CHAPTER 8

  The Pulpit

  I had not been seated very long ere a man of a certain venerable

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 side 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 handsome pair of red worsted man-ropes for this ladder,

which, being itself nicely headed, and stained with a mahogany

color, the whole contrivance, considering what manner of chapel it

was, seemed by no means in 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-like but still reverential dexterity, hand over

hand, mounted the steps as if ascending the main-top of his vessel.

  The perpendicular parts of this side ladder, as is usually the

case with swinging ones, were of cloth-covered rope, only the rounds

were of wood, so that at every step there was a joint. At my first

glimpse of the pulpit, it had not escaped me that however convenient

for 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 drag up 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

mere tricks of the stage. No, thought I, there must be some sober

reason for 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 outward

worldly ties and connexions? Yes, for replenished with the meat and

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 marble

cenotaphs on either hand of the pulpit, the wall which formed its back

was adorned with a large painting representing a gallant ship

beating against a terrible storm off a lee coast of black rocks and

snowy breakers. But high above the flying scud and dark-rolling

clouds, there floated a 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's tossed deck, something like that silver plate

now inserted into Victory's plank where Nelson fell. "Ah, noble ship,"

the angel seemed 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 same sea-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 this

earth's foremost part; all the rest comes in its rear; the pulpit

leads the world. From thence it is the storm of God's quick wrath is

first descried, and the bow must bear the earliest brunt. From

thence it is the God of breezes fair or foul is first invoked for

favorable winds. Yes, the world's a ship on its passage out, and not a

voyage complete; and the pulpit is its prow.