common sense to know that it could not harm him, or turn him one
whit aside from what his reason dictated; and neither did it, for at
the end of two years he was as greatly opposed to what he considered
the errors of the Church of Rome as ever he was, and though he
attended L'Eglise St. Jacques almost as regularly as St. George's
Church, of which he was a member, he went there simply because he
liked the society of his wife, and she believed it to be necessary
for her salvation.

In the course of time Mrs. Bennett gave birth to a boy, then two
girls, and afterwards another boy, all of whom, as children will,
made enquiries concerning whence they were and whither they were
going, etc. Mr. Bennett now began to see the folly he had been
guilty of in making the agreement mentioned above. If the Catholic
religion were the true and only faith, all his sons were on the high
road to perdition; if, as he was inclined to think, the Protestant
religion were nearer the mark, then what was to become of the girls?
What a pleasant prospect was there before him! His family torn and
divided by the most bitter of all dissentions, religious disputes
(or rather _irreligious_ disputes about matters of doctrine), and
his life and those of all his family rendered miserable. This was
certainly bad enough in its way, but something more annoying was in
store for him. He one day discovered that not only were the girls
baptized in the Romish faith, but that the _boys also_ were
surreptitiously baptized by the parish priest, so that he alone of
all the family remained a Protestant, and a poor one at that. Every
day things got more and more complicated, and his wife at last
openly avowed that _all_ the children were to be Roman Catholics,
and advised him also to flee from the wrath to come and take refuge
in the arms of the true church.