Un-Married Cussedness of the Roman Priest-Craft.
In the Book of Books, we find that the Lord of Hosts declares that,
"It is not good for man to dwell alone," and our Heavenly Father also
teaches us that "Every man should have one wife."
Now, the Good Lord was either right or wrong when He made this
declaration, and who is there that would declare that the Lord was
mistaken in His injunction? Not one! Therefore, we must acknowledge
that either the Lord our God made a declaration that was nonsensical
and unreasonable, or else the Roman Priestcraft is living a life
which is diagonally contrary to the commands and demands of God
Almighty, for when the Roman Church declares that her Priests shall
not wed, they at once set up a rule for their teachers which is in
violation, to not only the laws of God, but laws of man, as the
silent whisperings of man's nature demands a helpmate. The heathen
nations of the earth who are not acquainted with the sanctity of the
marriage vow, have a longing for the companionship of the opposite
sex, and this longing cannot be termed anything but "a godly love,"
as this feeling was placed in the bosom of humanity by a divine
being, and whenever this desire is thwarted, you have disturbed the
most blissful inspiration of the human family; but the Roman Catholic
Church would have us believe that a few of the human family have been
ordained by God to live recluses, or, as we may term it, "unmarried
hermits."
Catholicism, with all her damnable dogmas and creeds, cannot change
that God-given impulse that was planted in the bosom of man, when
Adam was created in the Garden of Eden, and the more Roman
Catholicism endeavors to eradicate that feeling, the greater her sins
become, for it is a most damnable sin to try to force man to
eradicate from his bosom this everlasting and godly craving for the
love of the opposite sex, and as long as "man is born of woman," just
so long that inspiration will live in the bosom of mankind, and just
so long as Roman Catholicism endeavors to force humanity to purge
itself of this blessed longing, just so long the mark of deception,
depravity and ungodliness will be left upon the brow of this Romish
demon.
This chapter is one that must be written in a delicate manner, which
prohibits me from becoming emphatic and explicit, for should I allow
myself to write exactly what I have seen, and the truths that exist
in regard to Romish hellishness, and the deeds of the unmarried
cussedness of Catholicism, I would have to resort to language that
would be unchaste, but I have in mind a story that was told some time
ago, by a young lady, who had spent a number of years in a convent,
which I will relate word for word as she gave it, and which will be
only the history over and over again of thousands--yea, tens of
thousands of girls who have had the same experience as this poor
mortal, only perhaps had new agonies added to their lives.
The history of this girl's life in a convent is more than pathetic,
from the fact that her father on his deathbed requested that she be
placed in a convent by her mother, which was done, and her
sufferings, the reader will see, were not a fault of hers, but the
fault of her parents, who had been raised to believe in the
diabolical teachings of Roman Catholicism, but who did not know that
these teachings were only echoes of the dark ages of paganism,
therefore you will see that this poor girl's history is laden with a
sadness for which she is not to blame, and the fault can only be laid
at the fountain head, as her parents were sincere in their belief,
and did not, of course, realize that they were helping to ruin their
darling girl's future.
I will now relate her history, as near as possible, the way she gave
it, which will be symbolic of the history of thousands of other
girls, and which is absolutely true. Her story follows:
"When one becomes an inmate of a convent, they become a prisoner, as
every act is scrutinized by the mother superior, and you have no
privilege any more than if you were a convict and placed behind the
bars for some heinous crime. With this exception, however, you are
allowed to receive letters from a priest without having the letter
opened and read before it reaches you, as there is always some mark
to distinguish a letter received from a priest, but all letters that
you write and all letters that you receive, unless they bear the mark
indicating that they have been sent by a priest, are carefully read,
and if the contents of either the letter you write, or the one that
has been written to you does not meet with the arbitrary opinion of
the "mother superior," they are destroyed, and you never have the
opportunity of sending the one that you have written, or to receive
the one that has been written to you, unless they can pass the
inspection of the "mother superior," who is nothing more nor less
than an agent of the Pope of Rome, as she receives her instructions
from the priestcraft, and they receive their instructions from the
Pope of Rome."
When an inmate of a convent receives a letter from a priest it is
handed her without being opened, as the "mother superior" is
instructed not to open such letters, and is told that all such
letters, of course, relate to the spiritual welfare of the nun.
In these letters the priest will tell the nun what day he will call
to give her a _general confession_. As soon as such a letter is
received the nun informs the "mother superior" that on a certain day
Priest So-and-So will visit her, and, of course, this "mother
superior" gives the permission, and on the day that the priest is to
arrive, this nun is excused from all duties for that day, and when
the priest arrives he is shown into what is called the _Retreat
Parlor_; and no matter how long he remains there, no one will disturb
him. He is supposed to be _talking_ with his penitent on the welfare
of her soul. Ah, could any one look through the door, they would find
this priest with his arms about the form of this fair penitent, or
perhaps in a far more compromising position!
Right here the reader may ask if these nuns are willing to submit to
the embraces of these priests?
I will allow this girl to answer this question in her own language,
and her answer is this:
"I answer that in fifteen out of twenty cases--No! But she is there
helpless; the priest has seen her somewhere in the garb of a nun and
has taken a fancy to her, and whether she be willing or not, he
compels her to allow him to satisfy his hellish passion!"
This girl continues by exclaiming: "Oh God! Great God! When I think
of this system--this system born of the devil and nurtured by
hell--and realize that under the cloak of religion it is stealing
away our liberty, entering into our homes, ruining our womanhood and
girlhood, and painting childish purity with the brush of immorality,
and defiling everything with which it comes in contact, I then become
a mad woman, and I become as a venomous serpent, wanting revenge for
what has been done to me, and it seems as if I cannot remain quiet,
but, closing my eyes and ears to everything, as I have no redress, I
am compelled to warn thousands who may come after me, of their fate,
should they take up convent life, which is a hell upon earth and a
blotch as black as the shadows of hell to any land."
The same lady who related the above, and a great deal more which I
cannot tell in this chapter, gave an account of the sufferings of
another nun, who was in the same convent with her, and I now learn
that the same story that I will now relate has been told to others.
Reader, you must bear in mind that convents have many tortures
outside of the torturing conscience on account of having the virtue
of their inmates destroyed. The teachings of Catholicism lead people
to practice self-infliction upon their person in order to appease a
living God, as they seem to worship a living God the same as the
pagans would worship a God of stone, or a ferocious God in the form
of some carnivorous beast, and in order to atone for their sins,
these inmates of the nunneries are taught that they must bear
self-infliction; in fact, Catholicism teaches her followers that in
order that any of them shall receive absolute pardon, that they must
resort to heathenish practices.
As stated above, the same lady whom we speak of in the first part of
this chapter, relates her experience with a sister nun, who endured
self-torture, believing that it was an outward demonstration of
godliness. Her story follows:
"I call to mind a case of cruelty under the guise of devotion that
happened in our convent. A consecrated penitent, Sister Madeline, had
been for some time a victim of consumption. She was a beautiful girl,
and her exquisitely sweet voice could be heard in church every
Sunday, taking part in the high mass. Poor Sister Madeline! How many
humiliations she received! How often she was censured for leaving her
work unfinished when she was not able to do it, and how I have pitied
her as she tried to eat the bread and dripping we had for supper.
Failing in the attempt, I would notice the tears gather in her eyes.
Oh, how often I longed to be able to obtain some little delicacy for
her! but dared not ask for it. Her gentle, patient, suffering face
will never fade from my memory.
"One Sunday evening she and I were walking in the garden after
benediction. She felt more than usually weak, and, therefore, I could
offer her my arm to lean upon.
"'Dear Sister Magdalene Adelaide,' she said, 'I think our blessed
Lord is soon going to come for me.'
"I tried to cheer her by telling her that it might be His will to
restore her again to health and strength.
"'No, dear Sister,' she replied; 'and oh, I do not want to stay. I
long to see my Master's face. At night, when I lay awake in pain, I
long, oh, so much, that I might go!'
"'Sister Madeline,' I said, 'you have been happy here, have you not?
You love your present life?'
"We had seated ourselves by this time in a little grotto made up in
honor of 'Our Lady of Lourdes.' She buried her face in her hands, and
I saw the tears trickling between her fingers.
"My own eyes filled with tears; I know not why.
"At last, raising up her head, she said: 'I have tried my best to be
contented; but oh! Sister Adelaide, it has been a bitter struggle. It
is wrong in me to give way thus; but I cannot help it. May Our Lady
pity me! I want you to promise, dear Sister, that you will say a
rosary for me every day for a year after I am dead, and one communion
every month.'
"'I will gladly do this for you, Sister Madeline,' I answered. 'Tell
me,' I continued, 'is there any particular day you prefer?'
"'Yes,' she replied, 'I would like your Friday communion. Promise me
that on the anniversary of the feast of St. Mary Magdalene, my patron
saint, you will offer your communion for me.'
"I promised her this and she seemed more satisfied.
"'I know,' she said, 'that I shall have a long purgatory.' She
shuddered as she spoke. 'And oh! I do hope the dear sisters will
remember me in their prayers and communions.'
"'Dear Sister Madeline,' I said at last, 'purgatory is better than
hell and our Blessed Lady will intercede for you.'
"'Yes, dear Sister Magdalene Adelaide,' she said, 'you are right; but
oh!' she continued, 'I cannot help the shudder that passes through me
as I think of the suffering I shall be in for years, especially after
the mortifications I have practiced here, the discipline I have
applied to myself, the days I have abstained from food, the prayers I
have offered, the tears I have shed; and now, as death approaches,
there is no other prospect before me than a long term of purgatorial
punishment. Besides, the punishment will be all the greater since I
have given away to an unnatural thought.'
"'And what, may I ask, do you call an unnatural thought?'
"'Sister Magdalene Adelaide, come close to me.'
"I rose from my chair and knelt down beside her.
"'Dear sister, I have endeavored to bear my cross,' she commenced,
speaking with difficulty; 'But oh! sister, I dread the end; I have so
much to expiate; and oh!' she continued, her voice now choked with
sobs, 'if only I could have my mother near me; if only I could hear
her voice once more; it is so long since I have seen her. I have
asked for any letter that may have come, but they tell me none has
arrived, and oh! I don't think mother has quite forgotten me.'
"I durst not trust myself to speak; my heart was too full. At last I
said, 'Dear sister, do not grieve thus; our Blessed Lady will
intercede for you. Remember, in coming here your purpose, even as
mine, was to make reparation for sin. You and I have both suffered.
Be brave now, dear, and now that the end is near do not take away
from God's glory by fearing for the future.'
"'I know it is wrong to grieve so much, Sister Magdalene Adelaide,
but oh, I am so weak! Will you read a meditation for me?'
"I took up the book and did as she requested. Soon she fell into a
sleep which lasted about one hour, and again I commenced saying my
rosary beads. Presently I heard her murmur, and, listening, I heard
her whisper, 'My feet! oh, my feet!' I arose from my chair and
removed the sheet with the intention of rubbing her limbs; as I did
so her feet were disclosed. A thrill of horror passed through my
being as I looked at them, for they were all cut, festered and
bruised; a fearful suspicion took possession of me, and, stooping
down, I picked up her infirmary shoes. On examination I discovered in
them pieces of broken glass; a thrill akin to horror ran through my
whole frame. I held the shoes in my hands and looked at the pale,
suffering face of Adeline as she lay there on her bed, and this
evening the whole scene rises before me--the little infirmary with
its clean, white floor, a few cheap prints of the stations of the
cross hanging on the otherwise bare walls, the two or three small
iron bedsteads, then the white wooden altar upon which was spread a
white linen cloth embroidered with red; the two statues, one of 'Our
Lady of Dolours' and the second of St. Joseph, the patron of happy
deaths. In the center of the altar was a vase with a few cheap paper
flowers.
"Yes, it comes to me most vividly. There she lay, the sin of her
past life being that she, too, had been deceived at the altars of
Rome--a victim of priestly solicitation in the confessional. Even as
she lay there in the last stages of consumption, traces of what had
at one time been a beautiful face were clearly discernible. What had
she not suffered for years! Who could tell the many weary hours of
heart anguish she had passed through? And yet she was young--hardly
twenty-five years old. She had given up all that was near and dear,
and, for the years she had lived in the convent, she had tried to
appease God's justice for her early sin by mortifying and chastising
herself in a way that can only find a parallel in the doctrines of
Buddha. Oh, Madeline! poor, wounded, betrayed one! Who can wonder, as
you lay there with the fever of consumption running and coursing
through your veins, that, in spite of all the teachings and practices
of self-denial in the convent life in which you had lived so many
years, yet, when the hour of death drew nigh and your soul was
hovering on the borders of the unknown eternity, your thoughts once
more went back to the old home-scenes, and you longed, as only a
child can, for the sight of a mother's face, the sound of a mother's
voice, the cool, soothing touch of a mother's hand passing over your
brow? They tried to crush down the natural love that God placed in
your heart for your mother, but they could not. The use of the
discipline caused the blood to flow and gave you physical suffering;
fasting and long prayers made you weak, and thus incapable of
exercising will-power; and, when no other eye but God's was upon you,
when struggling with the desire to leave forever the hateful prison
walls of the convent, the bitter tears forced their way. Then,
kneeling before the statue of the 'Mother of Sorrows,' you pleaded
with her to help and intercede for you. What comfort did you get?
What hope? What consolation? _None!_ You might make good confessions
and communions, practice all the self-denials required of one in your
vocation, and the only thing that the church could give you, the only
gleam of _hope_ she could offer, was that, through your works of
supererogation, your purgatory would be lessened; and now, wasted
through suffering and consumption, dreading the punishment of
purgatory, endeavoring in your dying state to do something to lessen
its pangs, you have walked with glass in your shoes and your poor
feet give evidence of the agony you endured. And this is
Christianity!
"I applied cold cloths to her feet; I sat down in the dimly-lighted
infirmary by the side of her bed, and, holding the fevered and
trembling hand, I, in my ignorance, tried to give her some comfort. I
promised to remember her in my intentions, my communions, and at the
sacrifice of the Mass. I spoke to her of the mercy and compassion of
Mary, the 'Mother of Sorrows,' and tried to give her hope by pointing
to her as mediator between her soul and Christ, but I could see that
she received no satisfaction, no assurance. Then her eyes closed and
she dozed for a few minutes, only to wake with a moan of pain--'Oh,
my feet! oh, my feet!' And then again, 'If only I could see my
mother!' would issue from her parched and cracked lips.
"And so I sat through the night, soothing her as well as I knew how,
and repeating aspirations for her, until the dawn crept in and the
nuns' bell rang out at 4:30 o'clock, arousing the inmates. The
quietness and deep stillness still remained throughout the
institution, the sisters and penitents walking in the dimly-lighted
cloisters with soft tread and down-cast eyes, as if in the land of
the silent dead and not the living."
As I write I wonder how it was possible for me to endure the paganism
of Catholicism for thirty years, and the only rational reason I can
give for this endurance is that I, like thousands of these poor nuns
whom I have just written about, was raised to believe that the
teachings of Catholicism were right and the only road that lead to
eternal glory; therefore I look with pity and compassion upon those
black-garbed nuns when I behold them tramping the streets of our
large cities, as I realize that they actually believe they are
performing God's work, when the truth of the matter is that they are
only following the practices of heathen nations.
I could go on and write a thousand pages upon "The Unmarried
Cussedness of the Roman Priestcraft," and each page would be as black
as the shadows of hell, but I deem it unnecessary, as I have
confidence in those who may read this book that they will believe
every word of what I have written, therefore it is unnecessary for me
to dwell longer upon the hideousness of celibacy.
In conclusion, I desire to say that so long as Roman Catholicism
demands that her priestcraft shall not wed, just so long the
priestcraft will remain vultures of virtue and just so long convents
will be turned into carnivals of vice.
It is only natural that such should be the case, as both the
priestcraft and the inhabitants of our convents are brought up from
childhood to believe in the absurdities of Roman Catholicism, and to
believe that all of their many sins can be pardoned by the cungerings
of this Romish doctrine.
My prayer is that the government of the United States may learn in
the near future that the broad light of Protestant inspection must
penetrate these recesses of darkness before we can ever have them
cleansed of their immorality, and this inspection must be made
often, and I sincerely believe that the time is not far distant when
Protestant America will demand that Catholicism shall do away with
her monasteries and nunneries, unless she submits to a rigid
examination of her actions, and whenever she submits it will be
because she is forced to submit, and whenever she is forced to do so,
these monasteries and convents will be closed up, as Protestant
America will not allow nor permit these plague spots to exist to
pollute the fair name of America when she learns of their actual
mission.
[Illustration: "BEING EXCOMMUNICATED FOR READING THE BIBLE."
"May she be damned in her mouth, in her breast, in
her heart and down to her very stomach. Etc. Etc."]