"Shipmates, this book, containing only four chapters--
four yarns--is one of the smallest strands in the mighty cable
of the Scriptures. Yet what depths of the soul does Jonah's deep
sealine sound! what a pregnant lesson to us is this prophet!
What a noble thing is that canticle in the fish's belly!
How billow-like and boisterously grand! We feel the floods surging
over us, we sound with him to the kelpy bottom of the waters;
sea-weed and all the slime of the sea is about us! But what is
this lesson that the book of Jonah teaches? Shipmates, it is
a two-stranded lesson; a lesson to us all as sinful men,
and a lesson to me as a pilot of the living God. As sinful men,
it is a lesson to us all, because it is a story of the sin,
hard-heartedness, suddenly awakened fears, the swift punishment,
repentance, prayers, and finally the deliverance and joy
of Jonah. As with all sinners among men, the sin of this son
of Amittai was in his wilful disobedience of the command of God--
never mind now what that command was, or how conveyed--
which he found a hard command. But all the things that God
would have us do are hard for us to do--remember that--
and hence, he oftener commands us than endeavors to persuade.
And if we obey God, we must disobey ourselves; and it is in this
disobeying ourselves, wherein the hardness of obeying God consists.

"With this sin of disobedience in him, Jonah still further
flouts at God, by seeking to flee from Him. He thinks
that a ship made by men, will carry him into countries
where God does not reign but only the Captains of this earth.
He skulks about the wharves of Joppa, and seeks a ship that's
bound for Tarshish. There lurks, perhaps, a hitherto unheeded