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 favourite. 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 colour, 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 distinct spot of radiance upon the ship’s tossed deck,
something like that silver plate now inserted into the 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 favourable winds. Yes,
the world’s a ship on its passage out, and not a voyage complete; and the
pulpit is its prow.