In the course of time the sons grew up, and their guardian p

Produced by David Widger

AURICULAR CONFESSION and POPISH NUNNERIES

By William Hogan

A Roman Catholic Priest

Volume I. (of II.)

1854.

AURICULAR CONFESSION and POPISH NUNNERIES, Volume I.

TO THE PUBLIC.

The readers of the following work, who have not any acquaintance with

the author, may wish to know who he is, in order to enable them to

ascertain what degree of credit is due to his statements. We are

permitted to publish the following documents, which show that the author

is a member of the Georgia bar, and that his standing among his brethren

is that of a moral, upright, and honorable gentleman. This is a high

character--as high as any man can produce, or any American citizen

require--and entitles Mr. Hogan's statements to full credit, in the

estimation of every honest man and impartial reader of this work.

[Certificate from Judge Wayne.] State of Georgia. At a Superior Court

holden in and for the County of Effingham, in November Term, 1827. Know

all men by these presents, that, at the present sitting of this Court.

William Hogan made his application for leave to plead and practise in

the several Courts of Law and Equity in this State: Whereupon, the

said William Hogan having given satisfactory evidence of good moral

character, and having been examined in open Court, and being found well

acquainted and skilled in the laws, he was admitted by the court to all

the privileges of an Attorney Solicitor and Counsellor, in the several

Courts of law and Equity in this State.

In Testimony whereof the presiding Judge has hereunto set [L. S.] his

hand, with his seal annexed, (there being no Seal of Court,) this first

day of November, 1827. Jno. Chas. Ston, Clerk. James M. Wayne.

[Certificate from Judge Law.] I hereby certify that the within named

William Hogan, has been at the bar of the Eastern Circuit of Georgia,

since November Term, 1827, the date of his admission, and that he has

conducted himself, during my acquaintance with him at this bar, as

an Attorney and Counsellor at Law, with uprightness and integrity of

character.

William Law, Judge Sup. Courts, East District, Georgia, Savannah, 25th

June, 1832.

Savannah, 25th June, 1832.

Dear Sir,--Understanding from you that it is your intention to leave

the State, with a view to the practice of the law elsewhere; it will,

I apprehend, be necessary that the certificate of admission to our bar,

furnished you by the Clerk, should be accompanied by a certificate from

myself as the presiding Judge of the Court in which you were admitted.

This is necessary to give it authenticity in another State. It will

afford me pleasure to append that verification to it, if you will be

pleased to send me the certificate.

Permit me, as you are about to leave us, to offer you my humble

testimony to your correct and upright deportment as an advocate at the

bar of the Superior Courts of the Eastern District of Georgia, since

your admission to the practice of the law in the same.

Wishing you success and prosperity wherever you may settle, I am, dear

sir, very respectfully,

Your obedient servant,

William Law.

[Recommendation from the Georgia Bar.]

Savannah, June, 1832. We, the undersigned members of the bar of

Savannah, having been informed that Wm. Hogan, Esq., in consequence of

ill health, is about removing to a northern climate, take leave to

state that he has been admitted to practise as Attorney, Solicitor and

Counsellor in all the Courts of Law and Equity in this State.

Mr. Hogan has been a resident of this city for some years, during

which time, we further feel a pleasure in stating that his professional

standing among us, has been that of a moral and honorable gentleman, and

as such, recommend him to the professional attentions of the Honorable

the Judges and members of the bar generally, wherever his health may

induce him to locate himself.

Thos. U. P. Charlton, Jno. C Nicoll, W. W. Gordon, Rich. W. Habersham,

K. R. Cutler, Levi S. D'Lyon.

INTRODUCTION.

"Three score years and ten," and those often full of care and anxiety,

seem to constitute the space of human life. So it is said in that

venerable volume, which never has been, and never can be equalled, in

beauty of truth, wisdom, and instruction. This, it would seem, ought to

check all the vain and inordinate aspirations of poor, weak man; yet it

has not, and probably never will do so. To a reflecting mind, nothing

can Appear stranger than this. Notwithstanding this solemn truth, such

is the presumption of man, that lie has often dared,--and does so at

this moment,--to set himself up as the viceroyal or vicegerent of the

King of Heaven; and fancies himself sent upon this earth for the purpose

of rectifying or correcting any mi? takes or defects which might have

escaped the vigilance of the great I Am, in the organization and fitness

of things This is truly a serious and melancholy reflection.

The population of this world of ours is supposed to amount to

812,553,712. Of this vast number, 137,000,000 are Roman Catholics, who

now, on the 19th of July, 1845., bend the knee and bow down in homage

to a weak, helpless, and worthless being, the Pope of Rome; and thus, if

history does not deceive us, proving themselves conspirators against the

happiness of the human race.

To meliorate the condition of this almost countless multitude of our

fellow-creatures, is among the first duties of every good man. No one

is exempted from it; not the king nor the peasant; not the sage nor the

philosopher; not the priest nor the layman; for there are as many modes

of discharging this duty, as there are grades in the social system.

As a member of the human family, and being once an instructor myself,

I feel that I have too long neglected this common duty. Many suns, and

many shades, too, have passed over me, without doing much in the great

work of promoting the happiness of my fellow-beings; and if I can make

any atonement for this omission, by devoting the necessarily short

period of the remnant of my life for the benefit of others, I shall

retire to my eternal home with feelings of happiness which I have not

enjoyed for years.

With a clear and full view of my duty, I have recently written a work

entitled, "_A Synopsis of Popery as it was, and as it is._" It has been

well received; it awakened Americans to a proper sense of their duty.

Until then they saw not, they felt not, they dreamed not of the dangers

which threatened their religion and their civil rights from the stealthy

movements of the Church of Rome, and her priests and bishops, in this

country. Americans have now a steady and watchful eye upon them. This

was necessary, and so far, I have done my duty. The Popish presses,

which, until then, had lulled Americans into fatal repose by their

misrepresentations, have been, in a measure, silenced. No one, before

me, dared to encounter their scurrilous abuse. I resolved to silence

them; and I have done so. The very mention of my name is a terror to

them now; though, until the appearance of my book, there was not a

Popish press in the United States, which did not weekly, almost daily,

abuse me in the most scurrilous manner; and in my apprehension, a

stronger evidence cannot be given of the iniquity of Popish priests and

bishops who edit those presses, than this very fact.

Protestant writers in the United States have long been kept in check by

the bullying and vaporing of Popish priests, when some resolution and

a little tact, might at all times have silenced them. I found no

difficulty in muzzling the whole body; and the mode of doing it was

suggested to me by a little incident in my own life. Will the reader

allow me to relate it?

As soon as I was admitted to the practice of law, I went into

partnership with a Mr. Gray, a young gentleman of promising talents and

gentlemanly manners. Our office was in one of the upper districts of

South Carolina, separated only by a narrow river, from the State of

Georgia, where I have resided ever since. There was at the back of

our office, a swamp, containing,--if we may judge from the noise they

made,--myriads of frogs, ugly and filthy as the slime from which they

sprung. As soon as the sun of heaven retired to its home in the west,

and darkness covered the face of the earth and the waters, these frogs

set up a most hideous chorus,--just as Papists have done for more than

twenty years, against myself. The noise became a perfect nuisance to

me. I felt at a loss how to silence these filthy frogs. I purchased and

borrowed every work I could get upon frogs, to see if any remedy had

been discovered to abate this nuisance; but all to no purpose. On they

went, night after night; nothing could be heard but croak, croak, croak.

Finally, I became impatient, when necessity, which is properly called,

"the mother of invention," suggested to me the following remedy, which,

I believe, might have been tried before. I procured a well-lighted

lantern, concealed it under a thick overcoat, went down to the pond, sat

patiently on its bank until the frogs commenced their evening chorus;

but just as they were upon their highest notes, I uncovered my lantern,

and threw its full blaze of light over the whole surface of the pond.

Instantly, as if by magic,

"Every frog was at rest,

And I heard not a sound."

It occurred to me, that a similar experiment might, with equal

advantage, be made upon Popish priests and confessors. I knew no other

living animal or creeping thing, so closely resembling these frogs in

repulsiveness, as a Romish priest or bishop who hears confessions. I

resolved to throw light upon them, and show them to each, other and to

the world, in their native deformity. I published my book on Popery;

I threw the light-of my experience as a Popish priest, upon the whole

body. The result has been entirely satisfactory. Never, since then,

has a Popish priest, Popish bishop, or Popish press, published a single

sentence against me. How truly is it said in holy writ, "Resist the

devil, and he will flee from you." I have resisted Popish priests; they

have fled from me; and if the reader will do me the honor of perusing

the following pages, he will see that 1 am still pursuing them in full

chase; nor do I feel disposed to abandon my pursuit, until they renounce

allegiance to the Pope of Rome, and become true, peaceable, moral, and

well-behaved citizens of the United States.

WILLIAM HOGAN.

AURICULAR CONFESSION AND POPISH NUNNERIES.

When a writer acknowledges, in advance, that he cannot relate the whole

truth, his position is far from being enviable. It augurs badly for what

he writes, and so far plages him in a disadvantageous light before the

public. This is, however, precisely the condition in which I now find

myself. Such is the nature of the subject on which I feel it my duty to

write, that I shrink with native abhorrence from relating, at least,

the whole truth. It is repugnant to my feelings, to my taste, and at

variance with the general tone of my conversation, ever since the God

of purity enabled me to disentangle myself from the society of Romish

priests and bishops,--men whose private lives and conversation with each

other and with their _penitents_ in the confessional, breathe nothing

but the grossest licentiousness and foetid impurities.

I do not wantonly and without provocation make any expose of the

iniquities of Popery. My entire life, since I left them, is evidence

of this; but they have pursued me with such persevering malignity

and demoniac malice, that further silence would be criminal

and disrespectful to my Protestant fellow-citizens, from whom,

notwithstanding the malice of papists towards me, I have always

experienced kind attentions and hospitality. Nor should I, even now,

allow the subject of Popery to occupy my mind, or taint the current of

my thoughts, if I did not see it striding with fearful rapidity over

the fair face of this my adopted country, infusing itself into every

political nerve and artery of our government, while its members are

asleep and dreaming of its future glories.

It is not pleasant to me to contend with papists, who look upon it as

a matter of duty, and as a fundamental article of their faith, to

persecute myself and all other heretics. That they should dislike me, is

not a matter of surprise; that men whose confessions I have heard, and

who have heard mine, should even dread me, is not to be wondered at.

Many of these men deserve (I speak of bishops and priests exclusively)

not only public censure, but the gibbet, the dungeon and the gallows. I

cannot blame men, under these circumstances, for detesting my very name.

They are in my power--they tremble in my presence--and were I to blame

them for some degree of opposition and dislike to me, I should be

quarrelling with that instinct which teaches the profligate and

debauchee to shun the society of a virtuous and upright man. While I

live among papists they are naturally afraid that I should lift the

veil, which conceals from the eyes of Americans the deformities of

Popery. They are in momentary fear that I shall show to their _American

converts_, which Bishop Fenwick of Boston says he "is daily making from

the first families," the _Old Lady_ of Rome in her _dishabille_. They

have long hidden from them her shrivelled, diseased, distorted, and

disgusting proportions, and they are unwilling that this painted harlot

should be now seen by Americans. This is good policy, and hence much of

their opposition to me. A curse seems to have rested upon Rome since its

very foundation. Pagan, as well as modern Rome, seemed always to delight

in deeds of darkness.

We are told in history of a singular practice illustrative of this in

ancient Rome. I mention it merely to show the apparent natural fondness

of Romanists, ancient as well as modern, for deeds of darkness. It is

trifling in itself, and may be deemed, perhaps, irrelevant; but it may

be interesting to the historian, whose curiosity extends further than

that of theologians or moralists.

The ancient Romans were epicures. Some say they were greater gluttons

than those of the present day. Poultry, of all kinds, was a favorite

dish with them, and how to fatten fowl most expeditiously, became a

question of vital importance with the philosophers of the Eternal City.

After several experiments, it was found that the best plan was to close

up the eyes of geese, turkeys, ducks, and all other kinds of poultry,

and, in that condition, cram and stuff them with food. This succeeded

admirably. The fowls fattened in less than half the time.

It seems that man was always, as well as now, a progressive animal, and

accordingly, as soon as Popery fixed its head-quarters at Rome or at

Antioch, no matter which for the present, popish bishops commenced

a similar experiment upon man. Anxious for his conversion to the

infallible church, they determined to close his eyes and compel him to

receive from themselves, as so many turkeys and geese would from their

feeders, such food as they pleased to give them. They were not to

question its quality, but, like so many blinded geese, swallow-all that

was given them. The practice continues to the present day in the Romish

church; even American converts to Romanism are not to question the

quality of the food, or spiritual instructions, which popish priests

please to give them. _Blind obedience_ is a necessary article of

spiritual diet for a convert to Popery; and whether his priest tells him

that he must worship God, the Virgin Mary, St. Peter and St. Paul, or

the wafer which he carries in his pocket and calls the body and blood of

Christ, he must obey without murmur or inquiry.

This unreasonable, unscriptural, and impious doctrine, is inculcated

especially in the confessional. No man, not even a papist, dare preach

in public such a dogma as blind obedience in anything, or to any man. I

have always been instructed, while a Catholic priest, never to intimate

in public that the Romish church ever required unconditional submission

to her will, unless I was morally certain that all my hearers were by

birth and education Roman Catholics; but my orders were positive,

and under pain of losing my sacerdotal faculties, never to lose an

opportunity of inculcating this in the confessional. There and there

alone do Romish priests teach and fasten upon the minds of their

penitents all the iniquities which the church of Rome sanctions.

If I can satisfy Americans that _Auricular Confession_ is dangerous to

their liberties; if I can show them that it is the source and fountain

of many, if not all, those treasons, debaucheries, and other evils,

which are now flooding this country, I shall feel that I have done an

acceptable work, and _some service to the State_. I fear, however, that

I shall fail in this; not because what I state is not true, and even

admitted to be so, but because Americans seem determined,--I would

almost say fated,--to political and moral destruction.

For twenty years I have warned them of approaching danger, but their

politicians were deaf, and their Protestant theologians remained

religiously coiled up in fancied security, overrating their own powers

and undervaluing that of Papists. Even though they see and feel, and

often blush at the logical triumph, which popish controversialists have

gained, and are gaining over them in every intellectual combat in

which they engage; yet such is their love of ease or love of money, or

something else, that they cannot be roused until the enemy falls

upon them with an annihilating force. It is painful to me to see this

indifference upon their part. They are better able than I am to contend

with Papists. They possess more talents, and have more friends than I

have to sustain them. This is the land of their birth. It is not

mine, but not the less dear to me. The religion of this country is the

religion of their forefathers, and of the Bible; it is peculiarly their

duty to defend both.

Nothing could induce me to undertake the present work but the universal

approbation which my recent book on Popery has received from the

journals of the country. I should leave it to be done by Protestant

theologians. The notices which my book on Popery received were

flattering. They gave me credit for talents, candor, and frankness. But

I am in reality entitled to no credit for that book. The utterance of

the truths contained in it was a spontaneous emotion. It was, if I may

use such language, but the breaking up of some moral iceberg, which for

years lay heavily on my soul. It was a sort of inspiration fanned into

a blaze by an irresistible consciousness that I had too long neglected

a duty which I owed to my adopted country. But I now feel relieved and

willing to enlist in the cause of moral and civil rights.

The following pages, I apprehend, will appear to some of a rather random

and fugitive character. It will be said that much of the matter is

irrelevant--that I fly too rapidly from one subject to another. To

such men I will say, that they know very little of Romish intellectual

tactics. A well trained reverend Romish soldier cares little about

the polish of his armor, or whether he aims his blows according to the

system of this or that commander. He steps into the battle arena in his

lightest armor, and with his sharpest weapon. A Protestant theologian

meets him, with a face as solemn as if he was accompanying to the grave

all that was dear to him, wearing his heaviest coat of mail, and armed

with claymores and battle-axes. While the latter is wasting his strength

upon "the desert air," and aiming his harmless blows at every spot but

the right one, the Papist goads him to death, and seldom fails to obtain

the crown of victory from the spectators. Many Protestants who are in

the habit of contending with Papists in this manner will disapprove of

this book; but I trust that in differing from them in my mode of warfare

with Papists, they will on reflection see that, although they may be

right, I am not wrong. I shall, therefore, beg leave to pursue my own

course. I will give my ideas to the public just as they strike me,

fresh from my own mind, with no regard whatever to style, ornament, or

criticism; and I am vain enough to wish that all controversialists, and

even all Protestant and Popish writers should pursue a similar course.

We should then have more truth in controversy; more soul and more

sterling morality in religion. All that is pedantic would be exploded,

and truth, fresh and warm from the heart, would be substituted in their

place.

As I have stated, every crime which the Romish church sanctions,

and almost all the immoralities of its members, either originate in

Auricular Confession, or have some connection with it In order to

explain this to my readers, it will be necessary for me to go back and

state the causes which first induced me to doubt the infallibility of

the Romish Church.

I have been often asked the following questions: Why did you leave

the Roman Catholic Church? Before I answer this question, I may well

exclaim, in the language of the ancient poet, omitting only one word,

"_Oh! nefandum, jubes, renovare dolorem_" But however painful the

relation may be--however offensive to the ears of the virtuous and

chaste--however disgusting to the pious and moral portion of our

community--however at variance with the elegancies and formalities of

private life--however heavily such a narrative may fall upon Romish

priests and bishops, and however disreputable it may be to Nuns and

Nunneries, I will answer the above question so often made.

Several causes have contributed to induce me to doubt the infallibility

of the Popish church, and to renounce its ministry altogether. Among the

first was the following:

When quite young and but just emerging from childhood, I became

acquainted with a Protestant family living in the neighborhood of

my birthplace. It consisted of a mother (a widow lady) and three

interesting children, two sons and one daughter. The mother was a widow,

a lady of great beauty and rare accomplishments. The husband, who had

but recently died, one of the many victims of what is falsely called

honor, left her, as he found her, in the possession of a large fortune,

and, as far as worldly goods could make her so, in the enjoyment of

perfect happiness. But his premature death threw a gloom over her future

life, which neither riches nor wealth, nor all worldly comforts combined

together, could effectually dissipate. Her only pleasure seemed to be

placed in that of her children. They appeared--and I believe they really

were--the centre and circumference of her earthly happiness.

In the course of time the sons grew up, and their guardian purchased

for both, in compliance with their wishes, and to gratify their youthful

ambition, commissions in the army. The parting of these children, the

breaking up of this fond trio of brothers and sister, was to the widowed

mother another source of grief, and tended to concentrate, if possible,

more closely all the fond affections of the mother upon her daughter.

She became the joy of her heart. Her education while a child was an

object of great solicitude, and having a fortune at her command, no

expense was spared to render it suitable for that station in life, in

which her high connections entitled her to move when she should become

of age. The whole family were members of the Protestant church, as the

Episcopal church is called in that country. As soon as the sons

left home to join their respective regiments, which were then on the

continent, the mother and daughter were much alone, so much so, that the

fond mother soon discovered that her too great affection for her child

and the indulgence given to her were rather impeding than otherwise her

education. She accordingly determined to remove her governess, who up

to this period was her sole instructress, under the watchful eye of the

fond and accomplished mother herself, and send her to a _fashionable

school for young ladies_. There was then in the neighborhood, only about

twenty miles from this family, a _Nunnery_ of the order of Jesuits. To

this nunnery was attached a school superintended by nuns of that order.

The school was one of the most fashionable in the country. The nuns

who presided over it, were said to be the most accomplished teachers in

Europe. The expenses of an education in it were extravagantly high,

but not beyond the reach of wealth and fashion. The mother, though a

Protestant, and strict and conscientious in the discharge of all the

duties of her church, and not without a struggle in parting with her

child and consigning her to the charge of Jesuits, yielded in this case

to the malign influence of _fashion_, as many a fond mother does even

in this our own land of equal rights and far-famed, though mock

equality--sent her beautiful daughter, her earthly idol, to the school

of these nuns. Let the result speak for itself.

Up to the departure of the sons for the army, and this daughter for the

nunnery, I had been ever from my infancy acquainted with this family,

and had for them the highest respect and warmest attachment. The elder

brother was about my own age, and only a few years between the eldest

and the youngest child.

Soon after the daughter was sent to school, I entered the College of

Maynooth as a theological student, and in due time was ordained a Roman

Catholic priest by particular _dispensation_, being two years under

the canonical age. An interval of some years passed before I had an

opportunity of meeting my young friend again; our interview was under

peculiar circumstances. I was ordained a Romish priest, and located

where she happened to be on a visit. There was a large party given, at

which, among many others, I happened to be present; and there meeting

with my friend and interchanging the usual courtesies upon such

occasions, she--sportively, as I then imagined--asked me whether I would

preach her _reception sermon_, as she intended becoming a nun and taking

the _white veil_. Not even dreaming of such an event, I replied in the

affirmative. I heard no more of the affair for about two months, when

I received a note from her designating the chapel, the day and the hour

she expected me to preach. I was then but a short time in the ministry,

but sufficiently long to know that up to the hour of my commencing

to read Popish theology, especially that of _Dens_ and _Antoine de

Peccatis_, I knew nothing of the iniquities taught and practised by

Romish priests and bishops.

On the receipt of my friend's note, a cold chill crept over me; I

anticipated, I feared, I trembled, I felt there must be foul play

somewhere. However, I went according to promise, preached her

reception sermon at the request of the young lady, and with the special

approbation of the _Bishop_, whom I had to consult on such occasions.

The concourse of people that assembled on this occasion was very great.

The interest created by the apparent voluntary retirement from the

world of one so young, so wealthy and so beautiful, was intense, and

accordingly the chapel in which 1 preached was filled to overflowing

with the nobility and fashionables of that section of the country. Many

and large were the tears which were shed, when this beautiful young lady

cut off her rich and flowing tresses of hair. Reader, have you ever seen

the description which Eugene Sue, in his Wandering Jew, gives of

the lustrous, luxurious and rich head of hair worn by Charlotte De

Cardoville, and shorn from her head by Jesuits, under the pretence that

she was insane? If you have not, take the Wandering Jew, turn over its

pages till you find it, and you will see a more accurate description of

that shorn from the head of the young lady to whom I allude, than I can

possibly give.

Turn back to the picture given by this same Eugene Sue, of the personal

beauty, piety, charity, and many virtues of Mademoiselle De Cardoville,

and you will have a correct portrait of this young lady of whom I speak.

You may therefore easily judge, from her immolation upon the altar of

fanaticism, or, more properly speaking, her personal sacrifice to the

idol of Popish and Jesuit lust, the nature of that feeling which such an

event must have produced in the mind of every Christian believer.

Having no clerical connection with the convent in which she was immured,

I had not seen her for three months following. At the expiration of that

time, one of the _lay sisters_ of the convent delivered to me a note. I

knew it contained something startling.

These lay sisters among Jesuits, are spies belonging to that order,

but are sometimes bribed by the nuns for certain purposes. As soon as I

reached my apartments, I found that my young friend expressed a wish to

see me _on something important_. I, of course, lost no time in calling

on her, and being a priest, I was immediately admitted; but never have

I forgot, nor can I forget, the melancholy picture of lost beauty and

fallen humanity, which met my astonished gaze in the person of my once

beautiful and virtuous friend. I had been then about eighteen months a

Romish priest, and was not without some knowledge of their profligate

lives; and therefore I was the better prepared for and could more easily

anticipate what was to come. After such preliminary conversation as may

be expected upon occasions of this kind, the young lady spoke to me to

the following effect, if not literally so. I say _literally_, because so

deep, and strong, and lasting was the impression made upon my mind, that

I believe I have not forgotten one letter of her words.

"I sent for you, my friend, to see you once more before my death. I have

insulted my God, and disgraced my family; I am in the _family way_, and

I must die." After a good deal of conversation, which it is needless to

repeat, I discovered from her confession the parent of this pregnancy,

and that the _mother abbess_ of the convent advised her to take medicine

which would effect abortion; but that she knew from the lay sister

who delivered me the note, and who was a confidential servant in the

convent, that the medicine which the mother abbess would give her should

contain poison, and that the procuring abortion was a mere pretext. I

gave her such advice as I could in the capacity of a Romish priest. I

advised her to send for the bishop and consult him. "I cannot do it,"

said she. "My destroyer is my confessor." I was silent I had no more

to say. I was bound by oath to be true to him. In vain did the noble

sentiment even of the Pagan occur to me; a sentiment sanctioned almost

by inspiration itself. It fled from my mind as smoke before the wind. I

was one of the priests of the _infallible church_, and what was honor,

what was honesty to me, where the honor of that infallible church was

concerned? They were of no account; not worthy the consideration of a

Romish priest for a second. The almost heavenly sentiment of the noble

Pagan, "_Fiat justitia, mat coelum_," let justice be done even if the

heavens were to fall, fled from my mind. I retired, leaving my friend to

her fate, but promising, at her request, to return in a fortnight.

According to promise, I did return in a fortnight, but the foul deed was

done. She was no more. The cold clay contained in its dread embrace all

that now remained of that being, which, but a few months before, lived,

and moved in all the beauty and symmetry of proportion; and that soul,

once pure and spotless as the dew-drop of heaven, ere its contact with

the impurities of earth, which a fond mother confided to the care

of Jesuit nims, had been driven in its guilt and pollution into the

presence of a just but merciful God. All, all, the work of Jesuits and

Nuns!

This was the first check my Popish enthusiasm met with; and now for the

first time did a doubt of the infallibility of the church of Rome enter

my mind. After witnessing these events I could not help asking myself,

can a church which sanctions and countenances such flagitious iniquities

as I have just witnessed, be a Christian church? Can a body of men, who

individually practise such deeds of blood, treachery and crime as those

which I have seen, be, collectively, _infallible?_ Are these the men

whom the Saviour commissioned, in a particular manner, to preach the

gospel to every creature? Are these the men, as a body, with whom he

promised to be always, even to the consummation of the world? Are

these the men who collectively constitute an infallible church? If so,

unprofitable indeed has been my life. It is high time to come out from

among them; and if I cannot live the life of luxury and ease, of sin and

crime which a Romish priest can live, let me, at least, live that of an

honorable man, and a useful member of society.

These were some of my reflections; and accordingly, that evening, I

called on the Right Reverend Protestant bishop of--------, with a view

of making a public recantation of my belief in the doctrine of the Roman

Catholic church. But as chance would have it, he was out of town that

week, and when next I made an effort to see him I found that effort in

vain. I had not properly weighed the chains that bound me to Popery.

I knew not their length, nor their strength. They were stronger than

adamant, than steel. They were chains woven for me, in some measure, by

beings that I loved. They were thrown around me and fastened to me by

hands that I reverenced. They were the chains of early education. I

could not break them; they were too strong for me. The force which alone

could do this was the grace of God. This I had not. Until then I went

about without faith in the world. I soon fell back, in a measure, into

my former belief, but not without a resolution to examine more fully the

nature of Popery itself, and the practices of its priests. It is well

said, a drowning man will catch at straws. It occurred to me that,

perhaps, all the crimes and iniquities committed by popes, priests and

bishops, and sanctioned by the church of Rome, might be confined only

to the old countries, where "use makes law," and that by leaving the old

and coming to the new world, where the people made their own laws, and

the human mind had its full swing, and thought is only bounded by its

own interminable extent, I might find a different state of things.

I fancied, at any rate, that man might worship God according to the

dictates of his own conscience, without the interference, let or

hindrance, save the inherent power and sovereignty of the people. I

little supposed that a pure and enlightened people, such as Americans

boast themselves, would sanction such institutions as those in which the

young friend of whom I have spoken, lost her virtue, her honor and her

life. But alas! how sadly have I been disappointed.

Europe is not the only portion of the world that contains legalized

Sodoms. Its people are not the only people that support them. Its

lawgivers are not the only men, nor its lawmakers the only ones, that

make laws for them and give them charters. Its people are not the only

people who contribute their time, their lands, their moneys, and who

take almost from the necessaries of life, to support monk houses and

nunneries, Jesuits and Dominicans. No, no. The new world, the new

people, if I may say so, who boast of being the most enlightened people

on the face of the earth,--these are the people who, in proportion

to their number, contribute most to the support of Popish brothels,

modestly called nunneries.

But it will be said that the young lady to whom 1 have alluded, has

given no evidence of her being virtuous. As far as you tell us, she has

made no resistance, and it is scarcely possible that one whom you have

placed upon so high a prominence of virtue, could have so suddenly

fallen into the depths of vice. This is all very plausible, and

naturally to be expected from those who know nothing of _auricular

confession_,--a Popish institution, one of the most ingenious devices

ever invented by the great enemy of man, for the destruction of the

human soul.

I am personally acquainted with several respectable Protestant

Americans, both male and female, whose ideas of confession in the Romish

church have often amused me, though not unaccompanied with feelings of

grief and sorrow, at their unacquaintance with this, what may be called

mantrap, or rather woman-trap in the Romish church.

American Protestants suppose that Popish confession means little more

than that public confession of sin, which is made in all Protestant

churches, or that which we individually make to Almighty God in our

private chambers. Such may well inquire how this apparent sudden fall

could have taken place. These inquiries will cease when I state that the

young lady became a convert to Popery, and give my readers some idea of

what _auricular confession_ is, and how it is made. Every Roman Catholic

believes that priests have power to forgive sins, by virtue of which

power any crime, however heinous, may be remitted. But in order to

effect this, the sinner must confess to a priest each and every sin,

whether of thought, word or deed, with all the circumstances leading

to it, or following from it; and every priest who hears confessions, is

allowed to put such questions as he pleases to his _penitent_, whether

male or female, and he or she is bound to answer under pain of _eternal

damnation_.

It is very difficult, I admit, to suppose that the daughter of a

virtuous mother, and that mother a protestant too, brought up in the

elegances of life, from her birth, breathing in no other atmosphere than

that of the purest domestic morality, should be precipitated, in the

short space of a year or two, from a state of unsullied virtue and

innocence, to the veriest depth of crime; and it is a melancholy

reflection to suppose a state of society, in which, by any combination

of human events, the fond mother of a virtuous child could be made the

instrument of that child's ruin. Such an event is scarcely possible in

the eyes of Protestant Americans, and I feel a pride in believing, from

my acquaintance with many of them, that if American mothers were aware

of the existence of a society among them, whose object was to demoralize

their children, shut out from them the noonday light of the gospel, and

ultimately decoy them into the lecherous embraces of Romish priests and

Jesuits; they would, to a woman, rise in their appropriate strength, and

deliver our land from those legalized Sodoms called nunneries.

I will here take the liberty of showing them how the young friend to

whom I have alluded, was debauched. The nunnery to which she was sent,

as I have heretofore stated, had attached to it a _fashionable school_;

all nunneries have such. The nuns who instruct in those schools in

Europe, are generally advanced in years, descendants from the first

families, and highly accomplished. Most, if not all of them, at an early

period of life met with some disappointment or other. One perhaps

was the daughter of some decayed noble family, reduced by political

revolutions to comparative poverty, and now having nothing but the pride

of birth, retired to a convent. She could not work, and she would not

beg. Another, perhaps, was disappointed in love; the companion of her

own choice was refused to her by some unfeeling, aristocratic parent. No

alternative was left but to unite her young person with the remains of

some broken-down debauchee of the nobility. She prefers going into a

convent with such means as she had in her own right. Another, perhaps,

like my young friend,--and this is the case with most of them,--was

seduced, by some profligate priest while at school, degraded in her

own eyes, unfitted even in her own mind to become the companion of an

honorable man; seeing no alternative but death or dishonor, she goes

into a convent. These ladies, when properly disciplined by Jesuits and

priests, become the best teachers. But before they are allowed to teach,

there is no art, no craft, no species of cunning, no refinement in

private personal indulgences, or no modes or means of seduction, in

which they are not thoroughly initiated; and I may say with safety, and

from my own personal knowledge through the confessional, that there

is scarcely one of them who has not _been herself debauched by her

confessor_. The reader will understand that every nun has a confessor;

and here I may as well add, for the truth must be told at once, that

every confessor has a concubine, and there are very few of them who have

not several. Let any American mother imagine her young daughter among

these semi-reverend crones, called nuns, and she will have no difficulty

in seeing the possibility of her immediate ruin. When your daughter

comes among those women, they pretend to be the happiest set of beings

upon earth. They would not exchange their situation for any other this

side of heaven. They will pray. So do the devils. They will sing. So

will the devils, for aught I know. Their language, their acts, their

gestures, their whole conduct while in presence of thee scholars, or

their visitors, is irreproachable.

The mother abbess, or superior of the convent, who invariably is the

deepest in sin of the whole, and who, from her age and long practice, is

almost constitutionally a hypocrite, appears in public the most _meek_,

the most bland, the most courteous, and the most _humble_ Christian.

She is peculiarly attentive to those who have any money in their own

right: she tells them they are beautiful, fascinating, that they look

like angels, that this world is not a fit residence for them, that they

are too good for it, that they ought to become nuns, in order to

fit them for a higher and better station in heaven. Nothing more is

necessary than to become a Roman Catholic and go to confession. Such is

the apparent happiness, cheerfulness, and unalloyed beatitudes of the

nuns, that strangers are pleased with them. They invariably make a

favorable impression on the minds of their visitors. The inference is

that they must be truly pious and really virtuous.

I had recently the honor of a conversation with a lady, who is herself

one of the most accomplished and elegant women in the country, and who

a few weeks previously had paid a visit to the Roman Catholic nunnery

at--------, D. C. She spoke of the institution in the highest terms of

commendation and was struck with the seeming content and cheerfulness

of the lady managers, and could scarcely see why it was not a good place

for the education of young ladies; but I will venture the assertion,

that had this interesting lady known, as I do, the heartlessness with

which crime was committed within its walls, she would fly from it,

as from a den of thieves, or a city of plague. A peculiar coldness, a

heartlessness not to be found elsewhere, nor under other circumstances,

exists in Jesuit convents, to which order that of---------belongs.

Nothing like it can be traced out in the records of the world's doings.

And had I the talent to point it out,--could I fix it in a position, so

as to stand out solitary and alone in its naked deformity, before

heaven and before men,--instead of meriting the commendation of the

accomplished mothers and daughters of our land, they would soon be left

without support, and crumble to dust amid the brutalities which their

silent walls alone have witnessed, and would proclaim to the world, had

not the inanimate materials of which they are composed forbidden it.

When crimes are committed in open day, there is some palliation for

them; but when committed in the dark, and in recesses ostensibly

dedicated to virtue, they are marked with an atrocity, which God, or

man, or woman cannot witness without shudders of horror. Such are those

committed in Jesuit nunneries, and by those very Jesuit nuns who appear

so happy, and so chaste, not only in the nunnery in--------, but in

every nunnery throughout the world.

This it will be said, and has often been said, even by Christian mothers

and Christian daughters, cannot be. They suppose that a sinner can

never be happy, or even appear so. How little these people know of

human nature! How perfectly unacquainted they are with the power of

discipline, or force of education! Yet it would seem as if they should

know better than to conclude hastily, that because nuns are cheerful and

happy in appearance, they must be also chaste and virtuous. Many ol

our American ladies have been in the East; some of them have been in

Constantinople. I believe that one or two have visited the harem of the

Emperor of Constantinople, and might have seen there numbers of ladies,

accomplished in their own way, covered with crime and sin, yet cheerful

and apparently happy. But show me the Christian lady, who ever witnessed

this, that will not weep at the bare mention of the fact, that will not

sigh for the conversion of the Turk and Mahomedan, who will not mourn

the fate of her sisters--for sisters they are of the same family--thus

degraded and still content:--all the result of circumstances, education

and want of pure religion.

But these sympathizers with Turks, Mahomedans and Pagans have not a tear

to spare for their sisters of the United States. Not a sigh escapes them

for their relief. Not a dollar can they give to remove from our land

that accursed thing, Popery--the primary and sole cause of all those

evils. On the contrary, if Jesuits want to build a _nunnery_, the

husband has no peace from his wife, the father from the daughter, the

brother from the sister, the lover from his betrothed, until they make

up money to build a nunnery for the _poor nuns_. Well, indeed, may

I apply to such individuals the language of the Jesuit Rodin, in the

Wandering Jew:--"_Fools, dolts, double dolts_." But Rodin was wrong. He

was entirely premature in the use of these expressions; and I am not at

all pleased with his depriving me of the opportunity of being first to

apply those sweet-sounding terms to American Protestants,--a people who

have done, and are still doing, more to merit them, than any other of

the past or present age.

I find, though I have not the merit of intending it, that I am strictly

performing my promise to my readers, viz., that I will go entirely upon

my own hook, pay no attention to order, style, or to what critics may

say, but give them my ideas at random of things and facts, just as I saw

them, and precisely as they struck me at the time. This, I must confess,

is rather a Tristramshandish mode of writing, particularly to Americans,

who are a most precise, systematic and business people; but it is a

free country, and, as the poet said, "_Cur ego invidior si pauca querere

possim_" &c.

But to return to the causes which induced me to leave the Romish church.