{"id":"01KFNR86Y081SYKMJTQJJZF5JN","cid":"bafkreifusfn5ip6wpo6vmj5ryspkebgw2zzzbrep7ojdmk74um5iucrlaa","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":2307,"extracted_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:01.900Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 0","source_file":"01KFNR0Z394A878Y5AQ63MQEM2","start_line":2238,"text":"CHAPTER 9. The Sermon.\r\n\r\nFather Mapple rose, and in a mild voice of unassuming authority ordered\r\nthe scattered people to condense. “Starboard gangway, there! side away\r\nto larboard—larboard gangway to starboard! Midships! midships!”\r\n\r\nThere was a low rumbling of heavy sea-boots among the benches, and a\r\nstill slighter shuffling of women’s shoes, and all was quiet again, and\r\nevery eye on the preacher.\r\n\r\nHe paused a little; then kneeling in the pulpit’s bows, folded his\r\nlarge brown hands across his chest, uplifted his closed eyes, and\r\noffered a prayer so deeply devout that he seemed kneeling and praying\r\nat the bottom of the sea.\r\n\r\nThis ended, in prolonged solemn tones, like the continual tolling of a\r\nbell in a ship that is foundering at sea in a fog—in such tones he\r\ncommenced reading the following hymn; but changing his manner towards\r\nthe concluding stanzas, burst forth with a pealing exultation and joy—\r\n\r\n\r\n  “The ribs and terrors in the whale, Arched over me a dismal gloom,\r\n  While all God’s sun-lit waves rolled by, And lift me deepening down\r\n  to doom.\r\n\r\n  “I saw the opening maw of hell, With endless pains and sorrows there;\r\n  Which none but they that feel can tell— Oh, I was plunging to\r\n  despair.\r\n\r\n  “In black distress, I called my God, When I could scarce believe him\r\n  mine, He bowed his ear to my complaints— No more the whale did me\r\n  confine.\r\n\r\n  “With speed he flew to my relief, As on a radiant dolphin borne;\r\n  Awful, yet bright, as lightning shone The face of my Deliverer God.\r\n\r\n  “My song for ever shall record That terrible, that joyful hour; I\r\n  give the glory to my God, His all the mercy and the power.”\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nNearly all joined in singing this hymn, which swelled high above the\r\nhowling of the storm. A brief pause ensued; the preacher slowly turned\r\nover the leaves of the Bible, and at last, folding his hand down upon\r\nthe proper page, said: “Beloved shipmates, clinch the last verse of the\r\nfirst chapter of Jonah—‘And God had prepared a great fish to swallow up\r\nJonah.’”\r\n\r\n“Shipmates, this book, containing only four chapters—four yarns—is one\r\nof the smallest strands in the mighty cable of the Scriptures. Yet what\r\ndepths of the soul does Jonah’s deep sealine sound! what a pregnant\r\nlesson to us is this prophet! What a noble thing is that canticle in\r\nthe fish’s belly! How billow-like and boisterously grand! We feel the\r\nfloods surging over us; we sound with him to the kelpy bottom of the\r\nwaters; sea-weed and all the slime of the sea is about us! But _what_\r\nis this lesson that the book of Jonah teaches? Shipmates, it is a\r\ntwo-stranded lesson; a lesson to us all as sinful men, and a lesson to\r\nme as a pilot of the living God. As sinful men, it is a lesson to us\r\nall, because it is a story of the sin, hard-heartedness, suddenly\r\nawakened fears, the swift punishment, repentance, prayers, and finally\r\nthe deliverance and joy of Jonah. As with all sinners among men, the\r\nsin of this son of Amittai was in his wilful disobedience of the\r\ncommand of God—never mind now what that command was, or how\r\nconveyed—which he found a hard command. But all the things that God\r\nwould have us do are hard for us to do—remember that—and hence, he\r\noftener commands us than endeavors to persuade. And if we obey God, we\r\nmust disobey ourselves; and it is in this disobeying ourselves, wherein\r\nthe hardness of obeying God consists.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 0"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KFNR849APRWSZCPY4CNCNKSY","peer_label":"Chapter 9. The Sermon","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KFNR849APRWSZCPY4CNCNKSY","peer_label":"Chapter 9. The Sermon","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"partOf"},{"peer":"01KFNR81RMVAX2BBMMBW51V97D","peer_label":"Moby Dick; Or, The Whale","peer_type":"novel","predicate":"partOf"},{"peer":"01KFNR0H0Q791Y1SMZWEQ09FGV","peer_label":"Moby Dick","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KFNR86RM4A0PEZ8CFW8CQWQJ","peer_label":"Chunk 1","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:02.444Z","ts":"2026-01-23T15:41:14.862Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}