CHAPTER XXX.

Interview with the Attorney General of the Province--Attempt to abduct

me--More interviews--A mob excited against me--Protected by two

soldiers--Convinced that an investigation of my charges could not be

obtained--Departure from Montreal--Closing reflections.

Those who had advised to the course to be pursued, had agreed to lay

the subject before the highest authorities. They soon came to the

conviction that it would be in vain to look for any favour from the

Governor, and resolved to lay it before the Attorney General as soon as

he should return from Quebec. After waiting for some time, he returned;

and I was informed, in a few days, that he had appointed an interview

on the following morning. I went at the time with a gentleman of the

city, to the house of Mr. Grant, a distinguished lawyer. In a short

time a servant invited us to walk up stairs, and we went; but after I

had entered a small room at the end of the parlour, the door was shut

behind me by Mr. Ogden, the Attorney General. A chair was given me,

which was placed with the back towards a bookcase, at which a man was

standing, apparently looking at the books; and besides the two persons

I have mentioned, there was but one more in the room, [Footnote: Unless

another was concealed--as I suspected.] Mr. Grant, the master of the

house. Of the first part of the interview I shall not particularly

speak.

The two legal gentlemen at length began a mock examination of me, in

which they seemed to me to be actuated more by a curiosity no way

commendable, than a sincere desire to discover the truth, writing down

a few of my answers. In this, however, the person behind me took no

active part. One of the questions put to me was, "What are the colours

of the carpet in the Superior's room?"

I told what they were, when they turned to him, and inquired whether I

had told the truth. He answered only by a short grunt of assent, as if

afraid to speak, or even to utter a natural tone; and at the same time,

by his hastiness, showed that he was displeased that my answer was

correct. I was asked to describe a particular man I had seen in the

nunnery, and did so. My examiner partly turned round with some remark

or question which was answered in a similar spirit. I turned and looked

at the stranger, who was evidently skulking to avoid my seeing him, and

yet listening to every word that was said. I saw enough in his

appearance to become pretty well satisfied that I had seen him before;

and something in his form or attitude reminded me strongly of the

person, whose name had been mentioned. I was then requested to repeat

some of the prayers used in the nunnery, and repeated part of the

office of the Virgin, and some others.

At length, after I had been in the little room, as I should judge,

nearly an hour, I was informed that the examination had been

satisfactory, and that I might go.

I then returned home; but no further step was taken by the Attorney

General, and he refused, as I understood, to return my affidavit, which

had been left in his hands to act upon.

Besides the persons I have mentioned, I had interviews with numbers of

others. I learnt from some, that Father Phelan addressed his

congregation a second time concerning me, and expressly forbade them to

speak to me if they should have an opportunity, on pain of

excommunication. It was also said, that he prayed for the family I

lived with, that they might be converted.

I repeated to several different persons my willingness to go into the

nunnery, and point out visible evidences of the truth of my statements;

and when I was told, by one man, who said he had been to the priests,

that I had better leave the city, or I would be clapped into prison, I

made up my mind that I should like to be imprisoned a little while,

because then, I thought I could not be refused a public examination.

Some Canadians were present one day, when the mistress of the house

repeated, in my presence, that I was ready to go into the nunnery if

protected, and, if I did not convince others of the truth of my

assertions, that I would consent to be burned.

"O yes, I dare say," replied one of the men--"the devil would take her

off--she knows he would. He would take care of her--we should never be

able to get her--the evil spirit!"

A woman present said--"I could light the fire to burn you, myself."

A woman of Montreal, who has a niece in the nunnery, on hearing of what

I declared about it, said that if it was true she would help tear it

down.

Among those who came to see me, numbers were at first as violent as any

I have mentioned, but after a little conversation, became mild and

calm. I have heard persons declare, that it would be no harm to kill

me, as I had an evil spirit.

One woman told me, that she had seen Father Phelan in the street,

talking with a man, to whom he said, that the people were coming to

tear down the house in which I stayed, intending afterward to set fire

to it in the cellar. This story gave me no serious alarm, for I thought

I could see through it evidence of an intention to frighten me, and

make me leave the city. [Footnote: I felt very confident, from some

circumstances, that this woman had been sent to bring such a story by

Father Phelan; and such evidence of his timidity rather emboldened me.

I was in another room when she came, and heard her talking on and

abusing me; then coming out, I said, "How dare you say I do not speak

the truth?" "God bless you," said she, "sit down and tell me all."] I

was under great apprehensions, however, one day, in consequence of an

accidental discovery of a plan laid to take me off by force. I had

stepped into the cellar to get an iron-holder, when I heard the voices

of persons in the street above, and recognised those of my mother and

the Irish woman her friend. There was another woman with them.

"You go in and lay hold of her," said one voice.

"No, you are her mother--you go in and bring her out--we will help you."

I was almost overcome with dread of falling into their hands, believing

that they would deliver me up to the Superior. Hastening into a room, I

got behind a bed, told the lady of the house the cause of my fear, and

calling to a little girl to bring me my child, I stood in a state of

violent agitation. Expecting them in the house every instant, and

fearing my infant might cry, and so lead them to the place of my

concealment, I put my hand upon its mouth to keep it quiet.

It was thought desirable to get the testimony of the mistress of the

house where I spent the night after my escape from the nunnery, as one

means of substantiating my story. I had been there the day before my

visit to the house of Mr. Grant, accompanied by a friend, and on my

first inquiring of her about my nunnery dress, she said she had carried

it to the Superior; speaking with haste, as if she apprehended I had

some object very different from what I actually had. It now being

thought best to summon her as a witness before a magistrate, and not

knowing her whole name, we set off again towards her house to make

inquiry.

On our way we had to pass behind the parade. I suddenly heard an outcry

from a little gallery in the rear of a house which fronts another way,

which drew my attention. "There's the nun!" exclaimed a female, after

twice clapping her hands smartly together, "There's the nun, there's

the nun!"

I looked up, and whom should I see but the Irishwoman, who had taken so

active a part, on several occasions in my affairs, on account of her

friendship for my mother--the same who had accompanied me to Longeuil

in a boat, when I set out for New York, after making arrangements for

my journey. She now behaved as if exasperated against me to the utmost;

having, as I had no doubt, learnt the object of my journey to Montreal

since I had last spoken with her, and having all her Catholic

prejudices excited. She screamed out: "There's the nun that's come to

swear against our dear Father Phelan. Arrah, lay hold, lay hold upon

her! Catch her, kill her, pull her to pieces."

And so saying she hurried down to the street, while a number of women,

children, and some men, came running out, and pursued after me. I

immediately took to flight, for I did not know what they might do; and

she, with the rest, pursued us, until we reached two soldiers, whom we

called upon to protect us. They showed a readiness to do so; and when

they learnt that we were merely going to a house beyond, and intended

to return peaceably, consented to accompany us. The crowd, which might

rather be called a mob, thought proper not to offer us any violence in

the presence of the soldiers, and after following us a little distance,

began to drop off, until all had disappeared. One of the soldiers,

however, soon after remarked, that he observed a man following us, whom

he had seen in the crowd, and proposed that instead of both of them

going before us, one should walk behind, to guard against any design he

might have. This was done; and we proceeded to a house near the one

where I had found a refuge, and after obtaining the information we

sought, returned, still guarded by the soldiers.

All our labour, in this, however, proved unavailing; for we were unable

to get the woman to appear in court.

At length it was found impossible to induce the magistrates to do any

thing in the case; and arrangements were made for my return to New

York. While in the ferry-boat, crossing from Montreal to Laprairie, I

happened to be standing near two little girls, when I overheard, the

following conversation.

"Why do you leave Montreal so soon?"

"I had gone to spend a week or two; but I heard that Antichrist was in

the city, and was afraid to be there. So I am going right home. I would

not be in Montreal while Antichrist is there. He has come to destroy

the Catholic religion." I felt quite happy when I found myself once

more safe in New York; and it has only been since my return from

Montreal, and the conviction I had there formed, that it was in vain

for me to attempt to get a fair investigation into the Hotel Dieu

Nunnery, that I seriously thought of publishing a book. Under some

disadvantages this volume has been prepared, and unfortunately its

publication has been delayed to a season when it will be difficult to

transmit it promptly to all parts of the country. I am sure, however,

that in spite of all, no material errors will be found in it

uncorrected, though many, very many, facts and circumstances might have

been added which would have proved interesting. Indeed I am persuaded,

from the experience I have already had, that past scenes, before

forgotten, will continue to return to my memory, the longer I dwell

upon my convent life, and that many of these will tend to confirm,

explain, or illustrate some of the statements now before the public.

But before I close this volume, I must be indulged in saying a word of

myself. The narrative through which the reader has now passed, he must

not close and lay aside as if it were a fiction; neither would I wish

him to forget the subject of it as one worthy only to excite surprise

and wonder for a moment.

CONCLUSION.

It is desired that the author of this volume may be regarded, not as a

voluntary participator in the very guilty transactions which are

described; but receive sympathy for the trials which she has endured,

and the peculiar situation in which her past experience, and escape

from the power of the Superior of the Hotel Dieu Nunnery, at Montreal,

and the snares of the Roman priests in Canada, have left her.

My feelings are frequently distressed, and agitated, by the

recollection of what I have passed through; and by night, and by day, I

have little peace of mind, and few periods of calm and pleasant

reflection. Futurity also appears uncertain. I know not what reception

this little work may meet with; and what will be the effect of its

publication here, or in Canada, among strangers, friends, or enemies. I

have given the world the truth, so far as I have gone, on subjects of

which I am told they are generally ignorant; and I feel perfect

confidence, that any facts which may yet be discovered, will confirm my

words, whenever they can be obtained. Whoever shall explore the Hotel

Dieu Nunnery, at Montreal, will find unquestionable evidence that the

descriptions of the interior of that edifice, given in this book, were

furnished by one familiar with them; for whatever alterations may be

attempted, there are changes which no mason or carpenter can make and

effectually conceal; and therefore, there must be plentiful evidence in

that institution of the truth of my description.

There are living witnesses, also, who ought to be made to speak,

without fear of penances, tortures, and death; and possibly their

testimony, at some future time, may be added to confirm my statements.

There are witnesses I should greatly rejoice to see at liberty; or

rather there _were_. Are they living now? or will they be permitted to

live after the Priests and Superior have seen this book? Perhaps the

wretched nuns in the cells have already suffered for my sake--perhaps

Jane Ray has been silenced for ever, or will be murdered, before she

has an opportunity to add her most important testimony to mine.

But speedy death, in respect only to this world, can be no great

calamity to those who lead the life of a nun. The mere recollection of

it always makes me miserable. It would distress the reader, should I

repeat the dreams with which I am often terrified at night; for I

sometimes fancy myself pursued by my worst enemies; frequently I seem

as if shut up again in the Convent; often I imagine myself present at

the repetition of the worst scenes that I have hinted at or described.

Sometimes I stand by the secret place of interment in the cellar;

sometimes I think I can hear the shrieks of helpless females in the

hands of atrocious men; and sometimes almost seem actually to look

again upon the calm and placid countenance of Saint Francis, as she

appeared when surrounded by her murderers.

I cannot banish the scenes and characters of this book from my memory.

To me it can never appear like an amusing fable, or lose its interest

and importance, the story is one which is continually before me, and

must return fresh to my mind, with painful emotions, as long as I live.

With time, and Christian instruction, and the sympathy and example of

the wise and good, I hope to learn submissively to bear whatever trials

are appointed for me, and to improve under them all.

Impressed as I continually am with the frightful reality of the painful

communications that I have made in this volume, I can only offer to all

persons who may doubt or disbelieve my statements, these two things:--

Permit me to go through the Hotel Dieu Nunnery, at Montreal, with some

impartial ladies and gentlemen, that they may compare my account with

the interior parts of that building, into which no persons but the

Roman Bishop and the priests, [Footnote: I should have added, and such

persons as they introduce.] are ever admitted; and if they do not find

my description true, then discard me as an impostor. Bring me before a

court of justice--there I am willing to meet _Lartigue, Dufresne,

Phelan, Bonin_, and _Richards_, and their wicked companions, with the

Superior, and any of the nuns, before ten thousand men.

MARIA MONK.

_New York, 11th January, 1836._

THE TRUTH

of the

"AWFUL DISCLOSURES BY MARIA MONK"

DEMONSTRATED.

1. _Early means used to discredit the took. Different of

objectors_.--It was anticipated that persons who know little or nothing

of the changeless spirit and uniform practices of the Papal

ecclesiastics, would doubt or deny the statements which Maria Monk has

given of the Hotel Dieu Nunnery at Montreal. The delineations, if true,

are so loathsome and revolting, that they exhibit the principles of the

Roman priesthood, and the corruption of the monastic system, as

combining a social curse, which must be extinguished for the welfare of

mankind.

From the period when the intimations were first published in the

Protestant Vindicator, that a Nun had escaped from one of the Convents

in Canada, and that a narrative of the secrets of that prison-house for

females was preparing for the press; attempts have occasionally been

made to prejudice the public judgment, by fulsome eulogies of the Roman

Priests and Nuns, as paragons of immaculate perfection; and also by

infuriated denunciations and calumnies of all persons, who seriously

believe that every human institution which directly violates the

constitution of nature, and the express commands of God, must

necessarily be immoral.

The system of seclusion and celibacy adopted in Convents is altogether

unnatural, and subverts all the appointments of Jehovah in reference to

the duties and usefulness of man; while the impenetrable secrecy, which

is the cement of the gloomy superstructure, not only extirpates every

incentive to active virtue, but unavoidably opens the flood-gates of

wickedness, without restraint or remorse, because it secures entire

impunity.

Since the publication of the "Awful Disclosures," much solicitude has

been felt for the result of the exhibitions which they present us: but

it is most remarkable, that the incredulity is confined almost

exclusively to Protestants, or at least, to those who pretend not to be

Papists. The Roman Priests are too crafty to engage directly in any

controversy respecting the credibility of Maria Monk's narrative. As

long as they can induce the Roman Catholics privately to deny the

statements, and to vilify Christians as the inventors of falsehoods

concerning "the Holy Church and the Holy Priests!" so long will they

laugh at the censures of the Protestants; and as long as they can

influence the Editors of political papers vociferously to deny

evangelical truth, and to decry every attempt to discover the secrets

of the Romish priestcraft as false and uncharitable, so long will the

Jesuits ridicule and despise that incredulity which is at once so

blinding, deceitful, and dangerous.

The volume entitled "Awful Disclosures by Maria Monk," has been

assailed by two classes of Objectors. Some persons affirm that they

cannot, and that they will not believe her narrative, because it is so

improbable. Who is to judge of the standard of improbabilities?

Assuredly not they who are ignorant of the whole subject to which those

improbabilities advert. Now it is certain, that persons who are

acquainted with Popery, are generally convinced, and readily agree,

that Maria Monk's narrative, is very much assimilated to the abstract

view which a sound judgment, enlightened by the Holy Scriptures, would

form of that antichristian system, as predicted by the prophet Daniel,

and the apostles, Peter, Paul, and John.

2. _The question of Probability_.--But the question of probabilities

may be tested by another fact; and that is the full, unshaken

conviction, and the serious declaration of many persons who have lived

in Canada, that Maria Monk's allegations against the Roman Priests and

Nuns in that province, are precisely the counterpart of their ordinary

character, spirit, and practice. There are many persons now residing in

the city of New York, who long dwelt in Montreal and Quebec; and who

are thoroughly acquainted with the situation of affairs among the

Canadian Papists--and such of them as are known, with scarcely a

dissenting voice, proclaim the same facts which every traveller, who

has any discernment or curiosity, learns when he makes the northern

summer tour. It is also indubitable, that intelligent persons in Canada

generally, especially residents in Montreal and Quebec, who have no

inducement either to falsify or to conceal the truth, uniformly

testify, that the nunneries in those cities are notorious places of

resort for the Roman Priests for habitual and unrestrained

licentiousness; that, upon the payment of the stipulated price to the

Chaplain, other persons, in the disguise of Priests, are regularly

admitted within the Convents for the same infamous purpose; and that

many Infants and Nuns, in proportion to the aggregate amount of the

whole body of females, are annually murdered and buried within their

precincts. All this turpitude is as assuredly believed by the vast

majority of the enlightened Protestants, as well as by multitudes of

even the Papists in Montreal and Quebec, as their own existence; and

judging from their declarations, they have no more doubt of the fact,

than they have of the summer's sunshine, and the winter's frost and

snow. Of what value, therefore, is the cavil of ignorance respecting

improbabilities?

But it is also objected, that the British government would not tolerate

such a system of enormous wickedness. To which it is replied, that the

inordinate licentiousness of the Roman Priests and Nuns in Canada, is

demonstrated to be of long standing by the archives of that Province,

as may be seen in Smith's History of Canada; year 1733, Chapter 5, p.

194.

The author of that work is Secretary of the Province; and his narrative

was compiled immediately from the public documents, which are under his

official guardianship and control. He thus writes:--"The irregularities

and improper conduct of the Nuns of the General Hospital had been the

subject of much regret and anxiety. Contrary to every principle of

their institution, they frequently accepted of invitations to dinners

and suppers, and mixed in society, without considering the vows which

restricted them to their Convent. The king of France directed a letter,

Maurepas' letter of April 9, 1733, to be written to the Coadjutor of

Quebec, by the minister having the department of the Marine; importing

that the king was much displeased with the Nuns--that regularity and

order might be restored by reducing the nuns to the number of twelve,

according to their original establishment--and that, as the management

and superintendence of the community had been granted to the Governor,

Prelate, and Intendant, the Coadjutor should take the necessary

measures to prevent them from repeating conduct so indecent and

improper."

The entire affair seems to have been this; that the Nuns of Quebec at

that period preferred the gallant military officers, and their

bewitching festivities, to the coarser and less diversified indulgences

of the Jesuits; upon which the latter murmured, and resolved to hinder

the soldiers from intruding into their fold, and among the cloistered

females, to visit whom they claimed as their own peculiar privilege,

inseparably attached to their priestly character and ecclesiastical

functions. It is infallibly certain that after a lapse of 100 years,

neither the Jesuits nor the Nuns in Canada, are in the smallest

particle reformed.

The British government, by the treaty made upon the surrender of that

province to them, guarantied to the Papal Ecclesiastics, both male and

female, their prior exemptions and special immunities. Many of the

officers of the Government in Canada, who have long resided there, are

anxious to see the nunneries and their adjuncts totally extirpated; and

it may be safely asserted that they know the character given of those

institutions by Maria Monk is a graphical picture of their continuous

doings.

The British government, for the purpose of retaining their supremacy

over the province, have not only connived at those irregularities, but

have always enjoined that the public sanction should be given to their

puerile shows, and their pageant, pompous processions by the attendance

of the civil and military officers upon them, and by desecrating the

Lord's day with martial music, &c. In this particular affair, the

executive officers of the Provincial Government are fully apprised of

all the substantial facts in the case; for an affidavit of the

principal circumstances was presented to Mr. Ogden, the Attorney

General of Canada, and to Mr. Grant, another of the King's counsellors:

and afterward Maria Monk did undergo an examination by those gentlemen,

in the house of Mr. Grant, at Montreal, in the presence of Mr. Comte,

one of the superior order of priests of that city; and of another

Priest, believed to be either Phelan or Dufresne, who was concealed

behind the sofa.

It is also incontrovertible, that the nominal Papists in Canada, who,

in reality, are often infidels, notwithstanding their jocose sneers,

and affected contempt, do generally believe every title of Maria Monk's

narrative. This is the style in which they talk of it. They first,

according to custom, loudly curse the authors; for to find a Papist

infidel who does not break the third commandment, is as difficult as to

point out a moral Roman Priest or a chaste Nun. They first swear at the

author, and then, with a hearty laugh, add the following

illustration:--"Everybody knows that the Priests are a jolly set of

fellows, who live well, and must have license, or they would be

contrary to nature. They have the privilege of going into the

nunneries, and they would be great fools if they did not use and enjoy

it!" Such is the exact language which is adopted among the Canadians;

and such are the precise words which have been used by Canadian

gentlemen in New York, when criticising Maria Monk's volume. It affords

stronger proof than a direct attestation.

The other class of persons who verily believe the "Awful Disclosures,"

are the religious community in Canada. We think that scarcely a

well-informed person can be discovered in Montreal or Quebec, who does

not feel assured, that the interior of the Hotel Dieu Nunnery is most

faithfully depicted by Maria Monk. Many persons are now inhabitants of

New York who formerly resided in Montreal, some of whom have been upon

terms of familiar intimacy for years with those Roman Priests, who are

specified as the principal actors in the scenes depicted in that book;

and they most solemnly declare, that they have no doubt of the truth of

Maria Monk's narrative.

Mr. _Samuel B. Smith_, who has been not only a Roman Priest, but has

had several _cages of nuns_ under his sole management, questioned Maria

Monk expressly respecting those affairs, customs and ceremonies, which

appertain only to nunneries, because they cannot be practiced by any

other females but those who are shut up in those dungeons; and, after

having minutely examined her, he plainly averred that it was manifest

she could not have known the things which she communicated to him

unless she had been a nun; not merely a scholar, or a temporary

resident, or even a novice, but a nun, who had taken the veil, in the

strictest sense of the appellative. This testimony is of the more

value, because the conclusion does not depend upon any conflicting

statements, of partial or prejudicial witnesses, but upon a fact which

is essential to the system of monachism; that no persons can know all

the secrets of nunneries, but the Chaplain, the Abbess, and their

accomplices in that "mystery of iniquity." Mr. Smith's declaration in

one other respect is absolutely decisive. He has declared not only that

Maria Monk has been a nun, but also that the descriptions which she

gives are most minutely accurate.

Mr. Smith also testifies that the account which Maria Monk gives of the

proceedings of the priests, the obscene questions which they ask young

females, and their lewd practices with them at auricular confession,

are constantly exemplified by the Roman Priests; and he also confirms

her statements, by the testimony of his own individual experience, and

actual personal acquaintance with the Canadian nunneries, as well as

with those in the United States, and especially of that at Monroe,

Michigan, which was dissolved by Mr. Fenwick, on account of scandalous

impurity, several years ago.

Mrs. ----, a widow lady now in New York, who formerly was a Papist in

Montreal, and was recently converted to Christianity, solemnly avers,

that the Priest Richards himself, conducted her from the Seminary

through the subterraneous passage to the nunnery, and describes the

whole exactly in accordance with the statement of Maria Monk.

_Mr. Lloyd_, who was in business a number of years adjacent to the

nunnery, and who is intimately acquainted with those priests, their

characters, principles, and habits, avows his unqualified conviction of

the truth of the "Awful Disclosures."

_Mr. Hogan_, who was eighteen months in the Jesuit Seminary at

Montreal, and in constant intercourse and attendance upon Lartigue and

his accomplices, unequivocally affirms, that Maria Monk's complex

description of those Priests are most minutely and accurately true.

One hundred other persons probably can be adduced, who, during their

residence in Canada, or on their tours to that province, by inquiries

ascertained that things in accordance with Maria Monk's delineations

are the undoubted belief of each class of persons, and of every variety

of condition, and in all places which they visited in Lower Canada.

_Mr. Greenfield_, the father of the gentleman who owns the two

steamboats on the river St. Lawrence, called the Lady of the Lake, and

the Canadian Eagle, who is a citizen of New York, avows his unqualified

assent to all Maria Monk's statements, and most emphatically

adds--_"Maria Monk has not disclosed one tenth part of the truth

respecting the Roman Priests and Nuns in Canada."_

Fifty other persons from that province, now residing in New York,

likewise attest the truth of the "Disclosures."

At Sorel, Berthier, and Three Rivers, the usual stopping-places for the

steamboats on the River St. Lawrence, the Priests, if they have any

cause to be at the wharf, may be seen accompanied by one or more

children, their _"Nephews,"_ as the Priests _facetiously_ denominate

their offspring; and if any person on the steamboat should be heard

expatiating upon the piety, the temperance, the honesty, or the purity

of Roman Priests and Nuns, he would be laughed at outright, either as a

_natural_ or an ironical jester; while the priest himself would join in

the merriment, as being a "capital joke."

We are assured by the most indisputable authority in Montreal, that the

strictly religious people in that city do generally credit Maria Monk's

statements without hesitation; and the decisive impression of her

veracity can never be removed. If it were possible at once to reform

the nunneries, and to transform them from castles of ignorance,

uncleanness, and murder, where all their arts are concealed in

impervious secrecy, into abodes of wisdom, chastity, and benevolence to

every recess of which all persons, at every hour, might have

unrestricted admission--that would not change the past; it would leave

them indelibly branded with the emphatical title applied to the nunnery

at Charlestown, "FILTHY, MURDEROUS DENS."

3. _Who are those who deny the truth of the book? Case of Father

Conroy. Father Conroy's deception._

In addition to the objections from improbability, another series of

opposition consists of flat, broad denials of the truth of Maria Monk's

"Awful Disclosures." This mode of vanquishing direct charges is even

more invalid than the former futile cavilling. It is also remarkable,

when we remember who are the persons that deny the statements made by

Maria Monk. Are they the Roman Priests implicated? Not at all. They are

too crafty. The only persons who attempt to hint even a suspicion of

the truth of the secrets divulged in the "Awful Disclosures," are

editors of Newspapers: some of whom are ever found on the side of

infidelity and vice; men always reproaching religion; and directly

calumniating, or scornfully ridiculing the best Christians in the land;

and profoundly ignorant of Popery and Jesuitism, and the monastic

system.

It is true that Priest Conroy of New York, has contradicted in general

terms the truth of the statement respecting himself, and his attempt to

abduct Maria Monk from the Almshouse. But what does he deny? He is

plainly charged, in the "Awful Disclosures," with a protracted

endeavor, _by fraud or by force to remove Maria Monk from that

institution_. Now that charge involves a flagrant misdemeanor, or it is

a wicked and gross libel. Let him answer the following questions:

Did he not frequently visit the house, and lurk about at various times,

for longer and shorter periods, expressly to have an interview with

Maria Monk?

Did he not state that he was acquainted with her by the name she bore

in the nunnery, _Sainte Eustace_.

Did he not declare that he was commissioned by Lartigue, Phelan,

Dufresne, Kelly, and the Abbess of the Hotel Dieu Nunnery at Montreal,

to obtain a possession of her, that she might be sent back to the abode

of the Furies?

Did he not offer her any thing she pleased to demand, provided she

would reside with the Ursulines of this city?

Did he not also declare that he would have her at all risks, and that

she could not escape him?

Did he not persevere in this course of action, until he was positively

assured that she would not see him, and that the Priest Conroy should

not have access to Maria Monk?

Was not the priest Kelly, from Canada, in New York at that period,

prompting Conroy; and did not that same Kelly come on here expressly to

obtain possession of Maria Monk, that he might carry her back to the

Hotel Dieu Nunnery, there to murder her, as his accomplices have

smothered, poisoned, and bled to death other victims of their beastly

licentiousness?

All these questions are implied in Maria Monk's statement, and they

involve the highest degree of crime against the liberty, rights, and

life of Maria Monk, and the laws of New York, and the charge is either

true or false. Why does not the Priest Conroy try it? Why does he not

demonstrate that he is calumniated, by confronting the Authoress and

Publishers of the book before an impartial jury. We are assured that

the Executive committee of the New York Protestant Association will

give ten dollars to any Lawyer, whom Mr. Conroy will authorize to

institute a civil suit for libel, payable at the termination of the

process. Will he subject the question to that scrutiny? _Never_. He

would rather follow the example of his fellow priests, and depart from

New York. Many of the Maynooth Jesuits, after having fled from Ireland

for their crimes, to this country, to avoid the punishments due to them

for the repetition of them in the United States, and to elude

discovery, have assumed false names and gone to France; or in disguise

have joined their dissolute companions in Canada.

It is also a fact, that the Priest, named Quarter, with one of his

minions, did visit the house where Maria Monk resides, on the 13th day

of February, 1836; and did endeavor to see her alone, under the false

pretext of delivering to her a packet from her brother in Montreal; and

as an argument for having an interview with her without company, one of

the two impostors did protest that he had a parcel from John Monk;

which "he had sworn not to deliver except into the hands of his sister

in person." Now what object had Mr. Quarter in view; and what was his

design in going to her residence between nine and ten o'clock at night,

under a lying pretence? Mr. Quarter comes from Canada. He knows all the

Priests of Montreal. For what purpose did he assume a fictitious

character, and utter base and wilful falsehoods, that, he might have

access to her, with another man, when Maria Monk, as they hoped, would

be without a protector? For what ignoble design did he put an old Truth

Teller into a parcel, and make his priest-ridden minion declare that it

was a very valuable packet of letters from John Monk? That strange

contrivance requires explanation. Did Priest Quarter believe that Maria

Monk was in Montreal? Did he doubt her personal identity? Does not that

fact alone verity that all the Roman Priests are confederated? Does it

not prove that her delineations are correct? Does it not evince that

the Papal Ecclesiastics dread the disclosures?

4. _The great ultimate test which the nature of this case demands.

Challenge of the New York Protestant Association_.--It is readily

admitted, that the heinous charges which are made by Maria Monk against

the Roman priests cannot easily be rebutted in the usual form of

disproving criminal allegations. The denial of those Priests is good

for nothing, and they cannot show an alibi. But there is one mode of

destroying Maria Monk's testimony, equally _prompt_ and _decisive_, and

no other way is either feasible, just, or can be efficient. That method

is the plan proposed by the New York Protestant Association.

The Hotel Dieu Nunnery is in Montreal. Here is Maria Monk's description

of its interior apartments and passages. She offers to go to Montreal

under the protection of a committee of four members of the New York

Protestant Association, and in company with four gentlemen of Montreal,

to explore the Nunnery; and she also voluntarily proposes that if her

descriptions of the interior of the Hotel Dieu Nunnery are not found to

be true, she will surrender herself to Lartigue and his confederates to

torture her in what way they may please, or will bear the punishment of

the civil laws as a base and wilful slanderer of the Canadian Jesuit

Ecclesiastics.

When Lartigue, Bonin, Dufresne, Phelan, Richards, and their fellows,

accede to this proposition, we shall hesitate respecting Maria Monk's

veracity; until then, by all impartial and intelligent judges, and by

enlightened Protestants and Christians, the "Awful Disclosures" will be

pronounced undeniable facts. The scrutiny, however, respecting Maria

Monk's credibility comprises two general questions, to which we shall

succinctly reply.

1. _Was Maria Monk a Nun in the Hotel Dieu Convent at Montreal?_--In

ordinary cases, to dispute respecting a circumstance of that kind would

be deemed a most strange absurdity; and almost similar to an inquiry

into a man's personal identity when his living form is before your

eyes. Maria Monk says she was a nun, presents you a book descriptive of

the Convent in which she resided, and leaves the fact of her abode

there to be verified by the minute accuracy of her delineations of

arcana, with which only the visiting Roman Priests and the imprisoned

nuns are acquainted. That test, neither Lartigue nor the Priests will

permit to be applied; and therefore, so far, Maria Monk's testimony

cannot directly be corroborated. It is however not a little remarkable,

that no one of all the persons so boldly impeached by her of the most

atrocious crimes, has, even whispered a hint that she was not a nun;

while the priest Conroy has confirmed that fact far more certainly than

if he had openly asserted its truth.

5. _The Testimony of Mrs. Monk considered._--The only evidence against

that fact is her mother. Now it is undeniable, that her mother is a

totally incompetent witness. She is known in Montreal to be a woman of

but little principle; and her oath in her daughter's favour would be

injurious to her; for she is so habitually intemperate, that it is

questionable whether she is ever truly competent to explain any matters

which come under her notice. Truth requires this declaration, although

Maria, with commendable filial feelings, did not hint at the fact.

Besides, during a number of years past, she has exhibited a most

unnatural aversion, or rather animosity, to her daughter; so that to

her barbarous usage of Maria when a child, may be imputed the

subsequent scenes through which she has passed. When appealed to

respecting her daughter, her uniform language was such as this--"I do

not care what becomes of her, or who takes her, or where she goes, or

what is done to her, provided she keeps away from me." It is also

testified by the most unexceptionable witnesses in Montreal, that when

Maria Monk went to that city in August, 1835, and first made known her

case, that Mrs. Monk repeatedly declared, that her daughter had been a

Nun; and that she had been in the Nunneries at Montreal a large portion

of her life. She also avowed, that the offer of bribery that had been

made unto her, had been made, not by Protestants, to testify that her

daughter Maria had been an inmate of the Hotel Dieu Nunnery; but by the

Roman Priests, who had promised her one hundred dollars, if she would

make an affidavit that Maria had not been in that nunnery at all; and

would also swear to any other matters which they dictated. Now there is

little room for doubt, that the affidavit to the truth of which she

finally swore was thus obtained; for she has not capacity to compose

such a narrative, nor has she been in a state of mind, for a number of

years past, to understand the details which have thus craftily been

imposed upon the public in her name. When she had no known inducement

to falsify the fact in August, 1835, before the Priests became alarmed,

then she constantly affirmed that her daughter had been a Nun; but

after Lartigue and his companions were assured that her daughter's

narrative would appear, then the mother was probably bribed, formally

to swear to a wilful falsehood; for it is most probable, that she

either did not see, or from intoxication could not comprehend, the

contents of the paper to which her signature is affixed. Her habitual

intemperance, her coarse impiety, her long-indulged hatred and cruelty

towards her daughter, and her flat self-contradictions, with her

repeated and public declarations, that she had been offered a large sum

of money by the Montreal Priests, thus to depreciate her daughter's

allegations, and to attest upon oath precisely the contrary to that

which she had previously declared, to persons whose sole object was to

ascertain the truth--all those things demonstrate that Mrs. Monk's

evidence is of no worth; and yet that is all the opposite evidence

which can be adduced.

6. _Testimony in favour of the book_.--Mr. Miller the son of Adam

Miller, a well known teacher at St. John's, who has known Maria Monk

from her childhood, and who is now a resident of New York, solemnly

attests, that in the month of August, 1833, he made inquiries of Mrs.

Monk respecting her daughter Maria, and that Mrs. Monk informed him

that Maria was then a _Nun!_ that she had taken the veil previous to

that conversation, and that she had been in the nunnery for a number of

years. Mr. Miller voluntarily attests to that fact. He was totally

ignorant of Maria Monk's being out of the Nunnery at Montreal, until he

saw her book, and finally by searching out her place of abode, renewed

the acquaintance with her which had existed between them from the

period when she attended his father's school in her childhood. See the

affidavit of William Miller.

When Maria Monk made her escape, as she states, from the Hotel Dieu

Nunnery, she took refuge in the house of a woman named Lavalliere in

Elizabeth street, Montreal, the second or third door from the corner of

what is commonly called "the Bishop's Church." Madame Lavalliere

afterward admitted, that Maria Monk did arrive at her house at the time

specified, in the usual habiliments of a Nun, and made herself known as

an eloped Nun; that she provided her with other clothing; and that she

afterward carried the Nun's garments to the Hotel Dieu Nunnery.

After her escape, Maria Monk narrates that she went on board a

steamboat for Quebec, intending thereby to avoid being seized and again

transferred to the Nunnery, that she was recognised by the Captain, was

kept under close watch during the whole period of the stay of that boat

at Quebec, and merely by accident escaped the hands of the Priests, by

watching for an unexpected opportunity to gain the shore during the

absence of the Captain, and the momentary negligence of the female

attendant in the cabin. The woman was called Margaret ----, the other

name is forgotten. The name of the Master of the steamboat is probably

known and he has never pretended to deny that statement, that he did

thus detain Maria Monk, would not permit her to go on shore at Quebec,

and that he also conducted her back to Montreal; having suspected or

ascertained that she was a Nun who had clandestinely escaped from a

Convent.

7. _Corroborative evidence unintentionally furnished by the opponents

of the book_.--After her flight from the steamboat, she was found early

in the morning, in a very perilous situation, either on the banks, or

partly in Lachine Canal, and was committed to the public prison by Dr.

Robertson, whence she was speedily released through the intervention of

Mr. Esson, one of the Presbyterian ministers of Montreal. Upon this

topic, her statement coincides exactly with that of Dr. Robertson.

But he also states--"Although incredulous as to the truth of Maria

Monk's story, I thought it incumbent upon me to make some inquiry

concerning it, and have ascertained where she has been residing a great

part of the time she states having been an inmate of the Nunnery.

During the summer of 1832, she was at service at William Henry; the

winters of 1832-3, she passed in this neighborhood at St. Ours and St.

Denis."

That is most remarkable testimony, because, although Papists may justly

be admitted to know nothing of times and dates, unless by their

Carnivals, their Festivals, their Lent, or their Penance--yet

Protestant Magistrates might be more precise. Especially, as it is a

certain fact, that no person at Sorel can be discovered, who is at all

acquainted with such a young woman in service in the summer of 1832. It

is true, she did reside at St. Denis or St. Ours, as the _Roman Priests

can testify_; but not at the period specified by Dr. Robertson.

For the testimony of a decisive witness in favour of Maria Monk, see

the statement of an old schoolmate in Appendix.

8. _Summary view of the evidence_.--Let us sum up this contradictory

evidence respecting the simple fact, whether Maria Monk was a resident

of the Hotel Dieu Nunnery or not?

Her mother says--"I denied that my daughter had ever been in a

Nunnery." Dr. Robertson informed us--"I have ascertained where she has

been residing a great part of the time she states having been an inmate

of the Nunnery." That is all which can be adduced to contradict Maria

Monk's statement.

This is a most extraordinary affair, that a young woman's place of

abode cannot be accurately discovered during several years, when all

the controversy depends upon the fact of that residence. Why did not

Dr. Robertson specify minutely with whom Maria Monk lived at service at

William Henry, in the summer of 1832?--Why did not Dr. Robertson

exactly designate where, and with whom, she resided at St. Denis and

St. Ours, in the winters of 1832 and 1833? The only answer to these

questions is this--_Dr. Robertson cannot_. He obtained his

contradictory information most probably from her mother, or from the

Priest Kelly, and then embodied it in his affidavit to regain that

favour and popularity with the Montreal Papists which he has so long

lost. We are convinced that neither the evidence of Mrs. Monk, nor Dr.

Robertson, would be of a feather's weight in a court of justice against

the other witnesses, Mrs. ----, and Mr. William Miller.

Maria Monk asserts, that she was a resident of the Hotel Dieu Nunnery

during the period designated by Dr. Robertson, which is familiarly

denominated the Cholera summer. In her narrative she develops a variety

of minute and characteristic details of proceedings in that

Institution, connected with things which all persons in Montreal know

to have actually occurred, and of events which it is equally certain

did happen, and which did not transpire anywhere else; and which is

impossible could have taken place at Sorel or William Henry; because

there is no Nunnery there; and consequently her descriptions would be

purely fabricated and fictitious.

But the things asserted are not inventions of imagination. No person

could thus delineate scenes which he had not beheld; and therefore

Maria Monk witnessed them; consequently, she was a member of that

family community; for the circumstances which she narrates nowhere else

occurred. At all events, it seems more reasonable to suppose that an

individual can more certainly tell what had been his own course of

life, than persons who, by their own admission, know nothing of the

subject; and especially when her statements are confirmed by such

unexceptionable witnesses. There are, however, two collateral points of

evidence which strongly confirm Maria Monk's direct statements. One is

derived from the very character of the acknowledgments which she made,

and the period when they were first disclosed. "A death-bed," says the

Poet, "is a detector of the heart." Now it is certain, that the

appalling facts which she states, were not primarily made in a season

of hilarity, or with any design to "make money" by them, or with any

expectation that they would be known to any other person than Mr.

Hilliker, Mr. Tappan, and a few others at Bellevue; but when there was

no anticipation that her life would be prolonged, and when agonized

with the most dreadful retrospection and prospects.

It is not possible to believe, that any woman would confess those facts

which are divulged by Maria Monk, unless from dread of death and the

judgment to come, or from the effect of profound Christian penitence.

Feminine repugnance would be invincible. Thus, the alarm of eternity,

her entrance upon which appeared to be so immediate, was the only cause

of those communications; which incontestably prove, that Nunneries are

the very nurseries of the most nefarious crimes, and the most abandoned

transgressors.

The other consideration is this--that admitting the statements to be

true, Maria Monk could not be unconscious of the malignity of Roman

Priests, and of her own danger; and if her statements were fictitious,

she was doubly involving herself in irreparable disgrace and ruin. In

either case, as long as she was in New York she was personally safe;

and as her disclosures had been restricted to very few persons, she

might have withdrawn from the public institution, and in privacy have

passed away her life, "alike unknowing and unknown." Lunacy itself

could only have instigated a woman situated as she was, to visit

Montreal, and there defy the power, and malice, and fury of the Roman

Priests, and their myrmidons; by accumulating upon them charges of

rape, infanticide, the affliction of the tortures of the Inquisition,

and murders of cold-blooded ferocity in the highest degree, with all

the atrocious concomitant iniquities which those prolific sins include.

Now it is certain, that she was not deranged; and she was not forced.

She went deliberately, and of her own accord, to meet the Popish

Priests upon the spot where their crimes are perpetrated, and the

stronghold of their power. Whether that measure was the most prudent

and politic for herself, and the most wise and efficient for the

acquisition of the avowed object, may be disputed; but the exemplary

openness and the magnanimous daring of that act cannot be controverted.

The narrative, pages 116 to l27, respecting the cholera and the

election riots at Montreal, both which scenes happened at the period

when Dr. Robertson says Maria Monk was at William Henry, or St. Denis,

or St. Ours; could not have been described, at least that part of it

respecting the wax candles, and the preparation for defence, except by

a resident of the Nunnery.

It is a public, notorious fact, that "blessed candles" were made, and

sold by the Nuns, and used at Montreal under the pretext to preserve

the houses from the Cholera, and to drive it away; that those candles

were directed so to be kept burning by the pretended injunction of the

Pope; and that large quantities of the Nunnery candles were dispersed

about Montreal and its vicinity, which were fixed at a high price; and

whoever suffered by the Cholera, the Nuns and their Masters, the

Priests, could truly say--"By this craft we have our wealth." Acts

19:25. It is obvious, that a young Papist woman at service at William

Henry, could know no more of those matters, than if she had been at

Labrador; for the incidental remark with which that part of the

narrative commences, is one of those apparently superfluous

intimations, which it is evident a person who was writing a fiction

would not introduce; and yet it is so profoundly characteristic of a

Canadian Convent, that its very simple artlessness at once obliterates

Dr. Robertson's affidavit. "There were a few instances, and only a few,

in which we knew any thing that was happening in the world; and even

then our knowledge did not extend out of the city." We cannot be

infallibly certain of Maria Monk's description of the interior of the

Nunnery; but that unpremeditated remark, so minutely descriptive of the

predominating ignorance among the Nuns of all terrestrial concerns

exterior of the Convent, is satisfactory proof that the narrator was

not sketching from fancy, but depicting from actual life.

From those testimonies, direct and unintentional, it is fully evident,

that Maria Monk was a long resident, and is profoundly acquainted with

the doings in the Hotel Dieu Convent at Montreal.

II. What collateral evidence can be adduced of the truth of the "Awful

Disclosures" by Maria Monk?

1. One corroborative testimony is derived from the _silence of the

Roman Priests and their avowed partisans_. Months have passed away

since the first statements of those matters were made, and also the

defence of the Priests, with the affidavits and other connected

circumstances, were presented to the public in the Protestant

Vindicator. One of the persons in Montreal, who was in favour of the

Jesuits, Mr. Doucet, stated that "the Priests never take up such

things; they allow their character to defend itself." There was a time

when that contemptuous course would have sufficed, or rather, when to

have spoken the truth of the Roman Priests would have cost a man his

life, and overwhelmed his family in penury, disgrace, and anguish. The

Canadian Jesuits may be assured that time has passed away, never more

to return. They must take up this thing; for their characters cannot

defend themselves; and every enlightened man in Canada knows, that in a

moral aspect, they cannot be defended.

Argument, denial, affidavits, if they could reach from Montreal to New

York, and the oaths of every Papist and Infidel in Canada,--from Joseph

Signay, the Popish Prelate of Quebec and Jean Jacques Lartigue, the

Suffragan of Montreal, down to the most profligate of the half-pay

military officers, among whom are to be found some of the dregs of the

British army, all of them will avail nothing. They are not worth a puff

of wind against the internal evidence of Maria Monk's book, in

connexion with the rejection of the proposal of the New York Protestant

Association, that the Nunnery shall undergo a strict and impartial

examination. It is one of the remarkable evidences of the extraordinary

delusion which blinds, or the infatuation which enchains the public

mind, that men will not credit the corruptions and barbarities of

Romanism. To account for this stupefaction among persons who are wide

awake to every other system of deadly evil, is almost impossible.

Popery necessarily extirpates the rights of man. It ever has destroyed

the well-being of society. By it, all municipal law and domestic

obligations are abrogated: It always subverts national prosperity and

stability; and it is the invincible extinguisher of all true morality

and genuine religion. Notwithstanding, men will give credence neither

to its own avowed principles, character, and spirit; nor to the

unavoidable effects which constantly have flowed from its operations

and predominance.

In any other case but one exposing the abominations of Popery, such a

volume as Maria Monk's "Awful Disclosures" would have been received

without cavil; and immediate judicial measures would have been adopted,

to ascertain the certainty of the alleged facts, and the extent and

aggravation of their criminality. But now persons are calling for more

evidence, when, if they reflected but for a moment, they would

perceive, that the only additional evidence possible, is under the

entire control of the very persons who are criminated; and to whom the

admission of further testimony would be the accumulation of indelible

ignominy.

The pretence, that it is contrary to their rules to allow strangers to

explore the interior of a nunnery, only adds insult to crime. Why

should a Convent be exempt from search, more than any other edifice?

Why should Roman Priests be at liberty to perpetrate every deed of

darkness in impenetrable recesses called nunneries? Why should one body

of females, shut up in a certain species of mansion, to whom only one

class of men have unrestricted access, be excluded from all public and

legal supervision, more than any other habitation of lewd women, into

which all men may enter? As citizens of the United States, we do not

pretend to have any authoritative claim to explore a convent within the

dominion of a foreign potentate. The Roman Priests of Canada, exercise

a vast influence, and are completely intertwined with the Jesuits, in

this republic. Therefore, when they remember the extinction of the

nunneries at Monroe, Michigan, Charlestown, and Pittsburg; and when

they recollect, that the delineations of Maria Monk, if they produce no

effect in Canada, will assuredly render female convents in the United

States very suspicious and insecure; if they have any solicitude for

their confederates, they will intrepidly defy research, and dauntlessly

accept the offer of the New York Protestant Association: that a joint

committee of disinterested, enlightened and honorable judges, should

fully investigate, and equitably decide upon the truth or falsehood of

Maria Monk's averments. Their ominous silence, their affected contempt,

and their audacious refusal, are calculated only to convince every

impartial person, of even the smallest discernment, of the real state

of things in that edifice; that the chambers of pollution are above,

and that the dungeon of torture and death are below; and that they

dread the exposure of the theatre on which their horrible tragedies are

performed.

It is also a fact publicly avowed by certain Montreal Papists

themselves, and extensively told in taunt and triumph, that they have

been employed as masons and carpenters by the Roman Priests, since

Maria Monk's visit to Montreal in August, 1835, expressly to alter

various parts of the Hotel Dieu Convent, and to close up some of the

subterraneous passages and cells in that nunnery. This circumstance is

not pretended even to be disputed or doubted; for when the dungeons

under ground are spoken of before the Papists, their remark is this:

"Eh bien! mais vous ne les trouverez pas, à present; on les a caché

hors de vue. Very well, you will not find them there now; they are

closed up, and out of sight." Why was the manoeuvre completed?

Manifestly, that in urgent extremity, a casual explorer might be

deceived, by the apparent proof that the avenues, and places of

imprisonment and torture which Maria Monk describes are not

discoverable. Now that circumstance might not even been suspected, if

the Papist workmen themselves had not openly boasted of the chicanery

by which the Priests, who employed them, expected to blind and deceive

the Protestants. For in reference to the Romanists, a Popish Priest

well knows that nothing more is necessary than for him to assert any

absurdity, however gross or impossible, and attest it by the five

crosses on his vestments, and his own superstitious vassal believes it

with more assurance than his own personal identity. But the filling up

and the concealment of the old apertures in the nunnery, by the order

of the Roman Priests are scarcely less powerful corroborative proof of

Maria Monk's delineations, than ocular and palpable demonstration.

2. Some of the circumstances attending Maria Monk's visit to Montreal,

in August, 1835, add great weight in favour of the truth, which no

cavils, skepticism, scorn, nor menaces, can counterbalance.

We will however state one very recent occurrence, because it seems to

us, that it alone is almost decisive of the controversy. A counsellor

of Quebec--his name is omitted merely from delicacy and prudential

considerations--has been in New York since the publication of the

"Awful Disclosures" His mind was so much influenced by the perusal of

that volume, that he sought out the Authoress, and most closely

searched into the credibility of her statements. Before the termination

of the interview, that gentleman became so convinced of the truth of

the picture which Maria Monk drew of the interior of the Canadian

Nunneries, that he expressed himself to the following effect:--"My

daughter, about 15 years of age, is in the Ursuline Convent at Quebec.

I will return home immediately; and if I cannot remove her any other

way, I will drag her out by the hair of her head, and raise a noise

about their ears that shall not soon be quieted."

That gentleman did so return to Quebec, since which he has again

visited New York; and he stated, that upon his arrival in Quebec, he

went to the Convent, and instantly removed his daughter from the

Ursuline Nunnery; from whom he ascertained, as far as she had been

initiated into the mysteries, that Maria Monk's descriptions of

Canadian Nunneries, are most minutely and undeniably accurate.

We have already remarked, that Mrs. ----, Mr. Lloyd, Mr. Hogan, and Mr.

Smith, who was a Papist Priest, with scores of other persons who

formerly resided in Montreal, all express their unqualified belief of

the statements made by Maria Monk. Mr. Ogden's acquaintance with the

facts, as Attorney General, and that of other officers of the

Provincial Government, have also been noticed. The ensuing additional

circumstances are of primary importance to a correct estimate of the

value which should be attached to the crafty silence of the Roman

Priests and the impudent denials of infidel profligates.

Mr. Bouthillier, one of the Montreal Magistrates, called at Mr.

Johnson's house where Maria Monk stayed, in the month of August, 1835,

when visiting Montreal.

He addressed her and said:--"There is some mystery about Novices--What

is it? and asked how long a woman must be a novice before she can take

the veil?" Having been answered, Mr. Bouthillier then desired Maria

Monk to describe the Superior of the Hotel Dieu Nunnery. As soon as it

was done, he became enraged, and said--"Vous dites un mensonge, vous en

savez. You lie, you know you do?"--Mr. Bouthillier next inquired--"Was

Mr. Tabeau in the Holy Retreat when you left the Convent?" She answered

"Yes." To which he replied in French--"Anybody might have answered that

question." Something having been said about the Hotel Dieu Nuns being

confined to their convent, Mr. Bouthillier declared, that they were

allowed to go about the streets. He was told that could not be the

case, for it was a direct violation of the rules for Nuns to depart

from the Hotel Dieu Nunnery. He replied--"Ce n'est pas vrai. That is

not true," Mr. Bonthillier then became very angry, and applied to Maria

Monk some very abusive epithets, for which a gentleman in the room

reproved him. It was evident, that he lost his temper because he had

lost his argument, and his hopes of controverting her statements.

On the Lord's day after Maria Monk's arrival in Montreal, and when the

matter had become well known and much talked about, Phelan, the Priest,

at the end of mass, addressed the Papists, who were assembled to hear

mass, to this effect: "There is a certain nun in this city who has left

our faith, and joined the Protestants. She has a child of which she is

ready to swear I am the father. She wishes in this way to take my gown

from me. If I knew where to find her, I would put her in prison. I

mention this to guard you against being deceived by what she may say.

The Devil now has such hold upon people that there is danger lest some

might believe her story." He then pretended to weep, and appeared to be

overcome with feeling. A number of the people gathered around him, and

he said: "That nun is Antichrist. She is not a human being, but an evil

spirit, who got among the Catholics, and _was admitted into the

nunnery_, where she learned the rules." He also stated, that "in that

nun, the prophecy respecting the coming of Antichrist is fulfilled, to

break down the Catholic religion." Such was Phelan's address to the

people. He declared that Maria Monk had been a nun. Now he knew her,

for he saw her in Montreal, where she could not know him. It would have

saved all further inquiry and research, if, instead of denouncing her

after mass, he had merely assented to Maria Monk's proposition, to be

confronted with those Roman Priests and nuns before impartial witnesses

in the Hotel Dieu Convent.

One of the most impressively characteristic circumstances which

occurred during Maria Monk's visit to Montreal in Aug. 1835, was an

interview at Mr. Johnson's house with a carpenter who had heard

Phelan's denunciation of Maria Monk after mass.

The heinous destruction of all domestic confidence and of all female

purity, is known to be the constant and general practice, not only in

Canada, but in all other Popish countries, and among Papists in every

part of the world. For in truth it is only fulfilling the authentic

dogmas of their own system. The following authoritative principles are

divulged in the Corpus Juris Canonici, which contains the Decretals,

Canons, &c. of the Popes and Councils; and other participants of the

pretended Papal infallibility. "If the Pope fall into homicide or

adultery, he cannot be accused, but is excused by the murders of

Samson, and the adultery of David." Hugo, Glossa, distinc. 40 Chapter,

Non vos.--"Likewise if any Priest is found embracing a woman, it must

be presupposed and expounded that he doth it to bless her!"--Glossa,

Caus. 12. Quest. 3. Chapter Absis. According to the Pope's bull he who

does not believe those doctrines is accursed.

As that carpenter was completely overcome by the recollection of the

Priest's information and caution about his marriage, he desisted from

any further questions; but upon Maria Monk's declaration, that she was

desirous to go into the convent, and prove all her accusations against

the Priests and Nuns, he withdrew. Soon after he returned, and stated,

that he had been to the Convent, to inquire respecting her; and that he

had been informed, that she had once belonged to the Nunnery; but that

they would not any longer own or recognise her. Afterwards he exhibited

the most contradictory emotions, and first cursed Maria Monk; then

reviled the Priests, applying to them all the loathsome epithets in the

Canadian vocabulary. Subsequently, he went to make inquiries at the

Seminary; and after his return to Mr. Johnson's house he declared, that

the persons there had informed him, that Maria Monk had lived in the

Nunnery, but not as a Nun; then he offered to assist her in her

endeavours to expose the Priests; and finally disappeared, swearing

aloud as he was retiring from the house; and apparently thinking over

the conduct of the Priest to his wife before their marriage. "Oh,

sacre!"--he repeated to himself--"c'est trop mechant!"

Similar facts to the above occurred frequently during the time of Maria

Monk's visit to Montreal--in which strangers who called upon her,

cursed and reviled her; then believed her statements and assented to

them--and displayed all the natural excitement which was necessarily

comprised in the working of their own belief and convictions of the

iniquity of the Priests, and the dread resulting from their own

superstitious vassalage, and the certainty of a heavy penance.

But in connexion with the preceding collateral evidence is another

remarkable circumstance, which is this: the extensive knowledge which

Maria Monk has obtained of the Canadian Jesuits. Those with whom she

has been acquainted, she affirms that she could instantly identify. For

that object, she has given a catalogue of those Priests whose names and

persons are in some degree familiarly known to her. As the Priests are

often changing their abodes, and many of them residents in Montreal

until a vacancy occurs for them in the country parishes, in those

particulars there may be a trifling mistake; but Maria Monk solemnly

avers, that the Priests, whether dead or living, who are enumerated in

the subsequent catalogue, either have dwelt or do yet reside in the

places specified. When unexpectedly and closely examined in reference

to the Priests of the same name, she particularly distinguished them,

and pointed out the difference between them in their persons, gait,

&c.; thus precluding all objection from the fact of there being more

than one Priest with a similar appellative. This circumstance

particularly is illustrated by the Priests named Marcoux, of whom she

says there are three brothers or first cousins--two called Dufresne,

&c.: each of whom she graphically depicts. It is also certain, because

she has done it in a great variety of instances, and in the presence of

many different persons, all of whom are well acquainted with them, that

she describes Lartigue; Dufresne; Richard; Phelan; Bonin; Comte;

Bourget; McMahon; Kelly; Demers; Roux; Roque; Sauvage; Tabeau; Marcoux;

Morin; Durocher; and all the Roman Priests around Montreal, with the

utmost minuteness of accuracy; while the Chaplain of the Ursuline

Nunnery at Quebec, Father Daulè, is as exactly depicted by her, as if

her whole life had been passed under his _surveillance_. Some of the

appellatives in the ensuing catalogue may not be correctly spelt.

Scarcely any thing is more difficult than to acquire proper names in a

foreign language; and especially where the pronunciation itself is

provincial, as is the case with Canadian French; and when also those

titles have to be transcribed from the mouth of a person who knows no

more of orthoepy and orthography than a Canadian Nun. However, Maria

Monk attests, that the Priests to whom she refers did reside at those

places which she has designated, and that she has seen them all in the

Hotel Dieu Nunnery--some of them very often, and others on a variety of

occasions.

Nothing is more improbable, if not impossible, than that any Papist

girl should have such an extensive acquaintance among Roman Priests. In

Canada especially, where the large majority of females have little more

correct knowledge of that which occurs out of their own district than

of Herschel's astronomical discoveries, young women cannot be

personally familiar with any Priests, in ordinary cases, except those

who may have been "Curés" of the parish in which they reside, or of the

immediate vicinity, or an occasional visitor during the absence, or

sickness, or death of the resident Curate or Missionary.

Notwithstanding, Maria Monk delineates to the life, the prominent

features, the exact figure, and the obvious characteristic exterior

habits and personal appearance of more than one hundred and fifty of

those Priests, scattered about in all parts of Canada; Among others she

particularly specifies the following men: but some of whom she notes as

dead. Others she has named, but as her recollections of them are less

distinct, they are not enumerated. Jean Jacques Lartigue, Bishop of

Telmese, Montreal. The Irish Priest McMahon, who has resided both in

Montreal and Quebec. M. Dufrense, St. Nicholas. L. Cadieux, Vicar

General, Three Rivers. F. F. Marcoux, Maskinonge. S. N. Dumoulin,

Yamachiche. A. Leclerc, Yomaska. V. Fournier, Baie du Febre. J. Demers,

St. Gregoire. C. B. Courtain, Gentilly. T. Pepin, St. Jean. Ignace

Bourget, Montreal. The Priest Moor, Missionary. J. C. Prince, Montreal.

J. M. Sauvage, Montreal. J. Comte, Montreal. J. H. A. Roux, Vicar

General, Montreal. J. Roque, Montreal. A. Malard, Montreal. A. L.

Hubart, Montreal. A. Satin, Montreal. J. B. Roupe, Montreal. Nic.

Dufresne, Montreal. J. Richard, Montreal. C. Fay, Montreal. J. B. St.

Pierre, Montreal. F. Bonin, P. Phelan, Montreal. T. B. M'Mahon, Perce.

J. Marcoux, Caghuawaga. C. De Bellefeuille, Lake of two Mountains.

Claude Leonard, Montreal. F. Durocher, Lake of two Mountains. G.

Belmont, St. Francis. F. Demers, Vicar General, St. Denis. J. O.

Giroux, St. Benoit. J. B. St. Germain, St. Laurent. J. D. Delisle, St.

Cesaire. J. M. Lefebvre, St. Genevieve. F. Pigeon, St. Philippe. A.

Duransau, Lachine. O. Chevrefils, St. Constant. Joseph Quiblier,

Montreal. Francis Humbert, Montreal. J. Arraud, Montreal. O.

Archambault, Montreal. J. Larkin, Montreal. F. Sery, Montreal. R.

Larre, Montreal. A. Macdonald, Montreal. F. Larkin, Montreal. J.

Beauregard, Montreal. R. Robert, Montreal. J. Fitz Patrick, Montreal.

J. Toupin, Montreal. W. Baun, Montreal. T. Filiatreault. Montreal. J.

Brady, Montreal. P. Trudel, St. Hyacinth. John Grant, St. Hyacinth. J.

Delaire, Chambly. J. Desautels, Chambly. P. D. Ricard, St. Joachim.

Jan. Leclaire, Isle Jesus. F. M. Turcot, St. Rose. C. Larocque,

Berthier, T. Brassard, St. Elizabeth. J. B. Keller, St. Elizabeth. J.

Ravienne, Lanorate. J. T. Gagno, Valtrie. Gasford Guingner, St.

Melanie. L. Nicholas Jacques, St. Sulpice. J. Renucalde, St. Jaques. T.

Can, St. Esprit. C. J. Ducharme, St. Therese. J. Valliée, St.

Scholastique. J. J. Vinet, Arganteuil. M. Power, Beauharnois. J. B.

Labelle, Chateauguay. E. Bietz, St. Constant. P. Bedard, St. Remi. C.

Aubry, St. Athanase. L. Vinet, Noyon. J. Roque, Noyon. J. Zeph, Carren.

F. Berauld, St. Valentia. A. Maresseau, Longueuil. P. Brunet, ----. J.

Odelin, Rounilli. J. B. Dupuis, ----. L. Nau, Rouville. A. O. Giroux,

St. Marc. G. Marchesseau, ----. J. B. Belanger, St. Ours. H. Marcotte,

Isle du Pads. E. Crevier, Yamaska. G. Arsonault, ----. Eusebe Durocher,

----. D. Denis, St. Rosalie. F. X. Brunet, St. Damase. J.A. Boisond,

St. Pie. M. Quintal, St. Damase. L. Aubry, Points Calire. P. Tetro,

Beauharnois. B. Ricard, St. Constant. M. Morin, Maskonche. J. Crevier,

Blairfindie. P. Grenier, Charteaguay. A. Darocher, Pointe aux Trembles.

P. Murcure, La Presentation. R. Gaulin, Dorchester. H. L. Girouard, St.

Hyacinthe. J. Paquin, Blairfinde. E. Brassard, St. Polycarpe. J.

Boissonnault, Riviere des Prairies. F. N. Blanchet, Soulanges. E.

Lavoie, Blairfindie. J. B. Kelly, Sorel. E. Morriset, St. Cyprian. H.

Hudon, Argenteuil. M. Brudet, St. Martin. P. P. Archambault, Vaudreuil.

J. B. Boucher, La Prairie. J. Quevillion, St. Ours. A. Chaboillez,

Longueuil. P. J. Delamothe, St. Scholastique. T. Lagard, St. Vincent.

J. Durocher, St. Benoit. Antoine Tabeau, Vicar General, Montreal. J. F.

Hebard, St. Ours. F. A. Trudeau, Montreal. M. J. Felix, St. Benoit. L.

Lamothe, Bethier. J. Moirier, St. Anne. F. J. Deguise, Vicar General,

Varennes. J. B. Bedard, St. Denis. R. O. Brunsau, Vercheres. F.

Portier, Terrebonne. P. D. Ricard, Berthier. L. Gague, Lachenaie.

Joseph Belanger, Chambly. M. Blanchet, St. Charles. P. M. Mignault,

Chambly. F. Labelle, L'Assumption. F. Marcoux, St. Barthelemi. N. L.

Amiot, Repentigny. J. B. Boucher, Chambly. P. Lafranc, St. Jean

Baptiste. P. Robitaille, Monnie. F. De Bellefeullie, St. Vincent. M.

Brassard, St. Elizabeth. P. Cousigny, St. Mathias. J. D. Daule, Quebec.

It is readily admitted, that any person could take one of the

Ecclesiastical Registers of Lower Canada, and at his option mark any

number of the Roman Priests in the catalogue, and impute to them any

crime which he pleased. But if the accuser were closely examined, and

among such a multitude of Priests, who in all their clothing are

dressed alike, were called upon minutely to delineate them, it is

morally impossible, that he could depict more than a hundred Priests

dispersed from the borders of Upper Canada to Quebec, in as many

different parishes, with the most perfect accuracy, unless he was

personally and well acquainted with them.

Maria Monk, however, does most accurately describe all the Priests in

the preceding catalogue, and repeats them at the expiration of weeks

and months; and the question is this: how is it possible that she could

have become acquainted with so many of that body, and by what means can

she so precisely depict their external appearance?--The startling, but

the only plausible answer which can be given to that question is

this:--that she has seen them in the Nunnery, whither, as she

maintains, most of them constantly resorted for licentious intercourse

with the Nuns.

One other connected fact may here be introduced. Maria Monk well knows

the Lady Superior of the Charlestown Nunnery. That acquaintance could

not have been made in the United States, because Saint Mary St. George

as she called herself, or Sarah Burroughs, daughter of the notorious

Stephen Burroughs, as is her real name, removed to Canada at the latter

end of May, 1835; nor could it have been prior to the establishment of

the Charlestown Nunnery, for at that period Maria Monk was a child, and

was not in any Convent except merely as a scholar; and Mary St. George

was at Quebec. How then did she become so familiar with that far-famed

lady as to be able to describe her so exactly? The only answer is, that

she derived her knowledge of the Charlestown Convent and of its

Superior, from the intimations given, and from intercourse with that

Nun in the Hotel Dieu Nunnery.

Young females often have been sent to the Nunneries in Canada under the

fallacious hope of obtaining for them, a superior education; and very

frequently, they are suddenly removed after being there but a short

period; because the persons to whose partial guardianship they are

committed perceive that they are in danger of being ensnared by the

Chaplain and his female Syrens.

But there are two other particulars in American Nunneries, the

toleration of which almost surpasses credibility.

In reference to girls, they are permitted to visit their friends, even

when they reside in the vicinity of the Convent, only for an hour or

two monthly--if their relatives are at a distance, they see them only

during the annual vacation, and often remain in the Nunnery during that

term. No correspondence is permitted between the mother, the guardian,

the sister, or the friends of the young female in the Nunnery School,

on either side, without the inspection of the argus-eyed agent of the

Institution. Parental advice, filial complaints, and confidential

communications are equally arrested; and only furnish to the Superiors

of the establishment, artifices to thwart the Seniors, to entangle the

Juniors, and effectually to cajole both parties. Consequently, it

generally happens, that from one term to another, little or no

intercourse exists between the youth and her relatives; and it is

indubitable, that where any letters do nominally pass between them,

they are forgeries; the real letters being surreptitiously detained.

Those felonious regulations furnish ample scope for the initiation of

girls just entering upon womanhood, into all the wickedness of the

Nunnery; while the girls themselves are unconscious of the design, and

the Nuns, those nefarious artificers of the iniquity, in subserviency

to the Priests, in case of necessity, can exculpate themselves

apparently from all participation in the treachery and crimes.

In the nunneries and conventual schools in the United States there is a

sort of fairy land, talked about by the nuns to the elder girls. It is

called the "Nuns' Island." That country is always described as an

earthly paradise; and to girls who are manifestly fascinated by the

witcheries of the nuns, and in whom moral sensibility has become

blunted by the unmeaning superstitions which they witness, and which

they mechanically perform, a visit to the "Nuns' Island," is always

proposed as the greatest privilege, and the most costly reward, which

can be given for constant obsequiousness to the nuns, and unreserved

compliance with their requirements. The term "Nuns' Island," is thus

used to express the nunneries in Canada, and probably some similar

institutions in the United States, where they are not too difficult of

access. At all events, girls just entering upon the character of women,

after proper training, are finally gratified with a visit to the "Nuns'

Island." They are taken to Montreal, and in the nunneries there are at

once taught "the mystery of iniquity;" in all the living reality which

Maria Monk describes. Those girls from the United States, who are

represented as novices; in Maria Monk's "Awful Disclosures," were young

ladies from the United States, who had been decoyed to visit the "Nuns'

Island," and who, not being Papists, often were found very intractable;

but posterior circumstances enforce the belief, that having found

resistance vain, they had not returned to their school where they were

duly qualified to continue the course into which they had been coerced,

so as fully to elude all possibility of discovery and exposure. That

mother who intrusts her daughter to a nunnery school, is chargeable

with the high crime of openly conducting her into the chambers of

pollution, and the path to irreligion, and the bottomless pit.

These combined circumstances satisfactorily prove that, the narrative

of Maria Monk should be believed by all impartial persons; at least,

until other evidence can be adduced, and the offer of exploring the

Hotel Dieu Nunnery, by the New York Protestant Association, has been

accepted and decided.

3. Additional evidence of the truth of Maria Monk's narrative is

deduced from _the exact conformity of the facts which she states

concerning the Hotel Dieu Nunnery, when compared with the authoritative

principles of the Jesuit Priesthood as recorded in their own duly

sanctioned volumes_. It is essential to remark, that of those books she

knows nothing; that she has never seen one of them, and if she could

grasp them, that they would impart no illumination to her mind, being

in Latin; and yet in many momentous particulars, neither Lartigue nor

any one of the Jesuit Priests now in Montreal, who was educated in

France, could more minutely and accurately furnish an exposition or

practical illustration of the atrocious themes, than Maria Monk has

unconsciously done.

Maria Monk's "Awful Disclosures," are reducible to three classes:

intolerable sensuality; diversified murder; and most scandalous

mendacity: comprehending flagrant, and obdurate, and unceasing

violations of the sixth, seventh, and ninth commandments.

_The ninth commandment:_ FALSEHOOD. Of this baseness, five specimens

only shall suffice.

_Sanchez_, a very renowned author, in his work on "Morality and the

Precepts of the Decalogue," part 2, book 3, chap. 6, no. 13, thus

decides: "A person may take an oath that he has not done any certain

thing, though in fact he has. This is extremely convenient, and is also

_very just_, when necessary to your health, honour, and prosperity!"

_Charli_, in his Propositions, no. 6, affirms that, "He who is not

bound to state the truth before swearing, is not bound by his oath."

_Taberna_ in his vol. 2, part 2, tract 2, chap. 31, p. 288, asks: "Is a

witness bound to declare the truth before a lawful judge?" To which he

replies: "No, if his deposition will injure himself or his posterity."

_Laymann_, in his works, book 4, tract 2, chap. 2, p. 73, proclaims:

"It is not sufficient for an oath, that we use the formal words, if we

had not the intention and will to swear, and do not _sincerely_ invoke

God as a witness." All those principles are sanctioned by _Suarez_ in

his "Precepts of Law," book 3, chap. 9, assertion 2, p. 473, where he

says, "If any one has promised or contracted without intention to

promise, and is called upon oath to answer, may simply answer, NO; and

may swear to that denial."

The idea of obtaining truth, therefore, from a thorough-going Papist,

upon any subject in which his "_honour_" is concerned--and every

Papist's honour is indissolubly conjoined with "the Church"--is an

absurdity so great, that it cannot be listened to with patience, while

the above decisions are the authorised dogmas which the Roman Priests

inculcate among their followers. How well the nuns of Montreal have

imbibed those Jesuitical instructions, Maria Monk's "Awful Disclosures"

amply reveal.

_The Sixth Commandment:_ MURDER. The following miscellaneous decisions

are extracted from the works of the regularly sanctioned Roman authors,

of the very highest character and rank in that community.

In his famous volume called "Aphorisms," p. 178, _Emmanuel Sa_

writes--"You may kill any person who may be able to put you to

death--judge and witnesses--because it is self-defence."

_Henriquez_, in his "Sum of Moral Theology," vol. 1, book 14, chap. 10,

p. 859, decides that "a Priest is not criminal, if he kill the husband

of a woman with whom he is caught in adultery."

_Airault_ published a number of propositions. One of them says, that "a

person may secretly kill another who attempts to destroy his

reputation, although the facts are true which he published." The

following must be cited in Latin. "An lieitium sit mulieri procurare

abortum? Posset ilium excutere, ne honorem suum amittat, qui illi multo

pretiosior est ipsa vita." "An liceat mulieri conjugatæ sumere

pharmacum sterilitatis? Ita satius est ut hoc faciat, quam ut marito

debitium conjugale recuset." Censures 319, 322, 327.

In his Moral Theology, vol. 4, book 32, sec. 2, problem 5, _Escobar_

determines, that "it is lawful to kill an accuser whose testimony may

jeopard your life and honour."

_Guimenius_ promulged his seventh Proposition in these words: "You may

charge your opponent with false crimes to destroy his credit; and you

may also kill him."

_Marin_ wrote a book called "Speculative and Moral Theology." In vol.

3, tract 23, disputation 8, sec. 5, no. 63, p. 448, are found the

following sentences: "Licet procurare abortum, ne puella infametur."

That doctrine is admitted, "to evade personal disgrace, and _to conceal

the infamy of Monks and Nuns_." no. 67, p. 429. In no. 75, p. 430, of

the same work, _Marin_ writes: "Navarrus, Arragon, Bannez, Henriquez,,

Sa, Sanchez, Palao, and others, all say, that a woman may use not only

missione sanguinis, sed aliis medicamentis, etsi inde pereat foetus."

With that doctrine also agrees _Egidius_, in his "Explication of the

Decalogue," vol. 5, book 5, chap. 1, doubt 4; and _Diana_ in his work

upon Morality, part 6, tract 8, resolution 27, fully ratifies his

sanction.

_Gobatus_ published a work which he entitled, "Morality," and in vol.

2, part 2, tract 5, chap. 9, sec. 8, p. 318, is the following

_edifying_ specimen of Popish morals: "Persons may innocently desire to

be drunk, if any great good will arise from it. A son who inherits

wealth by his father's death, may rejoice that when he is intoxicated,

he murdered his father." According to which combined propositions, a

man may make himself drunk expressly to kill his parent, and yet be

guiltless.

_Busenbaum_ wrote a work denominated "Moral Theology." which was

enlarged and explained by _Lacroix_. In vol. 1, p. 295, is the

following position: "In all the cases where a man has a right to kill

any person, another may do it for him." But we have already heard by

_Escobar_ that any "Roman Priest has a right to kill Maria Monk; and

therefore any Papist may murder her for them."

_Alagona_, in his "Compend of the Sum of Theology," by Thomas Aquinas,

question 94, p. 230, "Sums" up all the Romish system in this

comprehensively blasphemous oracular adage. "_By the command of God, it

is lawful to murder the innocent, to rob, and to commit lewdness; and

thus to fulfil his mandate, is our duty_."

_The seventh commandment._--In his Aphorisms, p. 80, and p. 259, _Sa_

thus decides--"Copulari ante benedictionem, aut nullam aut leve

peceatum est; quin etiam expedit, si multum isla differatur."--"Potest

et femina quaeque et mas, pro turpi corporis usu, pretium, accipere et

petere."

_Hurtado_ issued a volume of "Disputations and Difficulties." At p. 476

is the following genuine Popish rule of life--"Carnal intercourse

before marriage is not unlawful." So teaches that Jesuit oracle.

_Dicastillo_, in his work upon "Righteousness and other cardinal

Virtues," p. 87, thus asks--"An puella, quae per vin opprimitur

teneatur clamare et opem implorare ne violetur?" The answer is

this--"Non videtur teneri impedire peccatum alterius--sed mere passive

se habere."

_Escobar_, in his "Moral Theology," p. 326, 327, 328, of vol. 4,

determines that "a man who abducts a woman from affection expressly to

marry her, is guilty of mortal sin, but a Priest who forcibly violates

her through lust, incurs no censure."

_Tamburin_ unfolds the character of Romanism in his "Moral Theology,"

p. 186, in a lengthened discussion of the following characteristic

inquiry--"Quantum pro usu corporis sui juste exigat mulier?"--The reply

is, "de meretrice et de femina honesta sive conjugata, ant non."

_Fegeli_ wrote a book of "Practical Questions;" and on p. 397, is the

following--"Under what obligation is he who defiles a virgin?"--The

answer is this--"Besides the obligation of penance, he incurs none;

quia puella habet jus usum sui corporis concedendi."

_Trachala_ published a volume which he facetiously entitled the "Laver

of Conscience;" and at p. 96, he presents us with this astounding

recipe to purify the conscience--"An Concubinarius sit absolvendus

antequam concubinam dimittat?" To which he replies--"Si ilia concubina

sit valde bona et utilis economa, et sic nullam aliam possit habere,

esset absolvendus."

From the prior decisions, combined with numberless others which might

be extracted from the works of the Romish authors, it is obvious, that

the violations of the seventh commandment, are scarcely enumerated by

the Papal priesthood among venial sins. Especially if we consider the

definition of a prostitute by the highest Popish authority: for in the

Decretals, Distinction 34, in the Gloss, is found this savory

adage--"Meretrix est quae, admiserit plures quam viginti tria hominum

millia!" That is the infallible attestation to the truth of Maria

Monk's "Awful Disclosures."

4. The antecedent narrative of the Hotel Dieu Nunnery, is confirmed by

the universal and constant practice of Roman Priests in all Convents.

Among the works of William Huntington, is a correspondence between

himself and a young lady who was converted by his ministry. The seventh

letter from Miss M. contains the following passage:--

_"It is a shame for women to approach those confessionals._ If they

were never wise in scenes of iniquity before, the priest will instruct

them, by asking the most filthy questions. I was confined to my bed

three days from my first confession; and thought I would never go

again, being so abashed by the abominations he had put in my head. I

would just as soon recommend scalding water to cure Anthony's-fire, or

a wet bed in an ice-house to cure an ague, as recommend a sinner to

those accursed lies, Roman penance, and Auricular Confession."--The

mental purity of Nuns consists in a life totally "contrary to the laws

of God, of modesty, of decency. They are constantly exposed to the

obscene interrogations, and the lewd actions of the Priests.

Notwithstanding God has fixed a bar on every female mind, it is broken

through by the Priests putting questions to them upon those subjects,

as the scripture declares, which ought not to be named? The uncommon

attractions of the young women in Convents generally indicate the

greatest unchastity among them. I have known girls, sent for education

to the Convent where I was, who regularly stripped themselves of every

thing they could obtain from their friends; which, by the artful

insinuations of the Nuns, was given to them and the Priests. The Roman

priesthood may well be called a sorceress, and their doctrine 'the wine

of fornication,' for nothing but the powers of darkness could work up

the young female mind to receive it; unless by the subtlety of the

devil, and the vile artifices of the Nuns. I shudder at the idea of

young ladies going into a Convent; and also at parents who send their

children to be educated in a Nunnery; where their daughters are

entrapped by the Nuns into the snare of the Priests, with whom they are

accomplices, and for whom the most subtle of them are decoys, whose

feigned sanctity is only a cover for the satanic arts of which they are

complete mistresses, and by which, through the delusions of the mother

of harlots, being buried alive within the walls of a Convent, they

'drink of the wine of her fornication,' until their souls pass into the

pit of destruction."--The above extract is from the seventh letter of

"Correspondence between Miss M. and Mr. H." in Huntington's Works; and

exposes the Nunneries in France.

George D. Emeline, who had been a Popish Priest, in his "Eight

Letters," giving an account of his "Journey into Italy," thus details

the nature of the intimacy which then existed between the Priests and

Nuns on the European Continent. "A young Monk at Milan, Preacher to the

Benedictine Nuns, when he addressed them, added to almost every

sentence in his discourse, 'my most dear and lovely sisters, whom I

love from the deepest bottom of my heart.' When a monk becomes Preacher

or Chaplain to a Nunnery, his days are passed in constant

voluptuousness; for the Nuns will gratify their Confessor in every

thing, that he may be equally indulgent to them." Emeline's Letters, p.

313.

"A regular Abbot of a Monastery in Italy, talking with me said--'Melius

est habere nullam quam aliquem--It is better to have none than any

woman.' I asked him what he meant; he replied, 'Because, when a person

is not tied to one, he may make use of many;' and his practice was

conformable to his doctrine; for he slept in the same bed with three

young women every night. He was a most insatiable Exactor and Oppressor

of the people who rented the lands of the Abbey, in consequence of

which the Farmers complained of him to the Archbishop of the District.

The Archbishop sent the Provost, the Farmers, and sixty of the

serjeants at night, to seize him and his female companions. They took

the Abbot in bed, and having put on him a morning-gown; and having tied

his three concubines and himself back to back, placed them in a cart,

and conducted them to the Archbishop's residence, in Bonnonia: who then

refused to judge him; but sent him and his females to the Monastery of

_Saint_ Michael; into which, with some difficulty, he was admitted

after midnight, in consequence of the Provost assuring the Friars, that

if they would not receive the Abbot, they would procure his prelatical

dress, and escort him and the young women in procession through the

city, and back to his own Monastery the same day at noon. The females

were ordered away, and the Abbot was appointed to remain in his

monastery for fifteen days for penance, until the story had ceased to

circulate. I was an eyewitness of that myself, when I was in the

Monastery of St. Michael in the wood."--Emeline's Letters, pp. 387,

388, 389.

That the Nunneries in Portugal, as well as among those people in India

who are subject to the Romish priesthood, are of the same character

precisely, as Maria Monk describes the Priests and Nuns in Canada, is

proved by Victorin de Faria, who had been a Brahman in India; and who

afterward resided as a regular Roman Priest in the Paulist Monastery at

Lisbon.

"The regular Priests in India," says Faria, "have become what the

bonzes where in Japan. The Nuns were the disciples of Diana, and the

nunneries seraglios for the monks; as I have proved to be the case in

Lisbon, by facts concerning those nuns who were more often in the

family way than common women. The Jesuits in the Indies made themselves

Brahmans in order to enjoy the privileges of that caste, whose

idolatrous rites and superstitious practices they also externally

adopted."--Among other privileges which they possessed, Faria

enumerates the following, as detailed from his own prior experience as

a Brahman. "Never to be put to death for any crime whatever; and to

enjoy the favours of every woman who pleased them, for a Priest

sanctifies the woman upon whom he bestows his attentions." That is the

true Papist doctrine, as shown by Maria Monk's "Awful Disclosures;"

confirmed by the Canadian carpenter in Mr. Johnson's house at Montreal;

and ratified by Pope Gregory XIII. in the Decretals and Canons, in the

Corpus Juris Canonici. Secrets of Nunneries disclosed by Scipio de

Ricci. p. 217.

The Nunneries in Italy during the present generation are of the same

description. Maria Catharine Barni, Maria Magdalen Sicini, and Victoire

Benedetti, of the Nunnery called Santa Croce: all acknowledged, that

they had been seduced at confession, and that they had habitually

maintained criminal intercourse with a Priest called Pacchiani, who

absolved his guilty companions after the commission of their crimes.

Secrets of Nunneries disclosed by Scipio de Ricci. pp. 60, 61.

Six Nuns of the Convent of Catharine at Pistoia declared that the

Priests who visited the Convent committed a "thousand indecorous acts.

They utter the worst expressions, saying that we should look upon it as

a great happiness, that we have the power of satisfying our appetites

without the annoyance of children; and that we should not hesitate to

take our pleasures. Men, who have contrived to get the keys, come into

the Convent during the night, which they have spent in the most

dissipated manner." That is the precise delineation of the Canadian

Nunneries; into which other men besides Priests are admitted, if the

parties are willing to pay the entrance bribe to the Chaplain.--Secrets

of Nunneries, by Scipio de Ricci. pp. 80, 81.

Flavia Perraccini, Prioress of the Nunnery of Catharine of Pistoia,

revealed what she knew of that and other Nunneries. All the Priests

"are of the same character. They all have the same maxims and the same

conduct. They are on more intimate terms with the nuns than if they

were married to them. It is the same at Lucia, at Pisa, at Prato, and

at Perugia. The Superiors do not know even the smallest part of the

enormous wickedness that goes on between the Monks and the

Nuns."--Secrets of Nunneries, by Scipio de Ricci. p. 93. That statement

is so exactly conformed to Maria Monk's "Awful Disclosures," that were

it not a fact that she had never seen Scipio de Ricci's work it might

almost be supposed that some part of her narrative had been transcribed

from it.

Foggini of Rome, also wrote to Scipio de Ricci and informed him--"I

know a monastery in which a Jesuit used to make the Nuns lift up their

clothes, assuring them that they thereby performed an act of virtue,

because they overcame a natural repugnance."--Secrets of Nunneries, p.

101. That is a very extraordinary illustration of the turpitude of the

Roman Priesthood; because that doctrine is a principle which they

constantly inculcate; and such is the invariable practice in the Hotel

Dieu Nunnery, that the Nuns were obliged to fulfil, for the beastly

gratification of the Roman Priests who visited that house, which is

"the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death." Proverbs 7:27.

It is superfluous to multiply similar extracts. Scipio de Ricci was a

Popish prelate, regularly commissioned by the Grand Duke of Tuscany to

explore the Nunneries; and in consequence of his authentic

developments, the Jesuits and Dominicans, and the dignified Papal

ecclesiastics, with the two Popes, Pius VI. and Pius VII. all opposed,

reviled, condemned and worried him almost to death.

One quotation more shall close this survey. Pope Paul III. maintained

at Rome, forty-five thousand courtesans. Pope Sixtus IV. ordered a

number of edifices to be erected expressly for the accommodation of the

semi-Nuns of Rome, from whose impurity he derived a large annual

revenue, under the form of a license; besides which, the prices of

absolution for the different violations of the seventh commandment are

as regularly fixed as the value of beads, soul-masses, blessed water,

and every other article of Popish manufacture. Paolo, Hist. Council de

Trent. Book I. Anno 1637.

The preceding observations, it is believed, will remove the doubts from

the mind of every impartial inquirer, respecting the credibility of

Maria Monk's narrative: nevertheless, a few additional remarks may not

be irrelevant: especially as there is a marvellous skepticism in

reference to the admission of valid testimony concerning the Roman

priesthood, their system and practice. We are deafened with clamour for

proof to substantiate Maria Monk's history: but that demand is

tantamount to the declaration--"I will not believe."

In anticipation of speedy death, and an immediate appearance at the

dread tribunal of Jehovah, Maria Monk communicated to Mr. Tappan, the

Chaplain at Bellevue, one of the benevolent institutions belonging to

the city of New York, the principal facts in her "Awful Disclosures."

After her unexpected recovery, she personally appeared at Montreal,

expressly and openly, to promulge her allegations of atrocious crimes

against the chief Roman Ecclesiastics in that city, who were armed with

power, and having nearly all the population her infuriated enemies.

There she remained almost four weeks, constantly daring the Roman

Priests and Nuns in vain. It is true, Dr. Robertson in his affidavit

says, that he was willing "to take the necessary steps for a full

investigation, if a direct charge were made against any particular

individual of a criminal nature." Now if Maria Monk's charges are not

direct, OF A CRIMINAL NATURE, and against PARTICULAR INDIVIDUALS--what

charges can be so characterized? The fact is this:--Dr. Robertson would

no more dare to issue a warrant for the apprehension of Lartigue, or

any of the inferior Roman Priests in Montreal, than he would dare

publicly to strike the Commander of the Garrison, or the Governor of

Canada upon military parade. If any Papist had stated to him the same

facts concerning a Protestant, or Protestant Minister, and offered to

confirm them by his worthless oath, he would have issued his process at

once; but Dr. Robertson knows, that in the present state of Canadian

society, Roman Priests can do what they please; and no man dares to

reprove, much less to "take any necessary steps for a full

investigation" for their crimes. If the Jesuits and Nuns at Montreal

are anxious for a full and impartial scrutiny of the Hotel Dieu

Convent, Maria Monk is ready to oblige them with some facilities for

that object; provided she may carry them out to all their extent and

application. Mr. Ogden has one affidavit, and knows the whole matter;

as can incontestably be proved by Mr. A. P. Hart, an Attorney of

Montreal; and we recommend Dr. Robertson to issue his warrant for the

apprehension of Lartigue, Bonin, Dufresne, and Richards, they are

enough to begin with; and if Mr. Ogden will carry the facts with which

he is acquainted to the Grand Jury, one witness in New York is ready to

appear; and Dr. Robertson will find his hands full of employment, if he

will only "take the necessary steps" to procure two or three persons

who shall be pointed out to him in the Hotel Dieu Nunnery. Therefore,

until Dr. Robertson commences some incipient measures as a Magistrate

towards "the necessary steps for a full investigation," as he says, we

shall be forced to believe, that the printer made a mistake in his

affidavit, and put willing for _unwilling_.

The cavilling call, however, for additional evidence to be adduced by

Maria Monk, is manifestly futile. That testimony is within the

jurisdiction of the Priests alone who are criminated. Maria Monk

reiterates her charge against the Romish Ecclesiastics of Canada and

their Nuns; and she has solemnly sworn that they are true. What more

can she do? Nothing, but to _search the premises_, to see whether the

statements which she has made are correct. A Committee of the New York

Protestant Association are willing to accompany her to Montreal; to

walk through the Hotel Dieu Nunnery in company with any Gentlemen of

Montreal, and investigate the truth without favour or partiality, Maria

Monk is willing to submit the whole affair to that short, and easy, and

sensible test; in which there is no possibility of deception. It does

not depend upon credibility of witnesses, conflicting evidence,

personal friendship, or religions prejudices; it is reduced at once to

that unerring criterion; _the sight and the touch!_