CHAPTER 8
The Pulpit
I had not been seated very long ere a man of a certain venerablerobustness entered; immediately as the storm-pelted door flewback upon admitting him, a quick regardful eyeing of him by allthe congregation, sufficiently attested that this fine oldman was the chaplain. Yes, it was the famous Father Mapple,so called by the whalemen, among whom he was a very great favorite.He had been a sailor and a harpooneer in his youth, but formany years past had dedicated his life to the ministry.At the time I now write of, Father Mapple was in the hardy winterof a healthy old age; that sort of old age which seems merging intoa 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 timebehold Father Mapple without the utmost interest, because therewere 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 tarpaulinhat ran down with melting sleet, and his great pilot clothjacket seemed almost to drag him to the floor with the weightof the water it had absorbed. However, hat and coat andovershoes were one by one removed, and hung up in a littlespace 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 sincea regular stairs to such a height would, by its long angle withthe 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 perpendicularside 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 handsomepair of red worsted man-ropes for this ladder, which, being itselfnicely headed, and stained with a mahogany color, the whole contrivance,considering what manner of chapel it was, seemed by no meansin 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-likebut still reverential dexterity, hand over hand, mounted the stepsas if ascending the main-top of his vessel.
The perpendicular parts of this side ladder, as is usually the casewith swinging ones, were of cloth-covered rope, only the roundswere of wood, so that at every step there was a joint. At my firstglimpse of the pulpit, it had not escaped me that however convenientfor 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 dragup 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 meretricks of the stage. No, thought I, there must be some sober reasonfor 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 outwardworldly ties and connexions? Yes, for replenished with the meatand 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 marblecenotaphs on either hand of the pulpit, the wall which formed its back wasadorned with a large painting representing a gallant ship beating againsta terrible storm off a lee coast of black rocks and snowy breakers.But high above the flying scud and dark-rolling clouds, there floateda little isle of sunlight, from which beamed forth an angel's face;and this bright face shed a distant spot of radiance upon the ship'stossed deck, something like that silver plate now inserted intothe Victory's plank where Nelson fell. "Ah, noble ship," the angelseemed 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 samesea-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 thisearth's foremost part; all the rest comes in its rear; the pulpitleads the world. From thence it is the storm of God's quick wrathis first descried, and the bow must bear the earliest brunt.From thence it is the God of breezes fair or foul is first invokedfor favorable winds. Yes, the world's a ship on its passage out,and not a voyage complete; and the pulpit is its prow.