I have then found comfort in these two texts:  “The Son of man came not to be ministered unto but to minister;” and “It is enough that the servant should be as his master.”  Neither have I ever been able to see the very great difference between right and wrong in a clergyman, and right and wrong in another man.  All that I can pretend to have yet discovered comes to this:  that what is right in another man is right in a clergyman; and what is wrong in another man is much worse in a clergyman.  Here, however, is one more proof of approaching age.  I do not mean the opinion, but the digression.

“Well, then,” I said, “you’ll see my face in church on Sunday, if you happen to be there.”

“Yes, sir; but you see, sir, on the bridge here, the parson is the parson like, and I’m Old Rogers; and I looks in his face, and he looks in mine, and I says to myself, ‘This is my parson.’  But o’ Sundays he’s nobody’s parson; he’s got his work to do, and it mun be done, and there’s an end on’t.”

That there was a real idea in the old man’s mind was considerably clearer than the logic by which he tried to bring it out.

“Did you know parson that’s gone, sir?” he went on.

“No,” I answered.

“Oh, sir! he wur a good parson.  Many’s the time he come and sit at my son’s bedside—­him that’s dead and gone, sir—­for a long hour, on a Saturday night, too.  And then when I see him up in the desk the next mornin’, I’d say to myself, ’Old Rogers, that’s the same man as sat by your son’s bedside last night.  Think o’ that, Old Rogers!’ But, somehow, I never did feel right sure o’ that same.  He didn’t seem to have the same cut, somehow; and he didn’t talk a bit the same.  And when he spoke to me after sermon, in the church-yard, I was always of a mind to go into the church again and look up to the pulpit to see if he war really out ov it; for this warn’t the same man, you see.  But you’ll know all about it better than I can tell you, sir.  Only I always liked parson better out o’ the pulpit, and that’s how I come to want to make you look at me, sir, instead o’ the water down there, afore I see you in the church to-morrow mornin’.”

The old man laughed a kindly laugh; but he had set me thinking, and I did not know what to say to him all at once.  So after a short pause, he resumed—­

“You’ll be thinking me a queer kind of a man, sir, to speak to my betters before my betters speaks to me.  But mayhap you don’t know what a parson is to us poor folk that has ne’er a friend more larned than theirselves but the parson.  And besides, sir, I’m an old salt,—­an old man-o’-war’s man,—­and I’ve been all round the world, sir; and I ha’ been in all sorts o’ company, pirates and all, sir; and I aint a bit frightened of a parson.  No; I love a parson, sir.  And I’ll tell you for why, sir.  He’s got a good telescope, and he gits to the masthead, and he looks out.  And he sings out, ’Land ahead!’ or ‘Breakers ahead!’ and gives directions accordin’.  Only I can’t always make out what he says.  But when he shuts up his spyglass, and comes down the riggin’, and talks to us like one man to another, then I don’t know what I should do without the parson.  Good evenin’ to you, sir, and welcome to Marshmallows.”