The venerable _Bede_ has given us a very striking picture of Monastic
enormities, in his epistle to Egbert. From this we learn that many young
men who had no title to the monastic profession, got possession of
monasteries; where, instead of engaging in the defence of their country,
as their age and rank required, they indulged themselves in the most
dissolute indolence.
We learn from Dugdale, that in the reign of Henry the Second, the nuns
of Amsbury abbey in Wiltshire were expelled from that religious house on
account of their incontinence. And to exhibit in the most lively colors
the total corruption of monastic chastity, bishop Burnet informs us in
his "History of the Reformation," that when the nunneries were visited
by the command of Henry the VIII. "whole houses almost, were found whose
vows had been made in vain."
When we consider to what oppressive indolence, to what a variety of
wretchedness and guilt, the young and fair inhabitants of the cloister
were frequently betrayed, we ought to admire those benevolent authors
who, when the tide of religious prejudice ran very strong in favor of
monastic virginity, had spirit enough to oppose the torrent, and to
caution the devout and tender sex against so dangerous a profession. It
is in this point of view that the character of Erasmus appears with the
most amiable lustre; and his name ought to be eternally dear to the
female world in particular. Though his studies and constitution led him
almost to idolize those eloquent fathers of the church who have
magnified this kind of life, his good sense and his accurate survey of
the human race, enabled him to judge of the misery in which female youth
was continually involved by a precipitate choice of the veil. He knew
the successful arts by which the subtle and rapacious monks inveigled
young women of opulent families into the cloister; and he exerted his
lively and delicate wit in opposition to so pernicious an evil.
In those nations of Europe where nunneries still exist, how many lovely
victims are continually sacrificed to the avarice or absurd ambition of
inhuman parents! The misery of these victims has been painted with great
force by some benevolent writers of France.
In most of those pathetic histories that are founded on the abuse of
convents, the misery originates from the parent, and falls upon the
child. The reverse has sometime happened; and there are examples of
unhappy parents, who have been rendered miserable by the religious
perversity of a daughter. In the fourteenth volume of that very amusing
work, _Les Causes Celebres_, a work which is said to have been the
favorite reading of Voltaire, there is a striking history of a girl
under age, who was tempted by pious artifice to settle herself in a
convent, in express opposition to parental authority. Her parents, who
had in vain tried the most tender persuasion, endeavored at last to
redeem their lost child, by a legal process against the nunnery in which
she was imprisoned. The pleadings on this remarkable trial may, perhaps,
be justly reckoned amongst the finest pieces of eloquence that the
lawyers of France have produced. Monsieur Gillet, the advocate for the
parents, represented, in the boldest and most affecting language, the
extreme baseness of this religious seduction. His eloquence appeared to
have fixed the sentiments of the judges; but the cause of superstition
was pleaded by an advocate of equal power, and it finally prevailed. The
unfortunate parents of Maria Vernal (for this was the name of the
unfortunate girl) were condemned to resign her forever, and to make a
considerable payment to those artful devotees who had piously robbed
them of their child.
When we reflect on the various evils that have arisen in convents, we
have the strongest reason to rejoice and glory in that reformation by
which the nunneries of England were abolished. Yet it would not be
candid or just to consider all these as the mere harbors of
licentiousness; since we are told that, at the time of their
suppression, some of our religious houses were very honorably
distinguished by the purity of their inhabitants. "The visitors," says
Bishop Burnet, "interceded earnestly for one nunnery in Oxfordshire,
where there was great strictness of life, and to which most of the young
gentlewomen of the country were sent to be bred; so that the gentry of
the country desired the king would spare the house: yet all was
ineffectual."