oclaim his Lord, is the source of hope,
courage, vigour, and safety. Such are the consequences of silence and of
brave speech for God. No wonder that the fugitive Prophet slunk down
into some dark corner, and sat bitterly brooding there, self-accused
and condemned, till weariness and the relief of the tension of his
journey lulled him to sleep. It was a stupid and heavy sleep. Alas for
those whose only refuge from conscience is oblivion!

Over against this picture of the insensible Prophet, all unaware of the
storm (which may suggest the parallel insensibility of Israel to the
impending divine judgments), is set the behaviour of the heathen
sailors, or 'salts,' as the story calls them. Their conduct is part of
the lesson of the book; for, heathen as they are, they have yet a sense
of dependence, and they pray; they are full of courage, battling with
the storm, jettisoning the cargo, and doing everything possible to save
the ship. Their treatment of Jonah is generous and chivalrous. Even when
they hear his crime, and know that the storm is howling like a wild
beast for him, they are unwilling to throw him overboard without one
more effort; and when at last they do it, their prayer is for
forgiveness, inasmuch as they are but carrying out the will of Jehovah.
They are so much touched by the whole incident that they offer
sacrifices to the God of the Hebrews, and are, in some sense, and
possibly but for a time, worshippers of Him.

All this holds the mirror up to Israel, by showing how much of human
kindness and generosity, and how much of susceptibility for the truth
which Israel had to declare, lay in rude hearts beyond its pale. This
crew of heathen of various nationalities and religions were yet men who
could be kind to a renegade Prophet, peril their lives to save his, and
worship Jehovah. 'I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel,'
is the same lesson in another form. We may find abundant opportunities
for learning it; for the characters of godless men, and of some among
the heathen, may well shame many a Christian.

Jonah's conduct in the storm is no less noble than his former conduct
had been base. The burst of the tempest blew away all the fog from his
mind, and he saw the stars again. His confession of faith; his calm
conviction that he was the cause of the storm; his quiet, unhesitating
command to throw him into the wild chaos foaming about the ship; his
willing acceptance of death as the wages of his