THE WHITE WHALE 37 
“In black distress, I called my God, 
When I could scarce believe Him mine, 
He bowed His ear to my complaints — 
Ho more the whale did me confine. 
“With speed He flew to my relief, 
As on a radiant dolphin bore; 
Awful, yet bright, as lightning shone 
The face of my Deliverer God. 
“My songs for ever shall record 
That terrible, that joyful hour; 
I give the glory to my God, 
His all the mercy and the power.” 
Hearly 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 Jonali — ‘And God had prepared a great fish to 
swallow up Jonah.’ 
“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 sea line 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; seaweed and all the slime of the sea is about 
us! But what is this lesson that the book of Jonah teaches! Ship- 
mates, 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 endeavours to persuade. And if we obey 
