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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 brewed them into a gale!
Woe to him who seeks to please rather than to appal! Woe to him whose good
name is more to him than goodness! Woe to him who, in this world, courts
not dishonour! Woe to him who would not be true, even though to be false
were salvation! 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 forth his own
inexorable self. Delight is to him whose strong arms yet support him, when
the ship of this base treacherous 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-gallant delight is to him, who acknowledges no
law or lord, but the Lord his God, and is only a patriot to heaven.
Delight is to him, whom all the waves of the billows of the seas of the
boisterous 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 eternity 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.
Returning to the Spouter-Inn from the
Chapel, I found Queequeg there quite alone; he having left the Chapel
before the benediction some time. He was sitting on a bench before the
fire, with his feet on the stove hearth, and in one hand was holding close
up to his face that little negro idol of his; peering hard into its face,
and with a jack-knife gently whittling away at its nose, meanwhile humming
to himself in his heathenish way.
But being now
interrupted, he put up the image; and pretty soon, going to the table,
took up a large book there, and placing it on his lap began counting the
pages with deliberate regularity; at every fiftieth page—as I
fancied—stopping a moment, looking vacantly around him, and giving
utterance to a long-drawn gurgling whistle of astonishment. He would then
begin again at the next fifty; seeming to commence at number one each
time, as though he could not count more than fifty, and it was only by
such a large number of fifties being found together, that his astonishment
at the multitude of pages was excited.