At once the Pasteur took fire: "Because they accept error, not truth," he began.

"What foundation have they for much of their belief?
It is not here," and again he slapped the Bible.
Then followed a long tirade, for the one thing this good and tolerant old man could not endure was the Roman Catholic branch of the Christian Faith.
Godfrey listened with patience, till at last the Pasteur, having burnt himself out, asked him if he were not convinced.
"I do not know," he replied.

"These quarrels of the Churches and of the different faiths puzzle and tire me.

I, too, Monsieur, believe in God and a future life, but I do not think it matters much by what road one travels to them, I mean so long as it is a road." The Pasteur looked at him alarmed, and exclaimed: "Surely you will not be a fish caught in the net which already I have observed that cunning and plausible cure trying to throw about you! Oh! what then should I answer to your father ?" "Do not be frightened, Monsieur.

I shall never become a Roman Catholic.
But all the same I think the Roman Catholics very good people, and that their faith is as well as another, at any rate for those who believe it." Then he made an excuse to slip away, leaving the Pasteur puzzled.
"He is wrong," he said to himself, "most wrong, but all the same, let it be admitted that the boy has a big mind, and intelligent--yes, intelligent." It is certain that those who search with sufficient earnestness end in finding something, though the discovered path may run in the wrong direction, or prove impassable, or wind through caverns, or along the edge of precipices, down which sooner or later the traveller falls, or lead at length to some _cul-de-sac_.