Rollo in Paris

by Jacob Abbott

"Yes," said Rollo, "a very pleasant walk indeed. We have seen a great many very curious things. But I believe we made a mistake."

"What mistake?" asked Mrs. Holiday.

"Why, we followed a great many people that we thought were going to church; but, instead of that, they led us into a great place that I think was some sort of circus."

Here Mr. George looked up very eagerly and began to laugh.

"I declare!" said he. "I shouldn't wonder if you got into the Hippodrome."

"I don't know what it was," said Rollo. "When we first went in we saw that it was not a church; but we did not know but that it might be some sort of camp meeting. But pretty soon they began to bring horses in and ride them around, and so we came out."

Here Mr. George fell into a long and uncontrollable paroxysm of laughter, during the intervals of which he said, in broken language, as he walked about the room endeavoring to get breath and recover his self-control, that it was the best thing he had heard since he landed at Liverpool. The idea of following the crowd of Parisians in the Champs Elysées on Sunday afternoon, with the expectation of being conducted to church, and then finally taking the Hippodrome for a camp meeting! Rollo himself, though somewhat piqued at having his adventure put in so ridiculous a light, could not help laughing too; and even his father and mother smiled.

"Never mind, Rollo," said his mother, at length. "I don't think you were at all to blame; though I am glad that you came out when you found what sort of a place it was."

"O, no," said Mr. George, as he gradually recovered his self-control, "you were not to blame in the least. The rule you followed is a very good one for England and America; but it does not apply to France. Going with the multitude Sunday afternoons, in Paris, will take you any where but to church."

Notwithstanding the concurrence of opinion between Rollo's mother and his uncle that he had done nothing wrong, neither he nor Jennie could help feeling some degree of uneasiness and some little dissatisfaction with themselves in respect to the manner in which they had spent the afternoon. They had both been accustomed to consider the Sabbath as a day solemnly consecrated to the worship of God and to the work of preparation for heaven. It is true that the day sometimes seemed very long to them, as it does to all children; and though they had always been allowed to take quiet walks in the gardens and grounds around the house, still they usually got tired, before night came, of being so quiet and still. Notwithstanding this, however, they had no disposition to break over the rule which, as they supposed, the law of God enjoined upon them. They fully believed that God himself had ordained that there should be one day in seven from which all the usual occupations and amusements of life should be excluded, and which should be consecrated wholly to rest, to religious contemplation, and to prayer; and they were very willing to submit to the ordinance, though it brought with it upon them, as children, burdens and restrictions which it was sometimes quite onerous for them to bear.