Context: The quotation comes from a sermon preached by Father Mapple in the Chapel at New Bedford established for the whalers. The sermon is heard by Ishmael, the narrator of the story, and is based on the text, "And God had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah," a text singularly appropriate for the narrative that is to follow it. It is Father Mapple's conviction that the sin of Jonah lay in his disobedience of God. All things that God commands us to do are hard, for in carrying out God's commands, we disobey ourselves. Jonah disobeyed God and then fled from Him and was swallowed up by the great fish. But Jonah does not complain, for he knows that God's punishment is just. So when he is spewed forth upon the dry land, he "did the Almighty's bidding," to "preach the Truth in the face of Falsehood!" And so "Woe to him who seeks to please rather than to appal!" But–and this is the end of the sermon: