Moby Dick

[Old Thunder]

"He feels that his dreadful punishment is just.

 

[Old Thunder]

"He leaves all his deliverance to God, contenting himself with this, that spite of all his pains and pangs, he will still look towards His holy temple.

 

[Old Thunder]

"And here, shipmates, is true and faithful repentance; not clamorous for pardon, but grateful for punishment.

 

[Old Thunder]

"And how pleasing to God was this conduct in Jonah, is shown in the eventual deliverance of him from the sea and the whale.

 

[Old Thunder]

"Shipmates, I do not place Jonah before you to be copied for his sin, but I do place him before you as a model for repentance.

 

[Old Thunder]

"Sin not; but if you do, take heed to repent of it like Jonah."

 

[Old Thunder]

While he was speaking these words, the howling of the shrieking, slanting storm without seemed to add new power to the preacher, who, when describing Jonah's sea-storm, seemed tossed by a storm himself.

 

[Old Thunder]

His deep chest heaved as with a ground-swell; his tossed arms seemed the warring elements at work; and the thunders that rolled away from off his swarthy brow, and the light leaping from his eye, made all his simple hearers look on him with a quick fear that was strange to them.

 

[Old Thunder]

There now came a lull in his look, as he silently turned over the leaves of the Book once more; and, at last, standing motionless, with closed eyes, for the moment, seemed communing with God and himself.

 

[Old Thunder]

But again he leaned over towards the people, and bowing his head lowly, with an aspect of the deepest yet manliest humility, he spake these words: