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Carr, James Scott, 1855-

1934. The devil in robes

'The Devil in Robes"

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"The Sin of Priests.

THE GORY HAND OF CATHOLICISM STAYED.

THE PRAYERS OF PROTESTANTS HEARD.

MILLIONS OF HUMAN SOULS HAVE THE YOKE OF BONDAGE LIFTED FROM THEIR BLEEDING NECKS.

Homes of Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippine Islands united, and the baleful influences of Romanism forever removed from wives and daughters.

How dare a priest pollute our homes?

How dare he set a snare And weave his meshes tightly round

Our wives and daughters fair?

TRUTHS THAT SHOCK THE CIVILIZED WORLD.

Every Page a Story of Ungodly Acts of the Priest-Craft and Upheld by their Superiors.

Compiled from facts told by eye-witnesses, which includes soldier and civilian, who have given their lives to liberate the unhappy natives of these Islands, and rebuke abhorent Catholicism.

. . . INTRODUCTORY BY . . .

REV. J. SCOTT CARR, D. D.,

Traveler, Lecturer and Preacher. —

Containing nearly 500 pages, including about 50 full page engravingj

that vivify and electrify the reader. ^x^'TqY OF '^Rl'^'T^

The Menace Publishing Co., cinc.j OCT 7 193:

AURORA, MO. Y

Copyrlgbua.

PUBLISHERS' Announcement

We beg to say that we have no apologies to make to the CathoHc world for bringing out this volume, for if it is not an American duty to throttle and expose Romish cunning and Pop- ish pollution of American institutions and American morals, then we are in the wrong for laying bare the slimy doings of Rome and her benighted cohorts; but if it is right, why should we bow down to Pope, bishop and priest and say, "We have done it, but beg your pardon ?" Never; we want to say to the American and Protestant world that we have hewed to the line, and if Pope Leo and his ''Scarlet Horse" don't like it, stop your infamous prac- tices. We are Americans first, last and all the time, and no true American can be a patriot and bow down to an Itahan Pontiff, and hold himself in readiness to do his bidding. Every Amer- ican knows that there is not a single Catholic dignitary but what considers the fundamental principles of the American Govern- ment wrong, as they consider that the Pope and the Catholic Church are the rulers of the universe, and secretly make their

threats that at no late date in the future Catholicism will rule America. We have compiled this work and placed it before the American people, believing that it will arouse slothful Protestants the world over, and wall open the eyes of American Catholics and help them to shake off the tyrannical yoke of the priestcraft that smirches the character of their wives, sisters and daughters, whenever it is within their power to do so, and feeling that their ungodly heads ma}' not suffer for the imposition.

We are glad to know that a large number of Catholics have begun to look upon the confessional box as an intrigue to help along the lustful inclinations of priests, and have begun to realize that there is danger of trusting their jewels alone in the presence of lustful man, with the superstitious cloak of unerring sanctity about him in order that he may make innocent women believe "hat no act of his can defile or pollute. Let us repeat, that we nay be assassinated, we may be ushered before our Maker by some treacherous hand who worships the Pope instead of God, we may be hounded by courts placed in power by the priestcraft, and gullible Protestants w^ho would "sell their birthright for a mess of pottage;' but should this happen, we will never lower our colors, and the words "Protestant America" will be inscribed at the top of our banner, and the inscription upon our armor shall be "America for Americans/' and the inscription shall be en- graved so deep that the rumblings from the Vatican shall never deface it, and its luster shall grow brighter until the Archives of future centuries shall have become ancient.

Yours in the name of America,

THE PUBLISHERS.

INTRODUCTION

IB^V.

Rev. J. SCOTT CARR, D. D.,

Traveler, Lecturer and Preacher.

PASTOR PLYMOUTH CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, SAINT LOUIS. MO.

In presenting this authentic history of Romish rule in the isles of Cuba, Porto Rico and Philippines, we come before the public with an entirely new work, new engravings, new every- thing, but the fact of the curse of Romanism in our world. The title is well chosen and fitly illustrates the work, "The Devil in Robes, or The Sin of Priests." For if anywhere in modern times the blackness of the darkness of Roman hellishness or Jesuitical ingenuity in torture of humanity for the enrichment of the "Man of Sin," or the enslavement of the masses to Popish i)riestcraft has been manifested, it is certainly in these islands, under papal rule for the past four centuries.

Never before In the history of America has the subject of Roman CathoHcism commanded so much attention or has it been as aggressive as at the present. The insidious encroachments of the papal system against our national institutions, our free school system, our American Sabbath and republican form of govern- ment have only recently become evident to the people at large. The American Protective Association has been an important fac- tor in presenting to the American people the true relation of the Roman Hierarchy to this country. All the ingenuity and craf^ of the followers of Loyola have been called into action to cover up their real intentions. Ireland's declaration, ''We can have America in ten years. I give you three points, the Indians, negroes and the public schools. With these in our hands the America of the future is ours," is the watchword of that Church (?) which has caused more tears and shed more blood than all the armies of the earth. What that America of the future is if Ireland's wish is gained, is placed before you in the following pages, in the unveiling of priestcraft in these unhappy islands, for "Rome never changes."

This work is not a rehash of past history under a new title, but a clear presentation of facts gathered during the past two or three years. With the past we have naught to do more than to say that volumes have been wTitten on the history of this "Mother of Harlots" in her iniquitous work in Spain, France, England and elsewhere, every page of which is stained with the blood of so-called heretics, or illuminated by the fires of the "Auto-de-fe." We leave that to the historian of the past, and call upon the peo- ple of free America to take cognizance of the history of the Roman Catholicism of the present. There has come to our at- tention so much evidence of the Romanism of to-day being a re- production of the Romanism of the past with larger facilities for

carrying on its unholy warfare against all who have not the mark of the ''Beast and False Prophet" upon them, that we are led to send forth this volume of facts. Am I wrong^^when I say that all the strikes that have occurred in the United States during the past decade, strikes that have been the cause of such vast expendi- tures of wealth, such loss to life and property and stagnation of improvements have all had their origin in the Church of Rome; these anarchial — socialistic demonstrations, whence came they if not from the Romish Church ? Note the nationality of the hordes of immigrants to this country, among whom strikes engender, learn their religious tendencies and you will find that they all are the offspring of the ''woman who sits on the scarlet colored beast."

The horrible pictures disclosed in the following pages of priestly rule in the islands which form the subject of this book are true pictures, and reveal unto us the "Devil in Robes" under the guise of a church of Jesus Christ, debaunching women, deso- lating homes, orphaning children, ruining virtue, enslaving com- munities and dyeing its soul with murdered innocence.

Americans ! Protestant Americans ! Is it not time that "ye awaken out of your sleep?" Look well to the portals of your national and individual liberties. The "Devil in Robes" is in our midst, eating the very vitals out of our system of government Learn from this volume what he has in store for you, unless ye arouse 3'ourselves, shake off the Monster's grasp, and banish priestcraft from our shores.

It is only necessary to add that the compiler has endeavored to avoid all unnecessary controversial matter. He has written as a member of the great Protestant family, not as a member of any one particular branch of that family. It is his belief that all Protestants should unite in the conflict with the "Devil in Robes" as the great enemy of God and humanity; it has been his aim to

furnish from the armory of truth weapons for that conflict which shall be alike acceptable to ministers and laymen of every name and order who are not ashamed of the name of Protestant Amer- ican.

Yours for America,

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

The Wreck of the Battleship Maine 12

The Havana Harbor Ig

Priest Narcinti Assaulting a Sister 25

Church of Puerto Rico with Bedrooms in Basement 31

A Group of Starving Cubans 37

Priest Gonzello 4g

A Convent in Cuba 54

Hobson Swimming from the Merrimac 66

General Garcia, the Cuban Patriot 72

General Maceo, Assassinated by Catholicism 80

Teresa Farseni and Her Two Children 92

Mrs. Anne Gomenti and Daughters Imprisoned 102

Priests Obtaining Bodies of Soldiers 112

Cubans Being Spirited Away by Priests 122

A Philippine Beauty who Robs Tourists 132

Catholic Sister Teaching Priests' Children 142

Bishop Martiltomi of the Philippine Islands 152

The Nine- Year Old Daughter of Priest Tamaro 172

Dead Men Tell No Tales 182

Pope Leo of Rome 202

Ex-President U. S. Grant 218

Bombshell Thrown in Protestant Hospital 226

Burial of Soldiers by Priests, After Removing Clothing 244

Clara Barton, President National Red Cross Association 263

General Robert E. Lee 272

General Joseph Wheeler 282

Brig. Gen. Fitzhugh Lee 296

Robbery of Dead Soldiers by Priests 306

Protestant Soldiers Suffering for Water 317

Hurled to Death by Spanish Soldiers 328

High Priest Zironos of Puerto Rico 338

Men, Women and Children being Tortured 344

Agonies of the Inquisition in the Nineteenth Century 350

The Result of Romish Rule in Cuba 356

French Priests Arrested for Inciting Riots 362

They Suffered for Liberty's Sake 368

Suffering of Missionaries and their Families 398

Hanging of Four Protestants 412

Punishment of John Mallott 436

Torturing of Protestant Missionaries, Philippine Islands 463

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I. Pagb

P^fitruction of thk. Battleship Maine, Cause and by whom done . 13

CHAPTER II.

The Oath that Each Priest must Take and Its Effect upon the U. S.

Government ........... 19

CHAPTER III.

A Confession by a Puerto Rican Lady who fell through the Influen- ces of the Insidious Confessional Box. ..... 27

CHAPTER IV.

Why Cuba Suffered. The Bondage the Natives were held in by

Catholicism .... , , . . . 39

CHAPTER V.

A Priest's Confession. The Influences of the Confessional Box upon

Women ........... 43

CHAPTER VI.

Blood of the Innocent Shed for Revenge. Cunjuring Devices to In-

fluence ^he Ignorant . .. = .... 49

CHAPTER VII.

Nnnnerres and Convents in America and Elsewhere .... 55

CHAPTER VIII.

Suitered for a Father's (Priest's) Sins. Followers of Catholicism,

as well as others, suffer when it serves Catholic purposes . 67

CHAPTER IX.

The Ruin of Girls. Priests Endeavor to make Young Girls and older

ones believe they cannot Sin ....... 93

CHAPTER X.

Why Priests Should Marry. Celibacy a Drawback to Civilization . 129

CHAPTER XI.

To Hide his Shame his Child Suffers. Priest Tamaro Starved his

Child to Escape Punishment. ....... 173

CHAPTER XII.

To ask questions Means Death. To Inquire into the Doings of Cath- olicism incurs Priestly Wrath. ....... 183

CHAPTER XIII. Driven to a Convent for Protection, She finds both Misery and Shame 203

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XIV. i,.^^

lyife in a Convent as Told by an Inmate 219

CHAPTER XV.

Off to the Convent. A Tale of Misery told by a Cuban Girl . . 227

CHAPTER XVI.

The Character of Catholics in America ; who they are, and where

they come from 245

CHAPTER XVII.

Our Common Schools, and why Catholics should not be Teachers . 273

CHAPTER XVIII.

Why Protestants Should Hold the Offices in the Gift of the Ameri- can People ........... 297

CHAPTER XIX. American Priests and Their Influences. 307

CHAPTER XX. fhe Catholic Church in Politics. Greed and Lust their Every Object ^3>

CHAPTER XXI.

American Officials to Blame for the Presumption of Romanism in the

United States 357

CHAPTER XXII.

Where Strikes and Public Disturbances Arise, and by Whom En- gendered ....... . .

CHAPTER XXIII.

363

369

Republicanism and Democracy Lashed for Catering to Catholicism for Votes ..•..••••••

CHAPTER XXIV.

Why a President of the United States should not Treat with Pop*'

Leo nor any other Catholic Dignitary 413

CHAPTER XXV. :as Congress any Right to set aside Vast Sums of Money for Cath- olic Schools? ^^^

CHAPTER XXVI.

A Home Ruined, a Husband Crazed, a Wife Disgraced, a Priest Un- punished. A Nebraska Episode 465

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Chapter L

The Beginniing of the End.

In the stillness of a tropical night, the battleship Maine rock- ed calmly in the harbor of Havana; brave seamen peacefully slumbered in their hammocks, dreaming of mothers, wives and sweethearts, and the visions of dear ones carried them home once mOre, to gaze into the eyes of loved ones, and feel the tender hand of mother upon their brow, and press warm lips of wives and chil- dren; they dreamed of their furloughs, and thought they could see mother with streaming eyes to welcome them home; they could hear the joyful shouts of the little prattler, as they called to mam- ma that 'Tapa is coming;" they were living over again in vision's realms, what they hoped to be a reality; but could the}- have scanned the harbor shore at that moment, they would haxe seen a dark figure move with cat-like tread towards the deadly electrical machine which was so soon to bring their fond dreams to a close, and usher their souls before (jod. A crash! and the air is rent with the screams and groan> of the

18 NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM,

would have succeeded had it not been for the pure, unadulterated, God-loving and fearless, pure-blooded Protestants of America. From every hillside and valley came the ever-conquering spirit of uur forefathers, crying for vengeance. And when the Protes- tant Churches, the next Sunday after the Maine was blown up, sang in public worship, "America," the die was cast, and the old Mosaic law had once more been revived, and the cry was, "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth/' Young Ameri- cans from every walk of life, from the plow, from the factories, from the dry goods emporiums, from colleges, from the count- ing-room, and from the homes of idle elegance were fired ; the old veteran of many wars wept for youthful vitality once more, in order to lash the nation of stinging serpents, who would dare spill the innocent blood of our gallant boys of the Maine. Presi- dent McKinley endeavored to appease the American public by pleading that this nation was not ready to fight, which was in a measure true,— that is the machinery of the nation was not strong enough to handle her "fighters," for no time since we trimmed up the "red coats" of England did the American nation ever contain so many fighters. The writer remembers one day, the first of May, after the destruction of the Maine, while stand- ing on a street corner in Chattanooga, Tenn., a squad of boys, about nine or ten years of age, were talking of the war, and one little fellow remarked that he was a fighter, and from fighting stock, and he expected to "jine" the army the first "pertunity" he had. One of his companions told him that he was too young, that they wouldn't have him. This seemed to worry the little patriot for a minute, but as quick as a flash he brightened up, and with his big boyish blue eyes swimming in tears said : "Well, I

NINETEEXTh CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM. 17

may be too young to 'jine' the army, bu^ I can lick any boy in this crowd that will holler, 'Hurrah, foi Spain!' "

I said to myself, God bless the old red, white and blue flag, for as long as she had such boys to make men of, this would con- tinue to be the greatest nation on earth. I walked across the street to where the boy was, and inquired his name and where he lived. He told me, and I went at once to the number designated by the boy, and found an old man making baskets, hobbling around upon one natural leg and a wooden one made by himself. I inquired how he lost his limb, and he told me that it was shot off by a Yankee ball. I then informed him that I had met his little son, and related what the boy had said. As quick as the flash of powder this old, grizzled Southern war-horse straightened up, seemingly under the impression that I had come to find fault, and gave me a look that would have frozen molten lead, and said : ''Young man, did that boy say that?" I assured him he did, then he pointed his old, bony finger at me and said :

*'Well, I can whip any foreigner, or anybody else that says

he can't." At this my soul simply flooded with tears and I ac- tually hugged that old, battered veteran and exclaimed : *'God bless you and your boy; I may look like a foreigner, but you and your boy are the only two Americans on earth that are better Americans than I am. It is a wholesome sight to see father and son both ready to fight the battles of their country. Americans love their country because their country loves them. Catholicism does not teach patriotism, but onh^ obedience and servitude to an overbearing and detestable set of puffed-up, lustful dignitaries. Can you expect patriotism from the priestcraft who swears obe- dience to the Pope, and vows vengeance against everything Protestant.

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Chapter II.

The Oath Which Every Priest Hust Take,

If th-e oath that CathoHc priests must take was taken by any secret order in America its members would be arrested for treason, but still the American people sit idly by and allow their worst enemies to come right among them and build institutions that are a shame to civilization, and permit these institutions to be run by an oathbound set of men who both secretly and openly swear vengeance against our Free American institutions, and brand our public schools as "Nurseries of Hell." If every pure American will read and reread the following oath that each Cath- olic priest ]nust take, then they will have some idea of their crime when they cast a vote for a Catholic to fill any office within the gift of the American people :

THE JESUITICAL OATH.

I, , now in the presence of Almighty God. the

blessed Virgin Mary, the blessed St. John the Baptist, the holy

20 NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM,

apostles, St. Peter and Paul, and all the saints, sacred hosts of. Heaven, and to you my Ghostly Father, the superior general of the society of Jesus, founded by St. Ignatus Loyola, in the pon- tification of Paul the Third, and continued to the present, do, by the womb of the Virgin, the matrix of God, and the rod of Jesus Christ, declare and swear that his holiness, the Pope, is Christ's vicegerent, and is the true and only head of the Catholic or uni- versal church throughout the earth; and that by virtue of the keys of binding and loosing given to his holiness by my Savior, Jesus Christ, he hath powxr to depose heretical kings, princes, states, commonwealths and governments, all being illegal with- out his sacred confirmation, and they may be safely destroyed. Therefore, to the utmost of my power, I will defend this doc- trine and his holiness' right and custom against all usurpers of the heretical or Protestant authority whatsoever, especially the Lutheran Church of Germany, Holland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, and the now pretended authority and Churches of En- gland and Scotland, and the branches of the same now estab- lished in Ireland, and on the continent of America and elsewhere, and all adherents in regard that they be usurped and heretical opposing the sacred mother church of Rome.

I do now denounce and disown any allegiance as due to any heretical king, prince or state, named protestant or liberals, or obedience to any of their laws, magistrates or officers.

I do further declare that the doctrine of the Churches of England and Scotland of the Calvinists, Huguenots and others of the name of protestants or liberals, to be damnable, and they themselves to be damned who will not forsake the same.

I do further declare that I will help, assist and advise all or

NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM. 21

any of his holiness' agents, in any place where I shall be, in Swit- zerland, Germany, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Eng- land, Ireland or America, or in any other kingdom or territory I shall come to, and do my utmost to extirpate the heretical Pro- testant or liberal doctrines, and to destroy all their pretended powers, legal or otherwise.

I do further promise and declare that, notwithstanding I am dispensed with to assume any religion heretical for the propaga- tion of the mother church's interest, to keep secret and private all her agent's councils from time to time, as they entrust me, and not to divulge, directly or indirectly, by word, writing or cir- cumstances whatever, but to execute all that shall be proposed, given in charge, or discovered unto me, by you my Ghostly Fath- er, or any of this sacred convent.

I do further promise and declare that I will have no opinion or will of my own or any mental reservation whatsoever, even as a corpse or cadaver (perinde ac cadaver), but will unhesitatingly obey each and every command that I may receive from my superiors in the militia of the pope and of Jesus Christ.

That I will go to any part of the world whithersoever I may be sent, to the frozen regions of the North, to the burning sands of the desert of Africa, or the jungles of India, to the centers of civilization of Europe, or to the wild haunts of the barbarous savages of America, without murmuring or repining, and will be submissive in all things whatsoever communicated to me.

I do furthermore promise and declare that I will, when opportunity presents, make and wage relentless war, secretly or openly, against all heretics, Protestants and Liberals, as I am directed to do, to extirpate them from the face of the whole '^^rth ;

22 NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM.

and that I will spare neither age, sex or condition, and that I will hang, burn, waste, boil, flay, strangle, and bury alive these in- famous heretics ; rip up the stomachs and wombs of their women, and crush their infants' heads against the walls, in order to anni- hilate their execrable race. That when the same can not be done openly, I will secretly use the poisonous cup, the strangulating cord, the steel of the poniard, or the leaden bullet, regardless of the honor, rank, dignity or authority of the person or persons, whatever may be their condition in life, either public or private,

as I at any time may be directed so to do, by any agent of the Pope, or Superior of the Brotherhood of the Holy Father of the Society of Jesus.

In confirmation of which I hereby dedicate my life, my soul, and all corporeal powers, and with dagger which I now receive I will subscribe my name, written in my blood, in testimony thereof; and should I prove false or weaken in my determination, may my brethren and fellow soldiers of the militia of the Pope cut off my hands and feet and my throat from ear to ear, my belly opened and sulphur burned therein with all the punishment that can be inflicted upon me on earth and my soul be tortured by demons in an eternal hell forever.

All of which I, do swear by the

Blessed Trinity and Blessed Sacrament which I am now to receive, to perform, and on my part to keep this, my oath.

In testimony hereof, I take this most holy and blessed sacra- ment of the eucharist, and witness the same further, with my name written with the point of this dagger, dipped in my own blood, and seal in the face of this holy sacrament.

[He receives the wafer from the Superior and writes his

NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM. 23

name with the point of his dagger, dipped in his own blood, taken from over the heart.]

If the above oath does not make the blood of every true American boil with righteous indignation, he or she is surely lacking all the elements of patriotism. The priest first swears his allegiance to Catholicism, and places behind him every thought of God and his country. Can a man or set of men wor- ship a God that is full of love and pity and swear that he will per- secute unto death all that does not coincide with his belief? Each priest swears eternal vengeance against Protestants wher- ever found; and still weak-kneed Protestants will cast their vote for a Catholic who is bound by an oath subscribed in his own blood to destroy every vestige of Protestanism. The Catholic re- ligion disowns the right to be governed by any power, only that which comes through the Pope, and was it not for the overwhelm- ing majority that the Protestants have in America, our free and God-given institutions would be ruthlessly brushed aside by Ro- manism, and in their stead the idolatrous institutions of Catholi- cism would rear their brazen heads.

The Catholic Church despises secret orders with all the venom that it is possible to bestow upon an object of hatred, and at the same time every fabric of the Catholic Church is bound together with a cord of secrecy. Our blood congeals when we think of a sect, who pretend to worship a living God, declaring that they will resort to every means known to the bloodthirsty, uncivilized tribes of the earth in order to exterminate tlie Pro- testant race. The Catholic World declares that the great and noble race, the Protestants, are all illegitimate offsprings of the devil, as they aver that there is no power upon earth that can

24 NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM.

legitimately unite man and woman in holy matrimony outside of the power of the Catholic Church. They declare that your son and daughter who play at your hearthstone are bastards, and have eternal damnation written upon their brow, simply because their fathers and mothers were not united in wedlock by one of their abominable officials.

We ask the Protestant world, in the name of a living God, in the name of your dead fathers and mothers, in the name of your dear wives who are as pure as the lily of the valley, how long will we sit idly by and have these insinuations thrown in our face ? Look well to the portals of your homes, and see that Catholicism does not gain a foothold by her insidious intrigues. Be ever ready to throttle the enemy, and make diligent inquiries in regard to whom you are going to cast your vote, as a Protestant vote cast for a Catholic is an amen and a huzzah for the Pope and his army of traducers of American and Protestant homes.

Priest Narcinti Assaulting a Sister.

Chapter III.

A Puerto Rico Confession.

xii the latter part of May, 1898, just before the famous battle of Santiago, a Miss Amherst, of the United States, had gone to Puerto Rico in order to gather information relative to the char- acter of the Puerto Rican women, and had become very mucli at- tached to a beautiful native girl of 18 years, and on many occa- sions this girl would spend a day and night with Miss Amherst at her hotel, as she had learned to speak English fairly well, and was a companion to the American lady. Miss Amherst had learned from this girl that she was a devoted Catholic, and had questioned her on many occasions about their mode of worship; and especi- ally the confession of her sins to the Priests, but had been unable to lead her very far on this subject as there always seemed to be something that this girl did not care to talk about, but Miss Am- herst knew the effects of money upon the native Puerto Rican, both male and female, and bought Zona many trifUnq- trinkets, and in this way gradually led her to. the talking point on any sub- ject that she might approach. It had been noticed by Miss Am-

18 NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM^

herst that Zona had to go to confession every other day, while it was not customary for the average Puerto Rican to confess but once each month, and determined to learn why this girl was an exception. She knew that Zona was one of the most beautiful women of the island, but had not dared to dream that her beauty was her ruin, but in order that she might learn why Zona was required to confess so often she again resorted to money, and told the girl that she would give her ten one dollar gold pieces if she would hide her in the church near the confessional box on the night before she (Zona) went to make her confession; this the girl hesitated to do, saying that the priest had told her that to repeat anything divulged to him during a confession was sure 0 call down the wrath of God upon the confessor; she also told Miss Amherst that the priest she confessed to had told her that any one who should look in upon one while confessing was sacrilegious, and that he had known scores of persons who had been struck dead in their endeavor to see and hear what might transpire in the confessional box, thus Zona cautioned the young lady for her own good, as this simple native girl actually believed what this treacherous and lustful priest had told her.

Miss Amherst assured her that she was not afraid, and led her to believe that she had known many who had been secreted near the confessional box and had not suffered any bad results. But this did not seem to satisfy Zona, and at once this American lady thought that she could detect something that was not alto- gether for fear of dire vengeance from a supreme being, and set about to learn the true cause of her not wanting her to be neai when she made her confession. She had upon many occasions overcome all obstacles with money, and concluded that there

NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM, 2^

must be some amount that would tempt Zona to either hide her in the church and let her be near at the time of her confession, or else hire her to tell exactly what took place during same.

Miss Amherst was afraid to press the subject too persistently for fear that her anxiety might frighten this girl, as she was pos- sessed of no little native cunning, so the subject was dropped for the time being, and all presents to Zona were cut short by Miss Amherst, but at the same time she redoubled her attention to the girl, and encoiiraged her to spend what money she had from time to time given her. She did this in order to reduce the girl to a certain degree of want, knowing that money was a great deal nore tempting to one in want than to one who has the means to mpply their desires. In a short time Zona had spent all the money she had, and occasionally would ask to borrow a few cents from Miss Amherst. This the lady would often refuse, but would grant the request just often enough to keep in the good graces of the girl.

There was to be a party in the city in the near future, and the most beautiful women of the island were to attend, and no- where in the world do women vie wath each other in regard to dress to a greater extent than in Puerto Rico, thus Miss Amherst at last saw her chance to gain the information she so much coveted. One morning Zona approached her in a shy, hesitating manner, and informed her that there was going to be a gathering of the most select of the island, and requested that Miss Amherst attend, as the greatest feminine beauty of the island would be there. This American lady replied that she would attend with her, but this girl, with tears in her eyes informed hei' that she was not going, as she had not suitable wearing apparel.

30 NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM.

This greatly astonished the American lady, and she declared to Zona that the gathering would be a failure without her, and sug- gested that she try to borrow the money of some of her friends, in order that she might dress herself in accordance with her wishes. The girl hesitated for a moment and said, 'T have no friends whom I could borrow the money of, as I have no gentle- men friends of wealth, and the ladies I know who have money are jealous of my beauty, and would not loan me money to ap- pear in public and overshadow their beauty."

Miss Amherst asked about what amount of money it would require to prepare for the gathering in the style she would desire. She w^as informed that thirty dollars would array her in good taste. The American lady asked her if she did not think she could take fifty dollars and outshine any lady in Puerto Rico. Zona replied that fifty dollars would dress her far superior to any lady ever seen at a gathering of this kind. The suggestion was made that perhaps the priest to whom she confessed might loan her the money, but to this remark Zona only shook her head, and replied that all favors in that line came the other way. At this, Miss Amherst took up the thread she had dropped, and brought Zona back to the confessional, and proposed that she would give her the fifty dollars to prepare for the ball if she would secrete her near the confessional the next time she went to confess her sins, and further agreed to give her an extra twenty-five dollars should she need it, but made Zona promise that the priest was not to know that she was hid in the church, and that she (Zona) was to act just the same as though there was no one in the church, and also informed her that this money was not to be given her until after the confession was over.

The girl hesitated for some time, but the thoughts of the

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fifty or seventy-five dollars was not an easy matter to forget, as she could see social prestige after that gaudy display of raiment and female charms, so she told Miss Amherst that she would do as she requested, if she would promise her that she would never, never tell what she might see or hear. This she assured the girl should not happen so long as there was any danger to her by divulging it. This perfectly satisfied Zona, and on the following evening, when both priest and parishioner were spending the evening in some cafe or place of amusement, Zona and Miss Am- herst stole away from the hotel, and in a roundabout manner reached the church, and easily found an entrance to the basement of the church, from w^hich they clambered up a dark stairway to a side door that Zona unlocked, which she said afterwards was the door that she had often passed through in visiting the priest, as he had furnished her a key to come and go at her will.

We will now let Miss Amherst repeat what she saw and heard in her own language :

''When the door to that great building called a church opened, and I looked about me, my heart stood still with fear, as on every hand was visible bones which Catholics claim were at one time parts of living saints. Lighted tapers cast an unnatural light over every thing, and I almost faltered in my undertaking, but I made a desperate effort to compose myself, and bade Zona good night after she had shown me where I could secrete myself to be near the confessional box next day when she called. It was far into the night when we arrived at the church, as I wished to shorten the night as much as possible. When Zona's footsteps w^ere heard to leave the church, a most miserable girl was I, and

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34 NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM.

had I known how to have escaped that idolatrous place I most surely would not now be chronicling- what I saw and heard.

''I spent the night in wretched wakefulness, and imagine my delight Vs'hen the first streaks of coming day penetrated the stained windows of that church. Promptly at six o'clock the church .was thrown open, and the sexton grasped the cord that reached to the belfry, and the thundering peals of that bell still ring in my ears. In a very short time, the inhabitants began pour- ing in, but before these the priest had arrived and glided about the church with cat-like tread. His members consisted of the rich and poor, high and low, in fact, every class and condition in life were represented, but I noticed from my hiding place behind the drapery that the rich and beautiful ladies received the greatest attention from this priest. It was simply disgusting to see these miserable, deluded creatures mumble unintelligible nothings at the feet of this priest, and kiss his hands, and often w^ould em- brace his knees.

"Mass was over within an hour, and the church was again closed, and then my actual suspense began, as half-past ten o'clock was the time that Zona said she would call to make her confession. These hours slipped by sooner than I expected, and about ten o'clock a side door was opened, and the form of the priest was seen to enter the church, and take his seat, not in the confessional, or the seat set apart for the priests to hear the con- fession of their members, but he drew a cushioned chair up near the altar, and imagine my surprise when he drew forth a fragrant Havana cigar and began smoking, as though he was in a corner grocery. Nor did he stop at this, for within a very short time he

NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OE ROMANISM. 35

had hummed several famiHar ditties, and even in a low strain had whistled several tunes that I only supposed was known by the very semi-decent of any country.

''The time had arrived, yes passed, for on looking at my watch I discovered that it only wanted fifteen minutes till eleven. Great beads of sweat gathered upon my brow when the thought struck me that Zona had played me false, for how could I ever get out of that awful place alone, and to make my .presence known was to call down upon my head sure death. I simply gasped for breath and wrung my hands in anguish. The seconds grew into minutes, and the minutes into hours. The priest had evidently been disappointed, as he had begun to grow restless, and walked up and down the aisles in impatience. I had about made up my mind that I had 'been deceived, w^hen I heard a click of the little door that Zona and I had entered the night before, and in another instant the priest rushed forward and greeted Zona with the same ardent and affectionate caresses, and sweet nothings that a be- trothed lover would the idol of his heart's affections. Placing one arm about her shapely waist, he led her to the cushioned chair beside the altar, and if there was any cause for confession to be made, it was most surely upon the part of the priest. I will acknowledge that I have in my time read several novels where the lover used extravagant language, and swore that his love was as pure and abiding as heaven itself, but never before had I ever heard such appeals made to mortal woman. He declared that he w^ould strangle a nation to gratify one whim of hers; that he would denounce the world, yea even risk his soul in defense of one wish or demand she might make. It was evident that his love was animal, and did not emanate from the deep. God-given

36 NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM,

Spring of pure emotions that bind human souls together with a golden cord that only death can sever.

''I draw the curtains for a space of time. * * * i f^^d myself alone once more, the church is still as death. My mind was a cyclone of thought. Had I been dreaming, had I heard and seen what rushed through my mind, or was it a miserable night- mare. No, I realized that I lived, and how I longed for two o'clock to come, which was the time that Zona was to call for me. The time at last arrived, and Zona shamefacedly called, and led me into the open light of day once more. Not a word was said until we reached our hotel, when Zona spoke first, saying, 'Now, my dear Miss, can I get the money?' Imagine my utter amaze- ment at this child not having the least apparent hesitancy in de- manding so quickly the bribe offered for exposing both herself and the priest. I pitied her ; my very soul was embittered against the name Catholicism. I paid her the money, and often after that I gave her sums of money to be used by her for the necessities of life, but not another penny to buy gew-gaws that she might out- rival some native beauty, as her beauty had already been her ruin. She attended the ball, and I never before nor since have seen such an exquisitely beautiful woman. She remained with me many weeks but on each occasion that she was to go to confes- sion, I bade her to remain with me, and to my certain knowledge she never was in that church but once after that eventful day. I am glad to know that I showed her the evil of Catholicism, and she now lives in the island, a loved and petted wife, and her hus- band is a true Protestant, but not a Christian.

''The last time I ever saw Zona, she was as true a Protestant as any American woman that lives, and her beauty had increased instead of fading. Light on Catholicism and her insidious doings, makes Protestants in every land."

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Chapter IV.

Why Cuba Suffered.

The benighted and oppressed masses of Cuba, are to be pitied, for they were led by idolatrous leaders — leaders who^c every thought was self. Ninety per cent, of the inhabitants of Cuba could neither read nor write, and those wlio could, only had superstitious literature, conjured up by the selfish and lustful Priest-craft that they might more securely bind their already ignorant subjects. The following is a prayer that the head of each Cuban family who belonged to the Catholic Church was compelled to read each day, and if he could not read was forced to memorize and repeat to his family each morning before l)egin- ning the day's labor and each evening before retiring, and failure to do so meant severe punishment by the Parish Priest.

The Prayer.

"We thank the Father (here the name of their Priest), and God for allowing us to live, our own bodies are thine, the bodies of our wives and children are thine, and should we ever

40 NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM.

complain of thy treatment before man, or even dream in our sleep that thou couldst do wrong, we ask the Pope, who is the ruler of the whole earth, and who holds the keys of heaven, to cause us to be burned alive. Father (here name of the Priest), all that we have is thine, we know thou art pure, we know thou art a part of God, and we submit our all to thee, even unto our lives, even unto our children, and will flee our beds that we may prove to thee that we know that no act of thine is impure. We swear this by the fore-arm of St. Anne, and the bones of the Virgin Mary, and the holy teeth of St. Peter that we will always love thee dearer than our own families."

- Cuba suffered, but the hand of God was seen in her suffer- ings, for the Protestant world had to be aroused before the chains of Catholicism could be broken from the bleeding ankles of the natives of these unhappy islands. The substance, the back- bone, the vitality from which the Catholic Church draws her ex- istence comes from the densely ignorant of all nations. We make this declaration without the least fear of a successful contradic- tion. We are aware that there are many intelligent Catholics, but they are only Catholics in name, and because their early train- ing binds them with a recollection of father or mother being a Catholic, but when it comes to the conjuring devices that are practiced upon the ignorant, they become disgusted. But these silly mumblings are not practiced in the presence of the more in- telligent Catholics, as the priestcraft know that their heathenish practices will not go with intelligent persons, so they cater to this better class of their members In order that they may give some semblance of dignity to their doctrines, and the more easily hood- wink the ignorant.

NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM. 41

There is not a nation on earth where the CathoHc rehgion predominates but what you will find dense ignorance, with no love of country, and with no more patriotism than the American Indian had one hundred years ago. We do not have to visit Cuba, Puerto Rico, or the Philippine Islands to demonstrate the fact that Catholicism is based upon ignorance, and her fundamental principles are superstition. Let us visit any of our large cities in America, and take the census and compare the results. We will classify the inhabitants into two classes, one Protestants and the other Catholics, and then learn from inquiry the per cent that are educated, and uneducated, and from statistics we learn that in the City of New York 78 per cent of all the Catholic inhabitants can neither read nor write, and upon the other hand, there are but 15 2-3 per cent of Protestants but what can both read and v/rite.

In the State of Illinois there is but one Catholic family out of every twelve that takes a newspaper, and in the same State there is but one Protestant family out of every twelve but what does take some kind of a newspaper, thus you see we do not have to leave our own shores to find ample reasons why ignorance is a fundamental and necessary principle of Romanism, for as soon as the cobwebs of superstition are brushed from the benighted brain, the intelligence of mankind rebels against things that are so grossly diagonal to human reason.

Priests tell their members that they are called by God to do the thinking for you and your families, and that they alone are responsible for your salvation, and that } ou should bow the knee to them in humble confession of your sins. If we are not men and women of reason, and have no power to save ourselves

42 NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM.

through our own actions, then we are not above the commonest dumb animal that exists.

To convince one's self of the narrowness of the Catholic religion, and how their subjects are inferior in everything to Prot- estantism, visit a school completely under the influence of papal power and one run by the free and untrammeled powers of Pro- testants and question the scholars, and you will find the knowl- edge of the children of Catholic schools confined to the narrow and biased teachings of Romanism, and not even an elementary understanding of the things that make a nation great by the knowledge of its people, while upon the other hand the small boy and girl at tender ages in the public schools of this country are taught everything that tends to make patriotic, useful men and

women, men and women who have lifted America head and shoulders above every other nation on earth.

Chapter V.

A Priest's Confession.

I was a Priest, I am an ex-Priest, but I never was a Priest in the meaning of the Romanism of to-day. I was a Priest because my aim was to serve God, and help save fallen humanity, and not be the cause of polluting innocent girls and leading astray loving wives.

In the beginning of my priesthood, I was not a little sur- prised and embarrassed to see a very accomplished and beautiful young lady, whom I used to meet almost every week, entering the box of my confessional. She had been used to confess to another young priest of my acquaintance; and she was always looked upon as one of the most pious girls of the city. She dis- guised herself, and began by saying, —

Dear father, I hope you do not know me, and that you will never try to know me. I am a desperately great sinner. Be- fore I begin my confession, allow me to ask you not to polkite my ears by questions which our confessors are in the habit of putting to their female penitents : I have already been destroyed by those questions. Before I was seventeen years old, the chap-

44 NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM.

lain of the nunnery where my parents had sent me for my educa- tion, though approaching old age, put to me, in confessional, a question which, when understood, plunged my thoughts into a sea of iniquity till then absolutely unknown to me. As a result, she was ruined. She became the counterpart of the priest. She fell so low that she declared 'I had a real pleasure in con- versing with my priest on these matters, and enjoyed his lustful talk, as I had been connected so long with these people that I had fallen so low that my soul enjoyed nothing above the most debased.

I was amazed ; my soul rebelled against the Catholic Church, against all and everything that pertained to the papal intrigue, but I had been reared by Catholic parents, and my life was a com- plete bundle of deception, but I had fought against arriving at the conclusion that the Catholic Church was not the church. I ask the world to forgive me for what encouragement I have extended this body of conspirators, and believe that I will be liberally dealt with when the liberal minded consider how hard it is to shake off a belief that was instilled into my very soul from babyhood, but, thank God, I was lead into the light, and as soon as I was thor- oughly convinced that I was a promulgator of everything that leads humanity down instead of up, I threw myself upon the All Wise Ruler of the universe, and was lead out into the blessed light of liberty.

When this poor girl had expressed herself as she did, I re- solved to learn of others, if they had ever underwent such trying ordeals, and had been made spoils for ungodly men under the guise of spiritual instructors. As my parishioners would come to make their confession, T would bluntly ask them if they had

NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM. 45

ever been asked questions that had been repeated to me by this poor girl who had fallen so low through the influences of the priestcraft. I only asked these questions of single girls, as I knew that the married ones would not give up a secret of this kind, and I did not want to be forced to believe that mortal man who went under the cloak of religion could fall so low as to creep into the affections of a man's wife, and after he had gained her confidence, with one awful blow destroy all that is dear to man- kind— honor. I began by requesting each young lady who called upon me to repeat exactly what questions other priests had asked them, as I did not want to pollute their ears with any thing which they were not accustomed to.

Very distinctly I remember one morning a girl of about twelve or thirteen years of age called to confess. She was a girl of unusual beauty and development for one of her age. I began by asking her who was her confessor previous to myself; she readily informed me. I asked her if he was not a young man, which I knew was the case; she replied that he was. Then I asked her to tell me what questions he had asked her. Imagine my surprise when she told me that the first time she had ever confessed to him that he had asked her 'Why she wore her dresses so long, as it was a shame to hide such beautiful ankles.' She further told me that each time that she confessed that this priest would always treat her to wine, and if it was cold weather, he would make her a warm drink out of whisky. I lectured this child, and told her that this priest was a miserable man, and that God was very much dis- pleased with him, and instructed her that no priest should talk as he had done. This lecture seemed to mystify the poor girl, as she told me that what a priest said or did could not be a sin, as it was impossible for a priest to sin.

46 NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM.

My mind reeled with fear. I was disgusted with myself; dis- gusted with my life; in fact, disgusted with everything that per- tained to the priesthood. I had four dear, sweet sisters, all of whom were Catholics, and my mind flew back to my native home on the emerald isle, and I thought, was it possible that some priest had dared to throttle the womanhood of one of these dear girls. My wrath knew no bounds, and I made up my mind in that mo- ment, that if I lived a thousand years, that when I left the church that evening it should be the last time so long as I lived that I would ever again put upon my back the robes of a priest.

I dismissed this girl with the instruction to tell her parents whenever a priest dared to ask her improper questions. This was the regular confessional day, and before its close, seventeen un- married women had called upon me, and thirteen out of the seventeen had repeated to me what the world could not hire me to send broadcast through the land. Think of it ! Out of seven- teen girls who, perhaps, had never entertained an idea that was not pure, had been interrogated upon subjects that would put to blush the cheek of any respectable man, much less a girl of ten- der years. The remainder of my unmarried confessionists that day, I must say, were, indeed, everything but good-looking, so I suppose this was why they had escaped the foul mouths of these licentious priests. As each one would rise to go, I would instruct them that no priest had any right to ask such questions as they had been asked, and I further informed them that they should go to their Father in Heaven, and not earthly men.

I had quite a number of married ladies call upon me that day. and I wondered to myself how many of these wives and mothers had been insulted by some ruffian priest who parades in the robes of the church.

NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM. 47

I left the church that evening with my mind fuHy macic up that jiez'cr again would i enter a Cathohc church as a priest, and on my way to my hoarding place that evening I met a brother priest, and related my experience to him, and he laughed at me, and called me "feminish," and assured me that priests as well as other mortals were blood and flesh, and why expect to find heavenly thoughts in earthly bodies. I was paralyzed at the thought of this gray-haired priest giving sanction, in fact, en- couraging what to any right thinking man was the greatest sin possible to commit. I reached my room in perfect disgust. I tore my unholy robes asunder. I asked a living God to pardon me for the part I had played in being made a part of a gigantic machine that polluted virtue, and led astray daughters of fond parents, and alienated the affections of loving wives, and darkened tlie threshold of happy homes.

I am an American to-day. I am Protestant for all the word implies. I am married, and have a loving wife and three daugh- ters that I would as soon see go to their graves as to enter the confessional box. Yea, it would be with more pleasure tlian to see them left to the lustful, unfeeling and inhuman care of a Roman priest. I am an ex-priest in name, and an ex-Catholic through the love of God.

Priest Gonzello.

Chapter VI.

Blood of the Innocent Shed for Revenge.

Priest Gonzello, of the Philippine Islands, is one of the most blood-thirsty priests of modern times, and until recently had boasted that no man, woman or child who lived within the bounds of his parish dared to displease him, as he had long since taught them that he was their superior through and by the power of the Pope, therefore both their souls and bodies were his to do with as it might please his priestship. In the early part of 1898 he summoned all of his parishioners together, and instructed them that the American Government had threatened to invade their Island, but assured them that he that morning had received a message direct from God giving him the power to strike dead every American who dared come within a hundred leagues of their shores, and in order to impress his people with his power he singled out a young woman in the audience whom he had ruined, and who had endeavored to denounce him to a party of English tourists, and had her bound hand and foot with steel wire, one end of this w4re leading to the platform where he wa^

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50 NINETEEN I H CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM.

Standing, which concealed a powerful battery charged with electricity. After fastening one end of this wire to the battery, which was not understood by the natives, he demanded of this poor girl whom he had ruined to publicly declare that she had lied. This the girl stubbornly refused to do. Then this fiendish priest who declares that he is the vicar of God, in order to do away with his accuser, asks the audience if they would believe him, if he should command God to strike her dead, and his command was obeyed. Of course the reply on every hand was yes. He, stretching his hands toward heaven, with his foot on the button called upon God to strike him dead if what this girl had accused him of was true. As soon as the audience saw that this great calamity he had asked to befall him was not answered, he then in a similar tone of voice, but affecting to be very contrite in spirit, offered up a prayer for this girl, and asked the Divine Being to show her the error of her way, and cause her to repent before it was everlastingly too late. He affected to be in great earnestness, and seemingly prayed in great earnestness for quite awhile, then turning to the girl asked her if she would publicly acknowdedge that she had lied before he called down the wrath of God upon her. This she stubbornly refused to do. It seemed that he hesi- tated to commit the awful crime that he was about to do, and asked his audience if he should let her live. He had aroused the morbid curiosity of these natives, and they insisted that if he had the power to destroy her, and that if she had lied, she should be punished.

He had gone too far, as to turn back now was to acknowl- edge that he could not do what he claimed, so he wished to have ^^e sympathy of all the natives, and gave this poor girl another*

NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM. 61

chance to declare that she had falsely accused him, but he found her as resolute as before. By this time the natives were inclined to believe what she had said, and had begun to doubt his power to demonstrate his influence with the Supreme Being. This priest, in an unintelligible mumble, chanted a lengthy lot of silliness, and had his audience cross themselves, and then solemnly called upon his Maker to witness the destruction of an enemy of the cross, at the same time pressing the button, with the toe of his sandal, that opened the valve of this electric battery and sent a current of death-dealing electricity through the body of this poor girl. This ungodly and murderous priest solemnly stood with closed eyes, and uplifted hands towards heaven, pressing a current of death into the body of this wronged girl until she was literally roasted alive. When the natives saw what had happened, they were thor- oughly convinced that Priest Gonzello had direct power from God, and from that day to this, his every wish has been obeyed with fear and trembling. When any of his parishioners become stubborn, or hesitate to obey his tyrannical commands, it is only necessary for him to threaten to call down the wrath of God upon them, and his demands are at once complied with. It was this priest who threatened to burn the world up unless he was given a certain amount of money by a certain time, and his parishioners were so confident of his power to do this that each and every one made a personal sacrifice in order to raise this money, and within three days from the time he made this demand, the fabulous amount was laid at his feet, which he took, and left the island for Spain, and has never returned. He did this in order to evade meeting the stern and unrelaxing hand of Protestantism, which he knew would soon place its foot upon the neck of superstitious and idolatrous Catholicism.

52 NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM.

The same blind, superstitious, abhorrent methods are re- sorted to in every land where Catholicism exists, but only in dif- ferent forms. Right under our noses, in America, the priestcraft make demands that their followers are afraid to refuse, for fear of some dire calamity befalling them. You will see a Catholic enter a saloon and get reeling drunk, and should there be a brawl started and some one draw a revolver, this inebriate follower of the Pope will cross himself; this he does in order to evade danger to himself. All Catholics wear a picture of a holy being around their necks, resting upon their breast. This they claim wards off disease, and makes them immune to danger.

All followers of popish doctrines carry beads, and pray to these beads with as much assurance of a blessing as the enlight- ened man or woman would go in secret to a living God. You do not have to leave your own State to find blind, and heathenish, and even hellish practices that ought to have been buried in the time of Josephus.

The writer remembers one evening sitting in his office talk- ing to a friend, when an old, decrepit Irish woman walked in, and asked for a dime. I asked why she was not in some home for the poor, as there were a number of places where she could have the necessaries of life, and not be exposed to all the elements that made the young and vigorous quake. She replied, "that she was in a Catholic institution, but that the priest of her parish had in- structed all of the inmates that they must each raise $2.00 that day, in some way, as his parish must send so much money to the Vatican at Rome, and the old and infirm could be more success- ful, as they would be objects of pity, and the public would donate through sympathy." I asked her how much money she had se-

NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM. 5S

cured during the day, as it was then nearly four o'clock in the evening, and she broke out in tears, her poor, old form shivering with cold, and replied ''fifty-five cents." In my heart I inwardly cursed the Catholic world, but my soul was touched with com- passion for this poor, old soul, wandering around in a big city, afraid to return to her shelter that night on account of not having secured enough money to appease an infamous and greedy priest- craft that they might receive an applaudit from Rome.

I gently took this old woman's hand in mine, and gave her one dollar and forty-five cents in order that she might return home, also gave her car fare that she might not have to trudge two miles. With streaming eyes, this poor, old, ignorant creature kissed my hands, and when she went to leave me, she drew forth from an old soiled red handkerchief, a small bone, and touched it to my forehead. I asked her what this bone was, and wherein was there any virtue? She replied that the priest had given her this bone, saying it was from the arm of the Virgin Mary, and it would bring luck and happiness to any one it touched. I pitied this poor, old, ignorant slave of Catholicism, and bowed my head in sorrow to know of such blind superstition being tolerated upon the shores of beautiful, free and independent, and, by rig!its, Protestant America.

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Chapter VH.

Nunneries and Convents.

Darkness is the priest's paradise. They prefer darkness to light ; their deeds take on the hue of midnight. If God Ahnighty's handwriting is legible, then gaze into the countenances of priests and you will find a down-cast look, a lack of manly frankness that you will find in the face of the godly man. Try as you may to have them look you squarely in the eye and your failure will dis- gust you.

If there is any place connected with the Roman Catholic Church that people suppose is removed from sin and strife, from impurity, from worldliness, from the gratification of the flesh, it is the nunnery, convent, or monastery. The facts prove that if there is any place which is next door to hell, in more ways than can be described in language, it is found in the convent, monas- tery, or nunnery. These are words, — empty words if unsus- tained by facts. Let facts weight them. If nunneries, convents, and monasteries are a blessing, the people of Italy ough<. to know it. If they are pronounced a curse by the people of Italy, their

6$ NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM,

verdict ought to pass current in other lands. They have pro- nounced them a nuisance, and barrier to progress. Nothing can be more foolish than the respect shown these nuns and sisters with their white bonnets and black cloaks, crowding our street- cars, and filling great overgrown establishments in all our cities. They are white sepulchres, beautiful in appearance, but within — let others describe them.

The Italy of the monks and popes has been made by them the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. Beautiful for situation, em- bracing one hundred thousand square miles, being in size about equal to New England and New York, if her people were Chris- tianized she would be the glory of Europe. Alas ! sin has reigned there. Every prospect pleases, and only man is vile. Rome, with its wolfish progenitor which suckled Romulus and Remus, have suckled and brought up to maturity octopuses which have poisoned the body politic of Italy, and has been the cause of drag- ging down lower into the quagmires of untold misery more inno- cent and ignorant girls than all the brothels the world has ever known. Suppose that we analyze the subject of nunneries and convents, and it will be seen why it is such an easy matter for the traducers of virtue to pull down to destruction the females who have been taught from infancy that it is impossible for a priest to sin.

It is easy for monks and depraved priests to seduce, by the means of confession, especially among the lower orders, females who live in the world ; the thing becomes still more so relatively to the nuns confined in convents. Depravity introduced into those houses spreads like an epidemic, with symptoms and conse-

NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM. 57

quences more or less fatal, according to the nature and inclina- tions of individuals.

This species of wickedness, as I have had opportunities of convincing myself from information derived from different jour- neys in Italy, France and Spain, is less uncommon than is sup- posed, especially in countries where the priests, and principally the monks, have much influence, and enjoy the consideration of the people. Most of the seductions that take place in what is called the tribunal of penitence, remain unknown to the public, even when denunciations, avowals, or still more positive results, exhibit proofs, either to families, or to the superior ecclesiastics, whether regular or secular. For, on the one hand, the honor of the persons compromised and that of their parents; and, on the other, the interests of the Church, and even an ill-understood re- serve, which civil authority thinks proper to use on these occa- sions, as well as the impunity usually attached to so great a crime, are so many causes that prevent it from coming to the knowledge of the public, which, of course, renders it still more common.

We could cite, in support of what has been said, and in con- firmation of what is to follow, facts which occurred in Paris, France. The spiritual direction practiced by the monks towards the nuns, was a source of scandal which was maintained and fomented by dissipation and vicious habits. We find, in 1842, a petition addressed to the Grand Duke of that period, and signed by the holy standard bearer, and other persons of France, to the number of one hundred and ninety-four. Therein, they begged that a speedy remedy might be provided for the indecent con- duct of the monks in the convents. Even this affair was hushed np, in order not to compromise the first families of the nobility, to which these nuns belonged.

58 NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM.

This kind of debauchery, which had become excessive dur- ing previous years, was known by means of the inquiries insti- tuted by the public, in consequence of the denunciation of two nuns of the convents, who entreated France to save them from the execrable principles professed by those monks, their directors.

Thus they learned that the monks used to eat and drink with the nuns whom they preferred, and that they passed the time with them in their private cells. The greater part of the girls used to deprive themselves of all their money and goods, and would even go without the necessaries of life to enrich their lovers. I do not state anything of which I have not proofs. The monks were in the habit of passing the night in the dormitory of the nuns, and that this custom had been long observed by the priors and confessors of the nuns.

The inquiry instituted by the people must necessarily have made the scandal public, by forcing several persons to reveal the most infamous iniquities authorized by the confessors and supe- riors of the nuns.

It may be supposed that amid depravity so generally spread throughout that country, the Jesuits were not the only monks whose virtue had remained intact, and who had not known how to make use of confession for a vile purpose. Accordingly, an ecclesiastic of Rome wrote to the Bishop of France: ''I have been told that it had been known, through private letters, that the first seducer in the convent of Saint Catherine had been a Jesuit. I know of a monastery where a Jesuit used to practice improper familiarities with the nuns; he used to say that by obeying him they did a very virtuous action, since they showed much repugnance." It appears, moreover, that this was a prac-

NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM. 59

tice to which the monks had accustomed the nuns; for the Bishop, having presented himself before some nuns obstinate in vice, in order to restore them by gentle means to sentiments of virtue, and having told them that he had brought them the little Jesus, one of them replied in the most indecent manner.

Six nuns of the convent of Saint Catherine denounced the infamous practices of which their confessors and superiors were guilty. In this petition which was presented to the officials of France, we find the following facts : 'The monks often come to meet us at the side of the sacristy, of which they have almost all the keys; and there is there an iron grating sufficiently large, where they conduct themselves in the most shameless manner." .

"If, besides, they find any opportunity of entering the con- vent, under any kind of pretence, they come and remain alone in the chambers of such as are devoted to them."

"l{ these monks and priests administer the consolations of religion to any dying person, they eat and sleep in the convents, and they dine with whomsoever they please, even with the vestry- nuns. Not only are the fathers, priors, and the present con- fessors, accused of this negligence and these irregularities, but it is avowed that the bad conduct of which the latter have been guilty, had, for a long time, become a habit with all the friars who were successively destined to perform these duties."

The depravity of morals, and the licentiousness introduced into the convents, are further established by the letters wliich the prioress of the convent of Saint Catherine wrote to the rector of the episcopal seminary of a town in France. "To answer the questions you ask me I should require much time, and an excel- lent memorv to remember the manv things that have happen^rl

60 NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM.

during the twenty-five years that I have spent among monks, and all those also which I have heard related about them. I shall not speak of friars. As to the others whose conduct is blamable, there are more than you imagine; among others (here she names nine of them). But why name any more? Excepting three or four friars among so many monks, whether living or dead, whom I have known, there is not one who was not of the same stamp. They all profess the same maxims, and their conduct is the same. Their intercourse with the nuns is of the utmost familiarity. When the monks come to visit a sick person, it is their custom to sup with nuns, to sing and dance, and even get beastly intoxicated i§ no uncommon sight. I affirm that all priests and monks possess the art of corrupting virtue." ''The priests are the husbands of the nuns, and the lay-brother of the lay-sister. There is not a Catholic bishop on earth who has been a bMiop twelve months but what has discovered immorality in the convents of his dio- ceses."

Another nun makes the following statement and declaration : *T testified to the priest in my confession the fear and scruples which all priests excited within me." He replied by saying: ''Must I tell you plainly? You are a precious simpleton. Fol- low my advice. Only try, and you will soon thank me for my lessons; be sure your scruples will cease." Whenever this same priest paid his visits to the convent he renewed his attempts to gain his object.

''When the monks came among us to assist the sick they remained whole days together, and entered alone, under any pre- tence, into the chambers of certain nuns. They came every day to the grate, and never spoke to us but in disgusting language, revealing to us the confessions they had heard," etc., etc.

NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM. <]

'There exists another cursed abuse, which is, that the nuna choose a husband among the priests and male attendants when tliey have scarcely made their vows."

What appears most revolting in this affair of the convents, is the conduct and principles of two wicked nuns, who, infected with the abominable maxims of the priests, had abandoned them- selves more excessively than their female companions to the most revolting licentiousness — nay, to the vilest profanation of what Catholics consider as most sacred.

The facts we relate are scandalous, no doubt; but the op- probrium recoils upon those who give occasion to such revela- tions by their acts, their culpable tolerance, fatal institutions, and practices likely to foment the passions and to corrupt inno- cence. It is by concealing iniquities of this kind from the knowl- edge of the public, and by securing impunity for them, under pretence of protecting religion, that they provoke instead of checking them. The example of chastisement being the most pow^erful bar that can be opposed to crime, it is allowing it to have full swing and not inflict punishment equal to the crime.

It is difficult to people who are unacquainted with the spirit of those corporations, to imagine to what an excess the wicked- ness of the priests may be carried, or to conceive how such irregu- larities could have existed so long. Even wlien they were brought to light by a virtuous prelate, the impudence of the priests was far from being disconcerted. They were seen to brave the authority of the bishop and that of the public, to dis- semble their crimes, and persevere in their abominable practices. The obstinate resistance made by these wretclied nuns to the in- troduction of a more regular course of life, was owing to the

•^ NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM,

perfidious counsels they received from the priests, who had ac- customed them to a blind confidence and a boundless submission to their will.

''They used to say," says the Bishop, ''that, if they acted otherwise, they would have incurred the excommunication ful- minated by the holy father, and several of them were so strongly possessed with this fear, that one of them, being dangerously ill, never asked for the sacrament to be administered to her."

We have related many scandalous facts in the course of this work; others will be found in this book which are not less so. It is painful to expose to public view such hideous and revolting descriptions; but great evils require strong remedies, especially at a moment when an attempt is making to cause institutions and practices so pernicious as monastic and sacerdotal confession to prevail in France. People must at length be made to know the consequences of such a system; public opinion must be sufficiently struck with the greatness of the evil to oppose a barrier to this torrent which threatens to invade everything. We must at length warn the public against this confusion of precepts and pretended religious duties, and against institutions founded to maintain the power of a foreign domination.

We have derived the facts we are going to quote from the proccs-verhaux of the Inquisition of a town in Italy, which were carried off at the time when the French, being masters of Italy, destroyed that tribunal. They have been communicated to us on condition of mentioning neither the name of the place nor that of the person from whom we have receiveJ them. We may judge from these facts, which happened in a small district, 'anc' in a rather short space of time, what are the imnniral results oi

' NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OE ROMANISM. ^

confession throughout Italy, and the excessive depravity of the monks. For, save a certain number of exceptions, we find among tlie corporations of that country the same principles and the same morals.

In every land where abhorrent Catholicism exists the same immoral stain is found upon the garments of the priestcraft. A woman of Italy about thirty years old, named Bartolommea, the wife of a man named Bronzoni, declares that a priest by the name of Santomi, had a very bad reputation, and lived very dis- orderly with a married woman.

She relates, moreover, that this same priest, with others of his convent, habitually made use of licentious expressions to women.

A nun, named Ancilla Rei, of the order of Saint Francis, declared that she had been tempted, at the tribunal of confession, by the director of her convent, named Fortunato. He began with telling this nun that he loved her tenderly, and he used to call her his little dove.

A nun, thirty-five years of age, named Illuminata Guidi, a claustral sister in a convent of Saint Francis, said slie had de- nounced a few years before, to the tribunal a priest who had tempted her in the confessional for three years.

We see, from the declarations made by this girl, "for the acquittal of her conscience," as she terms it. to what a state seclu- sion and perpetual celibacy will reduce certain girls. This unfortunate creature avows that the passion tliat pervaded lier was so powerful, that, from the age of eighteen to twenty-nine, she had prayed on her knees to the Virgin ^^lar}-. recommending lierseU to the most lioly God, and saying, G(wl ^avc me. r.y I .;- .^

W NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM.

me, to obtain her intercession for a purpose which may be under- stood without a more particular allusion to it.

Seeing that the prayers to the Virgin did not succeed, she applied to the devil. The devil barkened to her prayers. But W'C will not detain the reader by relating all the things of which this unfortunate girl accuses herself before the Inquisition, and which are merely a mixture of the grossest superstition and blind ignorance.

Margaret Monti, twenty-two years of age, declares that the priest Turrini had tempted her in the confessional. This priest having been questioned, on the 226. of June, 1897, answered that he had been a confessor in the convent of Saint Sebastian for three years, and that he had made overtures in the confessional, by word and deed, to Sister Gertrude Fantini; that he had often kissed her through the grating of the confessional, and that he had commanded her to commit shameful actions. He accused himself also of having used licentious language to a w^oman named Molinto Marmoni, every time she came to confess to him, which happened every week or fortnight; that he solicited her to love him by calling her endearing names, and by kissing her through the grating of the confessional; and all this took place before, during, and after confession; and finally, that he had written her an immoral letter. He had also behaved in the same way to other women.

A maid, aged thirty-three, declares that her confessor, Pelice, a monk, aged forty-five, had asked her several most in- decent questions. (Here follow, in the original, more than twen- ty depositions of such a nature, that we would not dare to pub- lish them in any language. )

NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM. €5

We could go on enumerating facts until the reader would become gray from age, wherein the priestcraft of all nations have, as a spider, woven their ungodly meshes tightly round inno- cent virtue, and dragged dow^n to a sorrowful grave girls who were once the pet of a loving father and the worshiped flower of a mother's tenderest affections. Lift the veil from the con- vents of America and the same festering sore will be found to exist in this country as elsewhere. How long, oh Lord, how long will intelligent, liberty-loving Protestants tolerate such con- iuct, and such wholesale slaughter of virtue?

Hobson swimming from the wreck of the Merrimac.

Chapter VIH.

Suffered for a Father's (Priest's) Sins.

FOIJvOWERS OF CATHOIJCISM, AS WELI^ AS OTHERS, SUFFER WHEN IT SERVES CATHOLIC PURPOSES.

In a short time after tlie American army had entered tiie isle of Cuba, there were scouting parties made up of soldiers sent out through the outskirts of all the cities of the Island in order to gather information relative to the strength of the Spanish forces, and all such information had to come through native sources, consequently the priests of Cuba had been advised by the Spanish officials to learn the names of all persons whom they thought most likely would aid the Americans, and had been instructed to corral them in convents and keep a strict watch over them and see that no information was given out that would be detrimental to the Spanish cause, and by this means the Ameri- cans found it very difficult to learn what they desired, and not being posted as to the cause of the lack of reliable information were placed at a great disadvantage. Finding that such informa- tion as they did come in possession of was always misleading, the American officers set about to learn why tiie Cul^ans who had been so mistreated by the Spanish should endeavor to shield

68 NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM.

their oppressors, and solved the problem by placing an intelligent negro from the State of Mississippi as a decoy in the parish of Priest Roboto. This negro was instructed to act the part of a Cuban, and appear a devout Catholic, which he did to perfection, as he spoke the Spanish language fluently, and at once became a fast friend of Priest Roboto, and learned that the priest in order 'to keep the Cubans under his control would each day entice a native Cuban into his residence and have the poor wretch killed and pin an American flag on his breast, and have him hauled around over the neighborhood and tell the natives that he was another poor Cuban who had been trying to befriend the Ameri- cans and was killed, simply because he had some negro blood in his veins. Spain tried in every conceivable manner to embitter Cubans against America by telling them all that no negro was allowed any privileges by Americans, and then demonstrated to the native Cubans that they could not expect any consideration from the Americans, as nearly all of their race had more or less negro blood in them. It has been a hard matter to eradicate from the minds of the ignorant Cubans that the Americans were not the cause of scores of their race being killed simply because there is negro blood in their veins. Catholicism does not stop to consider the results that her actions will have upon society, as she does not care just so the aim of her intrigue is carried to perfection. In every instance where information derogatory to Americans was scattered among the Cuban soldiers, and it could be traced to the originator, it was found that it emanated from someone who was connected with the Catholic Church and most generally from a priest. You can visit Cuba to-day and make inquiries of those who have fought for Cuba's freedom for the

NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM. «9

past ten years, and they will tell you that their greatest draw- back was tlie ever-deceiving actions of the followers of the Pope, as the priestcraft of Cuba would pretend to be warm supporters of the Cuban cause in order to learn their secrets, that they might post the Spanish officials and thereby thwart every move made by the natives to throw off their bondage.

That it may be more thoroughly demonstrated to the reader that Catholicism is an institution that has been heartless through all ages and in all climes, we consider that a statement from a nun of Canada would be appropriate, as it will clearly demonstrate that clime has nothing to do in the procedures of Romanism. The confession of Maria Monk has in the past caused thousands of Catholics to leave the infamous bondage of darkness, and we believe that at this time to partially repeat her story would have an influence for good upon the rising generation of young Catholics who have already had their faith shaken in the Church of Rome since facts pertaining to Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines have been exposed, so we will skip over the first five months of Maria Monk's life in the convent, and will let her re- peat her story in her own language :

Of the Inquisition born in 1198 to kill out the truth, no de- tailed history is necessary. It is still in existence wherever the power of Rome can assert itself. It is doing its work in nun- neries, monasteries, churches, priestly homes, and elsewhere. In a note received I read these words: '*A beautiful girl has been captured by a priest and the lady superior, carried to the nunnery; and she has just taken the black veil." That fact, read in the light of the experiences of Mana Monk, tells that the priest lias another victim to despoil, or the girl is to be crushed by a power she cannot resist. Here is a story of what may befall her :

70 NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM.

"It was about five months after I had taken the black veil/' said Maria Monk, ''when the superior sent for me and several other nuns to come to her room. The weather was cool; it was an October day. We found the bishop and some priests with her; and, speaking in an unusual tone of fierceness and authority, she said : 'Go to the room for the examination of conscience, and drag St. Frances upstairs.' Nothing more was necessary than this unusual command, with the tone and manner which accom- panied it, to excite in me the most gloomy anticipations. It did not strike me as so strange that St. Frances should be in the room to which the superior directed us. It was an apartment to which we were often sent to prepare for the communion, and to which we involuntarily went whenever we felt the compunctions which our ignorance of duty and the misinstructions we received in- clined us to seek relief from self-reproach. Indeed, I had seen her there a little before. What terrified me was, first, the supe- rior's angry manner; second, the expression she used, being a French term, whose peculiar use I had learned in the convent, and whose meaning is rather softened when translated into 'drag'; third, the place to which we were directed to take the interesting young nun, and the persons assembled there, as I supposed, to condemn her. My fears were such concerning the fate that awaited her, and my horror at the idea that she was in some way to be sacrificed, that I would have given anytliing to be allowed to stay where I was. But I feared the consequences of disobey- ing the superior, and proceeded with the rest towards the room for the examination of conscience.

"The room to which we were to proceed from that was in the second story, and the place of many a scene of a shameful

NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM. 71

nature. It is sufficient for me to say that things had occurred there which made me regard the place with the greatest disgust.

"St. Frances had appeared melancholy for some time. I well knew that she had cause, for she had been repeatedly sub- ject to trials which I need not name — our common lot.

"When we had reached the room which we had been bidden to seek, I entered the door, my companions standing behind me, as the place was so small as hardly to hold five persons at a time. I'he young nun was standing alone, near the middle of the room. She was probably about twenty years of age, with light hair, blue eyes, and very fair complexion."

Think of it. She resembled in appearance one that was the light of a boyhood home I well knew. She was some one's child, and by her devotion to Christ, resistance to crime, and loyalty to virtue, must have been worthy of love. She had been true to the highest instincts of an immortal nature, and for this was to die.

The narrative proceeds : "I spoke to her in a compassionate voice, but at the same time with such a decided manner that she comprehended my full meaning:

"Several others spoke kindly to her, but two addressed her very harshly. The poor creature turned round with a look of meekness, without expressing any unwillingness or fear, and without even speaking a word, resigned herself to our iiands. The tears came into my eyes. I had not a moment's doubt that she considered her fate as sealed, and was already beyond the fear of death. She was conducted or rather hurried to the staircase, which was near by, and then seized by her limbs and clothes, and in fact almost dragged upstairs, in the sense the

??«^!?Bi!*(g^=''':;^^5^S^7«7''~r^'7?^T1^1^y^7''' r^i ^nmmiii";'^"^ yt^v

f*

W^'H- "^* ^

General Garcia, the Cuban Patriot, who declared that the Romish church was the direct cause of 350,000 men, women and children of Cuba being sacrificed that the Bishopric and Priestcraft might gather tithes to support Catholic dignita- ries of Spain.

NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM. 73

superior had intended. I laid my own hands upon her — I took hold of her, too — more gently indeed than some of the rest; yet I encouraged and assisted them in carrying her. I could not avoid it. My refusal would not have saved her, nor prevented her being carried up; it would only have exposed me to some severe punishment, as I believed some of my companions would have seized the first opportunity to complain of me.

*'A11 the way up the staircase, St. Frances spoke not a word, nor made the slightest resistance. When v/e entered with her the room to which she was ordered, my heart sank within me. The bishop, the lady superior, and five priests were assembled for ' ber trial. When we had brought our prisoner before them, Father Richards began to question her; she made ready but calm replies. I cannot pretend to give a connected account of what ensued; my feelings were wrought up to such a pitch that I knew not what I did, or what to do. I was under a terrible apprehension that if 1 betrayed the feelings which almost overcame me I should fall under the displeasure of the cold-blooded persecutors of my poor innocent sister; and this fear on the one hand, with the distress I felt for her on the other, rendered me almost frantic. As soon as I entered the room, I had stepped into a corner on the left of the entrance, where I might partially support myself by leaning against the w^all between the door and window. This support was all that prevented me from falling to the floor; for the confusion of my thoughts was so great that only a few of the words I heard spoken on either side made any lasting impression upon me. I felt as if I was struck with some insupportable blow; and death would not have been more frightful to me. I am inclined to the belief that Father Richards wished to shield the poor prisoner

74 NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM.

from the severity of her fate, by drawing from her expressions that might bear a favorable construction. He asked her, among other things, if she was not sorry for what she had been over- heard to say ( for she had been betrayed by one of the nuns ) , and if she would not prefer confinement in the cells to the punishment which was threatened her. But the bishop soon interrupted him, and it was easy to perceive that he considered her fate as sealed, and was determined she should not escape. In reply to some of the questions put to her, she was silent; to others I heard her voice reply that she did not repent of words she had uttered, though they had been reported by some of the nuns, who had heard them ; that she still wished to escape from the convent ; and that she had firmly resolved to resist every attempt to compel her to the com- mission of crimes she detested. She added that she woidd rather die than cause the murder of harmless babes. ^That is enough,, FINISH HER !' said the bishop, "^wo nuns instantly fell upon the young woman, and in obedience to instructions and directions given by the lady superior, prepared to execute her sentence. She still maintained all the calmness and submission of a lamb.

''Some of those who took part in this transaction, I believe were as unwilling as myself; but of others I can safely say that I believe they delighted in it. Their conduct certainly exhibited a most bloodthirsty spirit. But above all others present, and above all human fiends I ever saw, I think St. Hippolyte was the most diabolical. She engaged in the horrid task with all alacrity, and assumed from choice the most revolting parts to be per- formed. She seized a gag, forced it into the mouth of the poor nun, and when it was fixed between her extended jaws so as to keep them open at their greatest possible distance, took hold of

NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM. 75

the Straps fastened at each end of the stick, crossed them behind the helpless head of the victim, and drew them tight through the loop prepared as a fastening.

''The bed which had always stood in one part of the room still remained there; though the screen which had usually been placed before it, and was made of thick muslin, with only a crevice through which a person behind might look out, had been folded up on its hinges in the form of a W, and placed in a corner. On the bed the prisoner was laid, with her face upward, and then bound with cords, so that she could not move. In an instant an- other bed was thrown upon her; one of the priests sprung like a fury first upon it, and stamped upon it with all his force. He W3.S speedily followed by the nuns, until there were as many upon the bed as could find room, and all did what they could, not only to smother, but to bruise her.

"Some stood up and jumped upon the poor girl with their feet, some with their knees, and others in different ways seemed to seek how they might best beat the breath out of her body and mangle it, without coming in direct contact with it, or seeing the effects of their violence. During this time, my feelings were al- most too strong to be endured. I felt stupefied, and scarcely was conscious of what I did, still fear for myself remained in a suffi- cient decree to induce me to some exertion, and I attempted to talk to those who stood next, partly that I might have an excuse for turning away from the dreadful scene.

"After the lapse of fifteen or twenty minutes, and when it was presumed that the sufferer had been smothered and crushed to death, the priest and the nuns ceased to trample upon her. and stepped from the bed. All was motionless and silent beneath it.

76 NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM.

''They then began to laugh at such Inhuman thoughts as occurred to some of them, rallying each other in the most unfeel- ing manner, and ridiculing me for the feelings which I in vain endeavored to conceal. They alluded to the resignation of our murdered companion, and one of them tauntingly said: 'She zvould have made a good Catholic martyr!' After spending some moments in such conversation, one of them asked if the corpse should be removed. The superior said it had better rei\iain a little while. After waiting some time longer, the feather bed was taken off, the cords unloosed, and the body taken by the nuns and dragged downstairs. I was informed that it w^as taken into the cellar, and thrown unceremoniously into the hole, covered with a great quantity of lime, and afterwards sprinkled with a liquid of the properties and name of which I am ignorant."

What is there in this transaction that would prevent its repe- tition in every nunnery in the land? In the terrible stories of the Inquisition, there is the same horrible spirit. Behold the help- lessness of the victim, the cruelty of her persecutors, and the bond- age of those who assisted in doing the terrible deed.

Beneath the Black Nunnery was a cellar divided into various apartments. In one was the hole where murdered infants and nuns were thrown, and covered with lime.

"In another was a row of cells. The door shut into a small recess, and was fastened with a stout iron bolt on the outside, the end of which was secured by being let into a hole in the stone- work which formed the posts. The door, which was of wood, was sunk a few inches beyond the stone-work, which rose and formed an arch overhead. Above the bolt was a small window supplied with a fine grating which swung open, a small bolt having

NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM. 77

been removed from it on the outside. The nun, I had observed, seemed to be whispering with some person within through tlic httle window; but I hastened to get my coal, and left the cellar, presuming that was the prison. When I visited the place again, being alone, I ventured to the spot, determined to learn the truth, presuming that the imprisoned nuns would answer. I spoke at the window where I had seen the nun standing, and heard a voice reply in a whisper. The aperture was so small, and the place so dark, that I could see nobody; but I learned that a poor wretch was confined there a prisoner. I feared that I might be discov- ered, and after a few words, which I thought could do no harm, withdrew.

''My curiosity was now alive to learn everything I could about so mysterious a subject. I ascertained that they were con- fined for refusing to obey the lady superior, bishop, or priest. They had been confined there several years without having been taken out; but their names, connections, offences, and everything else relating to them, I could never learn. Some conjectured that they were heiresses, whose property was desired for the convent, and who would not consent to sign deeds of it. I often spoke with one of them in passing near their cells, but never ventured to stay long, or press my inquiries very far. Besides I found hcr reserved and little disposed to converse freely, a thing I could not wonder at, when I considered her situation, and the characters of persons around her. She spoke like a woman of feeble health and of broken spirits. I occasionally saw other nuns speaking to them, particularly at meal times, when they were regularly fur- nished with food, which was such as we ourselves had.

'Their cells were occasionally cleaned, and then the aoors

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were opened. I never looked into them, but was informed that the ground was their only floor, and straw their bed. I once m- quired of one of them whether they could converse together, and she replied that they could through a small opening between their cells. They were able to converse both in French and English. In one of the cellars beneath one of the Roman Catholic churches in Boston are cells in the walls. In the cellar of a Roman Catholic church in a small town in Maine, the reporter for the gas company stumbled upon a cell not wide enough for a man to lie down in; at the top is a bolt in which is a ring that can be opened and placed upon the neck of the victim.

'T am unable to say how many nuns disappeared when I was in the convent. There were several who were gagged. Some of the old nuns seemed to take delight in oppressing those who fell under their displeasure. They were ready to recommend resort to compulsory measures, and ever ready to run for the gags. I have seen a half dozen lying gagged and bound at once.

'T have been subjected to the same state of involuntary silence more than once ; for sometimes I became excited to a state of desperation by the measures used against me, and then con- ducted in a manner not less violent than some others. My hands have been tied behind me, and a gag put into my mouth, some- times with such force and rudeness as to lacerate my lips, and cause the blood to flow freely. Treatment of this kind is apt to teach submission, and many times I have acquiesced under orders received or wishes expressed, with a fear of a recurrence to some severe measures." Are such schools fit places for our American girls?

''One day I had incurred the anger of the superior in a

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greater degree than usual ; I was ordered to the cells. A .scene of terrible violence commenced. After exhausting my strcn.o-lli by resisting as long as I could against several nuns, I had niv hands drawn behind my back, a leathern band passed first nmud my thumbs, then round my hands, and then round my waist, and fastened. This was drawn so tight that it cut through the llcsh of my thumbs, making wounds, the scars of which never dis- appeared. A gag w^as forced into my mouth, after which I was taken by main force and carried down itito the cellar, and brought to a cell. The door was opened, and I was thrown in with vio- lence and left alone, the door being immediately closed and bolted on the outside. The bare ground was under me, cold and hard as if it had been beaten down even. I lay still in the position in which I had fallen, as it would have been difificult for me to move, confined as I was, and exhausted by my exertions, and the shock of my fall, and my wretched state of desperation and fear, disin- clined me from any further attempt. I was in almost terrible darkness, there being nothing perceptible except a slight glimmer of light which came in through the window far above me.

"How long I remained in that condition I can only conjec- ture. It seemed to me a long time, and must ha\e been two or three hours. I did not move, expecting to die there, and in a .state of distress which I cannot describe from the tight bandage about my hands, and the gag holding my jaws apart at their greatest extension. I am confident that I must have died before morning, if, as I then expected, I had been left there all night. By and by, however, the bolt was drawn, the door opened, and Jane Ray spoke to me in a tone of kindness. She l.ad taken an opportunity to slip into the cellar unnoticed on purpose to see me. She un-

General Maceo, who was killed by a treacherous Spaniard while professing friendship. The friendship of Catholicism is like the kiss of Judas.

NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM. tl

bound the gag, took it out of my mouth, asked the superior to come to me, who asked if I repented in the sight of God for what I had done, and if I would ask the pardon of the Virgin Mary and of all the nuns. Replying in the affirmative, I was released, and, kneeling before all the sisters in succession, begged the forgiveness and prayers of each."

The penances were in many cases the personification of cruelty.

''Kissing the floor is a very common penance; kneeling and kissing the feet of the other nuns is another, as are kneeling on hard peas, and w^alking with them in the shoes. We had repeat- edly to walk on our knees through the subterranean passage lead- ing to the Congregational Nunnery, and sometimes to eat our meals with a rope around our neck. Sometimes we were fed only with such things as wq most disliked. Garlic was given to me because I had a strong antipathy against it. Eels were repeatedly given to some, because we felt an unconquerable repugnance to them on account of reports we had heard of their feeding on the dead carcasses in the River St. Lawrence. It was no uncommon thing for us to be required to drink the water in which the lady superior had washed her feet. Sometimes we were required to brand ourselves with a hot iron so as to leave scars; at other times, to whip our naked flesh with several small rods before a private altar until we drew blood.

''One of our penances was to stand for a length of time with our arms extended, in imitation of the Savior on the Cross. Some- times we were obliged to sleep on the floor in the winter, with nothing over us but a single sheet; and sometimes to chew a piece of window glass to a fine powder in the presence of the

(6^

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superior. We had sometimes to wear leatlieru Iclts stuck full of sharp metallic points round our waists and the upper part of our arms, bound on so tight that they penetrated the flesh, and drew blood. Some of the penances were so severe that they seemed too much to be endured; and, when they were imposed, the nuns who were to suffer them sometimes showed the most violent repug- nance. They would often resist, and still oftener express their opposition by exclamations and screams.

''One of the worst punishments which I ever saw inflicted was that wdth a cap; and yet some of the old nuns were per- mitted to inflict it at their pleasure. I have repeatedly known them to go for a cap, W'hen one of otir number had transgressed a rule, sometimes though it were a very unimportant one. These caps were kept in a cupboard in the old nuns' rooms, wdience the} 'ere brought when wanted.

"They were small, made of a reddish-looking leather, fitted closely to the head, and fastened tuider the chin with a kind of buckle. It was the common practice to tie the nun's hands behind and gag her, before the cap was put on, to prevent noise and re- sistance. I never saw it worn by any one for one moment without throwing them in severe sufferings. If permitted, they would scream in the most shocking manner, and always wTithed as muc!^ as their confinement would allow. I can speak from personal knowledge of this punishment, as I had endured it more than once, and yet I had no idea of the cause of the pain. I never examined one of the caps, nor saw the inside, for they are always brought and taken away quickly; but although the first sensation was that of coolness, it was hardly put on my head before a violent and in- describable sensation began, like that of a blister, only much more

NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM. W

insupportable, and this continued until it was removed. It would produce such an acute pain as to throw us into convulsions, and I til ink no human being could endure it for an hour. After this 1 unishment, we felt its effects for days. Having once known N^hat it was by experience, I held the cap in dread, and whenever I was condemned to suffer the punishment again, felt ready to do anything to avoid it. But when tied and gagged, with the cap on my head again, I could only sink upon the floor, and roll about in anguish, until it was taken off." And all this in the name of religion. Poor, deluded creatures ! they dream that this punish- ment is to add to their store of good deeds, and calculated to shorten the duration of purgatory.

It is claimed that such punishments render them docile; they fear to disobey the commands of the priests. Imagine a company so trained, under the lash of discipline that knows no pity, ex- posed to the brutal instincts of a demoralized priesthood, who seek to gratify their passions, and are willing to leave their victims to suffer any pain or any shame that may result therefrom, and you imagine a place not far removed from hell. It is not strange that those who have been the inquisitors want some one near them con- stantly, and cannot bear to be left in the dark. Think of a nun being gagged, and left to starve in the cells, or having the flesh burnt off her bones with red hot irons.

It was once said, ''Tell the truth, and shame the Devil." Xow in America, when one comes to touch Romanism, the motto has been made to read —

Suppress the Truth, lest you sliaiuc the Dez'il. Manv resemble the Chinese in one thino;: thev trv to wor-

84 NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM.

ship God so as to keep the right side of the Devil. They dare not make open war with him. A leading evangelist said, 'It is my policy to preach so that I may not anger Satan." No wonder that additions brought into the Church by such leadership are weak and puny. The times demand men and women not afraid to battle with the prince of the power of the air in the name of Christ, to whom all power is given in heaven and on earth. To the truth, then.

'There are three rooms in the Black Nunnery which I never entered. I had enjoyed much liberty, and had seen, as I supposed, all parts of the building, when one day I observed an old nun go to a corner of an apartment near the northern end of the western wing, push the end of her scissors into a crack in the panelled wall, and pull out a door. I was much surprised, because I never had conjectured that any door was there, and it appeared, when I after- ward examined the place, that no indication of it could be discov- ered on the closest scrutiny. I stepped forward to see what was within, and saw three rooms entering into each other; but the nun refused to admit me within the door, which she said led to rooms kept as depositories.

"She herself entered, and closed the door, so that I could not satisfy my curiosity; and no occasion presented itself. I always had a strong desire to know the use of these apartments; for I am sure they must have been designed for some use of which I was intentionally kept ignorant, otherwise they would never have re- mained unknow^n to me so long. Besides, the old nun evidently had some strong reason for denying me admission, though she endeavored to quiet my curiosity.

"The superior, after my admission into the convent, had

NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM. 85

told me that I had access to every room in the building ; and I had seen places which bore witness to the cruelties and crimes committed under her commands or sanction ; but here was a suc- cession of rooms which had been concealed from view, and un- known to all but a few. I am sure that any person who might be able to examine the wall in that place, would pronounce that secret door a surprising piece of work. I never saw anything of the kind that appeared so ingenious and skillfully made. I told Jane Ray what I had seen, and she said at once, 'We will get in, and see what is there;' but I suppose she never found an opportunity. I naturally felt a good deal of curiosity to learn whether such scenes as I had witnessed in the death of St. Frances were common or rare, and took an opportunity to inquire of Jane Ray. Her reply was, 'Oh, yes ; and there were many murdered, while you were a novice, whom you heard nothing about.' This was all I ever learned about the subject; but although I was told nothing about the manner in which they were killed, I supposed it to be the same which I had seen practiced, viz., by smothering.

'1 went into the superior's parlor one day for something, and found Jane Ray there alone, looking into a book.

''Some time after this occasion, I was sent into the superior's room with Jane to arrange it, and as the same book was lying out of the case, she said, 'Come, let us look into it.' I immediately consented, when she said, 'There, you have looked into it, and if you tell of me, I will of you/

"The thought of being subjected to a severe penance, which I had reason to apprehend, fluttered me very much, and although I tried to overcome ray fears, I did not succeed very well. I re- flected, however, that the sin was already committed, and that it

Si NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM.

would not be increased if I examined the book. I, therefore, looked a little at several pages, though I still felt a good deal of agitation. I saw at once that the volume was a record of the en- trance of nuns and novices into the convent, and of the births that had taken place in the convent. Entries of the last description were made in a brief manner on the following plan. I do not give the names or dates as real, but only to show the form of entering them.

St. Mary, delivered of a son, March 16, 1834. St. Clarice, delivered of a daughter, April 2, 1834. St. Matilda, delivered of a daughter, April 30, 1834. Etc.

"No mention was made in the book of the death of the chil- dren, though I well knew not one of them could be living at that time.

"Now I presume that the period that the book embraced was about two years, as several names near the beginning I knew ; but 1 can form only a rough conjecture of the number of infants bom, and murdered, of course, record of which it contained. I suppose the book contained at least one hundred pages, and that one- fourth were written upon, and that each page contained fifteen distinct records. Several pages were devoted to the list of births. On this supposition, there must have been a large number which I can easily believe to have been born there in the course of two years."

Her situation was becoming alarming to herself; either she must remain, and be a party to another murder, or flee to some place where she could be delivered of a child, and protect its life. She resolved to fly, cost what it might. How she managed to get through the secret passages, and find her way to the outside world

NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OT KOMAXISM. 87

is succinctly told, but is not important for our purpose. She came to New York, and was introduced to the almshouse, where, she says, "I was treated with kindness and care, and, as I hoped. was entirely unknown. But when I had been some time in that institution, I found that it was reported that I was a fii::4ili\e luiii ; and not long after an Irish woman employed in the institution came in and told me that Mr. Conroy was below, and had sent to see me. I was informed that he was a Roman priest who often visited the house, and he had a particular wish to see me at that time, having come, as I believe, expressly for that purpose. I showed unwillingness to comply with such an invitation, and did not go. The woman told me further, that he sent me word that I need not think to avoid him, for it would be impossible for me to do so. I might conceal myself as well as I could, but I should be found and taken. No matter where I went, or what hiding place I might choose, I should be known, and 1 had better come at once. He knew who I was, and he was authorized to take me to the Sis- ters of Charity, if I should prefer to join them. He would prom- ise that I might stay with them if I chose, and be permitted to re- main in New York. He sent me word further, that he had re- ceived full power and authority over me from the superior of the Hotel Dieu Nunnery of Montreal, and was able to do all that she could do, as her right to dispose of me at her will had been imparted to him by a regular writing received from Canada. This was alarming information for me, in the weakness in which I was at that time. The woman added that the same authority had been given to all the priests, so that, go where I might. I should meet men informed about me and my escape, and fully empowered to seize me wherever they could, and convey me back to the convent

88 NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM.

from which I had escaped. Under these circumstances, it seemed to me that the offer to place me among the Sisters of Charity, with permission to stay in New York, was mild and favorable. How- ever, I had resolution enough to refuse to see the priest Conroy.

''Not long afterwards I was informed by the same messenger that the priest was again in the building, and repeated his request. I desired one of the gentlemen connected with the institution that a stop might be put to such messages, as I wished to receive no more of them. A short time after, however, the woman told me that Mr. Conroy wished to inquire of me whether my name was not St. Eustace while a nun, and if I had not confessed to Priest Kelly in Montreal. 1 answered that it was all true, for I had confessed to him a short time while in the nunnery. I was then told again that the priest wanted to see me, and I sent back word that I would see him in the presence of Chaplain T. or Mr. S., which, however, was not agreed to, and I was afterward in- formed that Mr. Conroy had spent an hour in a room and a pas- sage where I had frequently been, but through the mercy of God I was employed in another place at that time, and had no occasion to go where I should have to meet him. I afterward repeatedly heard that Mr. Conroy continued to visit the house, and to ask for me, but I never saw him. I once had determined to leave the institution, and go to the Sisters of Charity, but circumstances occurred which gave no time for further reflection, and I was saved from the destruction to zvhich I should have been exposed."

After her sickness she found it difficult to give up her reli- gion. She says, ''I was then a Roman Catholic, at least a great part of my time, and my conduct, in a great measure, was accord- ing to the faith and motives of a Roman Catholic. Notwithstand-

NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM. 89

ing what I knew of the conduct of so many of the priests and nuns, I thought that it had no effect on the sanctity of the Church, or the authority or effects of acts performed by the former at the mass, confession, etc. I had such a regard for my vows as a nun, that I considered my hand as well as my heart irrevocably given to Jesus Christ, and could never have allowed any person to take it. Indeed, to this day, I feel an instinctive aversion to offering my hand, or taking the hand of another person, even as an expression of friendship. I also thought that I might soon return to the Catholics, although fear and disgust held me back. I had now that infant to think for, whose life I had happily saved by my timely escape from the nunnery; and what its fate might be if it ever fell into the power of the priests, I could not tell. I had, however, reason for alarm. Would a child destined to destruc- tion, like the infants I had seen baptized and smothered, be allowed to go through the world unmolested, a living memorial of the truth of crimes long practiced in security, because never exposed ? What pledges could I get to satisfy me that I, on whom her de- pendence might be, would be spared by those whom I had reason to think were wishing then to sacrifice me? How could I trust the helpless infant in hands which had hastened the baptism of many such in order to hurry them to the secret pit in the cellar? Could I suppose that Father Phclan, priest of the parish ehurcJi of Montreal, would see his own child growing up in the world, and feel willing to run the risk of having the truth exposed ? What could I expect, especially from him, but the utmost rancor, and the most determined enmity against the innocent child, and its abused and defenceless mother?

''Yet my mind would sometimes still incline in the opposit-e

§0 miNETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM.

direction, and indulge the thought that perhaps the only way to secure heaven to us both was to throw ourselves back into the hands of the Church, to be treated as she pleased. When, there- fore, the fear of immediate death was removed, I renounced all thoughts of communicating the substance of the facts in this volume. It happened, however, that my danger was not passed. I was soon seized with very alarming symptoms, then my desire to disclose my story revived. I had before had an opportunity to speak with the chaplain in private, but as it was at a time when I supposed myself out of danger, I had deferred for three days my proposed communication, thinking that I might yet avoid it alto- gether. When my symptoms, however, became more alarming, I was anxious for Saturday to arrive, the day which I had ap- pointed; and when I had not the opportunity on that day which I desired, I thought it might be too late. I did not see him till Mon- day, when my prospects of surviving were very gloomy, and I then informed him that I wished to communicate to him a few secrets, which were likely otherwise to die with me. I then told him that while a nun in the convent of Montreal, I had witnessed the murder of a nun, called St. Frances, and of at least one of the infants which I have spoken of in this book. I added some few circumstances, and I believe disclosed, in general terms, some of the other crimes I knew of in that nunnery.

''My anticipations of death proved to be unfounded, for my health improved afterward, and had I not made the confessions on that occasion, it is very possible that I never might have made them. I, however, felt more willing to listen to instruction, and experienced friendly attentions from some of the benevolent per- sons around me, who, taking an interest in me on account of my

NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OE ROMANISM. «»1

darkened understanding, furnished me with the Bible, and were ever ready to counsel me when I desired it. I soon began to be- lieve that God might have intended that his creatures should learn his will by reading his word, and taking upon them the free exer- cise of their reason, and acting under responsibility to him.

"It is difficult for one who has never given way to such argu- ments and influences as those to which I had been exposed, to realize how hard it is to think aright after thinking wrong. The Scriptures always affect me powerfully when I read them, but I feel that I have just begun to learn the great truths in which I ought to have been early and thoroughly instructed. I realize in some degree how it is that the Scriptures render the people of the United States so strongly opposed to such doctrines as are taught in the Black and the Congregational Nunneries of Montreal. The priests and nuns used to often declare, that, of all heretics, the children from the United States were the most difficult to be con- verted, and it was thought a great triumph when one of them was brought over to the 'true faith.' The first passage of Scripture that made any serious impression upon my mind was the text on which the chaplain preached on the Sabbath after my introduction into the house : 'Search the Scriptures.' "

By obeying this divine command she found Christ precious to her soul.

Chapter IX.

The Ruin of Qirls.

Priests always try to impress their members with the idea that they are infalHble, therefore it is impossible for a priest to sin. They do tli.is in order that they may accomplish any devilish deed they may wish under the guise of "No sin, as I am a servant of God, and can not sin." The nunnery located at Luzon, in the Philippine Islands, contained many girls of tender ages, and who, of course, believed all the priests told them.

'Tn this nunnery was a girl thirteen years of age, whom the priest tried to persuade he could not sin, because he was a priest, and that anything he did to her would sanctify her. Doubtful how to act, she related her conversation to her mother, who ex- pressed neither anger nor disapprobation, but only enjoined it upon her not to speak of it, and remarked to her, as priests were not like men, but holy, and sent to instruct and save us, whatever they did was right." ''Other children were treated in the same manner. It was not long before I became used to such language, and my views of right and wrong were shaken by it."

94 NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM.

"A young woman called La Belle Martini had been seen going to confession at the house of a priest, who lived a little out of the village. She was afterwards missed, and her body found in the river. A knife was also found, covered with blood, bear- ing the priest's name. Great indignation was excited among the people, and an investigation was started, and up to the present time this mystery has not been cleared up, but the priest, guilty or not, was never heard of again.

We extract from a recent volume published on the confes- sional, through the courtesy of Mr. Phillips, its author :

''Gladly w^ould we turn away from a task so distasteful, so repulsive to the better instincts and nobler impulses of humanity; but to treat of the fallacies of Rome and the abominable rotten- ness of the Romish priesthood without giving a chapter upon this, the most abhorrent of all its pagan doctrines, would be to leave the subject untouched, for in the confession lies the secret of Rome's success and its power for evil. It is of pagan origin, and pagan in its results. The most copious authorities prove that Roman Catholicism has borrowed this, as well as many other things, from paganism. Auricular confession was en- joined in the Elusinian Mysteries by Zoroaster in Persia, Bud- dah in India, and was practiced by ancient Babylonians and Egyptians, the Mexicans before Cortez, the Peruvians before Pizarro, by the Japanese, the Siamese and others. We haxe direct testimony that the priests of Bacchus, who was the god of wine, listened to auricular confession. A distinguished priest once said : 'Nobody can be surprised that the priests, the bisli- ops, and the popes of Rome are sunk into such a bottomless rbyss of infamy, when we remember that they are nothing else than the successors of the priests of Bacchus and Jupiter.' "

mNErPENTH CENTURY DEEDS OE RO^LiNISM. H

What is auricular confession? li is i^oiui^^ into a ])rivalc place with a priest, where no one else can see or hear, and where the "penitent" must, under pain of damnation, "pour into llic priest's ear every thought, feeling, desire, emotion, and act, l)ut must stand any and all kinds of questions that mav he asked, no matter how vile they may be.

Not only do all thoughts, feelings, emotions, etc., have to be related in all of their details to the priest, perhaps a "bad priest in mortal sin," but all circumstances leading to, and the results growing out of these thoughts, feelings, etc., must be given. With the bare enumeration of our mortal sins, we should not be satisfied; that enumeration we should accompany with the relation of such circumstances as considerably aggravate or ex- tenuate their malice. Some circumstances are such, as of them- selves to constitute mortal guilt; on no account or occasion what- ever, therefore, are such circumstances to be omitted. Has any one imbrued his hands in the blood of his fellow man ? He must state whether his victim was a layman or an ecclesiastic. Has he had criminal intercourse with any one? He must state whether the female was married or unmarried, a relative or a person con- secrated to God by vow. These are circumstances wliicii alter the species of the sins.

Concealment of any sin is equivalent to not confessing at alh The one confessing must be probed to the very heart's core, as you will see by the following paragraph :

So important, as we have already said, is integrity to con- fession, that if the penitent wilfully neglect to accuse himself of some sins which should be confessed, and suppress others, he not only does not obtain the pardon of his sins, but involves him-

96 NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM.

self in deeper guilt. Such an enumeration cannot be called sacra- mental confession; on the contrary, the penitent must repeat his confession, not omitting to accuse himself of having, under the semblance of confession, profaned the sanctity of the sacrament. But should the confession seem defective, either because the re- cesses of his conscience with extraordinary minuteness, he is not bound to repeat his confession; it will be sufficient; when he recollects the sins which he has forgotten, to confess them to a priest on a future occasion. We are not, however, to examine our conscience with careless indifference, or evince such negli- gence in recalling our sins to our recollection, as if we were un- willing to remember them; and should this have been the case, the confession must be reiterated.

We now come to the Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, which is, perhaps, the very highest authority in the Rom- ish church, and quote word for word what this august assem- blage of fools and knaves proclaim in the presence of his mighty highness. Pope Pius IX. We refer the reader to Canon VIII. Session XIV., page 109:

If any one saith that the confession of all sins, such as it is observed in the church, is impossible, and is a human tradition to be abolished by the godly ; or that all and each of the faithful of Christ, of either sex, are not obliged thereunto once a year, conformably to the constitution of the great Council of Lateran, and that, for this cause, the faithful of Christ are to be persuaded not to confess during Lent, let him be anathema.

In some cases the bishop has the right to reserve to himself the office of forgiving sins. See Canon XI.

If anyone sayeth that bishops have not the right of reserving

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cases to themselves, except as regards external polity, and that therefore the reservation hinders not but that a priest may trul> absolve from reserved cases, let him be anathema.

The Romish priests are especially anxious to hear the con- fessions of females, and are very urgent in impressing the duty upon them of confessing very often. We simply state that in the Romish church the priests are forbidden to marry, and that in the confessional the utmost freedom is allowed in the questioning of female penitents. But more of this further on. We now in- vite the reader to a careful study of the Catechism of the Council of Trent, page 192 :

Not only are the faithful to be taught that confession was instituted by our Lord, but they are also to be reminded that, by authority of the church, have been added certain rites and solemn ceremonies, which, although not essential to the Sacrament, serve to place its dignity more fully before the eyes of the penitent, and to prepare his soul, now kindled into devotion, the more easily to receive the grace of the Sacrament. When, with uncovered head, and bended knee, with eyes fixed on the earth and hands raised in supplication to heaven, and with other indications of Chris- tian humility not essential to the Sacrament, we confess our sins, our minds are thus deeply impressed with a clear conviction of the heavenly virtue of the Sacrament, and also of the necessity of humbly imploring and earnestly importuning the mercy of

God.

The age at which all Catholics are bound to go to confession is fixed by the Council of Lateran, and is given in the Cathechism of the Council of Trent, page 193, and is as follows:

According to the Canon of the Council of Lateran. which begins: ''Omnis utriusque sexus," no person is bound by the law

<7)

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of confession until he has arrived at the use of reason, a time determinable by no fixed number of years. It may, however, be laid down as a general principle that children are bound to go to confession as soon as they are able to discern good from evil, and are capable of malice ; for, when arrived at an age to attend to the work of salvation, every one is bound to have recourse to the tribunal of penance, without which the sinner cannot hope for salvation. In the same canon the church has defined the period within which we are bound to discharge the duty of con- fession. It commands the faithful to confess their sins at least once a year. If, however, we consult for our eternal interests, we will certainly not neglect to have recourse to confession as often, at least, as we are in danger of death, or undertake to per- form any act incompatible with the state of sin, such as to admin- i>ter or receive the Sacraments. The same rule should be strictly followed when we are apprehensive of forgetting some sin, into which we may have had the misfortune to fall; to confess our sins, we must recollect them; and the remission of them we can only obtain through the Sacrament of penance, of which confes- sion is a part.

Now, without further delay, we shall partially open the door and give the reader a peep into the confessional. We may do this because the Catechism of the Council of Trent, page 193, gives us a hint and we have availed ourselves of the opportunity. The hint is as follows :

But as, in confession, many things are to be observed, some of which are essential, some not essential to the Sacrament, the faithful are to be carefully instructed on all these matters; and the pastor can have access to works, from which such instructions

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may easily be drawn. Amongst these matters, he will, on no account, omit to inform the faithful that to a good confession integrity is essential. All mortal sins must be revealed to the min- ister of religion: venal sins, which do not separate us from the grace of God, and into which we frequently fall, although, as the experience of the pious proves, proper and profitable to be con- fessed, may be omitted without sin, and expiated by a variety of other means. Mortal sins, as we have already said, although buried in the darkest secrecy, and also sins of desire only, such as are forbidden by the ninth and tenth commandments, are all and each of them to be made matter of confession. Such secret sins often inflict deeper wounds on the soul than those which are committed openly and publicly. It is, however, a point of doc- trine defined by the Council of Trent; and as the holy fathers testify, the uniform and universal doctrine of the Catholic church : ''Without the confession of his sin," says St. Ambrose, "no man can be justified from his sin."

Yes, the priests have their private book of instruction telling them how and when to approach certain of their penitents, which will be clearly enough brought to light before we are done, and, before our pages are closed, we shall give you the evidence upon the question of absolute secrecy of the confessional, even at the peril of one's life. We are aware that we must now quote spar- ingly, for the authors from whom we shall quote are the authors who have been the instructors of the priests, and who wrote their secret books of instruction.

Now, dear reader, remember that this is Roman Catholic theology that we are now going to quote — theology that your own dear children must learn some time in life to their sorrow

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if you send them to Romish schools. But hear the church of Rome :

Let it be observed that except in case of danger of death, no confessor, though he may otherwise have the power of absolving from reserved cases, may or can absolve his accomplice in any external mortal sin against chastity committed by the accomplice with the confessor himself. But this case of an accomplice is not placed amongst the reserved cases, because the bishop does not reserve the absolution to himself, but any other can absolve from it except the priest who is himself the partner in the act. — Den's Moral Theology, vol. 6, p. 297.

On page 298 Peter Den, in his instructions how to hear con- fession, places his instructions before them in a catechetical way. Thus :

Ques. Is a male accomplice in venereal sin comprehended in this degree?

Ans. Yes, because the Pope extends it to whatsoever person. It is not required that the sin of an accomplice be committed in confession or by occasion of confession; for in whatsoever place or time it has been done, even before he was her confessor, it makes a case of an accomplice.

Lastly, take notice that since the restriction is made to carnal sins, the confessor will be able to give valid absolution to his ac- complice in other sins, namely : in theft, in homicide, etc.

Horrible, indeed, this is, and many will censure us, perhaps, for incorporating such things into these pages. But, dear reader, this is the Roman Catholic theology that is taught and practiced in your city, and to the teachers of the schools to which you send your own children. Better, a thousand times, blush for having

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given your money and your support to such things, and to uphold a system that is as dark as all the midnight hours from the flood until now if they could be pressed into a single hour. Now, if you are too modest to read a few passages in the theology you so freely support, you had better close the book at once, for we are going to quote from an eminent Roman Catholic theologian, P. Antoine, vol. 4, p. 430. He asks and answers as follows :

A confessor has seduced his penitent to the commission of carnal sin, not in confession nor by occasion of confession, but from some other extraordinary occasion : Is he to be denounced ?

Ans. No. If he had tampered with her from his knowledge of confession, it would have been a different thing; because, for instance, he knows that person, from her confession, to be given to such carnal sins.

For which reason, Steyart reminds us that a confessor can ask a penitent who confesses that she has sinned with a priest, or has been seduced by him to the commission of carnal sin, whetlier tliat priest was her confessor, or had seduced her in the confes- sional.

We quote again from ''Saint" Peter Den, vol. 6, p. 301 :

Ques. Ought the denunciation be made when there exists a doubt whether the solicitation to carnal sin was real and suffi- cient ?

Ans. Some say no, but Cardinal Cozza, with others whom he cites (in doubt 25), says yes, if the doubt be not light, adding that the examination of the matter is to be left to the bishop or ordinary.

Peter Den, in vol. 6, p. 303, warns the priests of the church against overleaping the bounds of priestly propriety, and tells tlie

Mrs. Anne GomentI and her two daughters, imprisoned for distributing Bibles among Cubans.

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''holy fathers" what will be a "proximate occasion of sin." He says :

Speaking to a girl is a proximate occasion of sin to him. who, out of every ten times, is want to fall twice or thrice into carnal sin. Daily frequenting a tavern or a girl is considered a proximate occasion of sin in respect of him (a priest) who, on that account, falls twice or thrice a month into mortal sin.

Peter Den, p. i86, consoles himself and glorifies the most holy right reverend father confessors by making this beautiful apology for them :

The confessor every day occupied in the ministry of hearing confession falls very seldom in comparison to the times he does not fall; therefore, the ministry of hearing confession is not, with respect to him, a proximate occasion of sin.

Very pious people, these, to whom you entrust your daugh- ters. One lady told us, since we have been in Springfield, that the first impure thought she ever had was while she knelt at Father Walsh's knee in St. Louis and was questioned about things of which she had never heard -before.

You see we are skipping about and only giving you sketches here and there. The reason is that what we do not give you in this book would make the shades of eternal night blush with shame.

But we quote again from Den's Moral Theology, vol. 7, p. 167:

Cues. Are the married to be at any time asked in confession about denying the marriage duty ?

Ans. Yes, especially the women, who, through ignorance

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or modesty, are sometimes silent on these subjects. But the ques- tions are not to be approached abruptly, but cautiously, etc. '•' "^

Hence, let the wife, accusing herself in confession, '^ '^ '•' etc. Here let the confessor (a celibate and perhaps drunken priest) ask that the married lest she commit a detestable sin, etc. (about all of which she must be examined). Lest the confessor should become indolent and hesitate in tracing out the circum- stances of any sin, let him have the following versical in readi- ness: Who, which, where, with, why, how, when, etc.

We have cases on record where an outraged husband has assisted a "holy father" from his door with his boot. Think of it, oh, ye foolish ones, a priest forbidden to marry, a man whose word absolves your wife from sin, a man who claims that no act of his can be a sin; think of it. He visits your home, she visits, hmi in the secret confessional, where every thought, word, desire, feeling and act of your most secret, sacred home relations exist, and then, like a serpent of the bottomless pit, insinuates the poison of death into the nestling home over which love's sweet angel alone should hover. Protestants of America, for God's sake, for your homes' sake, for the sake of your dear, sweet, heaven-kissed babes, keep this dark-winged demon of death from your doors.

Again we quote from Den's Theology, vol. 6, p. 132. Hear his instructions to the priests ; they will startle you :

Ques. Can a confessor absolve a young woman going to be married, whilst he knows solely from the confession of her be- trothed husband that she does not disclose in her confession the fornication she has been guilty of with her betrothed ?

Ans. I find various opinions :

La Croix thinks that she ought not to be absolved, but that

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the confessor should dissemble and say iiiiscriatur liii, etc., so that she may not know that absolution lias been denied her.

Prudent confessors are wont to lay it down regularly to ask from all young women going to be married whether from the occasion of their approaching marriage there occur to them anv improper thoughts. Whether they permit kisses and other greater alternate liberties because they thought that greater freedom would soon be allowed them. And since the young woman is more under the influence of modesty, we are wont for that reason to hear the betrothed husband's confession first, that she may afterward more confidently reveal to the confessor what she knows to be now known to him. Some divines add that the be- trothed husband who makes his confession first can be induced to tell her that he has openly confessed. After the young woman's confession that would no longer be in the confessor's power.

We intended quoting in this chapter extracts from the works of St. Liguori and Archbishop Kenrick, but they must be re- served for another chapter. But, husbands, think of it; mothers who send your children to Catholic schools, think of it. The idea of you weeping over priest-ridden Mexico, and giving an hour a week and a dollar a year to convert the ^Mexicans from Romanism, and then giving your money, attending their fairs and sending your children to their schools. It is enough to make angels weep and to arouse the eternal God until He would "laugh at your calamity." Do you say it is not so bad? Wo quote from their own books; we have them with which to estab- lish every word we say.

Young man, think of it; your betrothed, a beautiful, sweet girl just blossoming into womanhood; you love her; she is your

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future hope, your present joy; her voice is to you as the sweet music of ^olian strings. The sparkle of your eye tells well re- membered joy, while your heart throbs and trembles with the sweet burden of unutterable affection. The lute-like sweetness of her voice is a perpetual melody in your heart, her casual smile is sweeter to you than Aurora's kiss. Can you see her enter the den of the deceiver whose business it is to ply her modest ears with questions only fit for the dark orgies of the abode of the damned, where reeking Bacchanalians hold their midnight revels in their awful dance of death.

May God awake the people until they can see the need of putting on the whole armor of God and standing like men for Go^ and home and native land.

In the foregoing we have tried to give at least a hint, and a very feeble hint at that, of what the Roman Catholic confessional box means. It is a place where demons dance their dance of death to the sad wail of dying virtue. But we must stop here. When we think of the thousands and thousands of pure, sweet, modest girls that have been lured into the convent, first, then by ''devils as angels of light" into the confessional box, our brain is on fire and our heart almost bursts with grief.

But we must get to our subject. The confessional box is a place into which, if a young girl goes, every thought, feeling, desire, impulse and even dream must be related in full to a young or olci bachelor priest, as the case may be, together with all cir- cumstances leading to and growing out of these things. Not only this; he, the priest, sits as judge and physician of her soul. He represents God in the confessional, notwithstanding he may be, and often is, the most consummate scoundrel. He probes her

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with questions such as her mother would not think of speaking to her about, and to shield himself and her, the penalty of reveal- ing anything said or done in the confessional is death.

But we proceed. And let us say, dear reader, that if a false modesty causes you to turn up your nose and curl your lip and cast this volume disdainfully away, that a true, virtuous, noble, manly or womanly modesty ought to cause you to turn away from the support of the very thing about which you consider it immodest to read.

\Yq shall quote nothing but standard Roman Catholic the- ology, the theology that you support and encourage when you attend a Catholic fair, or in any way support the Catholic churcli the theology that will have to do with the life and character of the cliild you send to Romish schools; the theology from which you pray God to deliver Mexico, and for which you contribute many sighs and tears and fifteen or twenty cents a year, but the theology you contribute time, money and children to support at home. We give you a few quotations from the Council of Trent. Archbishop Kenrick, Alphonsus Liguori, Peter Den, etc., all of whom are standard authorities in the church of Rome.

We quote again from the Maynooth class book tract on matrimony, p. 482. (By the way, Maynooth college is the college in which Irish priests receive their instructions for the office of the priesthood. ) Husbands read :

I have said, in the second place, that they (husbands and wives) are bound under mortal sin, because it is a weighty affair within itself, since it is the active cause of quarrels, hates, dis- sensions, and since the party defrauded of duty is exposed to the danger of incontinence, which is a deadly sin : Hence, the parish

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priest, either himself personally or in the tribunal of penance, the confessional, ought to inform married persons, and particularly MARRIED WOMEN, of what they should observe in respect to this matter. But since women, through modesty or ignorance, not unfrequently conceal sins of this sort in sacramental confession, it is expedient to interrogate them regarding those sins, but cau- tiously, prudently, not abruptly; for instance, it may be asked whether there have been any dissensions between her and her hus- band; what was the cause — whether she has on that account de- nied to her husband what is due to him by the laws of marriage.

Outraged virtue shrieks its agonies as it beats its bruised and baffled wings in helpless effort against the iron-barred cage of su- perstitious dread of priestly power. Whenever she enters the confessional box, she is then in the hands of a merciless priest, bound by a merciless system that has no parallel in the mythologic tales of any idolatrous age of which record has been made.

We quote again from Den's Moral Theology, vol. 7, p. 172. This is advice to young priests preparing for the office of the priesthood :

Here let the confessor take note that the married (women), lest their children multiply too fast, sometimes commit a sin, about which they are to be examined.

But we leave this leading authority on moral theology in the Romish church and give a few quotations from St. Alphonsus Liguori. We have carefully examined the moral theology of Archbishop Kenrick and are bound to confess that there is not a sentence in it that we are willing to put. into the pages of this book. But hear St. Alphonsus Liguori :

Integrity in confession is twofold, namely, material and

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formal. The material consists in confessing all the mortal sins that have not yet been confessed and which are remembered after a thorough examination of the most secret i)laces and recesses of the conscience, as well as the number of sins and the circumstance which change their entity or being.

Formal integrity consists in this : That the penitent confess all the mortal sins he can remember just now, which he is obliged to do, considering the circumstances in which he is now, and when the obstacle be removed, going back to confession, the peni- tent will see that his confession be made materially whole and entire. Tome VI., 565, 479, 485, 488.

The penitent whom the confessor detects not confessing all his sins must examine him, or otherwise he could not render judgment nor apply the proper remedy to the penitent.

If the confessor find out that the rude or ignorant (who is not among Romanists) did not examine his conscience properly he must not send them back that they might examine themselves l^etter, but generally he is obliged to examine them himself.

That the confessor may perform his duty as judge, doctor and physician when he prudently doubts of the integrity of his l>enitent's confession, he is obliged to question him on those things tliat pertain to integrity, also on others which he is in need to know^ in confession.

It is better to examine each act of the penitent in particular than to wait till he has finished his confession.

1397. O. If the confessor fear that young girls or boys will not accuse sins committed against tlie sixth ( ?) command- ment, what interrogations must be put to those youngsters ?

A. The confessor may say : "Have you heard bad convcr-

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sations ? Have you had any bad thoughts ? Have you been guilty of wanton jests ?" If they deny, the confessor could use a sugges- tive interrogation, saying, for instance : ''And now, tell me how many times you did these things?" If they affirm that they did so, then the confessor could say, for instance: ''Explain what these indecent things and jests you did were. Did you do them secretly? Would you have done them if your mother had been present?"

OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES.

Jointly there are seven circumstances expressed as in the following verse :

Who, which, where, with what means, why, how, when.

Who — denotes the quality or condition of the person ; for in- stance, in fornication, was the person free, married or tied to a vow of chastity? etc. Which — points out to the quality and ex- tent of the object, viz. : In a robbery, was the stolen goods sacred or non-sacred, of a great or small value, etc. Where — implies the place where sin has been committed, i. e., in murder, was it perpetrated in a sacred place or ordinary locality. With what means — denotes the manner and instruments used in the opera- tion of a sin, viz. : Was the help of the devil used to damage a neighbor? Why — denotes the outward aim or end of the agent, viz. : Did he kill another with the idea of robbing him ? How — implies the accidental mode of action, viz. : Did the agent act w^ith a perfect or imperfect consent, was he in good or bad faith or knowledge of his action, did he act through malice or from weak- ness of mind? When — denotes the quality and the length of time in the action, viz. : Did he sin on a festival day, was the time spe^t in the action long or short?

NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM. Ill

If the confessor perceive that he made mistakes in hearing confession, he must correct them and keep the sacramental seal or secret.

But Liguori, like all Romish priests, has his favorite theme. And now, dear reader, while you peruse the language of this "holy saint" to whom all Catholics offer prayer, we beg you to consider, and see if you can, consistently, with your profession of faith in Christ, support an institution so foreign to the religion you profess. Liguori says :

1376. Q. Must the confessor be denounced who plans with a woman, that to deceive her servants better, she would feign sickness when he comes to her home in order to act criminr'" with her ? ^

A. No. The reason is, that it is not evident that the priest solicited in confession, but only that the crime was accomplishe under the pretext of a confession not intended for solicitation, but only to deceive the servants better. And much less ought this confessor be denounced if the woman, without any pre-arrange- ment, entice him, solicits and gets him to operate on her carnally; because, according to the tenor of the Pope's bull, the confessor is to be denounced only when he solicits himself under the pretext of confession, and in this case it is not he, but she who solicits under the pretext of confession. VL, 679.

1370. Q. Must the penitent be denounced who solicits in confession ?

A. No. The reason is that those penal laws are not made for the penitent, and, therefore, could not be stretched from one case to another.

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1375- CASES WITH PARTICULARS.

Theologians think that the confessor ought to be reported to the bishop when. lo. He says to his penitent : "I would marry you if I were free," for such words are very incentive to carnality. JO. If he says to a woman : ''Remember me, for I love you dear- ly," provided it is proved by circumstances that his intention is carnal. 30. If he says : ''Expect me to-day at your house, because I wish to speak to you," and when in the house his conversation is on dishonest topics, because this solicitation in the house is re- puted to be morally one with that begun in the confessional. 40. If he says : 'The confession of your sins has caused me to resort to pollution, although it was against my will;" how much truer to say : ''Through my own fault." 50. If he says to a wortian who asks him to hear her confession : "I will not hear your confession, for I am afraid something might happen to me, for I am capti- vated by your love." 70. If he says to the penitent : "How much do you love me," or, "I'd like to sit by you all the time; I have had a bad dream about you."

But Liguori, even, after the above, has given only the merest hint of what he has in contemplation for his students, and in an hour of shame and disgust this "holy father" breaks forth in the following language, which in itself is enough to give the reader an insight into the confessional box :

With reluctance we enter upon tlie consideration of this matter (adultery, fornication), the very name of which ix)llutes the minds of men. O, that I could explain myself more briefly or covertly! However, I beg from the students who prepare them- selves for the obligation of hearing confessions not to read this treatise on the "sixth (?), seventh precept," and the other on

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the ''Conjugal Debt," except on the eve of hearing those confes- sions, and then let them read with this only purpose, abstaining from all curiosity about this filthy matter.

Oh ! what misery it is to observe so many confessors who spend a large portion of the day in hearing the confessions of certain religious women, who are commonly called Bizocas, and refuse to hear men, saying: "I have something else to do; go to others," so that these men, not able to find one to whom they could confess, live so many years without sacraments and without God.

It is with difficulty that we refrain from giving another chap- ter on the Roman Catholic confessional box, but begging the reader's pardon for the long quotations that we have made from Peter Den, Archbishop Kenrick, Alphonsus Liguori and others, we close this part of the subject of confession with the following on the seal of sacramental confession.

What we have given in the preceding chapters on Roman Catholic auricular confession is but a ''drop in the bucket" in com- parison to the great inexhaustible cesspool of filth and moral rot- tenness that is before us in the theological works of those from whom we have quoted.

The Catechism of the Council of Trent, page 198, in speak- ing of those whose modesty keeps them from going to confession often, says : "Still more pernicious is the conduct of those who, yielding to a foolish bashfulness, cannot induce themselves to con- fess their sins." On page 199 we have this language: "But it sometimes happens that females who may have forgotten some sin in confession, cannot bring themselves to return to the con- fessor." We do not wonder at this. The power of the priest is absolute, and the husband, even, has not so complete an access

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to the inner heart Hfe of his wife as the priest has in the confes- sional box.

The sacramental seal is death, so the confessional box tells no tales, but we have, by waiting and working, been rewarded with a look inside the awful den through the standard works of the Romish church and the confession of those who have escaped from its thraldom. But again we let Rome speak :

But as all are anxious that their sins should be buried in eternal secrecy, the faithful are to be admonished that there is no reason whatever to apprehend that what is made known in con- fession will ever be revealed by any priest, or that by it the peni- tent can, at any time, be brought into danger or difficulty of any sort. All laws, human and divine, guard the inviolability of the seal of confession, and against its sacrilegious infraction the church denounces her heaviest chastisements. "Let the priest," says the great Council of Lateran, ''take especial care, neither by word nor sign, nor by any other means, whatever, to betray, in the least degree, the sacred trust confided to him by the sinner."

Certainly there is but little danger of the sins confessed to the priest ever being revealed, and especially so if the priest be- comes a party to a sin against chastity. But we give you Rome's own words again, first quoting from St. Alphonsus Liguori. Of the sacramental seal he says :

The seal of confession consists in concealing, even before the penitent himself, all things revealed in a confession made with the purpose to receive absolution. VI., 634.

1433. There exists a most strict obligation of keeping the secrets of confession, which obligation is derived from the natural law, that of God and of the church.

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The obligation of keeping the seal of confession intact is in forcev: lo. All the time, even after the death of the penitent. 20. In all cases. VL, 634-56.

The violation of the sacramental secret is of no light im- portance. VI. , 635.

113. The confessor can truly say, even under an oath, that he knows nothing of the sins he heard before.

1438. The obligation of keeping the seal intact comprises all v^ho in various ways, either lawfully or unlawfully, immedi- ately or mediately, have come to know the things said in confes- sion, which are the object of the seal. VI. , 648.

1444. All the sins of the penitent, even the venial, no mat- ter how small they may be, that were accused with the desire of getting absolution from the object of the seal. VI. , 640.

Everything that was revealed in confession and whose be- trayal would bring discredit on the sacrament or a damage on the penitent is also considered as the object of the seal. VI., 634.

The penitent is bound by nature to keep secret all things said to him by the confessor if their exposure would bring dam- age to the confessor or injury and contempt on the sacrament. VL, 657.

Here you see that Saint Liguori says, 1434 : 'The confessor can truly say, even under oath, that he knows nothing of the sins he heard before." You will see by the following from Peter Den that the same doctrine is taught and fully explained. The extract is from Den's Moral Theology, vol. 6, p. 227 :

What is the seal of sacramental confession ?

Ans. It is the obligation or duty of concealing those things which are learned from sacramental confession.

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Can a case be given in which it is lawful to break the sacra- mental seal ?

A. It cannot; although the life or safety of a man de- pended thereon, or even the destruction of the commonwealth, nor can the Supreme Pontiff give dispensation in this; so that on that account, this secret of the seal is more binding than the obliga- tion of an oath, a vow, a natural secret, etc., and that by the posi- tive will of God.

What answer, then, ought a confessor to give when ques- tioned concerning a truth which he knows from sacramental con- fession only?

A. He ought to answer that he does not know it,

AND IF IT BE NECESSARY^ TO CONFIRM THE SAME WITH AN OATH.

Obj. It is in no case lawful to tell a lie, but that confessor would be guilty of a lie, because he knows the truth, therefore, etc.

A. I deny the minor; because such a confessor is ques- tioned as a man and answers as a man ; but now lie does not know that truth as a man, though he knows it as God, says St. Thomas (q. II., art. i, 3), and that is the free and natural meaning of the answer, for when he is asked, or when he answers outside con- fession, he is considered as a man.

What if a confessor were directly asked whether he knows it through sacramental confession?

A. In this case he ought to give no answer (so Steyart and Sylvius), but reject the question as impious; or he could even say absolutely, not relatively to the question, I know nothing, because the word 'T' restricts to his human knowledge.

You speak of Roman Catholicism as a branch of the church of Christ, you support it with your money, your votes, and send

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your children to be educated (?) by and under the instructions of Romish priests who may, and must, take a solemn oath to a known falsehood rather than reveal anything that would thwart their evil designs.

From whence such inconsistency? What hath bewitched the people ? A few dollars in trade, or a few votes has caused the peo- ple, professing Christian people, to ''sell their birthright for a mess of pottage," to betray their country, render of no effect their religion and have their families outraged. Thou, God of the nations, that caused the blood of Abel to cry from the ground, let the blood of fifty million martyrs send back, in pathos deep and awful as the agonizing groans of Gethsemane, a warning to this nation.

MORAL CHARACTER OF THE ROMISH PRIESTS.

It is far from our design to cast a reflection upon the charac- ter of any true man, however much we may differ with him on questions of faith or morals, for we respect the man who is honest in his convictions and true to what he sincerely believes to be right. But when we begin to investigate the character of the Romish priesthood, we must confess our inability to see either honor or honesty of purpose in their profession and life.

If history is true, we are forced to believe that while profess- ing infallibility, the Popes of Rome were the most corrupt class of men that ever disgraced the earth. We have only space in this chapter to give a sample or two of the life and character of the Romish Pontiffs.

Pope John XXIII. is a good sample Pope, one of the infalli- ble and ''holy Vicars of Christ." The Council of Constantine

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says of him many hard things. The second synod of this council,

in its twelfth session, convicted "his august holiness" of seisms, heresy, incorrigibility, simony, impurity, immodesty, unchastitv. fornication, adultery, incest, rape, piracy, lying, robbing, murder, perjury and infidelity. Pope John was no exception to the rule, so we give but the one example. But like pope, like priest

But as our rule is to give strictly Roman Catholic authority for every statement we make, we will now introduce to the reader Bishop John Hogan, who was bishop of the St. Joseph and Kan- sas City diocese, and who confirmed about one hundred people in the Romish church, some of whom were the children of Protest- ant parents.

BISHOP JOHN J. HOGAN's LETTER, MARKED PRIVATE.

Dear Mr. Lysaght: As I have a very sincere regard for you from all I know of your character, through a test of many years, I consider myself discharging a duty in giving you an in- side history of the diocese of St. Joseph, especially as there seems to be a commotion in St. Joseph because I have appointed and ordained Father Ignatius as administrator in charge of the ca- thedral parish. It was a great surprise to me when, in 1868, I got a notification from the congregation of the propaganda at Rome that on Feb. 25th, previous, I was appointed bishop of the see at St. Joseph. When the surprise wore away, I began to study the reality. A bishop's see in St. Joseph, which had only one parish church, with division boundaries limited to a few counties in the least Catholic part of Missouri, only fnnn four to five poor missions with a total Catholic population of about 3,000 or 4,000 souls; no cathedral, no bishop's house, no decent houses for the

120 NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM,

clergy, no seminary, no students, no means, no hopes of increas- ing the population, for the public lands had long before all been sold. I dared not face so wholly a hopeless task. I was called on again and again to submit myself. It was only after the Septem- ber following that I could bring myself to consent to be a victim. I was consecrated about the middle of September, and had to de- pend on the alms especially collected for the occasion, to buy some necessaries, sacred vestments, and to pay for my hack hire to the depot. The railroad companies always took me as a poor mis- sionary over their railroad lines free of charge. I entered St. Joseph under these circumstances. You remember the time. I need not speak to you now about the poor church that was before me, or the shabby, dirty house for myself, priests and servants to huddle in together. The worst of all was how to get priests. The church commands bishops to have a seminary of their own and to personally inspect and superintend the 'bringing up of students for the sacred ministry. St. Joseph had no seminary, no students, no place for educating priests, no Catholic parents sending their sons who were willing to pay for their education for the priesthood. I had no means for getting priests but such as offered themselves. I did not know then as now what by bitter experience I knov/ too well, that priests ordained for and belonging to a diocese do not leave it except through compulsion or expulsion, especially when the change is from a rich to a poor diocese. Such expelled priests are a happy riddance to bishops they have grieved and parishes they have scandalized, but they are a withering curse to bishops and parishes compelled to have their services. It is true a bishop never receives a priest from another diocese without a recom- mendation from the former bishop, but the former bishops are generally heart sore from scandals, vexations and troubles, and

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have no objection whatever to have trouble removed from their own doors, and also in their charity for erring priests, in their written recommendations of them they give them honorable men- tion for every good quality they have, but never mention their faults, hoping that priests, when they get a new place and get another opportunity to do good, will avoid the faults that got them into trouble before. But alas, human nature is weak, and when temptations come again they are yielded to, and thus it is that in trying to pardon and lift up erring men we have only to get them into deeper disgrace, and give them opportunity to dis- grace themselves more and more, and to carry and spread dis- grace from diocese to diocese and from parish to parish. In this way priests are known to go from Ireland to England, and thence to Australia, and thence to America through the United States from one diocese to another, pardoned by one bishop, exhorted b\ another, to no purpose but to spread quarrels, contentions and scandals through the church of our Blessed Redeemer. I will give you some examples :

1869. Received in St. Joseph diocese Rev. Michael Haley, priest of diocese of Cloyne, tried in diocese of Buffalo and failed, as he had failed in Cloyne. Recommended from diocese of Buf- falo to diocese of St. Joseph. In diocese of St. Joseph (Brookfield mission) constantly drunk; once made an assault on a female. Got sick, was taken into sisters' hospital, Felix street. St. Joseph, and died there in 1870.

1869. Received into the diocese of St. Joseph, Rev. V. Mc- Ginnis (Breckenridge mission), constantly drunk. Belonged to diocese of Dubuque. Sent out of diocese of St. Jo.seph in 1870.

1869. Received in diocese of St. Joseph. Francis O'Reilly,

ffljil'.rr.^-'i'Pr, ^

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Student, recommended by priests of St. Louis. O'Reilly had been a student in Cleveland. No cause assigned for leaving Cleveland. After ordination had charge of Plattsburg mission. Was con- stantly drunk. Afterward got permission to go in the Newark, N. J., diocese; there got publicly drunk and had to be put into a hospital asylum. Is now going around from city to city a drunken wreck.

1869. Received into the diocese of St. Joseph, Rev. George Turk from diocese of St. Louis. Got charge of Conception mis- sion. Was constantly drunk. Got the people of his congregation fighting each other and going to law with each other, fighting at church on Sundays, lawing each other the remainder of the week in court.

I can not give you a history of each individual case of mis- fortune and of crime. The recital would be too long, and often too shameful in detail. I mention names and dates only of a few :

1869. Rev. Herguemoether, Carrollton, dismissed 1871.

1870. Heflfinger, Carrollton, dismissed 1872. 1870. Rev. Foley, Liberty, dismissed 1871. 1870. Drohan, dismissed 1872.

1870. Seebold, Weston, dismissed 1873.

1870. Gotagh, Maryville, dismissed 1870.

1 87 1. Saigmule, cathedral, dismissed 1872. 1 87 1. J. Jacobs, cathedral, dismissed 1872.

1 87 1. H. Jacobs, dismissed 1872.

1 87 1. Steindle, Brunswick, dismissed 1872.

1872. McMahon, Weston, dismissed 1872.

1873. Jerre Murphy, commissioned land jobber, dismissed

1874.

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1875

1875 1876

1876

1876

1876

Zwyte, Saxton, dismissed 1878. Munt, cathedral, dismissed 1878. A. Here, Plattsburg, dismissed 1877. Gealin, cathedral, dismissed 1877. Herbert, cathedral, dismissed 1877. Kiley, cathedral, dismissed 1877.

The constant, shameful, public, sacrilegious, drunkenness of the last three named priests, who were by my side at the cathedral determined me to wipe them and their kind out of my jurisdiction.

Herbert, after repeated drunkenness, went into a spree for a week in my house; was in the house, broke out at night, got into a house of disreputable women in his drunkenness, and was thrown out into the street, picked up drunk, recognized and taken into a house and made sober, and was put into a carriage and taken to my house.

That evening Gealin and Kiley were told by me to prepare for the proper celebration of the feast of patronage of St. Joseph for Easter Sunday. On Saturday night they stayed up all night, drinking, carousing and shouting. Kiley fell down, blackened and almost broke his face in falling. Of course, the two sacrileg- ious priests said mass the next day, and Kiley went into the pulpit and preached, with his blackened and bruised face, to the people of the cathedral. This was on the feast of the diocese and of the universal church. It was time for me to begin a reformation, and before God I made the following resolutions :

First, not to take a priest of any other diocese into mine, even though his bishop would recommend him. Bishops are all charitable and often recommend a person for what virtues he had

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and do not mention his faults, besides good priests are not known to leave their diocese and go elsewhere.

Second, never to receive into my diocese a person who had belonged to another diocese and had left or was dismissed, even if he had a recommendation.

Third, never to receive into my diocese a student belonging to another diocese who had left or been dismissed, even if he was recommended.

Fourth, never to admit to the oriesthood a Christian member or a lay member t' my order who had left or was dismissed by that order, even if recommended.

Under these rules my diocese began to prosper, and I hope in good time prosperity with the foregoing rules put in execution.

I am now^ very careful, or as careful as I can possibly be, in selecting young priests, and herein again I am at the mercy of those who are inexperienced and too easy and indulgent in recom- mending students for ordination. I allude to superiors of sem- inaries, wiio, though pious and wise men, lack experience which bishops have.

It is a bishop's duty to know his students well and personally, if he can before ordaining "them. This I can not do, because my diocese is too remote to build and maintain a seminary.

My seminaries are either in Ireland, Canada or the eastern states, and I must depend on the judgment of priests in charge of these seminaries to send me good men.

Often, also, they send out young men, priests poorly edu- cated, but pious, awkward countrymen and with many defects, in such cases setting complaint between them and their congrega- tions over whom, in God's name, I must place them for better or for worse.

126 NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM.

From the foregoing you must see how trying and harassing it is to live the Hfe of a bishop, whom the world regards as not only a happy man, but as a man who has an easy time of it, noth- ing in fact to do but sit and enjoy himself. Why I mention all this is to show you under what straits one is put to get priests, and I appointed Father Ignatius to the Cathedral, not that I prefer a German or a Swiss to a man of my own faithful Ireland, but be- cause the sons of St. Patrick had for a time forgotten themselves, and, before God, and answerable to Him, I had no better to go to St. Joseph cathedral than Father Ignatius, for St. Joseph parish, and I want you and your friends to do nothing to oppose my work, which is God's work.

When God gives me, in His holy adorable providence, a favorable opportunity to supply St. Joseph cathedral with a better priest than Father Ignatius, I will send him in God's name, but Father Ignatius is, as far as I know, a good priest, and I do not know anything to the contrary. No one has accused him to me of neglect of duty, and therefore I can not throw him out of a place to make way for men of whom I know nothing at all. Therefore I send them back in God's name, and I ask of you, my dear friends, that kindness that may draw children in Christ and whom I love tenderly, and to receive him in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of our Redeemer.

Please pardon me, my dear sir, for this very hastily written letter. Indeed, I have very much to do, not even time for all crosses and duties, and besides, to care for my immortal soul, my own immortal imperishable soul; for if I lose my soul wiiat can I gain?

My secretary might have written this letter more carefully

NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OP ROMANISM. 1*7

to you, as I am so pressed for time, but this matter is too much between ourselves that I would not entrust it to him.

Begging your prayers for myself and all my charge, I re- main, very truly and sincerely,

Your humble servant,

John J. Hogan, Bishop.

Such, dear reader, is the character of the Romish priesthood, who, in their office of confessor, comes between you and your wife, between mother and daughter, and who profess to forgive their sins, though they may become "his accomplice in sin."

The St. Joseph and Kansas City diocese, of which John Hogan was bishop, is no exception. We could fill a chapter with the names of priests in the United States, whose sins of seduction, rape, alienating wife from husband, eloping with other men's wives, etc., would confirm beyond all doubt, the fact that the diocese of which Hogan was bishop is above the average in moral purity.

But how could it be otherwise? They know nothing of a change of heart. Their only preparation for the office of the priesthood is drinking from that filthy and putrid cesspool of moral rottenness prepared for them by the devil himself, through human agencies. The God who said ''Blessed are the pure in heart" has no part, no lot in the matter, and with a corrupt nature continually fed and nourished upon a diet of moral putridity, it is no wonder that the Romish priest is a living, moving impersona- tion of all that is corrupt. There are doubtless exceptions to this rule, but, to say the least, it is at great peril that you turn away from the word of God and His revealed truth, and accept a Rom-

1158 NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM,

ish priest as your spiritual guide called religion incompatible with, not only the ten commandments, but with every phase of moral precept given us by the incarnate Savior. We would not argue that, because a few or many priests, bishops and popes are bad that the system necessarily is bad; but when we study the system itself, we see that there is no soundness in it. A system to be true must be truthful, and must hold the truth as sacred above everything else, even above the system itself. This we find is not true of Romanis^n.

Chapter X.

Why Priests Should Marry.

You cannot find a priest's residence but what he has from one to half a dozen female housekeepers, and always the majority of them are fair of face and form. If some bright morning you wot)ld learn that your near neighbor was living with one or more females, neither of which w^as related to him, your indignation would know no bounds, then why should you sit idly by and allow a Catholic priest to live in open violation to every rule of moral and natural law. It is our duty to write what we believe to be right in the eyes of God, and not from a love of obscenity, but because Americans owe it to themselves to read what shall be written, and, if they choose and will, to read betzveen the lines as zvell. Naturally, one recoils from such a work as this. There is nothing in it but a record of shame and sorrow. It is uncover- ing the sewer of our American life, and showing what is l^eing dumped into it of l^adness from beyond the sea. It opens the ■dark passages of European life, and reveals the priesthood to the eyes of all not alone as they have long been seen in Rome, in

130 i^Jl^'UrEBNTH CBmURy DtEDS OF ROMANISM,

Italy, Spain, France and elsewhere, but as they are living in our midst, as they have had power to live in the Old World, and be the pestilence of Christianity, the plague-spot of morality, and the outrageous exception to much they might be and ought to have been. Paul described them as men '\vho love themselves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, without natural affection, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than /overs of God, having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof; from such turn away. For of this sort are they which destroy homes. If a marriage is a sacred compact for man and woman to enter into, and this compact is sacred enough to be solemnized by a priest, it must be a strange compact if it is not holy and good enough for a priest. When the time comes for me to publicly announce that the holy bonds of matrimony that my dear father and mother entered into is unclean and not good an^ sacred enough for a priest^ then may the good Lord that rules the universe dry up every drop of vitality that is in my body. The world knows that here is nothing more liable to tempt woman to fall than familiarity, and familiarity ripens quicker, and the bud is more easily plucked when left alone to commune with one another, with the assurance that no human ear shall hear what is said. When one goes to a priest to confess, they are entirely alone ; no ear is near to hear what is said. The priest knows full well that he has the subject completely under his power, for their education from infancy has been that priests can not sin; therefore, he relies implicitly upon their ignorance, and does not hesitate to ask any question that the devil may prompt him to do. Imagine, if you can, the influence a lustful priest must have upon a wom^an who

NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM. 131

believes in the purity of that priest, and actually believes that it is an impossibility for him to sin. The confessional places the penitent and priest ear to ear, breath to breath, eye to eye, lip to lip, if he pleases.

There were none of them in the Romish church in Albany, and these priests had to hear confessions in the sacristy of the church. This is a small room back of the altar, in which the eucharist, containing, according to the Romish belief, the real body and blood of Christ, is kept while mass is not celebrating in the chapel. This room is always fastened by a lock and key of the best workmanship, and the key kept by the priest day and night. In the sacristy, containing the wafer, which the priests blas- phemously adore, the lecherous priests committed habitually those acts of immorality and crime. If this was so in Albany in 1845, why may it not be so there and elsewhere at this hour ? Do Amer- icans think at all of that state of society which exists in this coun- try where priests rule ? Popery has not to be in the ascendant in this country, that priests may rule. Who interferes with their damnable acts ? Romanists on the jury refuse to convict a priest. Women uphold him in wrong-doing. No matter what he does, he goes back to his altar and to his adulteries and debaucheries, and Americans say it is none of their business. But it is their business. Sin, palliated and condoned, lowers the standard of morality, and injures society. The loose idea of marriage and wedlock come largely from the influence exerted by priests. If a priest can take a man's wife to his room, or to a hotel, and enjoy her society, a husband can do the same. It is pitiable; it is terrible; and there must be an appeal and a remedy.

One sabbath afternoon, in Music Hall, a converted nun

A Philippine beauty, who entices tourists and men of means into the rea»

idences of Native Friars, and by the help of these Friar Priests

are made drunk and robbed.

NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM. 133

handed in this request : "Pray for my poor, benighted relations who are yet in the bonds of iniquity and the gall of bitterness. My poor little niece, who is now in Boston, out of work, was put into a convent when three years of age, and has been since then the mother of two children before she was nineteen years of age, one living and one dead. She was living with a priest when these children were born; is now turned out upon the world, without work, without a home, and can neither read nor write." This is but a specimen of hundreds of letters which reveal the extent of this iniquity, about which the American people know so little, and care less. The priest is in the zvay.

In M. Michelet's ''Auricular Confession and Direction," we find this :

*'The family is in question; that home where we would all fain repose, after so many useless efforts, so many illusions destroyed . We return home very wearied — do we find repose there? We must not dissimulate. We must frankly confess to ourselves the real state of things. There exists in the bosom of society, in the family circle, a serious dissension — nay, the most serious of all dissensions.

*'We may talk with our mothers, our wives, or our daughters, on all those matters about which we talk with our acquaintances, on business, on the news of the day, but not at all on matters near- est the heart — on religion, on God, on the soul.

'Take the instant when you would find yourself united with your family in one common feeling, in the repose of the evening, round the family table. There in your home, at your own hearth, venture to utter a word on these matters. Your mother sadly shakes her head; your wife contradicts you; your daughter, al-

IM NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM.

though silent, disapproves. They are on one side of the table, you on the other alone.

''It would seem as if in the midst of them, opposite you, sat en invisible enemy to contradict what you say.

"The invisible enemy here spoken of is the priest."

Is that true? If it is true, ought it to remain true?

God's Word says, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him." "For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh." "Wherefore [said Christ] they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder." Romanism sets aside all these commands. The priest comes between the man and his wife, between parents and their children. The rela- tion is defiance of God's Word and the welfare of the home, and should be opposed and abrogated.

As confessor, the priest possesses the secret of a woman's soul : "He knows every half formed hope, every dim desire, every thwarted feeling. The priest, as spiritual director, animates that woman with his own ideas, moves her with his own will, fashions her according to his own fancy. And this priest is doomed to celi- bacy. He is a man, but is bound to pluck from his heart the feel- ings of a man. If he is without fault, he makes desperate use of his power over those confiding in him. If he is sincerely devout, he has to struggle with his passions, and there is a perilous chance of his being defeated in that struggle. And even should he come off victorious, still the mischief done is incalculable and irrepara- ble. The woman's virtue has been preserved by an accident, by a power extraneous to herself. She was wax in her spiritual di-

NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM. 13i

rector's hands; she has ceased to be a person, and is become a thing. The priest is the cause of all this, and is a plague."

There is something diabolical in the institution of celibacy. The history of its origin is a story of brutality seldom matched. Imagine the ministry of to-day compelled to separate from their wives ; see them rated as bad ; also from their children, and be- hold them rated as bastards. Can anything be more infamous, more cruel, more unnatural ?

The battle against marriage in the priesthood culminated in 1073, during the reign of Pope Gregory VII, known as Hilde- brand. His character has been outlined by innumerable pens. His austere virtue, simple piety, vast knowledge, and ability to rule men; his well-known intrepidity, which seemed to delight in con- fronting the most powerful; a stern singleness of purpose, and yet a subtle policy which bordered on craft, gave him the support and confidence of those who were ruled by his imperious will.

The object he had in view was the absolute independency of the clergy and of the Pope; of the great prelates throughout Latin Christianity, down to the lowest functionary, whose person was to become sacred. The clergy were to become a separate and inviola- ble caste. It is a sad story. Who can depict the bitterness and the sorrow of heart, when husbands and fathers were compelled by a cruel edict to separate from wives and children, in opposition to the teachings of Scripture and the promptings of human nature? The act was cruelty personified. No wonder that some of the wives committed suicide, others died in their beds from grief or by their own hands, and others fought for their rights against fearful odds. With many of the clergy, it was a matter of delib- erate conviction that they ought to marry, founded not only on

136 NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM.

the authority of the Apostle Paul, on the usage of the primitive Church justified by the law of Eastern Christendom, and asserted to rest on a conscientious assurance of the evils resulting from enforced celibacy. They believed that marriage was God's own appointment for man's true happiness, the propagation of the race; and the propensity to obey that law is so strong, that, with- out compliance, health is impaired, morality is weakened, and the voice of religion is disobeyed. It is a well-established fact that health, the foundation of happiness, is best insured by the mar- riage relation. There is a mysterious magnetic bond which binds husband and wife together, unknown to those in celibacy — like the needle to the pole it rules — and is explained by saying, it is the law of God.

"Celibacy leaves men and women liable in daily intercourse to be enticed, drawn magnetically by natural impulses into the vortex of animal passions, which, unrestrained, become sin of a corroding and deadly nature, proving clearly it is not good for man to be alone, and that to obey God's law is the sure path to true happiness as surely as sunshine produces health and growth."

The unmarried confessor has been set forth by Paul Louis Courier in words that ought to be read and pondered.

"What a life, what a condition, is that of our priests ! Love is forbidden them — marriage especially : women are given up to them. They may not have one of their own, and yet live familiarly with all, nay, in confidential, intimate privity of their hidden ac- tions, of all their thoughts. An innocent girl first hears the priest under her mother's wing; he then calls her to him, speaks alone with her, and is the first to talk of sin to her before she can have known it. When instructed, she marries ; when married, he still

NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM. 137

confesses and governs her. He has preceded the husband in her affections, and will always maintain himself in them. What she would not venture to confide to her mother, or confess to her husband, he, a priest, must know it, asks it, hears it, and yet shall not be her lover. How could he, indeed ? Is he not tonsured ? He hears whispered in his ear, by a young woman, her faults, her passions, desires, weaknesses, receives her sighs without feeling agitated, and he is five and twenty !

"To confess a woman ! Imagine what it is. At the end of a church a species of closet, or sentry box, is erected against the wall, where the priest awaits, in the evening after vespers, his young penitent, whom he loves, and who knows it : love cannot be concealed from the beloved person. You will stop me there — his character of priest, his education, his vows. . . I reply that there is no vow that holds good; that every village cure, just come from the seminary, healthy, robust, and vigorous, doubtless loves one of his parishioners. It cannot be otherwise; and, if you con- test this, I will say more still ; and that is, that he loves them all — those, at least, of his own age; but he prefers one, who appears to him, if not more beautiful than the others, more modest and wiser, and whom he would marry; he would make her a virtuous, pious wife, if it were not for the Pope. He sees her daily, and meets her at church or elsewhere, and, sitting opposite her in the winter evenings, he imbibes, imprudent man, the poison of her eyes.

''Now I ask you, when he hears that one coming the next day, and approaching the confessional, and when he recognizco her footsteps, and can say, It is she, what is passing in the mind of the poor confessor? Honesty, duty, mere resolutions, are here of little use without peculiarly heavenly grace. I will suppose

198 NINETEENTH CENTURY DEEDS OF ROMANISM.

him a saint; unable to fly, he apparently groans, sighs, recom- mends himself to God; but, if he is only a man, he shudders, de- sires, and already, unwillingly, without knowing it, perhaps, he hopes. She arrives, kneels down at his knees before him whose heart leaps and palpitates. You are young, sir, or you have been so; between ourselves, what do you think of such a situation for your daughter or your wife, and such a man ? Alone most of the time, and having these walls, these vaulted roofs, as sole wit- nesses, they talk — of what? alas! Of all that is not innocent. They talk, or rather murmur, in low voice; and their lips ap- proach each other, and their breaths mingle. This lasts for an hour or more, and is often renewed.

''Do you think I invent? This scene takes place such as I describe it ; is renewed daily by thousands of young priests, with as many young girls whom they love, because they are men;;, whom they confess in this manner, because they are priests; and whom they do not marry, because the Pope is opposed to it.

"The priest has the spiritual care of her he loves; her soul is in his hands. He is connected with her by the most sacred ties; his interest in her he disguises to himself under the cloak of spir- itual anxiety. He can always quiet the voice of conscience by an equivoque — the mystic language of religion; and what guilt is shrouded under this equivoque, the history of the priestcraft may show. Parler V amour , c'est faire V amour. To speak love is to make love, especially when this man is a priest, that is to say, a mediator between the woman and God, and who says : 'God hears you through me; through me He will reply.' This man whom she has seen at the altar, and there invested with all the sacred robes and sacred associations of his office; whom she has

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visited in the confessional, and there laid bare her soul to him; whose visits she has received in her boudoir, and there submitted to his direction; this man, whom she worships — is supposed to be an idea, a priest; no one supposing him to be a man, with a man's passions !"

Llorente (sec. iii, ch. 88, art. 2, ed. 181 7) relates that when he was secretary to the Inquisition, a Capuchin was brought before that tribunal who directed a community of beguines, and had seduced nearly all of them by persuading them that, by yield- ing to his solicitations, they were not leaving the road to perfec- tion. He told each of them, in the confessional, that he had re- ceived from God a singular favor. "Our Lord," he said, ''has deigned to show himself to me in the sacrament, and has said to nie : 'Almost all the souls that thou dost direct here are pleasing to me, but especially such a one (the Capuchin named her to whom he spoke.) She is already so perfect that she has con- quered every passion except carnal desire, which torments her very much. Therefore, wishing virtue to have its reward, and that she should serve me tranquilly, I charge thee to give her a dispensation, but only to be made use of by thee. She need speak of it to no confessor; that would be useless, as with such a dis- pensation she cannot sin.' "

^ ''Out of seventeen beguines, of which the community was composed, the intrepid Capuchin gave the dispensation to thir- teen, who were discreet for some length of time; but at last one of them fell ill, expected to die, and discovered everything, de- claring that she had never been able to believe in the dispensation, but that she had profited by it."

"I remember," said Llorente, "having said to him: 'But

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Father, is it not astonishing that this singular virtue should have belonged exactly to the thirteen young and handsome ones, and not at all to the other four who were ugly and old?' He coolly replied : 'The Holy Spirit inspires where it listeth.' "

The same author, in the same chapter, while reproaching Protestants with having exaggerated the corruptions of con- fessors, avows that ''in the sixteenth century the Inquisition had imposed on women