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 favorite.
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