Paula the Waldensian - Eva Lecomte

tell you! It's God Himself who's done something that I don't yet clearly
understand. The money I earn, I dump it all in the wife's lap, for I know she
can handle it better than I can! Then there's another thing! When I get up in
the morning now, I ask God to help, and He does it. When I go to bed at
night, I pray again. Let me tell you, if I should die I'll go to heaven, and there
I'll meet my dear old mother, for it's not what I've done, it's what _He's_
done! It isn't that I'm any better than any of you. No! There isn't one of you
as bad as I was," he continued, "but if God was able to change and pardon a
beast like me, He can surely do the same with all of you. So what I say is,
why don't you all do just the same as I've done? Surrender yourselves into
Christ's hands!"
Little by little, seeing it was useless to try to bring the Breton back into
his old ways, his tormentors were silenced at least, and a life of new
activities commenced for the former drunkard.
"You certainly appear to be quite happy," said Paula, as we passed the
Breton's garden one evening where he was whistling merrily at his work.
"I certainly am that," said he, raising his head. "There's just one weight
on my heart yet, however."
"And what's that?" Paula's voice was sympathetic.
"It's that I cannot read."
"But I didn't think that that fact interested you very much."
"Yes, I know, Mademoiselle, but I didn't comprehend what I had lost,
but now I'd give my left hand if I could only read."
"Poor Breton," I said. It seemed to me we were a bit helpless before such
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