“I think I see what you mean, sir.  I had got to learn it all without book, as it were, though you know I had my old Bible, that my mother gave me, and without that I should not have learned it at all.”

“I only mean it comparatively, you know.  You have had more of the practice, and I more of the theory.  But if we had not both had both, we should neither of us have known anything about the matter.  I never was content without trying at least to understand things; and if they are practical things, and you try to practise them at the same time as far as you do understand them, there is no end to the way in which the one lights up the other.  I suppose that is how, without your experience, I have more to say about such things than you could expect.  You know besides that a small matter in which a principle is involved will reveal the principle, if attended to, just as well as a great one containing the same principle.  The only difference, and that a most important one, is that, though I’ve got my clay and my straw together, and they stick pretty well as yet, my brick, after all, is not half so well baked as yours, old friend, and it may crumble away yet, though I hope not.”

“I pray God to make both our bricks into stones of the New Jerusalem, sir.  I think I understand you quite well.  To know about a thing is of no use, except you do it.  Besides, as I found out when I went to sea, you never can know a thing till you do do it, though I thought I had a tidy fancy about some things beforehand.  It’s better not to be quite sure that all your seams are caulked, and so to keep a look-out on the bilge-pump; isn’t it, sir?”

During the most of this conversation, we were standing by the mill-water, half frozen over.  The ice from both sides came towards the middle, leaving an empty space between, along which the dark water showed itself, hurrying away as if in fear of its life from the white death of the frost.  The wheel stood motionless, and the drip from the thatch of the mill over it in the sun, had frozen in the shadow into icicles, which hung in long spikes from the spokes and the floats, making the wheel—­soft green and mossy when it revolved in the gentle sun-mingled summer-water—­look like its own gray skeleton now.  The sun was getting low, and I should want all my time to see my other friends before dinner, for I would not willingly offend Mrs Pearson on Christmas Day by being late, especially as I guessed she was using extraordinary skill to prepare me a more than comfortable meal.

“I must go, Old Rogers,” I said; “but I will leave you something to think about till we meet again.  Find out why our Lord was so much displeased with the disciples, whom He knew to be ignorant men, for not knowing what He meant when He warned them against the leaven of the Pharisees.  I want to know what you think about it.  You’ll find the story told both in the sixteenth chapter of St Matthew and the eighth of St Mark.”