"Well, then, you'll see my face on Sunday in church--that is, if you
happen to be there."

For, although some might think it the more dignified way, I could
not take it as a matter of course that he would be at church. A man
might have better reasons for staying away from church than I had
for going, even though I was the parson, and it was my business.
Some clergymen separate between themselves and their office to a
degree which I cannot understand. To assert the dignities of my
office seems to me very like exalting myself; and when I have had a
twinge of conscience about it, as has happened more than once, 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."