通旅客的价钱，约拿马上就同意了！”

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“船长明白，约拿是个逃亡者！”

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“当约拿掏出钱来后，船长认真地检查了每一块金币，看一看是真是假。在确认都是真的以后，约拿便正式被承认为船上的旅客了。

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“‘噢，先生，我很累了，我想睡觉，我的铺位在哪儿？’约拿急切地问。”

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“‘看得出来。这边，这边就是你的房问。’”

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“约拿三步两步奔进房间，反过身来就要锁门，可鼓捣了半天也没锁上。”

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“船长听见他在门后面的动静，心里暗笑：‘牢房的门永远不会被允许从里面锁上的！’”

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“约拿放弃了锁上门的想法，衣服也没脱便扑到了床上。”

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“逐渐地，他感到气闷胸塞，喘不过气来。他发现顶棚低得几乎要碰到他的脑袋了，哪儿也没有窗户，实在透不过气来。”

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“他有一种预感，大鲸鱼把他吞进肚子里以后，就是这种感觉！”

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“昏暗的挂灯，在约拿的舱房的墙壁上摇来摇去。船上的货越装越多，船身向码头的倾斜越来越厉害了。”

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“约拿躺在床上，不安地注意着船身的倾斜和挂灯的摇摆。他虽然上了船，可心绪无论如何也平稳不下来。”

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“‘噢，我的天哪，我的良心也挂起来啦！摇过来又晃过来，恶心、要吐……’”

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“约拿像一个刚刚狂欢了一个通宵的人一样，人躺在床上，脑子却还在旋转，像罗马竞技场中一条狂奔不已的公马，又像一个身处绝境祈求上帝祛病消灾的几近绝望之人……”

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“他受伤了，伤口在良心上，血流不止，却又没有在这个地方止血的办法。痛苦的抽搐和强烈的麻痹感使他昏昏而睡。”

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“潮水涌了上来，起锚解缆，船离开了那冷冷清清的码头，斜着身子，无声地驶进了大海。”

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“这是有史以来记载的第一艘走私船！走私的东西就是约拿！”

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“暴风雨突然来了！大海不愿运载这邪恶的货物，它用力抖着身子，要把约拿抖下去！”

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“水手长命令所有的人都投入为船轻装的战斗之中，所有的瓶瓶罐罐、箱箱板板都在呼啸的风声和人们的叫喊声中被投入了大海。此时此刻，约拿还在他的恶梦中迈着蹒跚的脚步。

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“‘嗨，你，怎么啦，快起来！’”

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“慌张的船长奔进约拿的船舱，对依然沉睡的约拿狂呼乱喊。他刷地一下坐了起来，一时弄不清是梦是醒。他跌跌撞撞地爬上甲板，死命地抓住栏杆。

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“狂怒的海水冲上甲板，从船头奔向船尾，一下子淹没了甲板上的一切，船还没沉，可人们感到好像已经被淹死了！”

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“一丝月光，从险恶的天空中投下来，吓得约拿好像看见了末日的来临。”

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“他不同异常的慌张绝望又引起了水手们的注意，无疑他是个亡命之徒！”

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“他们抽签来决定这场天灾的祸首，真是天意，掷出来的签正是约拿！”

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罪魁祸首原来就是他！真相大白以后，大家围住了约拿，纷纷质问：

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“‘你是谁？从哪里来？以何为业？国籍？民族？’”

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“水手们的质问吓破了约拿的胆，他回答了他们提出来的所有问题，还回答了他们没有提的问题。”

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“他的不打自招是上帝对他的惩罚！”

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“‘我是希伯来人。我无比敬畏耶和华那创造天地万物的伟力！’”

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“他的哭嚎引动了水手们的恻隐之心，他们甚至想不用把约拿抛入大海的方法惩罚他了，因为约拿已经主动请求这样了。”

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“可是风暴更强烈了，船覆人亡的危险更近了。水手们向上帝做了祈祷，然后甚至有点不大情愿地把约拿抬了起来，抛进了大海。”

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“效果十分明显，风停了，浪平了，一派平和的景象，好像刚才什么也没有发生，从来就是如此。”

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“约拿被扔进海里，只是在水面上留下了一个小小的涡流，马上就踪迹皆无了。”

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“水手们不知道，约拿已经掉进了一张大张的嘴里，那张嘴已经在那等了很久了！”

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“那是一条巨鲸！巨鲸的牙齿像白色的栅栏，一下就把约拿关了进去。”

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“约拿知道，这种十分可怕的惩罚是公正的。他没有痛哭流涕地直接向上帝祷告，他只是在心中默默地将自己的一切交给了上帝。”

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“船友们，这才是真心实意的忏悔，而不是急功近利地要求救命。你如果问约拿这样做上帝以为如何？那么只要看一看最后的结果就清楚了。”

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“他不仅被从巨鲸的肚子里救了出来，还从海里被救了出来。我在这里讲约拿的故事，并不是让你们重蹈他犯罪的覆辙，而是要你们学他忏悔的榜样。”

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“不能犯罪！犯了罪以后也必须像约拿那样忏悔！”

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牧师在讲这些的时候，外面的凄风苦雨一直没有停歇。这为故事提供了一个良好的伴音效果。

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他生动的叙述使人们感到自己时而慌张地在码头上徘徊、时而又在狂风巨浪中摇摆，他起伏的胸膛和挥动的手臂、上挑的眉梢和闪电般的目光，极大地震慑住了台下的听众。

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牧师的话戛然而止，他闭目凝神，好像在和上帝交谈。

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他动了动，慢慢地睁开眼睛，翻动了一下《圣经》，低下头，谦和稳当地说：

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“船友们，上帝以一只手放在你们身上；可他放在我身上的却是两只手。我刚才讲的约拿的故事是对你们的训诫，也是对我自己双倍的训诫。”

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“啊，如果我是你们听众之中的一员，而你们之一中的哪一位此刻正站在这高高的讲坛上宣传人生要义，那是多么愉快的事啊！”

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“约拿是个涂了圣油的无知，受了主的委托，去给邪恶的尼尼微人传播真理。可是，他怕那些邪恶的人，想逃脱自己的责任，慌张地上了船，想去塔施！上帝让巨鲸在海里等着他，把他吞进了万丈深渊。

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“就是在这样关键的时刻，约拿发自内心的忏悔，上帝还是听到了。上帝就向巨鲸下了命令，巨鲸一下子从阴冷的深海中冲了出来，奔向温暖的阳光，奔向充满生机的大地。”

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“‘把约拿吐到陆地上。’”

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“遍体鳞伤的约拿被扔到了陆地上，他两耳嗡嗡乱响，但心中已下定了执行上帝的命令的决心。”

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“什么命令呢？那就是义无反顾地向一切人传播真理。”

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“船友们，愿那个接受了逃避的教训的舵工受难！愿那个抵御不住诱惑而违反了圣命的人受难！愿那个只知讨好别人而不敢稍有得罪的人受难！愿那个把名声看得比德行还重的人受难！愿那个心叵测的救人者受难！”

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他的头垂了下去，略事静默，又缓缓地抬起头来，眼中有一丝愉悦的光泽，突然，他高声叫道：

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“但是，船友们啊！在不幸的背后确实是有一种愉悦的。而且，那种愉悦无疑比不幸更强烈！”

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“愿那些坚韧不拔的船长们愉悦——发自内心的愉悦！愿那些自己的船已经开始沉没于这个阴险的世界，而自己还在努力用胳膊支撑一切的人愉悦！愿那位从参议员之类人的袍子里拉出了罪恶，并矢志不渝地要铲除罪恶的人愉悦！愿那个不知道有多少人间的律条，而只知道耶和华的人愉悦！”

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“一个人在弥留之际，这样说：‘我的父啊！我这就要死了。我首先认识的是你的威力，不论是下地狱还是上天堂，我都要死了。我竭力想属于你，努力的程度远远超过了想属于这个世界、想属于我自己的想法。无论如何，我祝你永生，一个人想比他的上帝长命，那是不可思议的。’”

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“这个人就该享有永恒的愉悦！愉悦永远属于他！”

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他缓缓地挥动着手臂，不再说话了。

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双手掩面，长跪不起。所有的人都走了，只剩下他一个人，还无声地跪在那里。

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Father Mapple rose, and in a mild voice of unassuming authority ordered the scattered people to condense. “Starboard gangway, there! side away to larboard—larboard gangway to starboard! midships! midships!”

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There was a low rumbling of heavy sea-boots among the benches, and a still slighter shuffling of women’s shoes, and all was quiet again, and every eye on the preacher.

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He paused a little; then kneeling in the pulpit’s bows, folded his large brown hands across his chest, uplifted his closed eyes, and offered a prayer so deeply devout that he seemed kneeling and praying at the bottom of the sea.

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This ended, in prolonged solemn tones, like the continual tolling of a bell in a ship that is foundering at sea in a fog—in such tones he commenced reading the following hymn; but changing his manner towards the concluding stanzas, burst forth with a pealing exultation and joy—

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Nearly all joined in singing this hymn, which swelled high above the howling of the storm. A brief pause ensued; the preacher slowly turned over the leaves of the Bible, and at last, folding his hand down upon the proper page, said: “Beloved shipmates, clinch the last verse of the first chapter of Jonah—‘And God had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah.’”

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“Shipmates, this book, containing only four chapters—four yarns—is one of the smallest strands in the mighty cable of the Scriptures. Yet what depths of the soul does Jonah’s deep sealine sound! what a pregnant lesson to us is this prophet! What a noble thing is that canticle in the fish’s belly! How billow-like and boisterously grand! We feel the floods surging over us; we sound with him to the kelpy bottom of the waters; sea-weed and all the slime of the sea is about us! But what is this lesson that the book of Jonah teaches? Shipmates, it is a two-stranded lesson; a lesson to us all as sinful men, and a lesson to me as a pilot of the living God. As sinful men, it is a lesson to us all, because it is a story of the sin, hard-heartedness, suddenly awakened fears, the swift punishment, repentance, prayers, and finally the deliverance and joy of Jonah. As with all sinners among men, the sin of this son of Amittai was in his wilful disobedience of the command of God—never mind now what that command was, or how conveyed—which he found a hard command. But all the things that God would have us do are hard for us to do—remember that—and hence, he oftener commands us than endeavors to persuade. And if we obey God, we must disobey ourselves; and it is in this disobeying ourselves, wherein the hardness of obeying God consists.

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“With this sin of disobedience in him, Jonah still further flouts at God, by seeking to flee from Him. He thinks that a ship made by men will carry him into countries where God does not reign, but only the Captains of this earth. He skulks about the wharves of Joppa, and seeks a ship that’s bound for Tarshish. There lurks, perhaps, a hitherto unheeded meaning here. By all accounts Tarshish could have been no other city than the modern Cadiz. That’s the opinion of learned men. And where is Cadiz, shipmates? Cadiz is in Spain; as far by water, from Joppa, as Jonah could possibly have sailed in those ancient days, when the Atlantic was an almost unknown sea. Because Joppa, the modern Jaffa, shipmates, is on the most easterly coast of the Mediterranean, the Syrian; and Tarshish or Cadiz more than two thousand miles to the westward from that, just outside the Straits of Gibraltar. See ye not then, shipmates, that Jonah sought to flee world-wide from God? Miserable man! Oh! most contemptible and worthy of all scorn; with slouched hat and guilty eye, skulking from his God; prowling among the shipping like a vile burglar hastening to cross the seas. So disordered, self-condemning is his look, that had there been policemen in those days, Jonah, on the mere suspicion of something wrong, had been arrested ere he touched a deck. How plainly he’s a fugitive! no baggage, not a hat-box, valise, or carpet-bag,—no friends accompany him to the wharf with their adieux. At last, after much dodging search, he finds the Tarshish ship receiving the last items of her cargo; and as he steps on board to see its Captain in the cabin, all the sailors for the moment desist from hoisting in the goods, to mark the stranger’s evil eye. Jonah sees this; but in vain he tries to look all ease and confidence; in vain essays his wretched smile. Strong intuitions of the man assure the mariners he can be no innocent. In their gamesome but still serious way, one whispers to the other—“Jack, he’s robbed a widow;” or, “Joe, do you mark him; he’s a bigamist;” or, “Harry lad, I guess he’s the adulterer that broke jail in old Gomorrah, or belike, one of the missing murderers from Sodom.” Another runs to read the bill that’s stuck against the spile upon the wharf to which the ship is moored, offering five hundred gold coins for the apprehension of a parricide, and containing a description of his person. He reads, and looks from Jonah to the bill; while all his sympathetic shipmates now crowd round Jonah, prepared to lay their hands upon him. Frighted Jonah trembles, and summoning all his boldness to his face, only looks so much the more a coward. He will not confess himself suspected; but that itself is strong suspicion. So he makes the best of it; and when the sailors find him not to be the man that is advertised, they let him pass, and he descends into the cabin.

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“‘Who’s there?’ cries the Captain at his busy desk, hurriedly making out his papers for the Customs—‘Who’s there?’ Oh! how that harmless question mangles Jonah! For the instant he almost turns to flee again. But he rallies. ‘I seek a passage in this ship to Tarshish; how soon sail ye, sir?’ Thus far the busy Captain had not looked up to Jonah, though the man now stands before him; but no sooner does he hear that hollow voice, than he darts a scrutinizing glance. ‘We sail with the next coming tide,’ at last he slowly answered, still intently eyeing him. ‘No sooner, sir?’—‘Soon enough for any honest man that goes a passenger.’ Ha! Jonah, that’s another stab. But he swiftly calls away the Captain from that scent. ‘I’ll sail with ye,’—he says,—‘the passage money how much is that?—I’ll pay now.’ For it is particularly written, shipmates, as if it were a thing not to be overlooked in this history, ‘that he paid the fare thereof’ ere the craft did sail. And taken with the context, this is full of meaning.

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“Now Jonah’s Captain, shipmates, was one whose discernment detects crime in any, but whose cupidity exposes it only in the penniless. In this world, shipmates, sin that pays its way can travel freely, and without a passport; whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all frontiers. So Jonah’s Captain prepares to test the length of Jonah’s purse, ere he judge him openly. He charges him thrice the usual sum; and it’s assented to. Then the Captain knows that Jonah is a fugitive; but at the same time resolves to help a flight that paves its rear with gold. Yet when Jonah fairly takes out his purse, prudent suspicions still molest the Captain. He rings every coin to find a counterfeit. Not a forger, any way, he mutters; and Jonah is put down for his passage. ‘Point out my state-room, Sir,’ says Jonah now, ‘I’m travel-weary; I need sleep.’ ‘Thou lookest like it,’ says the Captain, ‘there’s thy room.’ Jonah enters, and would lock the door, but the lock contains no key. Hearing him foolishly fumbling there, the Captain laughs lowly to himself, and mutters something about the doors of convicts’ cells being never allowed to be locked within. All dressed and dusty as he is, Jonah throws himself into his berth, and finds the little state-room ceiling almost resting on his forehead. The air is close, and Jonah gasps. Then, in that contracted hole, sunk, too, beneath the ship’s water-line, Jonah feels the heralding presentiment of that stifling hour, when the whale shall hold him in the smallest of his bowels’ wards.

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“Screwed at its axis against the side, a swinging lamp slightly oscillates in Jonah’s room; and the ship, heeling over towards the wharf with the weight of the last bales received, the lamp, flame and all, though in slight motion, still maintains a permanent obliquity with reference to the room; though, in truth, infallibly straight itself, it but made obvious the false, lying levels among which it hung. The lamp alarms and frightens Jonah; as lying in his berth his tormented eyes roll round the place, and this thus far successful fugitive finds no refuge for his restless glance. But that contradiction in the lamp more and more appals him. The floor, the ceiling, and the side, are all awry. ‘Oh! so my conscience hangs in me!’ he groans, ‘straight upwards, so it burns; but the chambers of my soul are all in crookedness!’

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“Like one who after a night of drunken revelry hies to his bed, still reeling, but with conscience yet pricking him, as the plungings of the Roman race-horse but so much the more strike his steel tags into him; as one who in that miserable plight still turns and turns in giddy anguish, praying God for annihilation until the fit be passed; and at last amid the whirl of woe he feels, a deep stupor steals over him, as over the man who bleeds to death, for conscience is the wound, and there’s naught to staunch it; so, after sore wrestlings in his berth, Jonah’s prodigy of ponderous misery drags him drowning down to sleep.

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“And now the time of tide has come; the ship casts off her cables; and from the deserted wharf the uncheered ship for Tarshish, all careening, glides to sea. That ship, my friends, was the first of recorded smugglers! the contraband was Jonah. But the sea rebels; he will not bear the wicked burden. A dreadful storm comes on, the ship is like to break. But now when the boatswain calls all hands to lighten her; when boxes, bales, and jars are clattering overboard; when the wind is shrieking, and the men are yelling, and every plank thunders with trampling feet right over Jonah’s head; in all this raging tumult, Jonah sleeps his hideous sleep. He sees no black sky and raging sea, feels not the reeling timbers, and little hears he or heeds he the far rush of the mighty whale, which even now with open mouth is cleaving the seas after him. Aye, shipmates, Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship—a berth in the cabin as I have taken it, and was fast asleep. But the frightened master comes to him, and shrieks in his dead ear, ‘What meanest thou, O, sleeper! arise!’ Startled from his lethargy by that direful cry, Jonah staggers to his feet, and stumbling to the deck, grasps a shroud, to look out upon the sea. But at that moment he is sprung upon by a panther billow leaping over the bulwarks. Wave after wave thus leaps into the ship, and finding no speedy vent runs roaring fore and aft, till the mariners come nigh to drowning while yet afloat. And ever, as the white moon shows her affrighted face from the steep gullies in the blackness overhead, aghast Jonah sees the rearing bowsprit pointing high upward, but soon beat downward again towards the tormented deep.

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“Terrors upon terrors run shouting through his soul. In all his cringing attitudes, the God-fugitive is now too plainly known. The sailors mark him; more and more certain grow their suspicions of him, and at last, fully to test the truth, by referring the whole matter to high Heaven, they fall to casting lots, to see for whose cause this great tempest was upon them. The lot is Jonah’s; that discovered, then how furiously they mob him with their questions. ‘What is thine occupation? Whence comest thou? Thy country? What people? But mark now, my shipmates, the behavior of poor Jonah. The eager mariners but ask him who he is, and where from; whereas, they not only receive an answer to those questions, but likewise another answer to a question not put by them, but the unsolicited answer is forced from Jonah by the hard hand of God that is upon him.

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“‘I am a Hebrew,’ he cries—and then—‘I fear the Lord the God of Heaven who hath made the sea and the dry land!’ Fear him, O Jonah? Aye, well mightest thou fear the Lord God then! Straightway, he now goes on to make a full confession; whereupon the mariners became more and more appalled, but still are pitiful. For when Jonah, not yet supplicating God for mercy, since he but too well knew the darkness of his deserts,—when wretched Jonah cries out to them to take him and cast him forth into the sea, for he knew that for his sake this great tempest was upon them; they mercifully turn from him, and seek by other means to save the ship. But all in vain; the indignant gale howls louder; then, with one hand raised invokingly to God, with the other they not unreluctantly lay hold of Jonah.

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“And now behold Jonah taken up as an anchor and dropped into the sea; when instantly an oily calmness floats out from the east, and the sea is still, as Jonah carries down the gale with him, leaving smooth water behind. He goes down in the whirling heart of such a masterless commotion that he scarce heeds the moment when he drops seething into the yawning jaws awaiting him; and the whale shoots-to all his ivory teeth, like so many white bolts, upon his prison. Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord out of the fish’s belly. But observe his prayer, and learn a weighty lesson. For sinful as he is, Jonah does not weep and wail for direct deliverance. He feels that his dreadful punishment is just. He leaves all his deliverance to God, contenting himself with this, that spite of all his pains and pangs, he will still look towards His holy temple. And here, shipmates, is true and faithful repentance; not clamorous for pardon, but grateful for punishment. And how pleasing to God was this conduct in Jonah, is shown in the eventual deliverance of him from the sea and the whale. Shipmates, I do not place Jonah before you to be copied for his sin but I do place him before you as a model for repentance. Sin not; but if you do, take heed to repent of it like Jonah.”

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While he was speaking these words, the howling of the shrieking, slanting storm without seemed to add new power to the preacher, who, when describing Jonah’s sea-storm, seemed tossed by a storm himself. His deep chest heaved as with a ground-swell; his tossed arms seemed the warring elements at work; and the thunders that rolled away from off his swarthy brow, and the light leaping from his eye, made all his simple hearers look on him with a quick fear that was strange to them.

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There now came a lull in his look, as he silently turned over the leaves of the Book once more; and, at last, standing motionless, with closed eyes, for the moment, seemed communing with God and himself.

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But again he leaned over towards the people, and bowing his head lowly, with an aspect of the deepest yet manliest humility, he spake these words:

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“Shipmates, God has laid but one hand upon you; both his hands press upon me. I have read ye by what murky light may be mine the lesson that Jonah teaches to all sinners; and therefore to ye, and still more to me, for I am a greater sinner than ye. And now how gladly would I come down from this mast-head and sit on the hatches there where you sit, and listen as you listen, while some one of you reads me that other and more awful lesson which Jonah teaches to me, as a pilot of the living God. How being an anointed pilot-prophet, or speaker of true things, and bidden by the Lord to sound those unwelcome truths in the ears of a wicked Nineveh, Jonah, appalled at the hostility he should raise, fled from his mission, and sought to escape his duty and his God by taking ship at Joppa. But God is everywhere; Tarshish he never reached. As we have seen, God came upon him in the whale, and swallowed him down to living gulfs of doom, and with swift slantings tore him along ‘into the midst of the seas,’ where the eddying depths sucked him ten thousand fathoms down, and ‘the weeds were wrapped about his head,’ and all the watery world of woe bowled over him. Yet even then beyond the reach of any plummet—‘out of the belly of hell’—when the whale grounded upon the ocean’s utmost bones, even then, God heard the engulphed, repenting prophet when he cried. Then God spake unto the fish; and from the shuddering cold and blackness of the sea, the whale came breeching up towards the warm and pleasant sun, and all the delights of air and earth; and ‘vomited out Jonah upon the dry land;’ when the word of the Lord came a second time; and Jonah, bruised and beaten—his ears, like two sea-shells, still multitudinously murmuring of the ocean—Jonah did the Almighty’s bidding. And what was that, shipmates? To preach the Truth to the face of Falsehood! That was it!

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“This, shipmates, this is that other lesson; and woe to that pilot of the living God who slights it. Woe to him whom this world charms from Gospel duty! Woe to him who seeks to pour oil upon the waters when God has brewed them into a gale! Woe to him who seeks to please rather than to appal! Woe to him whose good name is more to him than goodness! Woe to him who, in this world, courts not dishonor! Woe to him who would not be true, even though to be false were salvation! Yea, woe to him who, as the great Pilot Paul has it, while preaching to others is himself a castaway!”

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He dropped and fell away from himself for a moment; then lifting his face to them again, showed a deep joy in his eyes, as he cried out with a heavenly enthusiasm,—“But oh! shipmates! on the starboard hand of every woe, there is a sure delight; and higher the top of that delight, than the bottom of the woe is deep. Is not the main-truck higher than the kelson is low? Delight is to him—a far, far upward, and inward delight—who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self. Delight is to him whose strong arms yet support him, when the ship of this base treacherous world has gone down beneath him. Delight is to him, who gives no quarter in the truth, and kills, burns, and destroys all sin though he pluck it out from under the robes of Senators and Judges. Delight,—top-gallant delight is to him, who acknowledges no law or lord, but the Lord his God, and is only a patriot to heaven. Delight is to him, whom all the waves of the billows of the seas of the boisterous mob can never shake from this sure Keel of the Ages. And eternal delight and deliciousness will be his, who coming to lay him down, can say with his final breath—O Father!—chiefly known to me by Thy rod—mortal or immortal, here I die. I have striven to be Thine, more than to be this world’s, or mine own. Yet this is nothing: I leave eternity to Thee; for what is man that he should live out the lifetime of his God?”

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He said no more, but slowly waving a benediction, covered his face with his hands, and so remained kneeling, till all the people had departed, and he was left alone in the place.

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