Old Father Maple, with the storm outside, he in a raised pulpit built to resemble a ship’s prow, and his tiny congregation spread out in the small chapel, calls them together using naval commands, such as “Midships!” He then kneels in the pulpit, looks heavenward and sings a hymn about the biblical tale of Jonah the prophet, who fled from God to the ends of the known sea only to be swallowed by a whale:
“The ribs and terrors in the whale
Arched over me a dismal gloom,
While all God’s sun-lit waves rolled by,
And lift me deepening down to doom.
“I saw the opening maw of hell,
With endless pains and sorrows there;
Which none but they that feel can tell—
Oh, I was plunging to despair.
“In black distress, I call my God,
When I could scarce believe him mine,
He bowed his ear to my complaints—
No more the whale did me confine.
“With speed he flew to my relief,
As on a radiant dolphin borne;
Awful, yet bright, as lightning shone
The face of my Deliverer God.
“My song for ever shall record
That terrible, that joyful hour;
I give the glory to my God,
His all the mercy and the power.”
Ishmael’s voice strangely quiet in this scene, Father Maple goes on to an extensive sermon on the story of Jonah, translating some ancient terms and illuminating the tale in a way to appeal to the sensibilities of the modern seafarer. He struggles with his interpretations and definitions, and is manifestly not the cloaked voice of the author, but of a real working class chaplain. Select passages aimed at the young man making his way in the world include:
“In this world, shipmates, sin that pays its way can travel freely, and without a passport; wheras Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all frontiers.”
“Delight is to him whose strong arms yet support him, when the ship of this base treacherous world has gone down beneath him.”
Finally, the sermon done, Ishmael closes:
“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.”
In the heart of Puritan New England Ishmael and the other whalers, as if men of a bygone age, are treated to a shockingly shamanic purification ritual aimed not at worldly ethics, taboos or social conventions, but at the enlivening of their visionary being, by a passionate agent for their hopes, who has known firsthand their dreads.
