The people knew; the people murmured: the people were helpless.
_Adultery had interwoven itself into the very fabric of religion_; and
the people saw no way to attack the adulterers without being accused of
heresy and delivered to the terrible Inquisition.
Luther had not yet come. When he _did_ come, the adulterers said that he
was not only a heretic, but a drunkard and a libertine!
William Hogan was born in Ireland, and was educated for the priesthood
at Maynooth College. Coming to America to follow his calling, he was so
shocked by what he learned, in the Confessional and otherwise, that he
abandoned popery in utter disgust.
When he landed on our shores, he brought with him letters of
introduction to DeWitt Clinton of New York. So favorably was he received
that he was elected Chaplain of the New York legislature, unanimously.
Therefore, he was not a man with a grievance. Every selfish instinct
warned him to remain in the service of popery. It was his native honesty
and his horror of imposture that caused him to rebel. Afterwards, he
published books which reached an immense circulation prior to the Civil
War, but which were forgotten in that shock of armies. They are now
seldom seen even in the catalogues of Old Book stores.
To that splendid gentleman, Dr. John N. Taylor, of Crawfordville,
Indiana, I was indebted for a copy of the edition of 1856. The volume
contains Hogan's book on "Popery," and also his "Auricular Confession
and Popish Nunneries."
On page 247, Ex-Priest William Hogan says, in reference to the popish
school-teachers, so numerous now in our Protestant schools--
"These ladies, when properly disciplined by the Jesuits and priests,
become the best teachers. But before they are allowed to teach, there is
no art, no craft, no species of cunning, no refinement in private
personal indulgences, or no modes or means of seduction, in which they
are not thoroughly initiated.
I may say with safety, and from my own personal knowledge through the
Confessional, that _there is scarcely one of them who has not been
herself DEBAUCHED BY HER OWN CONFESSOR_.
The reader will understand that every nun has a confessor; and here I
will add, for the truth must be told at once, that _every confessor has
a concubine, and there are very few of them who have not several_."
Remember that this fearful charge against celibacy was made in 1856, in
the edition of Hogan's work which was the 76th thousand. Therefore, the
ex-priest who had brought the best letters of introduction from Europe,
and who had been unanimously elected Chaplain of the New York
legislature, had hurled this hideous indictment at popery and its priest
76,000 times.