Mr. Wesley received the returning prodigal with kindness. In that vast enterprise of one who said "My parish is the world," loyal adherents were of unspeakable value. The few churchmen who served under his banner were but a sprinkling compared with his lay itinerants; and Stobart was among the best of these. He was too manly a man to think the worse of his helper for having changed gown for sword during a troubled interval of his life; for he divined that Stobart must have been in some bitter strait before he went back to the soldier's trade.
He listened with interest to Stobart's American adventures, and congratulated him upon having been with Wolfe at Quebec.
"'Twas a glorious victory," he said; "but I doubt the French may yet prove too strong for us in Canada, and that we are still far from a peaceful settlement."
"They are strong in numbers, sir, but weak in leaders. Lévis is a poor substitute for Montcalm, and, if the Governor Vaudreuil harasses him and ties his hands, as he harassed the late marquis, whom he hated, his work will be difficult. I should not have left the regiment while there was a chance of more fighting, if I had not been disabled by my wounds."
"You were badly wounded?"
"I had a bullet through my ribs that looked like making an end of me; and I walk lame still from a ball in my left hip. I spent eight weeks in the general hospital at Quebec, where the nuns tended me with an angelic kindness; and I was still but a feeble specimen of humanity when I set out on the journey to Georgia, through a country beset by Indians."
"I honour those good women for their charity, Stobart; but I hope you did not let them instil their pernicious doctrine into your mind while it was enfeebled by sickness."
"No, sir. Yet there was one pious enthusiast whom I could not silence; and be not offended if I say that her fervent discourse about spiritual things reminded me of your own teaching."
"Surely that's not possible!"
"Extremes meet, sir; and, I doubt, had you not been a high-church Methodist you would have been a Roman Catholic of the most exalted type."