canna help thinkin' o' what Mr. Innes said to me ance. I was but
a laddie, but I never forgot it. I plaguit him sair wi' wantin' to
unnerstan' ilka thing afore I wad gang on wi' my questons (sums). Says
he, ae day, "Robert, my man, gin ye will aye unnerstan' afore ye du as
ye're tellt, ye'll never unnerstan' onything. But gin ye du the thing I
tell ye, ye'll be i' the mids o' 't afore ye ken 'at ye're gaein' intil
't." I jist thocht I wad try him. It was at lang division that I boglet
maist. Weel, I gaed on, and I cud du the thing weel eneuch, ohn made
ae mistak. And aye I thocht the maister was wrang, for I never kent
the rizzon o' a' that beginnin' at the wrang en', an' takin' doon an'
substrackin', an' a' that. Ye wad hardly believe me, Mr. Ericson: it was
only this verra day, as I was sittin' i' the kirk--it was a lang
psalm they war singin'--that ane wi' the foxes i' the tail o' 't--lang
division came into my heid again; and first aye bit glimmerin' o' licht
cam in, and syne anither, an' afore the psalm was dune I saw throu' the
haill process o' 't. But ye see, gin I hadna dune as I was tauld, and
learnt a' aboot hoo it was dune aforehan', I wad hae had naething to
gang rizzonin' aboot, an' wad hae fun' oot naething.'

'That's good, Robert. But when a man is dying for food, he can't wait.'

'He micht try to get up and luik, though. He needna bide in 's bed till
somebody comes an' sweirs till him 'at he saw a haddie (haddock) i' the
press.'

'I have been looking, Robert--for years.'

'Maybe, like me, only for the rizzon o' 't, Mr. Ericson--gin ye'll
forgie my impidence.'

'But what's to be done in this case, Robert? Where's the work that you
can do in order to understand? Where's your long division, man?'

'Ye're ayont me noo. I canna tell that, Mr. Ericson. It canna be gaein'
to the kirk, surely. Maybe it micht be sayin' yer prayers and readin'
yer Bible.'

Ericson did not reply, and the conversation dropped. Is it strange that
neither of these disciples should have thought of turning to the story
of Jesus, finding some word that he had spoken, and beginning to do that
as a first step towards a knowledge of the doctrine that Jesus was the
incarnate God, come to visit his people--a very unlikely thing to
man's wisdom, yet an idea that has notwithstanding ascended above man's
horizon, and shown itself the grandest idea in his firmament?

In the evening Ericson asked again for his papers, from which he handed