The Story of Mary Ancel

"Go, my nephew," said old Father Jacob to me, "and complete thy studies
at Strasburg: Heaven surely hath ordained thee for the ministry in these
times of trouble, and my excellent friend Schneider will work out the
divine intention."

Schneider was an old college friend of uncle Jacob's, was a Benedictine
monk, and a man famous for his learning; as for me, I was at that time
my uncle's chorister, clerk, and sacristan; I swept the church, chanted
the prayers with my shrill treble, and swung the great copper
incense-pot on Sundays and feasts; and I toiled over the Fathers for the
other days of the week.

The old gentleman said that my progress was prodigious, and, without
vanity, I believe he was right, for I then verily considered that
praying was my vocation, and not fighting, as I have found since.

You would hardly conceive (said the Captain, swearing a great oath) how
devout and how learned I was in those days; I talked Latin faster than
my own beautiful patois of Alsacian French; I could utterly overthrow in
argument every Protestant (heretics we called them) parson in the
neighborhood, and there was a confounded sprinkling of these unbelievers
in our part of the country. I prayed half a dozen times a day; I fasted
thrice in a week; and, as for penance, I used to scourge my little
sides, till they had no more feeling than a peg-top: such was the godly
life I led at my uncle Jacob's in the village of Steinbach.