英语听书《白鲸记》第36期

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 Jonah,appalled at the hostility² he should raise,fled from his mission,and sought to escape his duty and his God by taking ship at Joppa.But God is everywhere; 

 Tarshish he never reached.As we have seen,God came upon him in the whale,and swallowed him down to living gulfs of doom, 

 and with swift slantings tore him along ' into the midst of the seas,' where the eddying³ depths sucked him ten thousand fathoms⁴ down, 

 and ' the weeds were wrapped about his head,' and all the watery⁵ world of woe⁶ bowled over him. 

 Yet even then beyond the reach of any plummet⁷ ' out of the belly⁸ of hell ' when the whale grounded upon the ocean's utmost bones, 

 even then,God heard the engulphed,repenting prophet when he cried.Then God spake unto the fish;and from the shuddering⁹ cold and blackness of the sea, 

 the whale came breeching up towards the warm and pleasant sun,and all the delights of air and earth;and ' vomited¹⁰ out Jonah upon the dry land;' when the word of the Lord came a second time; 

 and Jonah,bruised and beaten his ears,like two 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 slights it.Woe to him whom this world charms from Gospel duty! 

 Woe to him who seeks to pour oil upon the waters when God has brewed¹¹ them into a gale¹²!Woe to him who seeks to please rather than to appal¹! 

 Woe to him whose good name is more to him than goodness!Woe to him who,in this world,courts not dishonour¹³!Woe to him who would not be true, 

 even though to be false were salvation¹⁴!Yea,woe to him who,as the great Pilot Paul has it,while preaching to others is himself 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 of that delight,than the bottom of the woe is deep.Is not the main truck higher than the kelson is low? 

 Delight is to him a far,far upward,and inward delight who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth,ever stands forth¹⁵ his own inexorable self. 

 Delight is to him whose strong arms yet support him,when the ship of this base treacherous¹⁶ world has gone down beneath him.Delight is to him,who gives no quarter in the truth, 

 and kills,burns,and destroys all sin though he pluck it out from under the robes of Senators and Judges.Delight,top gallant¹⁷ delight is to him,who acknowledges no law or lord, 

 but the Lord his God,and is only a patriot¹⁸ to heaven.Delight is to him,whom all the waves of the billows of the seas of the boisterous¹⁹ mob can never shake from this sure Keel of the Ages. 

 And eternal delight and deliciousness 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 eternity²⁰ to Thee;for what is 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 so remained kneeling,till all the people had departed,and he was left alone in the place. 

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