well if the law
made this compulsory. The cost of maintaining the missionary would
be more than covered by the saving effected in insurance. Here is a
splendid field for Christian self-sacrifice! Hundreds of gentlemen who
are now engaged in very doubtful labor among the heathen, might engage
in this new enterprise with the absolute certainty of a beneficent
result; for poor ungodly mariners would thus be spared a hasty dispatch
from this world without time to repent and obtain forgiveness, and be
allowed ample leisure to secure salvation.

When the men saw that "the sea ceased from her raging" on Jonah's being
cast into her depths, "they feared the Lord exceedingly, and offered a
sacrifice unto the Lord, and made vows." To the sceptical mind it
would seem that they had much more reason to "fear" the Lord during the
continuance of the tempest than after it had subsided. It also seems
strange that they should have the means wherewith to offer a sacrifice.
Perhaps they had a billy-goat on board, and made him do duty, in default
of anything better. Or failing even a billy-goat, as the Lord God of the
Hebrews could only be propitiated by the shedding of blood, they perhaps
caught and immolated a stray rat. The nature of their "vows" is not
recorded, but it is not unreasonable to assume that they swore never
again to take on board a passenger fleeing "from the presence of the
Lord."

Meanwhile, what had become of poor Jonah? Most men would be effectually
settled if thrown overboard in a storm. But there are some people who
were not born to be drowned, and Jonah was one of them. He was destined
to another fate. The Lord, it appears, "had prepared a great fish
to swallow up Jonah," and the feat was of course duly performed. Our
narrative does not describe the character of this "great fish," but
light is cast on the subject by another passage of Scripture. In
the twelfth chapter of St. Matthew, and the fortieth verse, Jesus is
represented as saying, "For as Jonas was three days and three nights
in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three
nights in the heart of the earth." The great fish was then a whale.
Jesus said so, and there can be no higher authority. Sharks and such
ravenous fish have an unpleasant habit of "chawing" their victims pretty
considerably before swallowing them; so, on the whole, we prefer to
believe that it was a whale. Yet the Levant is a curious place for a
whale to be lurking in