"Yes, to Mettray. We staid with Rodez at Tours; he was very kind to us, and took us to see all our friends. First of all, Priat; he is foreman to the richest baker in the town, and is very highly esteemed by his master. He was very glad to see me again, and we talked a great deal of you and of the Zouaves."
"Good fellow! I shall go to see him, one of these days!" exclaimed Polycarpe.
"Yes, do. Then we went to Mettray. How my heart beat when I caught sight again of the chapel steeple! I saw many new faces, but our kind director, and the good abbe, and the father of our family were there just the same, all well, and so glad to see me, and so glad to know that I was prosperous and happy; and they admired my little wife so much!"
"Enough, enough, Marcel!" interrupted Gabrielle, brightly blushing and smiling.
"Marcel," said Polycarpe after a short silence, "I have been on the battle-field, my comrades falling by hundreds around me, while I was spared; I have seen death in its most fearful shapes, and human suffering inconceivable to the imagination of those who have not witnessed it, and I have escaped, unhurt, untouched; but I declare to you that when the battle was over and the danger past, I never felt that overpowering gratitude that fills my heart when I remember Mettray. For, after all, what is physical pain, what is the loss of this life compared to that corruption of the heart and conscience that was ours when we first entered the Colony? I do not believe that I have ever closed my eyes in sleep since I quitted that saving home before praying, 'God bless the founders of Mettray!'"
Protestantism A Failure.
[Footnote 160]
[Footnote 160: 1. Failure of Protestantism, and Catholicism the Remedy: Four Discourses delivered by the Rev. F. C. Ewer, D.D., in Christ Church, Fifth avenue, New York. Reported in the New York Times, 1868. 2. Dr. Ewer's Reply to Dr. Adams and Others, in Defence of his Discourses on the Failure of Protestantism, and Catholicism the Remedy. Reported in the New York World, November 16th, 1868.]