{"product_id":"2940016324470","title":"The Story of Mary Ancel","description":"\"Go, my nephew,\" said old Father Jacob to me, \"and complete thy studies\u003cbr\u003eat Strasburg: Heaven surely hath ordained thee for the ministry in these\u003cbr\u003etimes of trouble, and my excellent friend Schneider will work out the\u003cbr\u003edivine intention.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSchneider was an old college friend of uncle Jacob's, was a Benedictine\u003cbr\u003emonk, and a man famous for his learning; as for me, I was at that time\u003cbr\u003emy uncle's chorister, clerk, and sacristan; I swept the church, chanted\u003cbr\u003ethe prayers with my shrill treble, and swung the great copper\u003cbr\u003eincense-pot on Sundays and feasts; and I toiled over the Fathers for the\u003cbr\u003eother days of the week.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe old gentleman said that my progress was prodigious, and, without\u003cbr\u003evanity, I believe he was right, for I then verily considered that\u003cbr\u003epraying was my vocation, and not fighting, as I have found since.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou would hardly conceive (said the Captain, swearing a great oath) how\u003cbr\u003edevout and how learned I was in those days; I talked Latin faster than\u003cbr\u003emy own beautiful patois of Alsacian French; I could utterly overthrow in\u003cbr\u003eargument every Protestant (heretics we called them) parson in the\u003cbr\u003eneighborhood, and there was a confounded sprinkling of these unbelievers\u003cbr\u003ein our part of the country. I prayed half a dozen times a day; I fasted\u003cbr\u003ethrice in a week; and, as for penance, I used to scourge my little\u003cbr\u003esides, till they had no more feeling than a peg-top: such was the godly\u003cbr\u003elife I led at my uncle Jacob's in the village of Steinbach.","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47066804191472,"sku":"2940016324470","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940016324470_p0.jpg?v=1763633760","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940016324470","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}