, the city to which he might go in the fellowship of
God and within the circle of the will of God. There was also Tarshish,
the city that lay at the end of the rebel's road, the city whose
streets, if ever he walked them at all, he would walk without the
fellowship of the God whom he had disobeyed.

And there are just two cities on your map. The Nineveh of obedience
and the Tarshish of disobedience. You are going to Nineveh or to
Tarshish. I do not claim to know where your Nineveh is. It may be a
distant city. It may be a city across the seas whose streets you will
crimson with the blood of your sacrifice. It may be a city as near to
you as the home in which you live, as the child that nestles in your
arms. But wherever it is, if you walk its streets you will walk them
in the joy of the divine fellowship.

On the other hand, you may go to Tarshish. Tarshish is the city of
"Have-Your-Own-Way." It is the city of "Do-As-You-Please." It is the
city of "Take-it-Easy." It is the city with no garden called
Gethsemane without its gates and no rugged hill called Calvary
overlooks its walls. It is a city without a cross and yet it is a city
where people seldom sing and often sob. It is a city where nobody
looks joyously into God's face and calls Him Father.

I met Jonah that day on the wharf. He looked like he had passed
through a terrible spell of sickness. His cheeks were hollow. His
eyes were red with sleeplessness. He had a haggard, worn, hounded look
about him. "Are you on the way home, Jonah?" And he shook his head
and said, "No. I am going to Tarshish." Tarshish was the most far
away place of which the Jew had any conception. "Tarshish!" I say in
astonishment. "What are you going to do over at Tarshish?" "Oh," he
said, "I hadn't thought about that. I do not know what the future has
in store for me. What I am trying to do is to get away from God."
"And Jonah arose to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord."

I wonder why the text did not say "And Jonah arose to flee unto
Tarshish from the presence of his duty" instead of "from the presence
of the Lord." The writer of this story had real spiritual insight. He
was far clearer in his thinking than many of us. He knew that to flee
from duty was to flee from God. Whenever you make up your mind to
refuse to go where God wants you to go and to do what God wants you to
do, you must make up your mind at the same time to renounce the
frien