Moby Dick

[Old Thunder]

This ended, in prolonged solemn tones, like the continual tolling of a bell in a ship that is foundering at sea in a fog -- in such tones he commenced reading the following hymn; but changing his manner towards the concluding stanzas, burst forth with a pealing exultation and joy --

 

[Old Thunder]

"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.​

 

[Old Thunder]

"I saw the opening maw of ****,
With endless pains and sorrows there;
Which none but they that feel can tell --
Oh, I was plunging to despair.​

 

[Old Thunder]

"In black distress, I called my God,
When I could scarce believe him mine,
He bowed his ear to my complaints --
No more the whale did me confine.​

 

[Old Thunder]

"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.​

 

[Old Thunder]

"My songs forever shall record
That terrible, that joyful hour;
I give the glory to my God,
His all the mercy and the power."​

 

[Old Thunder]

Nearly all joined in singing this hymn, which swelled high above the howling of the storm.

 

[Old Thunder]

A brief pause ensured; 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 Jonah -- 'And God had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah.'

 

[Old Thunder]

"Shipmates, this book, containing only four chapters -- four yarns -- is one of the smallest strands in the mighty cable of the Scriptures.

 

[Old Thunder]

"Yet what depths of the soul does Jonah's deep sea-line sound! what a pregnant lesson to us is this prophet!