{"id":"01KG8AMJWKVZWS347CZ33JHXXH","cid":"bafkreieo7kqir7xvjov3wd6crckgh6xbufx6wcoma7zythbnpven4h455i","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":6023,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:36.271Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","start_line":5958,"text":"CHAPTER XXXVIII.\r\nTHE CHAPLAIN AND CHAPEL IN A MAN-OF-WAR.\r\n\r\n\r\nThe next day was Sunday; a fact set down in the almanac, spite of\r\nmerchant seamen’s maxim, that _there are no Sundays of soundings_.\r\n\r\n_No Sundays off soundings,_ indeed! No Sundays on shipboard! You may as\r\nwell say there should be no Sundays in churches; for is not a ship\r\nmodeled after a church? has it not three spires—three steeples? yea,\r\nand on the gun-deck, a bell and a belfry? And does not that bell\r\nmerrily peal every Sunday morning, to summon the crew to devotions?\r\n\r\nAt any rate, there were Sundays on board this particular frigate of\r\nours, and a clergyman also. He was a slender, middle-aged man, of an\r\namiable deportment and irreproachable conversation; but I must say,\r\nthat his sermons were but ill calculated to benefit the crew. He had\r\ndrank at the mystic fountain of Plato; his head had been turned by the\r\nGermans; and this I will say, that White-Jacket himself saw him with\r\nColeridge’s Biographia Literaria in his hand.\r\n\r\nFancy, now, this transcendental divine standing behind a gun-carriage\r\non the main-deck, and addressing five hundred salt-sea sinners upon the\r\npsychological phenomena of the soul, and the ontological necessity of\r\nevery sailor’s saving it at all hazards. He enlarged upon the follies\r\nof the ancient philosophers; learnedly alluded to the Phiedon of Plato;\r\nexposed the follies of Simplicius’s Commentary on Aristotle’s “De\r\nCoelo,” by arraying against that clever Pagan author the admired tract\r\nof Tertullian—_De Prascriptionibus Haereticorum_—and concluded by a\r\nSanscrit invocation. He was particularly hard upon the Gnostics and\r\nMarcionites of the second century of the Christian era; but he never,\r\nin the remotest manner, attacked the everyday vices of the nineteenth\r\ncentury, as eminently illustrated in our man-of-war world. Concerning\r\ndrunkenness, fighting, flogging, and oppression—things expressly or\r\nimpliedly prohibited by Christianity—he never said aught. But the most\r\nmighty Commodore and Captain sat before him; and in general, if, in a\r\nmonarchy, the state form the audience of the church, little evangelical\r\npiety will be preached. Hence, the harmless, non-committal abstrusities\r\nof our Chaplain were not to be wondered at. He was no Massillon, to\r\nthunder forth his ecclesiastical rhetoric, even when a Louis le Grand\r\nwas enthroned among his congregation. Nor did the chaplains who\r\npreached on the quarter-deck of Lord Nelson ever allude to the guilty\r\nFelix, nor to Delilah, nor practically reason of righteousness,\r\ntemperance, and judgment to come, when that renowned Admiral sat,\r\nsword-belted, before them.\r\n\r\nDuring these Sunday discourses, the officers always sat in a circle\r\nround the Chaplain, and, with a business-like air, steadily preserved\r\nthe utmost propriety. In particular, our old Commodore himself made a\r\npoint of looking intensely edified; and not a sailor on board but\r\nbelieved that the Commodore, being the greatest man present, must alone\r\ncomprehend the mystic sentences that fell from our parson’s lips.\r\n\r\nOf all the noble lords in the ward-room, this lord-spiritual, with the\r\nexception of the Purser, was in the highest favour with the Commodore,\r\nwho frequently conversed with him in a close and confidential manner.\r\nNor, upon reflection, was this to be marvelled at, seeing how\r\nefficacious, in all despotic governments, it is for the throne and\r\naltar to go hand-in-hand.\r\n\r\nThe accommodations of our chapel were very poor. We had nothing to sit\r\non but the great gun-rammers and capstan-bars, placed horizontally upon\r\nshot-boxes. These seats were exceedingly uncomfortable, wearing out our\r\ntrowsers and our tempers, and, no doubt, impeded the con-version of\r\nmany valuable souls.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJRBSW778JG41ZCTCXETZ","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AMJWK171QC7TVWGRA4KZ1","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:41.875Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:47.573Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}