Chương Chương 8 · The Pulpit.

I had not been seated very long ere a man of a certain venerable

robustness entered; immediately as the storm-pelted door flew back upon

admitting him, a quick regardful eyeing of him by all the congregation,

sufficiently attested that this fine old man was the chaplain. Yes, it

was the famous Father Mapple, so called by the whalemen, among whom he

was a very great favourite. He had been a sailor and a harpooneer in

his youth, but for many years past had dedicated his life to the

ministry. At the time I now write of, Father Mapple was in the hardy

winter of a healthy old age; that sort of old age which seems merging

into a second flowering youth, for among all the fissures of his

wrinkles, there shone certain mild gleams of a newly developing

bloom—the spring verdure peeping forth even beneath February’s snow. No

one having previously heard his history, could for the first time

behold Father Mapple without the utmost interest, because there were

certain engrafted clerical peculiarities about him, imputable to that

adventurous maritime life he had led. When he entered I observed that

he carried no umbrella, and certainly had not come in his carriage, for

his tarpaulin hat ran down with melting sleet, and his great pilot

cloth jacket seemed almost to drag him to the floor with the weight of

the water it had absorbed. However, hat and coat and overshoes were one

by one removed, and hung up in a little space in an adjacent corner;

when, arrayed in a decent suit, he quietly approached the pulpit.

Like most old fashioned pulpits, it was a very lofty one, and since a

regular stairs to such a height would, by its long angle with the

floor, seriously contract the already small area of the chapel, the

architect, it seemed, had acted upon the hint of Father Mapple, and

finished the pulpit without a stairs, substituting a perpendicular side

ladder, like those used in mounting a ship from a boat at sea. The wife

of a whaling captain had provided the chapel with a handsome pair of

red worsted man-ropes for this ladder, which, being itself nicely

headed, and stained with a mahogany colour, the whole contrivance,

considering what manner of chapel it was, seemed by no means in bad

taste. Halting for an instant at the foot of the ladder, and with both

hands grasping the ornamental knobs of the man-ropes, Father Mapple

cast a look upwards, and then with a truly sailor-like but still

reverential dexterity, hand over hand, mounted the steps as if

ascending the main-top of his vessel.

The perpendicular parts of this side ladder, as is usually the case

with swinging ones, were of cloth-covered rope, only the rounds were of

wood, so that at every step there was a joint. At my first glimpse of

the pulpit, it had not escaped me that however convenient for a ship,

these joints in the present instance seemed unnecessary. For I was not

prepared to see Father Mapple after gaining the height, slowly turn

round, and stooping over the pulpit, deliberately drag up the ladder

step by step, till the whole was deposited within, leaving him

impregnable in his little Quebec.

I pondered some time without fully comprehending the reason for this.

Father Mapple enjoyed such a wide reputation for sincerity and

sanctity, that I could not suspect him of courting notoriety by any

mere tricks of the stage. No, thought I, there must be some sober

reason for this thing; furthermore, it must symbolize something unseen.

Can it be, then, that by that act of physical isolation, he signifies

his spiritual withdrawal for the time, from all outward worldly ties

and connexions? Yes, for replenished with the meat and wine of the

word, to the faithful man of God, this pulpit, I see, is a

self-containing stronghold—a lofty Ehrenbreitstein, with a perennial

well of water within the walls.

But the side ladder was not the only strange feature of the place,

borrowed from the chaplain’s former sea-farings. Between the marble

cenotaphs on either hand of the pulpit, the wall which formed its back

was adorned with a large painting representing a gallant ship beating

against a terrible storm off a lee coast of black rocks and snowy

breakers. But high above the flying scud and dark-rolling clouds, there

floated a little isle of sunlight, from which beamed forth an angel’s

face; and this bright face shed a distinct spot of radiance upon the

ship’s tossed deck, something like that silver plate now inserted into

the Victory’s plank where Nelson fell. “Ah, noble ship,” the angel

seemed to say, “beat on, beat on, thou noble ship, and bear a hardy

helm; for lo! the sun is breaking through; the clouds are rolling

off—serenest azure is at hand.”

Nor was the pulpit itself without a trace of the same sea-taste that

had achieved the ladder and the picture. Its panelled front was in the

likeness of a ship’s bluff bows, and the Holy Bible rested on a

projecting piece of scroll work, fashioned after a ship’s fiddle-headed

beak.

What could be more full of meaning?—for the pulpit is ever this earth’s

foremost part; all the rest comes in its rear; the pulpit leads the

world. From thence it is the storm of God’s quick wrath is first

descried, and the bow must bear the earliest brunt. From thence it is

the God of breezes fair or foul is first invoked for favourable winds.

Yes, the world’s a ship on its passage out, and not a voyage complete;

and the pulpit is its prow.