But I like the figure of Job a little better than that of Paul. With God’s help, some men do make narrow escape for their souls, and are saved as “with the skin of their teeth.”
JONAH.
God told Jonah to go to Nineveh on an unpleasant errand. He would not go. He thought to get away from his duty by putting to sea.
With pack under his arm, I find him on his way to Joppa, a seaport. He goes down among the shipping, and says to the men lying around on the docks: “Which of these vessels sails today?”
A sailor answers: “Yonder is a vessel going to Tarshish. I think, if you hurry, you may get on board her.”
Jonah steps on board the rough craft, asks how much the fare is, and pays it. Anchor is weighed, sails are hoisted, and the rigging begins to rattle in the strong breeze of the Mediterranean.
Joppa is an exposed harbor, and it does not take long for a vessel to get out on the broad sea. The sailors like what they call a “spanking breeze,” and the plunge of the vessel from the crest of a tall wave is exhilarating to those who are at home on the deep.
But the strong breeze becomes a gale—the gale a hurricane. The affrighted passengers ask the captain if he ever saw any thing like this before. He answers:
“Oh, yes. This is nothing.”
Mariners are slow to admit danger to landsmen.