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!
"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!
He drooped 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.
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