But what has all this to do with a clerk? Well, I want to tell what made me _try_ to be a good catechist, and what makes me, over eighty-three years of age, _still wish_ to become such, though the incident must have happened some seventy years ago, for I recollect that on the very Sunday we crossed the Greta my father whispered to me as we were on the bridge that it was the poet Southey who was close to us, as he as well as our little family and a goodly congregation were returning from Crosthwaite Church in the afternoon. For "oncers" were unknown in those times, neither by poets and historians like Southey, nor by travellers such as we were. We had attended morning service. A stranger officiated. His name was _Bush_, and this is important. A family "riddle" impressed the name upon me. "Why were we all like Moses to-day?" "We had heard the word out of a Bush," was the reply. But at the afternoon service I was deeply impressed. The Rev. M. Bush having read the lessons, came out of the prayer-desk, and to my amazement and great interest catechised the children and others. I thought to myself that the practice was excellent, and felt that if ever I became a clergyman (of which honour there was very small probability), I would obey the Prayer Book and catechise. Since then I have catechised ten, twenty, fifty young people, and not infrequently five hundred to one thousand, and rarely two to three thousand on a Sunday afternoon, often, however, much exhausted (having to preach in the evening) and dreadfully cast down at my own failure in not catechising better.