'How is it, my dear,' inquired a schoolmistress of a little girl, 'that you do not understand this simple thing?' 'I do not know, indeed,' she answered, with a perplexed look; 'but I sometimes think I have so many things to learn that I have not the time to understand.'
Alas! there may be much hearing, much reading, much attendance at public services, and very small result, and all because the word was not the subject of thought, and was never embraced by the understanding. What is not understood is like meat undigested, more likely to be injurious than nourishing.