英语听书《白鲸记》 第36期

How being an anointed pilot-prophet, or speaker oftrue things, and bidden by the Lord to sound thoseunwelcome truths in the ears of a wicked Nineveh,Jonah, appalled at the hostility he should raise, fledfrom his mission, and sought to escape his duty andhis God by taking ship at Joppa. But God iseverywhere; Tarshish he never reached. As we haveseen, God came upon him in the whale, andswallowed him down to living gulfs of doom, and withswift slantings tore him along 'into the midst of theseas,' where the eddying depths sucked him tenthousand fathoms down, and 'the weeds were wrapped about his head,' and all the watery worldof woe bowled over him. Yet even then beyond the reach of any plummet—'out of the belly ofhell'—when the whale grounded upon the ocean's utmost bones, even then, God heard theengulphed, repenting prophet when he cried. Then God spake unto the fish; and from theshuddering cold and blackness of the sea, the whale came breeching up towards the warm andpleasant sun, and all the delights of air and earth; and 'vomited out Jonah upon the dry land;'when the word of the Lord came a second time; and Jonah, bruised and beaten—his ears, liketwo sea-shells, still multitudinously murmuring of the ocean—Jonah did the Almighty's bidding.And what was that, shipmates? To preach the Truth to the face of Falsehood! That was it!

"This, shipmates, this is that other lesson; and woe to that pilot of the living God who slightsit. Woe to him whom this world charms from Gospel duty! Woe to him who seeks to pour oilupon the waters when God has brewed them into a gale! Woe to him who seeks to please ratherthan to appal! Woe to him whose good name is more to him than goodness! Woe to him who, inthis world, courts not dishonour! Woe to him who would not be true, even though to be falsewere salvation! Yea, woe to him who, as the great Pilot Paul has it, while preaching to others ishimself a castaway!"

He dropped and fell away from himself for a moment; then lifting his face to them again,showed a deep joy in his eyes, as he cried out with a heavenly enthusiasm,—"But oh!shipmates! on the starboard hand of every woe, there is a sure delight; and higher the top ofthat delight, than the bottom of the woe is deep. Is not the main-truck higher than the kelsonis low? Delight is to him—a far, far upward, and inward delight—who against the proud godsand commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self. Delight is to himwhose strong arms yet support him, when the ship of this base treacherous world has gonedown beneath him. Delight is to him, who gives no quarter in the truth, and kills, burns, anddestroys all sin though he pluck it out from under the robes of Senators and Judges. Delight,—top-gallant delight is to him, who acknowledges no law or lord, but the Lord his God, and isonly a patriot to heaven. Delight is to him, whom all the waves of the billows of the seas of theboisterous mob can never shake from this sure Keel of the Ages. And eternal delight anddeliciousness will be his, who coming to lay him down, can say with his final breath—O Father!—chiefly known to me by Thy rod—mortal or immortal, here I die. I have striven to be Thine,more than to be this world's, or mine own. Yet this is nothing: I leave eternity to Thee; for whatis man that he should live out the lifetime of his God?"

He said no more, but slowly waving a benediction, covered his face with his hands, and soremained kneeling, till all the people had departed, and he was left alone in the place.