While all God's sun-lit waves rolled by,
And lift me deepening down to doom.

I saw the opening maw of hell,
With endless pains and sorrows there;
Which none but they that feel can tell--
Oh, I was plunging to despair.

In black distress, I called my God,
When I could scarce believe him mine,
He bowed his ear to my complaints--
No more the whale did me confine.

With speed he flew to my relief,
As on a radiant dolphin borne;
Awful, yet bright, as lightning shone
The face of my Deliverer God.

My song for ever shall record
That terrible, that joyful hour;
I give the glory to my God,
His all the mercy and the power.


Nearly all joined in singing this hymn, which swelled high
above the howling of the storm. A brief pause ensued;
the preacher slowly turned over the leaves of the Bible,
and at last, folding his hand down upon the proper page, said:
"Beloved shipmates, clinch the last verse of the first chapter
of Jonah--'And God had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah.'"