Emphasis Preaching Journal

In Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi, his chapter “A Cub-Pilot’s Experience” portrays a young man who persuades a steamboat pilot to teach him to pilot a steamboat. He’s amused when the pilot continues to name places they pass: “Six Mile Point ... Nine Mile Point ... Slack water ends here, abreast this bunch of China trees.” That evening the pilot asks, “What’s the name of the first point above New Orleans?” The young man answers, “I don’t know.” Back and forth the pilot asks and the cub doesn’t know.