But he could not away with such a monstrous attitude. “No, no,” he cried; “you must change. You have come here, God has led you here, and you must embrace the opportunity.”

I made a slip in policy; I appealed to the family affections, though I was speaking to a priest and a soldier, two classes of men circumstantially divorced from the kind and homely ties of life.

“Your father and mother?” cried the priest. “Very well; you will convert them in their turn when you go home.”

I think I see my father’s face! I would rather tackle the Gaetulian lion in his den than embark on such an enterprise against the family theologian.