And, being sincerely religious, he was greatly troubled because his friend and partner took little interest in such things.
Shadrach's aversion to churches dated back to a sermon preached by a former minister.

The subject of that sermon was Jonah and the whale.

The Captain, having been on several whaling voyages in his younger days, had his own opinion concerning the prophet's famous adventure.
If the minister had been a younger and more tactful man the argument which followed might have ended pleasantly and the break have been avoided.

But the clergyman was elderly, as set in his ways as the Captain was in his, and the disagreement was absolute and final.
"The feller is a regular wooden-head," declared Shadrach, hotly.

"I was willin' to be reasonable; I was willin' to give in that this Jonah man might have been out of his head and, after he was hove overboard and cast ashore, thought he'd been swallowed by a whale or somethin' or 'nother.