“And they showed the way, too, as you say; and if you come up to half they taught you’ll do well, Joshua.”

The vicar laughed a little laugh as he said this, but it was a laugh, Joshua’s mother said, that seemed to mean the same thing as a “scat”—­ our Cornish word for a blow—­only the boy didn’t seem to see it.

“Yes; but, sir, if we are Christians, why don’t we live as Christians?” said Joshua.

“Ah, indeed, why don’t we?” said Mr. Grand.  “Because of the wickedness of the human heart; because of the world, the flesh, and the devil.”

“Then, sir, if you feel this, why don’t you and all the clergy live like the apostles, and give what you have to the poor?” cried Joshua, clasping his hands and making a step forward, the tears in his eyes.

“Why do you live in a fine house, and have grand dinners, and let Peggy Bray nearly starve in that old mud hut of hers, and Widow Tregellis there, with her six children, and no fire or clothing for them?  I can’t make it out, sir!”

“Who has been putting these bad thoughts into your head?” said Mr. Grand sternly.

“No one, sir.  I have been thinking for myself.  Michael, out by Lion’s Den, is called an infidel—­he calls himself one.  And you preached last Sunday that no infidel can be saved.  But Michael helped Peggy and her child when the orphan fund people took away her pension; and he worked early and late for Widow Tregellis and her children, and shared with them all he had, going short for them many a time.  And I can’t help thinking, sir, that Christ would have helped Peggy, and that Michael, being an infidel and such a good man, is something like that second son in the parable who said he would not do his Lord’s will when he was ordered, but who went all the same------”

“And that your vicar is like the first?” interrupted Mr. Grand angrily.

“Well, yes, sir, if you please,” said Joshua quite modestly, but very fervently.

There was a stir among the ladies and gentlemen when Joshua said this; and some laughed a little, under their breath, and others lifted up their eyebrows and said, “What an extraordinary boy!” But Mr. Grand was very angry, and said, in a severe tone, “These things are beyond the knowledge of an ignorant lad like you, Joshua.  I consider you have done a very impertinent thing to-day, and I shall mark you for it!”

“I meant no harm.  I meant only the truth and to hear the things of God,” repeated Joshua sadly, as he took his seat among his companions, who tittered.

And so Joshua was not well looked on by the clergyman, who was his enemy, as one may say, ever after.

“Mother,” said Joshua, “I mean, when I grow up, to live as our Lord and Saviour lived when He was on the earth.”

“He is our example, lad,” said his mother.  “But I doubt lest you fall by over-boldness.”

II.—­Faith That Moveth Mountains

Joshua did not leave home early.  He wrought at his father’s bench, and was content to bide with his people.  But his spirit was not dead if his life was uneventful.  He gathered about him a few youths of his own age, and held with them prayer-meetings and Bible readings, either at home in his father’s house, or in the fields when the throng was too great for the cottage.