exhaustive little French-English dictionary, which in look
and binding and size is just like a Testament and those people are there
to study French. The building has been nicknamed "The Church of the
Gratis French Lesson."

These students probably acquire more language than general information,
for I am told that a French sermon is like a French speech--it never
names a historical event, but only the date of it; if you are not up in
dates, you get left. A French speech is something like this:

Comrades, citizens, brothers, noble parts of the only sublime and
perfect nation, let us not forget that the 21st January cast off our
chains; that the 10th August relieved us of the shameful presence of
foreign spies; that the 5th September was its own justification
before heaven and humanity; that the 18th Brumaire contained the
seeds of its own punishment; that the 14th July was the mighty voice
of liberty proclaiming the resurrection, the new day, and inviting
the oppressed peoples of the earth to look upon the divine face of
France and live; and let us here record our everlasting curse
against the man of the 2d December, and declare in thunder tones,
the native tones of France, that but for him there had been no 17th
March in history, no 12th October, no 19th January, no 22d April,
no 16th November, no 30th September, no 2d July, no 14th February,
no 29th June, no 15th August, no 31st May--that but for him, France
the pure, the grand, the peerless, had had a serene and vacant
almanac to-day!

I have heard of one French sermon which closed in this odd yet eloquent
way:

My hearers, we have sad cause to remember the man of the 13th
January. The results of the vast crime of the 13th January have
been in just proportion to the magnitude of the set itself. But for
it there had been no 30 November--sorrowful spectacle! The grisly
deed of the 16th June had not been done but for it, nor had the man
of the 16th June known existence; to it alone the 3d September was
due, also the fatal 12th October. Shall we, then, be grateful for
the 13th January, with its freight of death for you and me and all
that breathe? Yes, my friends, for it gave us also that which had
never come but for it, and it alone--the blessed 25th December.

It may be well enough to explain, though in the case of many of my
readers