GOD'S MINISTRY
THROUGH HIS SON JESUS CHRIST OF NAZARETH
BY THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

Revs. Mr. and Mrs. H. Dean Daniels

E-mail: gods-ministry@hdd-gods-ministry.com

Web-site: http://www.hdd-gods-ministry.com/

PRIEST AND WOMAN
    A BOOK FOR WIVES, MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS

Compiled by
Mrs. Wm. Lloyd Clark

 

Transcribed from the Seventeenth Edition

 

[Note from Revs. Mr. & Mrs. H. Dean Daniels, possible date of publication on this pamphlet is the early 1900’s, possibly as late as 1925]

 

 

DEDICATION

 

To the mothers of America who should know more about the Papal Priesthood; To the girls of America who should be educated to shun the convent as they would a pest house; To the husbands and fathers of America, who should be the defenders of woman’s honor; and to all who love truth, virtue and purity, this book is dedicated by the author.

 

 

 

INTRODUCTION

 

This little book has already passed through seven large editions. Orders are still coming in for it from all parts of the English speaking world. Popery has become an issue in American politics. The battle of truth against error which for hundreds of years has been fought on the soil of the old world, has been transformed to the soil of the new world. The forces are arrayed, the saloon, the beer garden, the confessional and the priest on one side; the public school, the printing press and honest citizenship of this great republic on the other side.

 

In every civilized nation on earth except America, the Papal Convent has been suppressed, or restrictive laws thrown around it. Banished from Italy, France, Mexico and other countries, it comes here and takes refuge behind our laws of religious toleration. It builds its system of religious penitentiaries and denies that the public has any right to know what goes on behind its stone walls and grated windows, and received the smiles and sanction of the cowardly lackeys who make our laws. Stone walls, steel doors, and grated windows are not an essential part of religious liberty on this free land. Let the womanhood of America be valiant in the fight for human freedom.

 

                        Yours faithfully,

                                    Mrs. Wm. Lloyd Clark

 

 

 

PRIEST AND WOMAN

 

            The age has passed when women are looked upon as slaves of men. Only a savage would want a slave for the mother of his children. We are living in the morning sunlight of the twentieth century-a glorious century that will open a new era for woman in the world. Woman has made little progress in those countries struggling under the emissaries of the Pope, while in Protestant nations, such as England, Holland, Germany and America, she has been liberated from many of the old forms of slavery, and as a result her ability has been reflected in the science, art and literature of the present age. On the throne, on the battlefield and in the forum, history reveals her equality with man. The American woman should be given the ballot, and thus empowered to defend her home, the public school and the nation’s flag, and in her would be found a loyal citizen, a faithful wife, a devoted mother and a steadfast patriot.

 

            History reveals the priest and the confessional box as the enemies of virtue. It is the writer’s hope that all who read these pages will in the future avoid patronizing Roman Catholic institutions. Many parents in the past have placed their daughters in convents, believing that in so doing they were removing them from all temptations and giving them good and holy companions. A greater mistake was never made. A great many say there is nothing wrong; if that be true why not open her institutions to the sunshine of honest investigation? If everything there is all right, the greater will be their glory and honor, and all suspicion allayed. But Rome only knows too well that the lives of the dear sisters would not bear inspections, and very wisely keeps the door shut. Many a noble woman has entered the walls of Rome to escape the snares of the world, only to find that she had entered a trap to fall victim of the seducing priest. Yet Protestant people continue to send their girls to these cesspools of iniquity.

 

            The confessional is only another trap for woman. Is it elevating to have married or unmarried women subjected to the questions of a celibate, or old bachelor priest? In the confessional woman is compelled to reveal every word, thought and deed, even her very dreams, to a man, who, as a rule, is not very strong in moral character, while his brain is often fired with liquor. The character of the confessional is such that it enables the priest to understand thoroughly the weak points in a woman’s character.

 

            It is utterly impossible under the law, to translate and print in the English language the infamous questions asked women, and even little girls in the Roman confessional box by old bachelor priests.

 

            How degrading all this must be on the lives of Rome’s women. As a rule the minds of Roman Catholic are very impure, the natural result of the confessional. What a surprise to a young and innocent girl when she hears these things for the first time. Her thoughts will naturally bring back again and again those vile questions. And thus the foundation is laid for habits that are scarcely ever afterwards overcome.

 

            The girls of today are to be the mothers of tomorrow. Girl labor and long hours of standing in factories is one of the greatest curses of the day. It is the opinion of our leading lady physicians that our girls are worked too hard. The hours that they are compelled to stand causes disease and unfits them to become mothers. We have laws for the protection of our animals, but none for the protection of our working girls. The horse, after his day’s labor, is taken to his stall and well cared for. The girl, paid starvation wages, is then turned to the street, and is often exposed to the monied ruffians who crowd our large towns. There should be legislation giving the working girls shorter hours with better wages. Another fact links closely with the present chain of thought-the world will cast off with scorn the fallen girl, and receive with open arms the scoundrel that caused her ruin. Instead of dealing thus with the girl, bring up the villain who accomplished her ruin to the bar of public opinion and make him feel that he has committed and unpardonable sin against society. If one of the fallen waifs of the street desires to mend her ways and live a better life, humbug Christianity and a false public opinion will keep her down. There should be legislation for the protection of tender girlhood. The statutes made and provided for the protection of young girls are, in many states, a very grim and ghostly commentary upon the traditional respect of the Americans for their women. In states, it is true, the law has been amended, largely under the influence of the same cyclone of moral incignation which raised the age of consent in England in 1855, from 13 to 16, but in many others the law is still in a condition to be a disgrace to heathendom. The legislatures of Delaware, of Wisconsin and other states in the following list would seem to be composed of yahoos rather than of Christian citizens of a republic founded by the descendants of the Puritans. The age of consent-the technical term used to denote the number of years that a girl must have lived before she is regarded by law as competent to consent to her own seduction-varies all over the Union. I quote here the black list of dishonor from a table compiled by the Philanthropist from official returns:

 

 

Age of Consent

[Note by Revs. Mr. & Mrs. H. Dean Daniels - the below is what the age of consent was at the time that this pamphlet was written, approximately early 1900’s.]

 

                                   

 

 

 

            These are the worst states in the Union from this point of view. There are others nearly as bad. Seventeen states fix the age of consent at 14, and two at 15; six follow the English rule and place the age of consent at 16. Florida, the most southern of all the states, raises it to 17, while Kansas and Wyoming place it at 18. The time is coming when such laws as these which practically hand over innocent and unsuspecting girl children of 7 and 10 and 12 to be the lawful prey of brutes in human shape, if they can but get their consent, forsooth, to something of which they know nothing, until it is too late, will be regarded with as much shame and indignation as the fugitive slave. Certainly as long as these states persist in leaving defenseless maidenhood without the protection of law, the taunts about American chivalry and high regard for women and children sound as hollow as did the Declaration of Independence in the old slave states.

 

            The following extract is from the writings of Maria Monk. Is sheds much light on the character of Rome’s infant murder factories:

 

            “I went into the Mother Superior’s parlor one day for something and found Jane Ray there alone, looking for a book. Some time after this occasion I was sent into the Superior’s room with Jane to arrange it, and as the same book lying out of the case, she said: ‘Come and let us look into it.’ I immediately consented, when she said: ‘There, you have looked into it, and if you tell on me, I will tell on you.’

 

            The thought of being subjected to a severe penance, which I had reason to apprehend, fluttered on me very much, and although I tried to overcome my fears, I did not succeed very well. I reflected, however, that the sin was already committed, and that it would not be increased if I examined the book. I therefore looked a little at several pages, though I still felt a great deal of agitation. I saw at once that the volume was a record of nuns and novices into the convent, and the births that had taken place in the convent. Entries of the last description were made in a brief manner on the following plan:

 

                                    St. Mary, delivered of a son, March 16, 1834.

                                    St. Clarice, delivered of a daughter, April 2, 1834.

                                    St. Matilda, delivered of a daughter, April 30, 1834.

 

            “Now I presume, as several names near the beginning I knew; but I can form only a rough conjecture of the number of infants born, and murdered, of course, record of which it contained. I suppose the book contained as least one hundred pages, and that one-fourth were written upon, and that each page contained fifteen distinct records. Several pages were devoted to the list or births. On this supposition there must have been a large number which I can easily to have been born there in the course of two years.”

 

            The following is from a Roman Catholic book called “Child’s Daily Devotions,” published by Benzinger Bros., printers to the Apostolic See, New York, Cincinnati and St. Louis, copyright 1881 by Benzinger Bros., and bearing the imprimatur, John Cardinal McCloskey, Archbishop of New York. On pages 138 and 139, under the “Devoti

on for Confession, Examination,” etc., you will find the following:

 

                        Have I read any immodest books, knowing them to be such? Have I wished to do so? Have I kept bad company, or sought the society of bad companions? Have I been curious or anxious to know about such things about which it was wrong or improper to enquire? Have I willingly listened to improper discourse? If at school, have I misbehaved in the dormitory, by playing about when undressed, etc.? Have I been immodest or indecent in the presence of others? Have I heard improper or immodest language, or witnessed any indecent conduct, without telling my instructors? Have I joined in such behavior? Have I said words of a DOUBLE MEANING-that is, have I said that which in one way might be taken in a bad sense? Have I been immodest in dressing or undressing myself? Have I written anything in books or elsewhere, that was wrong or indecent? Have I said or done anything indecent, and taken pleasure in so doing? Have I ever willingly thought of anything improper or indecent, or wished to speak of such when an opportunity might offer itself? If you find and difficulty in acknowledging any of these sins or any similar fault, tell your confessor that you feel this difficulty, and ask him to assist you, then answer his questions with candor and simplicity.

 

            Hear what Ex-Priest Wm. Hogan says on the subject: “The following is as fair a sketch as I can, with due regard to decency, give of the questions which a Romish priest puts to a young female who goes to confession to him. It is, however, but a very brief synopsis. But first let the reader figure to himself, or herself, a young lady, between the ages of 12 and 20, on her knees, with lips nearly close-pressed to the cheeks of the priest, who in all probability, is not over 25 or 30 years old-for here it is worthy of remark that these young priests are extremely zealous in discharge of their sacerdotal duties, especially in hearing confession, which all Roman Catholics are bound to make under pain of eternal damnation. When priest and penitent are placed in the above attitude, let us suppose the following conversation taking place between them, and unless my readers are more dull of apprehension than I am willing to believe, they will have some idea of ‘beauties of popery’:

 

            Confessor         What sins have you committed?

            Penitent            I don’t know of any, sir.

            Confessor         Are you sure you did nothing wrong? Examine yourself well.

            Penitent            Yes, I do recollect that I did wrong. I made faces as school at Lucy A.

            Confessor         Nothing else?

            Penitent            Yes; I told another that I hated Lucy A., and that she was an ugly thing.

            Confessor         (Scarcely able to suppress a smile in finding the girl perfectly innocent)

Have you had any immodest thoughts?

            Penitent            What is that, sir?

            Confessor         Have you been thinking about men?

            Penitent            Why yes, sir.

            Confessor         Are you fond of any of them?

            Penitent            Why, yes sir. I like Cousin A. or R. greatly

            Confessor         Did you ever like to sleep with him?

            Penitent            Oh, no.

            Confessor         How long did these thoughts about men continue?

            Penitent            Not very long.

            Confessor         Have you had these thoughts by day, or by night?

            Penitent            By _______

 

            “In this strain does this reptile confessor proceed, till his now half-gained prey is filled with ideas and thoughts to which she has hitherto been a stranger. He tells her that she must come again tomorrow. She accordingly comes, and he gives another twist to the screw which he has now firmly fixed upon the soul and body of his penitent. Day after day, week after week, and month after month, does this hapless girl come to confession, until this wretch has worked up her passions to a tension almost snapping, and then becomes his easy prey. I cannot, as I before stated, detail the whole process by which a Romish confessor debauches his victims in the confessional, but if curiosity or any other motive creates in the public mind a desire to know all particulars about it, I refer them to Antoine’s Moral Theology, which I have read in the College of Maynooth; or to Den’s treatise, ‘De Pecatti’s,’ which I have read in the same college, and in the same class with some of the Romish priests now in the country hearing confessions and debauching their penitents, aye, even in New England, the land of the Pilgrims! In those books I have mentioned, they will find the obscene questions which are put by the priests and bishops of the Romish church to all women, young and old, married or single; and if any married man or father, or brother, will, after the perusal of these questions, allow his wife, his daughter, or his sister, ever again to go to confession, I will only say that his ideas of morality are more vague and loose than those of the heathen or the Turk. Christian he should not be called who permits these deeds in our midst.”

 

            Father Chiniquay, who for twenty-five years was a priest of such high standing and exceptionally pure character, and so fully endorsed by the dignitaries of the Church that they dare not vilify him or dispute a single statement he makes, says in his “Fifty Years in the Church of Rome,” page 584:

 

            “How many times I have wept as a child when some noble-hearted and intelligent young girl, or some respectable married woman, yielding to the sophisms which I, or some other confessor, had persuaded them to give up their self-respect and the womanly dignity to speak with me on matters on which a decent woman should never say a word with a man. They have told me of their invincible repugnance, their horror of such questions and prayers, and they have asked me to have pity on them. Yes! I have often wept bitterly on my degradation, when a priest of Rome. *  *  *  But alas! I had soon to reproach myself, and regret those short instances of my wavering faith in the infallible voice of my church.

 

            “How many times my God has spoken to me as He speaks to all the priests of Rome, and said with a thundering voice: ‘What would that young man do could he hear the questions that you put to his wife? Would he not blow out your brains?’ And that father, would he not pass his dagger through your breast if he could know what you ask from his poor, trembling daughter? Would not the brother of that young girl put an end to your miserable life if he could hear the unmentionable subjects on which you speak with her in the confessional?

 

            “I was compelled by all the popes, the moral theologians, and the Councils of Rome, to believe that this warning voice of my merciful God was the voice of Satan. I had to believe, in spite of warning voice of my merciful God was the voice of Satan. I had to believe, in spite of my own conscience and intelligence, that it was good, nay, necessary, to put those polluting, damning questions. My infallible church was mercilessly forcing me to oblige those poor, trembling, weeping, desolate girls and women to swim with me and all their priests in those waters of Sodom and Gomorrah, under the pretext that their self-will would be broken down, their fear of sin and humility increased, and that they would be purified by our absolutions.”

 

            Father Chiniquay, on page 386, and following, relates a most heart-rending confession made to him by a beautiful and accomplished young lady who was ruined by a previous confessor in the convent where she was educated, and whose sense of shame and agony of mind caused her death at an early age. These are his words:

 

            “In the beginning of my priesthood, when I was in Quebec, I was not a little surprised and embarrassed to see a very accomplished and beautiful young lady, whom I used to meet every week at her father’s house, entering the box of my confessional. She had been used to confess to another young priest of my acquaintance, and she was always looked upon as one of the most pious girls in the city. Though she had disguised herself as much as possible, in order that I might not know her, I felt sure that I was not mistaken-she was the amiable Mary ___________.

 

            “Not being absolutely certain of the correctness of my impression, I left her entirely under the hope that she was a perfect stranger to me. At the beginning she could hardly speak; her voice was suffocated by her sobs, and through the little apertures of the thin partition between her and me I saw two streams of big tears trickling down her cheeks. After much effort she said:

 

“‘Dear Father, I hope that you do not know me-I am a desperately great sinner. Oh! I fear that I am lost! But if there is still hope for me to ask you not to pollute my ears by questions which our confessors are in the habit of putting to their female penitents; I have already been destroyed by those questions. Before I was 17 years old, God knows that His angels are not more pure than I was; but the chaplain of the nunnery where my parents had sent me for my education, though approaching old age, put to me in the confessional, questions which at first, I did not understand, but unfortunately he had put the same questions to one of my young class-mates, who made fun of them in my presence, and explained them to me; for she understood them too well. This first unchaste conversation of my life plunged my thoughts into a sea of iniquity, until then absolutely unknown to me; temptation of the most humiliating character assailed me for a week, day and night; after which, sins which I would blot out with my blood, if it were possible, overwhelmed my soul as with a deluge. But the joys of the sinner are short. Struck with terror at the thought of the judgment of God, after a few weeks of the most deplorable life, I determined to give up my sins and reconcile myself to God. Covered with shame, and trembling from head to foot, I went to confess to my old confessor, whom I respected as a saint and cherished as a father, It seems to me that, with sincere tears of my repentance, I confessed to him the greatest part of my sins, though I concealed one of them, through shame and respect for my spiritual guide. But I did not conceal from him that the strange questions he had put to me at my least confession were, with the natural corruption of my heart, the principal cause of my destruction.

 

            “‘He spoke to me very kindly, encourage me to fight against my bad inclinations, and, at first, gave me very kind and good advice. But when O thought he had finished speaking, and as I was preparing to leave the confessional box, he put to me two new questions of such a polluting character that, I fear, neither the blood of Christ nor all the fires of hell will ever be able to blot them from my memory. These questions have achieved my ruin; they have struck to my mind like two deadly arrows; they are day and night before my imagination; they fill my arteries and veins with deadly poison.

 

            “‘It is true that, at first, they filled me with horror and disgust; but alas! I soon got so accustomed to them that they seemed to be incorporated with me, and as if coming a second nature. Those thoughts have become a new source in innumerable criminal thoughts, desires and actions.

 

            “‘A month later we were obliged by the rules of our convent to go and confess; but by this time I was so completely lost, that I no longer blushed at the idea of confessing my shameful sins to a man; it was the contrary. I had a real diabolical pleasure in the thought that I should have a long conversation with my confessor on those questions. In fact, when I had told him everything without a blush, he began to interrogate me, and God knows what corrupting things fell from his lips into my poor, criminal heart! Every one of his questions was thrilling my nerves and filling me with the most shameful sensations! After an hour of this criminal tête-à-tête with my old confessor (for it was nothing but a criminal tête-à-tête) I perceived that he was as depraved as I was myself. With some half-covered words also; and during more than a year we have lived through the most sinful intimacy. Though he was much older than I, I loved him in the most foolish way. When the course of my convent instruction was finished, my parents called me back to their home. I was really glad of that change of residence, for I was beginning to be tired of my criminal life. My hope was that, under the directions of a better confessor, I should reconcile myself to God and begin a Christian life.

 

            “‘Unfortunately for me, my new confessor, who was very young, began also his interrogations. He soon fell in love with me, and I loved him in the most criminal way. I have done with him things which I hope you will never request me to reveal to you, for they are too monstrous to be repeated, even in the confessional, by a woman to a man.

 

            “‘I do not say these things to take away the responsibility of my iniquities with my young confessor from my shoulders, for I think I have been more criminal that he was. It is my firm conviction that he was a good and holy priest before he know me; but the questions he had put to me, and the answers I had to give him, melted his heart-I know it-just as boiling lead would melt the ice on which it flows.

 

            “‘I know this is not such a detailed confession as our holy church requires me to make, but I have thought it necessary for me to give you this short history of the life of the greatest and most miserable sinner who ever asked you to help her to come out from the tomb of her iniquities, This is the way I have lived these last few years. But last Sabbath, God, in His infinite mercy, looked down upon me. He inspired you to give us the Prodigal Son as a model of true conversion, and as the most marvelous proof of the infinite compassion of the dear Saviour for the sinner. I have wept day and night since that happy day when I threw myself into the arms of my loving, merciful father. Even now, I can hardly speak, because my regret for my past iniquities, and my joy that I am allowed to bathe the feet of my Saviour with my tears, are so great that my voice is choked.

 

            “‘You understand that I have forever given up my last confessor. I come to ask you to do me the favor to receive me among your penitents. Oh! Do not reject nor rebuke me, for the dear Saviour’s sake! Be not afraid to have at your side such a monster of iniquity! But before going further, I have two favors to ask from you: The first is, that you will never do anything to ascertain my name; the second is, that you will never put me to any of those questions by which so many penitents are lost, and so many priests forever destroyed. Twice I have been lost by those questions. We come to our confessors that we may throw upon our guilty souls the pure waters which flow from heaven to purify us; but instead of that, with their unmentionable questions, they pour oil in the burning fires, which are already raging in our poor, sinful hearts. Oh! Dear father, let me become your penitent, that you may help me to go and weep with Magdalene at the Saviour’s feet! Do respect me, as He respected that true model of all the sinful, but repenting women! Did our Saviour put to her any question? Did he extort from her the history of things which a sinful woman cannot say without forgetting the respect she owes herself and to God? No! You told us not long ago that the only thing our Saviour did was to look as her tears and her love. Well, please do that, and you will save me!”

 

            “I was then a very young priest, and never had words so sublime come to my ears in the confessional box. Her tears and her sobs, mingled with the frank declaration of the most humiliating actions, had made such a profound impression upon me that I was for some time unable to speak. It had come to my mind also that I might be mistaken about her identity, and that perhaps she was not the young lady that I had imagined. I could, then, easily grant her first request, which was to do nothing by which I could know her. The second part of her prayer was more embarrassing; for the theologians are very positive in ordering the confessors to question their penitents, particularly those of the female sex, in many circumstances.

 

            “I encouraged her in the best way I could, to persevere in her good resolutions, by invoking the blessed Virgin Mary and St. Philomene, who was, the Sainte a la mode, just as Marie Alacoque is today, among the blind slave of Rome. I told her that I would pray and think over the subject of her second request; and I asked her to come back in a week for my answer.

 

            “The very same day, I went to my own confessor, the Rev. Mr. Baillargeon, then Curate of Quebec, and afterwards Archbishop of Canada. I told him the singular and unusual request she had made, that I should never put her to any of those questions suggested by the theologians, to insure the integrity of the confession. I did not conceal from him that I was much inclined to grant her that favor; for I repeated what I had already several times told him, that I was supremely disgusted with the infamous and polluting questions which the theologians forced us to put to our female penitents. I told him frankly that several young and old priests had already come to me to confess that, with the exception of two, they had told me they could not put those questions and hear the censures they elicited without falling into the most damnable sins.

 

            “My confessor seemed to be much perplexed about what he should answer. He asked me to come again the next day, that he might review some theological books in the interval. The next day I took down in writing his answer, which I find in my old manuscripts, and I give here in all its sad cruelty: ‘Such cases of the destruction of female virtue by the questions of the confessional is an unavoidable evil. It cannot be helped; for such questions are absolutely necessary in the greater part of the cases with which we have to deal. Men generally confess their sins with s much sincerity that there is seldom any need for questioning them, except when they are very ignorant. But St. Liguori, as well as our personal observation, tells us that the larger number of girls and women, through a false and criminal shame, very, very seldom confess the sins they commit against purity. It requires the utmost charity in the confessors to prevent these unfortunate slaves of their secret passions from making sacrilegious confessions and communions. With the greatest prudence and zeal he must question them on those matters, beginning with the smallest sins, and going, little by little, as much as possible by imperceptible degrees, to the most criminal actions. As it seems evident that the penitent referred to in your questions of yesterday, is unwilling to make a full and detailed confession of all her iniquities, you cannot promise to absolve her without assuring yourself, by wise and prudent questions that she had confessed everything.

 

            “‘You must not be discouraged when, through the confessional, or any other way, you learn the fall of priests into the common frailties of human nature, with their penitents. Our Saviour knew very well that the occasions of girls and women, are so numerous, and sometimes so irresistible, that many would fall. But He has given them the Holy Virgin Mary, who constantly asks and obtains their pardon. He has given then the sacrament of penance, where they can receive their pardon as often as they ask for it. The man of perfect chastity is a greater honor and privilege; but we cannot conceal from ourselves that it puts on our shoulders a burden that many cannot carry forever. St. Ligouri says that we must not rebuke the penitent says that we must not rebuke the penitent priest who falls only once a month; and some other trustworthy theologians are still more charitable.”

 

            “This answer was far from satisfying me. It seemed to me composed of soft-soap principles. I went back with a heavy heart and an anxious mind; and God knows that I made many fervent prayers that this girl should never come again to give me her sad history. I was then hardly 26 years old, full of youth and life. It seemed to me that the stings of a thousand wasps to my ears could not do me such harm as the words of that dear, beautiful, accomplished, but lost girl. I do not mean to say that the revelations which she made had, in any way, diminished my esteem and my respect for her. It was just the contrary. Her tears and her sobs at my feet; her agonized expressions of shame and regret; her noble words of protest against the disgusting and polluting interrogations of the confessors, had raised her very high in my mind. My sincere hope was that she would have a place in the kingdom of Christ with the Samaritan woman, Mary Magdalene, and all the sinners who have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb.

 

            “At the appointed day, I was in my confessional, listening to the confession of a young man, when I saw Miss Mary entering the vestry, and coming directly to my confessional box, where she knelt by me. Though she had, still more than at the first time, disguised herself behind a long, thick, black veil, I could not be mistaken; she was the very same amiable young lady in whose father’s house I used to pass such pleasant and happy hours. I had often listened with breathless attention to her melodious voice, when she was giving us, accompanied by her piano, some of our beautiful church hymns. Who could then see and hear her without almost worshipping her? The dignity of her steps and her whole mien, when she advanced toward my confessional, entirely betrayed her and destroyed her incognito.

 

            “Oh! I would have given every drop of my blood in that solemn hour, that I might have been free to deal with her just as she had so eloquently requested me to do-to let her weep and cry at the feet of Jesus to her heart’s content. Oh! If I had been free to take her by the hand, and silently show her the dying Saviour, that she might have bathed His feet with her tears, and spread the oil of her love on His head, without my saying else but ‘Go in peace, thy sins are forgiven!’

 

            “But there, in that confessional box, I was not the servant of Christ, to follow His divine, saving words, and obey the dictates of my honest conscience. I was the slave of the Pope! I had to stifle the cry of my conscience, to ignore the inspirations of my God! There my conscience had no right to speak; my intelligence was a dead thing! The theologians of the Pope, alone, had a right to be heard and obeyed! I was not there to save, but to destroy; for, under the pretext of purifying, the real mission of the confessor, often, if not always, in spite of himself, is to scandalize and damn their souls.

 

            “As soon as the young man who was making his confession at my left hand, had finished, O without noise, turned myself toward her and said, through the little aperture, ‘Are you ready to begin your confession?’

 

            “But she did not answer me. All that I could hear was: ‘Oh, my Jesus, have mercy upon me! I come to wash my soul in Thy blood; wilt Thou rebuke me?’

 

            “During several minutes she raised her hands and eyes to heaven, and wept and prayed. It was evident that she had not the least idea that I was observing her; she thought the door of the little partition between her and me was shut. But my eyes were fixed upon her; my tears were flowing with her tears, and my ardent prayers were going to the feet of Jesus with her prayers. I would not have interrupted her for any consideration, in this, her sublime communication with her merciful Saviour.

 

            “But after a pretty long time, I made a little noise with my hand, and putting my lips near the opening of the partition which was between us, I said in a low voice: ‘Dear sister, are you ready to begin your confession?’

 

            “She turned her face a little towards me, and she said with a trembling voice: ‘Yes, dear father, I am ready.’      

 

            “But she then stopped again to weep and pray, though I could not hear what she said.

 

            “After some time in silent prayer, I said, ‘My dear sister, if you are ready, please begin your confession.’ She then said: ‘My dear father, do you remember the prayers which I made to you, the other day? Can you allow me to confess my sins without forcing me to forget the respect that I owe to myself, to you, and to God who hears us? And can you promise that you will not put to me any of those questions which have already done me such irreparable injury? I frankly declare to you that there are sins in me that I cannot reveal to anyone, except to Christ, because He is my God, and that He already knows them all. Let me weep and cry at His feet. Can you not forgive me without adding to my iniquities by forcing me to say things that the tongue of a Christian woman cannot reveal to a man?’

 

            “‘My dear sister,’ I answered, ‘were I free to follow the voice of my own feelings I would be only too happy to grant your request; but I am here only as the minister of our holy church, and bound to obey the laws, Through her most holy pops and theologians, she tells me that I cannot forgive your sins, if you do not confess them all, just as you have committed them. The church tells me also that you must give the details, which may add to the malice or change the nature of your sins. I am sorry to tell you that our most holy theologians make it a duty of our confessors to question the penitent on the sins which he has good reason to suspect have been voluntarily omitted.

 

            “With a piercing cry she exclaimed: ‘Then, O, my God, I am lost-forever lost.”

 

            “This cry fell upon me like a thunderbolt; but I was still more terror-stricken when, looking through the aperture, I saw she was fainting; I heard the nose of her head striking against the sides of the confessional box.

 

            “Quick as lightning I ran to help her, took her in my arms and called a couple of men who were at a little distance, to assist me in laying her on a bench, I washed her face with some cold water and vinegar. She was as pale as death, but her lips were moving, and she was saying which nobody but I could understand:

 

            “‘I am lost- lost forever!.”

 

            “We took her home to her disconsolate family, where during a month she lingered between life and death. Her first two confessors came to visit her; but having asked everyone to go out of the room, she politely, but absolutely, requested them to go away and never come again, She asked me to visit her every day, ‘for,’ she said, ‘I have only a few more days to live. Help me to prepare myself for the solemn hour when will open the gates of eternity!’

 

            “Every day I visited her, and I prayed and I wept with her.

 

            “Many times, when alone, with tears I requested her to finish her confession, but, with a firmness which, then, seemed to be mysterious and inexplicable, she politely rebuked me.

 

            “One day, when alone with her, I was kneeling by the side of her bed to pray, I was unable to articulate a single word, because of the inexpressible anguish of my soul in her account, she asked me: ‘Dear Father, why do you weep?’

 

            “I answered, ‘How can you put such a question to your murderer! I weep because I have killed you, dear friend!’

 

            “This answer seemed to trouble her exceedingly. After she had wept and prayed in silence, she said, ‘Do not weep for me, but weep for so many priests who destroy their penitents in the confessional. I believe in the holiness of the sacrament if penance, since our holy church has established it. But there is, somewhere, something exceedingly wrong in the confessional. Twice I have been destroyed, and I know many girls who have also been destroyed by the confessional. This is a secret, but will that secret be kept forever? I pity the poor priests that day that our fathers will know what becomes of the purity of their daughters in the hands of their confessors. Father would surely kill my last two confessors, if he could only know they have destroyed his poor child.’

 

            “I could not answer except by weeping.

 

            “We remained silent for a long time; then she said: ‘It is true that I was not prepared for the rebuke that you have given me, the other day, in the confessional; but you acted conscientiously, as a good and honest priest. I know you must be bound by certain laws.’

 

            “She then pressed my hand with her cold hand and said: “Weep not, dear Father, because that sudden storm has wrecked my too fragile bark. This storm was to take me out from the bottomless sea of my iniquities to the shore where Jesus was waiting to receive and pardon me. The night after you had brought me, half dead, here to father’s house, I had a dream. Oh no! it was not a dream, it was a reality. My Jesus came to me. He was bleeding; his crown of thorns was on His head, the heavy cross was bruising His soft shoulders. He said to me, with a voice so sweet that no human tongue can imitate it: ‘I have seen thy tears, I have heard thy cries and I know thy love for Me. Thy sins are forgiven; take courage; in a few days thou shalt be with Me!’

 

            “I called the family, who rushed into the room. The doctor was sent for. He found her so weak that he thought id proper to only allow one or two persons to remain in the room with me. He requested us not to speak at all. ‘For,” said he, ‘the least emotion might kill her instantly; her disease is, in all probability, an aneurism of the aorta, the big vein which brings the blood to the heart; when it breaks she will go as quickly as lightning.’

 

            “It was nearly 10 at night when I left the house to go and take some rest. But it is not necessary to say that I passed a sleepless night. My dear Mary was there, pale, dying from the deadly blow which I had given her in the confessional. She was there, on her bed of death, her heart pieced with the dagger which my church had put into my hands! and instead of rebuking and cursing me for my savage, merciless fanaticism, she was blessing me! She was dying from a broken heart; and I was not allowed by my church to give her a single word of consolation and hope, for she had not made her confessions! I had mercilessly bruised that tender plant, and there was nothing in my hands to heal the wounds I had made!

 

            “It was very probable that she would die the next day, and I was forbidden to show her the crown of glory which Jesus has prepared in His kingdom for the repenting sinner.

 

“My desolation was really unspeakable, and I think I would have died that night, if the stream of tears which have flowed from my eyes had not been as a bam to my distressed heart.

 

            “How dark and long the hours of that night seemed to me!

 

            “Before the dawn of day, I arose to read my theologians again, and see if I could not find son one who would allow me to forgive the sins of that dear child, without forcing her to tell me anything that she had done. But they seemed to me, more than ever, unanimously inexorable, and I put them back on the shelves of my library with a heavy heart.

 

            “At 9:00 a.m. the next day, I was by the bed of our dear, sick Mary. I cannot sufficiently tell the joy I felt, when the doctor and the whole family said to me: ‘She is much better; the rest of last night has wrought a marvelous change, indeed.

 

            “With a really angelic smile she extended her hand to me, that I might press it into mine, and she said: ‘I thought last evening the dear Saviour would take me to Him, but He wants me, dear Father, to give you a little more trouble; however, be patient, in cannot be long before the solemn hour of the appeal will ring. Will you please read me the history of the suffering and death of the beloved Saviour, which you read me the other day? It does me so much to see how He has loved me, such a miserable sinner.’

 

            “There was a calm and solemnity in her words which struck me singularly, as well as all those who were there.

 

            “After I had finished reading, she exclaimed”: He has loved me so much that He died for me sins!’ And she shut her eyes as if to meditate in silence, but there was a stream of big tears rolling down her cheeks.

 

            “I knelt down by her bed, with her family, to pray; but I could not utter a single word. The idea that this dear child was there, dying from the cruel fanaticism of my theologians and my own cowardice in obeying them, was a mill-stone to my neck. It was killing me.

 

            “Oh! If, by dying a thousand times, I could have added a single day to her life, with that pleasure I would have accepted those thousand deaths!

 

            “After we had silent prayer and wept by her bedside, she requested her mother to leave her alone with me.

            “When I saw myself alone, under the irresistible impression that this was her last day, I fell on my knees again, and with tears of the most sincere compassion for her soul, I requested her to shake off her shame and to obey our holy church, which requires every one to confess their sins id they want to be forgiven.

 

            “She calmly, but with an air of dignity which no human words can express, said: ‘Is it true, that, after the sins of Adam and Eve, God himself made coats and skins, and clothed them that they might not see each others’ nakedness?’

 

            “‘Yes,” I said, ‘this is what the holy Scriptures tell us.’

 

            “‘Well, the, how is it possible that our confessors dare to take away from us that holy, divine coat of modesty and self-respect? Has not Almighty God Himself made, with His own hands, that coat of womanly modesty and self-respect that we might not be to you and ourselves a cause of shame and sin?

 

            “I was really stunned by the beauty, simplicity and sublimity of that comparison. I remained absolutely mute and confounded. Though it was demolishing all the traditions and doctrines of my theologians, that noble answer found such an echo in my soul, that it seemed to me a sacrilege to try touch it with my finger.

 

            “After a short time of silence she continued: “Twice I have been destroyed by priests in the confessional. They took away from me that divine coat of modesty and self-respect which God gives to every human being who comes into this world, and twice I have become for those very priests a deep pit of perdition into which they have fallen, and where, I fear, that they are forever lost! My merciful, Heavenly Father has given me back that coat of skins, that nuptial robe of modesty, self-respect and holiness, which had been taken away from me. He cannot allow you or any other man, to tear again and spoil that vestment which is the work of His hands.’

 

            “These words had exhausted her; it was evident to me that she wanted some rest. I left her alone, but I was absolutely beside myself. Filled with admiration for the sublime lessons which I had received from the lips of that regenerated daughter of Christ, who, it was evident, was soon to fly away from us, I felt a supreme disgust for myself, my theologians-shall I say it?-yes, I felt in that solemn hour a supreme disgust for my church which was cruelly defiling me and all her priests in the confessional box. I felt, in that hour, a supreme horror for that auricular confession, which is so often a pit of perdition and supreme misery for the confessor and penitent. I cam out and walked for two hours on the Plains of Abraham, to breathe pure and refreshing air of the mountains. There, alone, I sat on a stone, on the very spot where Wolf and Montcalm fought and died; and I wept to my heart’s content, on my irreparable degradation, and the degradation of so many priests through the confessional.

 

            “At 4 o’clock in the afternoon I went back again to the house of my dear, dying Mary. The mother took me apart, and very politely said: ‘My dear Mr. Chiniquay, do you not think it is time that our dear child receive the last sacraments? She seemed much better this morning, and we were full of much hope; but she is now rapidly sinking. Please lose no time in giving her the holy viaticum and the extreme unction.’

 

            “I said: ‘Yes, madam; let me pass a few moments alone with our dear child, that I may prepare her for the last sacraments.’

 

            “When alone with her, I again fell on my knees, and, amidst torrents of tears, I said: ‘My dear sister, it is my desire to give you the holy viaticum and the extreme unction; but tell me, how can I dare to do a thing so solemn against all the prohibitions of our holy church? How can I give you the Holy Communion without first giving you absolution? And how can I give you absolution when you earnestly persist in telling me that you have so many sins which you will never declare to me or any other confessor?

 

            “‘You know that I cherish and respect you as if you were an angel sent to me from heaven. You told me, the other day, that you blest the day that you first saw and knew me. I say the same thing. I bless the days that I have known you. I bless every hour that I have spent by your bed of suffering; I bless every tear which I have shed with you on your sins and on my own; I bless every hour we have passed together in looking to the wounds of our beloved, dying Savour; I bless you for having forgiven me your death! for I know it, and I confess it in the presence of God-I have killed you, dear sister, But now I prefer a thousand time to die than to say to you a word which would pain your soul. Please, my dear sister, tell me what I can and must so for you in this solemn hour?

 

            “Calmly and with a smile of joy such as I had never seen before, nor since, she said: ‘I thank and bless you dear Father, for the parable of the Prodigal Son, on which you preached a month ago. You have brought me to the feet the dear Saviour; there have I found a peace and a joy surpassing anything that human heart can feel; I have thrown myself into the arms of my Heavenly Father, and I know that He has mercifully accepted and forgiven His poor, prodigal child! Oh, I see the angels with their golden harps around the throne of the Lamb! Do you not hear the celestial harmony of their songs? I go-I go to join them in my Father’s house. I SHALL NOT BE LOST!’

 

            “While she was thus speaking to me, my eyes really turned into two fountains of tears; I was unable, as unwilling to see anything, so entirely overcome was I by the sublime words which were flowing from the dying lips of that dear child, who was no more a sinner, but a real angel of heaven to me. I was listening to her words; there was a celestial music in every one of them. But she had raised her voice in such a strange way when she had begin to day, ‘I go to my Father’s house,’ and she had made such a cry of joy when she had let the last words, ‘not be lost,’ escape her lips, that I have raised my head and opened my eyes to look at her. I suspected that something strange had occurred.

 

            “I got upon my feet, passed my handkerchief over my face to wipe away the tears which were preventing me from seeing with accuracy, and looked at her.

 

            “Her hands were crossed on her breast, and there was on her face the expression of a really superhuman joy; her beautiful eyes were fixed as if they were looking on some grand and sublime spectacle; it seemed to me at first, that she was praying.

 

            “In that very instant, the mother rushed into the room, crying: ‘My God! My God! What does that cry, ‘lost’ mean?’ For her last words, ‘not be lost,’ particularly the last one, had been pronounced with such a powerful voice, that they had been heard almost everywhere in the house.

 

            “I made a sign with my hand to prevent the distressed mother from making any noise and troubling her dying child in her prayer, for I really thought that she had stopped speaking, as she used so often to do, when alone with me, in order to pray. But I was mistaken. The redeemed soul had gone, on the golden wings of love, to join the multitude of those who have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb, to sing the eternal Alleluia.

 

            “The revelation of the unmentionable corruptions directly and unavoidably engendered by articular confession, had come to me from the lips of that young lady, as the first rays of the sun which were to hurl back the dark clouds of night which Rome had wrapped my intelligence on that subject.”

 

 

THE HORRIBLE DEEDS OF MODERN ROMANISM

 

            This article appeared twelve years ago in “The Rocky Mountain American,” published at Denver, Col. We recommend it with a vengeance to all who are patronizing Papal priests or Papal Convents.

 

            “ROME NEVER CHANGES. Her motto is ‘Semper Idem’-‘always the same.’”-Cardinal Gibbons.

 

            “You Catholics ought to be proud of your women, because you are the only people in the world who have virtuous wives; there are none virtuous in the Protestant churches!” -Priest Timothy Corbett, of Duluth, Minn., Dec. 10, 1893.

 

            “Facts lead us to conclude that although probably from prudential motives Romish bishops and inquisitorial powers, yet they do so secretly, in accordance with their oaths. If the reader asks where, we reply within the walls of those prisons which exist in many Roman Catholic churches, and within the precincts of every monastery and nunnery in this country.”-Charles Hastings Collette.

 

            In reference to nunneries, the Council of Trent decreed that:

 

            “No professed nun should ever come out of her nunnery under and pretense whatever, not even for a moment. If any escape, being compelled to return to their convents, they must be punished as apostates.”

 

            Ligouri, in his “True Spouse of Christ,” defines the punishment of apostates:

 

            “To be chastised *  *  * shut up in a place of confinement, from which it is impossible to escape, in a word, it is to be in continual torture without a moment’s peace. Such is the miserable condition of a bad religieuse, and therefore she suffers on earth an anticipation of the torments of hell.”

 

            In May 1881, the Paris correspondent of the Edinburgh Daily Review stated:

 

            “Fifteen corpses, or rather skeletons of women, dating no more than ten years or so back, were found un a crypt under the church of St. Laurent, and physicians inferred, from the distorted state of their head and members, that they suffered indescribable anguish before dying. The crypt id exhibited to the public.”

 

            The Pall Mall Gazette, in the same year, referred to similar horrors found in the vaults of the church of Notra Dame des Victoires, It appears that the Communists unearthed a whole lot of mysteries that season.”

 

            “In another vault the bodies of four women, recently buried were discovered., and in a small lateral vault, a couple of gold bracelets were picked up. Here citizen Mousa thinks some fearful crime must have been committed, for on the wall of the vault was plainly visible the mark left by the jeweled arm, and it is evident to him that the lady with the bracelets must have struggled in the vault, which had been newly painted when she was confined in it.”

 

            An English physician describes what he saw during an official investigation made in the dungeon vaults of the church Les Petit Paris in 1871:

 

            “Many bodies of women, in their ordinary dress, and without any coffin, were found buried in slanting position, so that while the feet were some distance below the surface of the floor, the heads were covered with but a few inches of earth. One body was that of a fine, handsome woman, but recently interred, and evidently a terrible struggle had taken place before she was bound and buried-buried gradually-and buried (there can be little doubt) alive; otherwise, why buried in a slanting position?

 

            A correspondent writes the Minneapolis Loyal American:

 

            “One summer early in the thirties, the water in the St. Lawrence at Montreal became extremely low, so low indeed, that the shore line had receded a considerable distance, leaving exposed a wide strip of river bottom which was reeking with filth that had been thrown there or washed through the city sewers into the river. There was a nunnery standing close to the bank of the river and from it a large sewer extended, running out into the stream. Ordinarily the outlet of this sewer would be invisible, because submerged; but this particular summer it was left high and dry, and exposed to the public view, as was also a piece of river bottom adjoining and adjacent to it. What a foul, pestilential spot was that; but what a horrible sight was beheld as well; for, in the sewer and in the deep mud for many rods around its mouth, were the dead bodies and the skeletons of hundreds of infants that had been thrown in the vaults of the nunnery and washed down through the sewer. There they lay festering and rotting in the sun, and poisoning the air with deadly aroma; a reeking, filthy, horrible mass. The spot was visited by thousands, including citizens of Montreal, of Quebec, and of smaller towns adjacent. Indeed, quite a number of people came a long distance to see and verify what they could not believe from rumor or hearsay. Every one was indignant, in fact the feeling was intense. Against whom? Against the female inmates of the nunnery and the priests-the mothers and fathers of these hundreds of poor infants. Catholics and Protestants alike were loud in the denunciations of these people of crime and sin; but what was done? Nothing, absolutely nothing. The city of Montreal was in the hands of the clergy; what could be done? Who would dare to prosecute or even investigate? Woe to him that has the temerity to do so; he had no protection against his priestly enemies and their trembling, cringing slaves. He would be threatened with assassination and the deed might soon follow the threat; or the torch would be applied to his dwelling, and poison to be given to his cow or horse.”

 

            Open the doors of the closed retreats of the crafty, cruel Jesuits who if true to the record of their order, may be as free with their tortures here in America as they were in Spain in the days of Torquemada.

 

            San Francisco is a city wholly given over to Romanism. There are nunneries and monasteries all over town. Last June loud shrieks of agony, evidently muttered by a young girl, emanated from one of the convents. Passers-by sought to enter but failed. The police were vainly appealed to. Residents shook their heads, made the sign of the cross, and gave the matter no further attention. They had heard such sounds before. Whatever befell that imprisoned unfortunate, neither municipal, state or national authority dared to inquire, although the “flag of free” floated from the frowning forts overlooking the city, and American warships rode at anchor in the bay.

 

            The convent and the hospitals of Romanism in America today must be regulated by civil authorities. Today, in our cities, if a stranger is seriously injured by accident, the chances are that he will be carried to a Romanist hospital for treatment. Suppose the hospital authorities discover that the patient is an Orangeman, what sort of treatment can he expect as the hands of those who regard him as a “heretic” and the cry of whose church is “death to all heretics?”

 

            Investigate the nunneries, thoroughly. Either open them or abolish them. Just think of it! Italy, and even Spain, suppressed their convents, confiscated property and expelled the inmates. Can America do less to open the doors of the Romish convents in America to inspection by the civil authorities? As has been truly said, “the door of every citizen’s dwelling is open to the law: the door of every work shop is open, that the law may enter and see it, that no oppression, cruelty is done to anyone within. But when the law comes to the door of the convent it finds it shut-bolted; and let the oppression, cruelty and crime which may be enacted within be what they may, law cannot enter either to prevent or punish them.” The convent doors must be opened. If there are trap-doors and underground passages and dark cells connected with the convents and other institutions of Rome in Denver where quicklime consumes the bodies of infants, and refractory nuns are trampled to death by priests and sycophants, as Miss Monk swears was done in the convent at Montreal, the public must know it, and the law must suppress such horrors.

 

            Respectable, event eminent citizens, Romanist and Protestant, place their daughters, the pride of the households, in convents for educational purposes, It is probable that in many such cases the standing of the parents secures the safety of the daughter. But it would be well for these well meaning parents to reflect, upon the fact that the doors of these convents arte closed; that evil has prevailed in many of them, and that there is a grave reason to fear its prevalence at all. Only a few months since, the daily papers announced the tragical self-inflicted death of a charming maiden, the daughter of an ex-cabinet minister, who had been consigned to the tender mercies of the Superior of and Eastern convent. None knew the cause of the rash act-none but God and the dead, and the convent authorities. And the most powerful official hands in America dare not lift a hand towards an investigation of the cause!

 

            Open the doors of the brick-walled, close-shuttered institutions where for aught the world knows, hideous old nuns with white vestments and black souls act as procuresses for lecherous priests right in Denver as freely as they did in the days of Miss Reed, Maria Monk and Barbara Abryk, in the eastern states.

 

            There have been priests in Denver none too good to be suspected.

 

            There is in Denver a certain street whole block of which are given over to the denomination of the demimonde. In these block are centered the worst of “painted sirens” of the city. Yet in many of these dens of infamy, wax papers burn and religious formulae are observed, for the inmates all are members. God pity all heretics!

 

            Citizens in Denver remember a very zealous Roman Catholic “priest of God,” who was a frequenter of “the row” as it existed in the old Holiday street days. Perhaps he merely desired to see that his parishioners in that locality faithfully counted their beads and wore their amulets properly.

 

            A young girl was arrested by a policeman in Denver and was sent to the House of the Good Shepherd for reformation. Long afterward, she met the policeman who had arrested herm and showered bitter curses on his head, saying that although she had subordinate before, yet her ruin dated from intimacy with a “priest of God” whom she first encountered whilst an inmate of the House of the Good Shepherd.

 

            A few years ago there was a bit of a scandal in Romish circles in Denver which even made some of the fat priests blush. A local carpenter who had been employed to make repairs in a certain Catholic church building, forgot a chisel which he had been using of the job. Returning for it after night, he discovered the parish priest and one of his frail parishioners desecrating the altar of the church! Knowing himself discovered, the priest drew a long knife and savagely assaulted the carpenter, who, using the chisel as a weapon, managed to escape through the door by which he entered. Such was the story made public by the carpenter, and such was the “nine days’ talk of the town.” The Romish authorities appear to have credited the story, for they transferred the priest to a parish in another city.

 

            Open the doors of the convents and sectarian reformatories of Rome in Denver, that citizens may know whether the close walled structures are better than those Eastern institutions which were proven to be harems for lecherous priests. Protect the innocent and the helpless. Let the knights of the cowl enter into lawful wedlock if they insist on having “all the comforts of home.”

 

“Rome never changes!”

 

            Thus saith the American cardinal, and both the motto and history of his church support the assertion. Therefore the convents of today may be as truly the seat of revolting lewdness, cruelty and beastly orgies as in the days of the bishop of Prato. There is no reason to believe that there has been reformation in the church of Rome or its nunneries from the beginning. The same fat, lazy, lustful, oyster-eating, wine guzzling class of priests walk the streets of Denver that have infested the convents of the Orient since the days when the heavy blade of the lion-hearted crusaders encountered the lithe cimetar of Saladin.

 

            The scribbling priest of Romanism in Denver and the mouthing priest if Romanism in Duluth have not hesitate to fling insult against Protestant women. We have to deal with the institutions of Catholicy-not its homes. Neither pen nor tongue of Protestant seek to name with disrespect the mothers and daughters of the Catholic homes of Denver or the world. They have need of even greater strength of character and purity of soul than their Protestant sisters, for the latter know nothing of the dangers which the imperious sultans of the confessional.

 

            Rome must open the doors of her prisons in America to American officers of the laws! What baseness there is in the practice of American judges sentencing young girls to a prison where neither the judges who inflict the sentence nor the commissioners who pay the bills dare investigate! Already the state board of pardons is considering a proposition to remove Protestant girls from the House of the Good Shepherd and commit them to Crittenden Home. This is good, even glorious but it is not enough. Catholic girls are entitled to the protection of the civil law in free America. The House of the Good Shepherd must be made open to thorough inspection at the will of the civil authorities.

 

            The opening of the convent doors will be the work of the Protestants, but the abolition of the secret confessional-box must be the work of the intelligent American Catholics. We have in our possession a copy of a little book well known to all Catholics-“How to Make the Mission.” If we misquote from it, Catholics will be able to correct the statement. The volume teaches the penitent how to make confession. On page 110 it says:

 

            “Go to your confessor with great humility and modesty, and remember that you are about to present yourself at the feet of Jesus Christ himself. When at the feet of your confessor, kneel down with the greatest reverence and humility, and consider that you are at the feet of Jesus crucified. Do not keep your head far from the priest when confessing.”

 

            The last sentence in the foregoing quotation is found in a foot note on pare 111 of this volume. Among the topics of confession suggested to the penitent by the following appeared on page 96:

 

            “I took pleasure in impure thoughts ___ times a day.”

            “I had impure desires ___ times a day.”

            “I was guilty of immodest looks ___ times a day.”

            “I was guilty of immodest acts ___ times.”

 

            Was there ever a more cunning trap for human frailty? Would not the average respectable woman require to be convinced that she was in the presence of her God alone before responding to such suggestions as the foregoing? Aye! Catholic citizens of Denver - honest heads of families - do you believe in the confessional-box for yourself and yours? Is the fat friar of St. Joseph’s your ideal of Jesus Christ in person, that honest women should be closeted with him in the confessional-box and induces to respond to the impure suggestions above recorded? It is for Catholics themselves to destroy the secret confessional.

 

 

_________________________________________________

 

A Kentucky Hell

_________________________________________________

 

            The contents of this chapter was published in The American Citizen, Boston, Mass., of January 17, 1903. It proves that crimes as vile as those committed under the dripping folds of the Spanish flag three hundred years ago, are now being committed here behind the stone walls of these ecclesiastical hells erected in every American city. The two Kentucky ladies who signed this narrative are now living in Louisville, and are in possession of the proofs as to its truthfulness.

 

ADDRESS OF THE WOMAN’S LIBERTY LEAGUE TO THE WOMEN OF THE COUNTRY.

 

            Recent developments in the history of an abuse of long standing in the city of Louisville, and on no doubt widely prevalent elsewhere, has, we feel, imposed upon us the imperative duty of issuing this appeal to all friends of justice and humanity.

 

            The particular developments referred tom and the immediate occasion of this appeal, are connected with the unlawful imprisonment, at hard labor, for a long period, of two Kentucky women in the Convent of the Good Shepherd commonly known as St. Xavier’s, in this city; their escape therefrom by scaling the walls; the well-substantiated stories of the horrid cruelties they bring from this ecclesiastical prison; their efforts to get redress by suit in the civil courts; and the impending danger of being defeated of all redress by the rulings of the particular court in which their suit has been brought.

 

            The institution in question is located on Bank Street in Louisville, and is one of a pair of convent factories in the city, the other being situated on Eighth Street. They are doubtless fair samples of such institutions wherever found. The Bank Street Convent covers about thirteen and one-half acres, and as customary, is surrounded by high brick walls. It escapes state, county and city taxes, under pretense of being a charitable institution, although it is exclusively engaged in the business of manufacturing clothing, running an extensive laundry, and maintaining a dairy from which milk is sold to the public in the summer. In addition to its incomes from these sources, it also maintains begging parties, who go out over the city in wagons collecting in whatever things may be of use to them.

 

            Confined within the walls are about one hundred women and girls, ranging from childhood to extreme old age, all kept in the closest seclusion. The treatment the victims receive, and some of the methods by which they are lured into this prison, will appear from the history and evidence here offered, and which discloses a state of facts that it is well nigh impossible to believe exists in the twentieth century and in this boasted land of liberty.

 

            The women whose special grievance has been referred to above are Mrs. Hattie Moore and her sister, Rose Wilhite, who were, in 1887, brought from the country farm of Hardin County, Kentucky, by its county superintendent, and turned over to the Mother Superior of the Convent.

 

            Their father, William Wilhite, lived in a somewhat ill-favored and sterile corner of Hardin County, and their mother, by whom he had non children-four sons and five daughters-was fourth wife. Growing old and becoming broke in health as well as irritable, it appears that he became unable to provide properly for his large family. The mother, though, herself not in the best of health, separated from him and took the girls with her. But the neighborhood neither charity nor employment sufficient to support a family of such numbers; so having found a home for Hattie, the oldest, she sought and obtained the privilege of going with the others to the county farm. Here she stayed for about two years, doing willingly whatever offered, until the summer of 1887, when she died from an affection of the heart.

 

            In the meantime, Hattie, who had been taken by a kind neighbor and placed with a worthy family in Bullitt County, met and married a man named Moore, who had several children by a former wife, among them a daughter of eighteen while Hattie lacked two months of being fifteen. As might have been anticipated, the situation soon became overstrained, and six weeks later a separation too place, Hattie going first to see her father, and then visiting her sister at the county farm, her mother had just died.

 

            After she had been there some weeks, the superintendent, believing the place was not a proper one for raising a family of motherless children, decided to place them in certain Roman Catholic institutions that had been favorably reported and Hattie, though under protest, was taken along. The others having been variously placed, Hattie, then aged sixteen, and Rose, aged twelve, were put in the Bank Street Convent already mentioned.

 

            From this time on till the fortunate escape, the stories of Mrs. Moore and her sister, Rose, here given, will reveal their history while in the Convent, and throw some light upon the scenes enacted behind prison walls as well.

 

Statement of Miss Rose White

 

            When I was eight years old, my mother and father separated, my mother taking with her my sisters and myself, in all, five girls. Finding she could not support us, and wishing to keep us together, she went to the county farm, taking us all with her except Hattie, who was taken to Bullitt County.

 

            We stayed at the county farm for about two years, when mother died. The superintendent, Mr. Duncan, then took us, all except Sadie, to Louisville, and put Hattie and myself in the Convent of the Good Shepherd. He told us that we would get to go to school, that the Sisters would be kind to us, and so would our father. He also told us that we would not be there more than a year.

 

            About a year after we were put in, father did come to the convent, and the girls told us he inquired for us, but Mother Anselm, the Mother Provincial, told him we were not there, but had gone away. When Hattie and I heard this, we hurried around to the window, looked through and saw him, but dared not call to him. Another time after that he came, but they would not let him see, not let us speak to him, though we could see him through the window. The pushed us from the window and threatened us, and told us not to dare to go back again.

 

            Six weeks after I was put in, I was set to shoveling coal into the furnace of the engine that runs the laundry. I had to do this all the time that I was there, except for two years while I was at work in the stable. While I was at work at the engine, after I had got steam up, they would compel me to carry big boxes and buckets of coal up three flights of stairs, for use in the ironing or stove-room, and part of the way through steam that was almost choking.

 

            My sister and I often asked to be let out, and many times got down on our knees and prayed to them to let us go, but with one excuse and another, and often with abuse, they always refused us. Three years after I was put in, I escaped by climbing the walls and jumping down. I went to work for a woman near Twelfth and Market Streets, but after I was there a detective arrested me and carried me back.

 

            About a year later I escaped again in the dame way. This time I ran till I reached the river, and there found a hiding place with a man named John Rolander, who, with his wife, lived in a house-boat. I stayed there two weeks and was very kindly treated; but one day Mrs. Rolander went to the grocery store and was told that the police were looking for me and that they were going to search the boat, The Mr. Rolander made a man take me in a skiff and carry me away, giving out that he had sent me to the other side of the river. When they put me ashore again, I set out hurrying though the streets, inquiring the way to Elizabethtown, intending to go back home. Somewhere I passed close to a railroad and heard an engine whistle, and when I heard it, my heart jumped I was so glad. I felt like I had come out of a dream, and was at the old home I first had in the country, and that was the train that used to pass so close to it when I was a child. But just then I walked into the arms of two policemen who arrested me and put me in jail.

 

            Next morning, I was taken back to the convent. When I got there, Mother Paul took me into the engine room and cut my hair off in notches-they call stair steps-and cut it so close and was so rough about it that she cut the scalp in many places till it bled, and the hair was bloody when she got done, but I dare not whimper. The she took the scissors and notched both of my ears so that the blood ran down from both of them over my body. When she did this she said: “Now you are marked, and when you get out again, the police will know you and fetch you back.”

 

            I watched all the time quietly for a good chance to escape but could not get any more till April, when I got out again and fell into the hands of some kind people who took me to the country, where I stayed in hiding till a short time past, for fear they would kidnap me and carry me back again to the convent. I have been informed that my photograph was given to the police by the people of the convent, and they were told to try to bring me back, and that they have been looking for me. When I got out, I was about twenty-six years old and had been thirteen years in this prison.

 

            While in the convent I never received an hour of teaching from the nuns, nor did anyone else, so far as I knew; I had all the time only hard labor that men do outside, I can make out to write my name and I know my letters, but this I learned from another girl at nights and on Sundays. I had plain work to do, and was much of the time to myself, so I was not whipped and beaten as were the others.

 

            I have often seen the nuns take girls, and even children six or seven years old, and after stripping them of all their clothes but one undergarment, make then stand up before all the class, and then whip them with heavy leather straps until they themselves would pant for breath. Old women, so old that all the teeth were out, and some of them half-witted, were often cruelly beaten and hit in the mouth. They would often gag the girls and tie their hands and feet together.

 

Mrs. Hattie Moore’s Statement

 

            I was born in Hardin County, Kentucky, on February the 8^th, 1871. My father’s name was William, and my mother’s, Sarah Wilhite. My mother was the fourth wife, and she had nine children, five of them being girls. My father’s health was getting bad, and he was getting old and unable to provide for his family, and besides, he was not so kind as he might have been, so he and mother separated, mother taking the five girls.

 

            When mother found that she would have to go to the county farm for support, she let me go with Mrs. Richard Clarkson to find a home with her daughter, Mrs. Pate Simmons, in Bullitt County. I remained there until December 4, 1886, when I was married to a widower named Hardin Moore, who had a family of children, one of them a daughter, eighteen, and a son sixteen years old. I lacked two weeks of being fifteen when I married.

 

            The children resented the marriage, and the situation became so trying that at the end of six weeks I went to my father, About that time my mother died at the county farm and I went there and cleaned up and arranged things that had belonged to her. While I was there the superintendent decided on taking my sisters to Louisville, except Susie, the third oldest, who had already been given to a woman in Elizabethtown, and insisted that I should go along with them, telling me when I declined that I had as well go as be made to go. He said the place he was going to take us was one kept by nuns, where they taught school and the children would be educated and well trained, and they would be good to us. He promised, too, that he and his wife would come to see us in a short time, and that our father would visit us. We were only to stay one year. Josephine was given to St. Vincent’s, so we were told, but we never saw nor heard o her again. Maggie was not long with us, but found a home with a lady outside; Rose and I were put into St. Xavier’s, where she was in a short time and set to shoveling coal, and I to pressing pants.

 

            Off and on I was given a job of scrubbing, painting or kalsomining.

 

            I was first mistreated when I had been there about three weeks. I had forgotten and left a pan of water under the edge of the bed in the dormitory, and I knew if it was knocked over and spilled while they were sweeping, I would be punished for it; s after getting down to the sewing room ran back to the dormitory to empty it. Mother Paul missed me and following me up to the dormitory, began beating me with a leather strap and continued beating me all the way down to the sewing room. The she stripped me of all my clothes except my chemise and made me kneel down before all the class, and whipped me with the leather till I was black and blue all over my arms and back.

 

            For telling her once after she had mistreated me, and that, too, after I was twenty-one years of age, that I would get even with her when I got out, she jerked me by the hair and beat me on the mouth and cut my lips on my teeth so that the blood ran down over me, and I had to pick pieces of my lips out of my teeth.

 

            Another time, after we had gone into the dormitory and had stripped to go to bed, a half-idiotic girl began talking aloud, which was against the rules. Knowing she would be cruelly punished for it if it came to the Mother’s ears and wishing to save her a beating, I told her to keep her silence. Instead of doing this, the girl screamed. Then the Mother rushed in with her leather and began beating me fiercely with it over the arms and chest, stripped as I was. The leather cut a piece out of my arm and gave me extreme pain.

 

            Once while finishing the painting of the chapel, I did not get the altar set back exactly as she wanted it, and she snatched up a broom and beat me all the way out of the door.

 

            About three years before I got out, along with another girl, named Justina, I was set to scrubbing the floor. Justina took away the things that I had to scrub with. Then the Mother came in and told me to get down and go to scrubbing. I told her that Justina had taken away my sand and brush, and asked her if she expected me to scrub with my dress skirt. She again ordered me to “get down and scrub,” and I stepped over to Justina and told her to give back the things she had taken away. Then the girl struck me in the face. I said that I would not take that from both of them and picked up the keg used to hold the sand and struck Justina over the head with it. Mother Paul then got a broomstick and set all of the girls on me and they nearly tore me to pieces.

 

            About ten years ago, a girl named Camilla, about twenty-three years old, was finishing some pants that were about ready to be sent out. She was nearly gone with consumption, and while leaning over the table the clothes were on, a coughing spell came on, when a gush of blood poured over her clothes and also bespattered the pants. Mother Pancratius (Mary Kuhn) then jumped from her stall and beating Camilla in the back with her fists. She took a pious book she had been reading and continued beating the girl over the back and head with it, screaming out, “You could have kept from this if you had wanted to.” All the time the Mother was beating her, Camilla kept coughing, with the blood flying from her mouth. This was on Thursday. In the Saturday following she was carried out of the house and buried. It was the most horrible sight I ever saw.

 

            When I had been there something like two years, and was about eighteen years old, I one day, asked Mother Pancratius, who was in charge of the sewing room, if I might go and get a drink of water. I already had the door open ready to go. She said, “No; come back and sit down.” I answered that I was just going for a drink of water and would be back in a moment, when I got the drink.

 

            When I got back, the Mother sent for a penitent, named Eustacia, who was a very cruel tool of hers and a favorite with the nuns, and she brought four strong girls with her. They caught me and dragged me to the engine room where they tried to strip my clothes off me in order to turn the hose on me. I resisted and would not let them strip me, but they got more girls, piled them on my back and bore me down, and then tore off every shred of my clothes until I was completely naked. The they tied my hands and feet, and threw water on me from two hose nozzles, beating me the while with sticks of wood till I was unconscious. The girls told me afterward that I was so near drowned they rolled me over to get the water out of my lungs. For many days I was so sore I could hardly walk. They were afraid I was going to die and they had two girls hold me up and lead me into the chapel to be christened. After that I have a long and tedious spell of sickness, which I never doubted was due to the bruising they caused me and strangling with water.

 

            This Eustacia continued to be of great consequence among the nuns. It was common for her to come into the dormitory at midnight from milking, as she said, though milking was always required to be done by five o’clock. After a while the girls all got to noticing and talking about her suspicious appearance and they sent her away.

 

            Often the Mother would grab the girls by the ears and jerk them violently. My own have been jerked many a time. One day Mother Pancratius grabbed me by the ears and clawed the, tearing strips of skin off which caused the blood to run down, making scars that are there now.

 

            There was a girl in the convent, about twenty-eight years old, who had been there for twenty-two years. She was always watching for an opportunity to get out. One time she told us that Mother Pancatius found her sitting in the yard and broke a broomstick over her head for it. Another time Mother Pancratius beat her in the face till the blood ran out of her moth and nose, and they put a brass key down her back to stop the bleeding.

 

            I saw my sister Rose’s ears soon after they had been cut with scissors. Her head was so sore and raw from the cutting that she had to wear a cap over it, and the girls were permitted to make fun of her for it.

 

            I often begged, and even prayed on my knees to the Mother to let me out, but was invariably answered with an insult. I often asked about my sisters and brothers, but they refused to tell me anything.

 

            When our father came to see us they would not let him come in nor speak to us. I saw him twice from the window, but was not allowed to call to him of go where he could see me.

 

            We received no instruction of any kind in the way of education, nor did any of the other girls. Before we went in I could write my name, but I have forgotten how, as I never had a chance to write while in prison.

 

            Many coarse and reckless girls were brought in from the outside from time to time, who used the worst kind of language and oaths, but they kept us all together.

 

            At last, in September, 1901, I scaled the walls and made the escape I had longed for, and prayed for so many torturing years. After my escape I met with friends who put me in hiding in the upper part of the county, near Pleasure Ridge, for fear they would kidnap me and carry me back or spirit me away somewhere. A few weeks ago I was brought into the city to be placed in charge of the Woman’s Liberty League. I was thirty years old when I got out of prison, and had been there fourteen years. My mother was a Methodist and trained her children in that belief as long as she was with them.

 

_________________________________________________

 

 

            In substantiation of the statements of these women as to the treatment they have been subjected to, and which they are ready and anxious to prove in the courts, is the fact that both Rose’s ears show distinct scars, such as would be produced by such cutting as she describes, while there are scars on Mrs. Moore’s ears, such as would result from violent clawing with sharp finger-nails, and there are other marks on her body that bear out her contention of cruel beatings.

 

Appeal to American Womanhood.

 

            Women and sisters of Kentucky and America, you have before you the pitiful picture of what these women, born in the country where Abraham Lincoln, the great apostle and martyr of freedom first saw the light, have been subjected to in our free country, in this and other such prisons throughout the land.

 

            From a medical viewpoint, in so far as can be ascertained, Mrs. Moors and Rose Wilhite were imprisoned without a shadow of right or authority on the part of anyone connected with their confinement. They were both lured into prison by false pretenses and without process of law, and in the case of Mrs. Moore, at least, these were supplemented by threats; and the girls seem to have been as effectually and truly kidnapped as any of the children in recent years whose disappearance has aroused this country. No man or woman on earth has any legal right to abridge the freedom of action of Mrs. Moore, or to restrain her in the legal exercise of liberty.

 

            As far as the superintendent of the county farm of Hardin County was concerned, and as far as the prison authorities of St. Xavier were concerned, she was free, legally, when she was kidnapped, as the wife even of President Roosevelt id today. For five years of her forced stay Rose Williams was over twenty-one years of age. There was no legal prison or other sentence standing against her and she was all the time demanding her liberty. For five years, at least, of this imprisonment, as harder labor than any condemned criminal in the penitentiary, she was absolutely free under the laws of every state in the Union. Even though she had to escape by scaling high prison walls at imminent risk of serious injury, with the certain prospect of further maiming if she failed, and still to be pursued by willing police with photographs, as if her marked ears, and back permanently bent under thirteen years of cruel drudgery, were not enough to identify her.

 

            Any one of you, or and one of us who address you, may, with the same right or authority, be seized at any time that we step outside the door of our happy homes, carried to these gloomy prisons and set to hard labor for life, with the lacerating lash laid on our bare arms and backs and breasts, and then with our hair notched in “stair steps” with brutal and bloody roughness, and our ears notched if we dare try to escape.

 

            And then to add these atrocious and enormous insults to right and justice, and this outrage on humanity, these people come into court and deny that there is any one among them who is in authority, or who can be called to legal accountability for such conduct. It appears from the response to the suit of Mrs. Hattie Moore and Rose Wilhite, that any old body can carry off one of our daughters or sisters, or even one of ourselves, and imprison us at hard labor for life, may lacerate and disfigure us, may shut the gates upon us against light and life and kindred forever; and yet, when an accounting is called for, no on is responsible. These people have said so, and as least one judge has said so.

 

            At one time in France it was the privilege of the King, and often exercised, to snatch up any citizen and secretly imprison him for life without cause. The practice was regarded as so wicked and so odious, that when in the mutations of fortune it came to the turn of its wicked authors to shed their blood for it, that blood sent up an odor that to this good hour has not been ungrateful to the nostrils of humanity.

 

            But the friends of the French victims of such cruel tyranny knew the responsible tyrant to whom they might appeal, even if in vain. But these, our daughters and sisters, may not know who is in authority over them in their secret prison; who has the power to pardon, nor to whom to kneel, and even if vainly, to pray for the opening of their prison doors. Nor do we ourselves yet know to whom or what tribunal we may lead them for redress.

 

            And all of this in the teeth of the fact that the Statutes of Kentucky make imprisonment without due process of law a felony. Here is Section 1221 of the Revised Statues:

 

Section 1221, Kentucky Statutes.

 

            “Arresting, imprisoning or transporting another-aiding or abetting. If any person or persons shall arrest or imprison another, or shall transport him, against his will, beyond the bonds of this commonwealth, otherwise than according to law, or cause, or in any manner counsel, aid or abet in such arrest, imprisonment or transportation, the person or persons so offending shall, on conviction thereof, be deemed guilty of felony, and shall be confined in the penitentiary not less than one or more than twenty years.”

 

            When bandits across the sea have made a promising capture, they are accustomed to fix a price on the liberty of the victim, to notify the friends and invite ransom; but our domestic bandits, when they capture our sisters and daughters, hide them in secret prisons behind iron doors, and with cruel torture proceed to coin their life into money. Nor is it likely that this money is thrown away. Somebody gets it. Somewhere in the prison shadow doubtless there hovers a hooded captain of the bandit troop who gathers this blood money into his capacious bag.

 

            These prisons do not reform. Some may say-some designing people who want to make and excuse for their cringing, or some simple-hearted souls easily deceived may contend-that there is among those who these prison factories restrain, a certain proportion of dissolute girls who are thus led to a higher life.

 

            The truth is they reform none. The most refined girl ever thrust behind these walls must associate with the most dissolute and most depraved, and hear all their vile language. They experience only that which will lower their self-respect, and in addition, engender hatred of those to whom they might be supposed to look for right example, counsel and advice.

 

            The whole trend of the treatment and training these girls receive is a progressive disqualification for the duties that in after life devolve on womanhood. Whatever is learned must be learned early in life, while the brain is plastic and the mind impressionable. The monotonous drudgery these prisoners are subjected to along with the suppression and the humiliating indignities, produce a cramped and dwarfed conditions of the faculties of the body and mind, that if those who have been confined for long do not have the fortune to escape their prison, their lot is a most pitiable one. They must needs carry their prison walls with them. Wholly without means, forgotten by friends, utterly without education, and without such training as qualifies then for the least exacting domestic service, their case is, indeed, one of hopeless helplessness.

 

            Again, have you ever reflected that one slave all the time producing and never consuming can drive to hardship large numbers who have to compete with that one in the same line of employment? What else than the starvation wages these more than sweatshop methods impose or necessitate, can account for the fearful recent inroads on womanly virtue that we all so much deplore, and view with so much alarm?

 

To Organized Labor.

 

            To organized labor, also, we would appeal. In vain your unions, in vain your strikes, if you supinely wait till these trusts that hold in their grasp the souls, bodies and minds of  human beings, reach their full development. The time will surely come when their tightening coils will strangle your efforts. Thunder your veto against prison labor, and demand for your sisters the liberty you claim for yourselves!

 

            To the thoughtless patronizers of institutions that hide behind prison walls and barred gates we would say, “Wherever you see these walls go up, be sure that enslaved and tortured women unlawfully shut out from kindred and friends, from light and hope, are groaning behind them.”

 

            Let nothing, then, be eaten or worn that comes from behind the walls where, against law and right, your sisters are kept imprisoned and enslaved. And those of you who will persist in encouraging yourselves when at night you disrobe to enter peaceful, unhaunted sleep, with only your drooping eyelids shutting you out from the bright, free world, search and make certain that the garments you lay aside have not printed on your own fair bodies stripes of blood. Hold them to your ears and listen, and be sure that there do don’t linger in their folds, in phonographic tones, the despairing moans and cries of beaten and lacerated sisters.

 

            The Women’s Liberty League has been formed primarily to aid Mrs. Hattie Moors and Miss Rose Wilhite in their just claim for damages against the authors of their unlawful imprisonment, to employ able counsel for them as the case may require, to have the evidence taken down and published when the case comes to trial, to take up the cases of others in like situations when the can be reached, and all in the hope that this movement may extend to every place where these prisons exist, and in strength to overthrow them, or, at least, to open them to a full and free legal inspection and regulation.

 

            We are prepared to offer every safe-guard that means entrusted to us for these purposes shall be honestly and economically applied, and we appeal to friend of liberty, justice and light, everywhere, to assist us by whatever means the blessings of a kind Providence has placed in their hands.

 

THE WOMEN’S LIBERTY LEAGUE

 

Mrs. C. K. Richardson, President

Lillie E. Burch, Secretary

Louisville, Kentucky, January 1, 1903.

 

________________________________________________

 

Rome’s Substitute for Marriage

_________________________________________________

 

By Rev. J. Q. A. Henry

 

            If the priests of the Roman Catholic church in America were to marry it would revolutionize society and in addition it would give the husband in the Catholic home his rightful place as the head and priest of the office.

 

            To tell the truth about the priesthood is to be accused of slander and vilification. At times, duty compels a man to speak the truth to warn the wicked lest the blood of souls should be required of his hands. We believe that the life of this nation to be imperiled by the celibacy of the priesthood and its consequential damages. Our people are asleep while the encroachments of Romanism are going on.

 

            The theory of a celibate priesthood is, that a woman must obey her confessor in everything he commands; that she will never be called to account for any action which she has performed to please her priest. These fair penitents are required to answer questions of the most revolting character, and yet it is denied that the Roman Catholic priests are dissolute. We charge that every one of them is compelled by his oath to pollute the minds and hearts of the mothers, wives and daughters with whom he comes in contact with, and agree perfectly with the editor of the Occident when he says he believed it impossible for a priest to be pure. No man or woman can take such thoughts into their mind without being polluted by them; hence the absence of surprise at the moral degradation of nations under the yoke of Rome.

 

            The published statistics of European as well as American nations, show that among Roman Catholic countries there is nearly double the amount of immorality, bastardy, theft, perjury and murder that is found among Protestant nations. In the city of Rome virtue is almost unknown, and children born in wedlock constitute the exception and not the rule.

 

            Father Chiniquy asks, “Where then must we look for the cause of the stupendous facts if not in the corrupt teachings of the theology of Rome, and how can the Roman Catholic nations hope to raise themselves in the scale of Christian dignity and morality, as long as half a million priests are allowed to remain in their midst; priests who are bound in conscience every day to pollute the minds and hearts of wives and mothers, sisters and daughters? No wonder the priests themselves are asking: ‘Would we not be more chaste and pure by living with the lawful wives than by daily exposing ourselves in the confessional, in the company of women whose presence will irresistibly drag us into the shameful pits of impurity? ’”

 

            To expose these enormities and to state the truth in reference to a celibate priesthood, is to incur the anger and displeasure of Roman Catholics who are bound hand and foot by their father confessors and yet the truth about the paint removed, and the horrible beast revealed in its nakedness only to be hated and despised. Alas, that so many of our people should be so willing to be humbugged and deceived. To tell the whole truth would be to expose one’s self to criminal proceedings. Rome hides behind the law forbidding the approach to obscenity, to conceal her name. To portray her pollutions would make a book too indelicate to read in public, and hence protect the innocent, the guilty have been permitted to go scot-free.

 

            In some way or another society must organize against this horrid iniquity. Mr. Henry C. Lea affirms, “The church has unquestionably violated the precept ‘Thou shalt not tempt’ in its reliance that the gift of chastity might accompany the ordination which it confers upon the priesthood; and then turns loose young men at the age when the passions are the strongest, trained in the seminary and unused to female companionship to occupy a position in which they are brought into the closet and most dangerous relations with women who regard them as being gifted with supernatural powers and holding in their hands the keys of heaven and hell.

 

            Whatever may have been the ardor with which the vows were taken, the youth, thus exposed to temptations hitherto unknown, finds his virtue rudely assailed when in the confessional female lips repeated to him the story of sins and transgressions and he recognized in himself instincts and passions which are only the stronger by reason of their whilsom repression; that a youthful spiritual director before whom are thrown down all barriers with which the prudent reserve of society surrounds the social intercourse of the sexes, too often finds that he has over-estimated his self control. History attests that there are a few priests who have the grace to live without the companionship of women.

 

            The Vatican contains eleven hundred rooms and a population for five hundred, one third of whom are women. While priests may not wed according to the Catholic church, nevertheless they may live in the open violation of God’s command.

 

            The scandal of the Countess Lambertina, who was a daughter of Cardinal Antonelli, who was the power behind the throne during the pontification of Pope Pius IX, has sued for the measure of her father’s estate, and in this was has given proof that the lust in Italy is most disgraceful.

 

            Sixteen bishops urged the marriage of priests in order to reduce the number of illegitimate children whose existence degrades the church.

 

            In Brooklyn, N.Y., in a case of the most aggravating character, where the organist was assaulted by a priest, the jury brought in a verdict of guilty and fined him six cents, whereupon this lecherous priest was permitted to go back to his altar and his shame.

 

            All over the country are to be found women who have fled Rome, and who pronounced her iniquities infinitely worse that we have painted them, and declare that the half has never been told. We believe that the time has come when the legislature of our country will be forced to handle this subject by a commission, and thus break up this iniquitous and polluting tyranny over the millions of our citizens. We believe there are thousands who would gladly testify against this monster evil.

 

            We maintain that priests should be judged by the same standards that prevail in evangelical denominations. If Baptist, Methodist or any Protestant defalcates, robs of debauches the people, he finds a home in the state’s prison; but seldom does a Romish priest look out from behind bars. If a minister lapses from virtue his pulpit is declared vacant, until the stain from his character is effaced.

 

            The conduct of priests in nunneries ought to be investigated. Nunneries should be examined and every nun be permitted to see a representative of the state alone, apart from the surveillance of any keeper or companion, at least once every year, with the assurance of protection and deliverance if desired. It was the insistence of a regulation of this kind in Germany that led to the abandonment of the convent system in Germany. Every man and woman opposed to the degrading influence of Romanism should protest against its enormities in public and in private. They should make it their business to tell what they know, and to circulate documents, papers and books that expose its infamies and corruptions.

 

            Naturally one recoils from a task like this, for in the revelation of such records there is naught save shame and sorrow. We believe the celibacy of the priesthood to constitute the sewer of our American life; that it is connected with the dark passages of European life, and reveals the priesthood to be the pestilence of Christianity-the plague spot of morality. Ours is a land of homes. Whatever blesses the home, benefits everybody; whatever curses the home, injures everybody. It is because the homes of millions are invaded and imperiled by the conduct of priests that we desire to discuss the questions why they do not wed. The theory which underlies their unchastity is, that a woman may obey the priest and without sin be to him all that he desires, and that she can never be called to account to God for any act that she may have performed to please him. The women of the Romish church uphold the priests in their wrong doing. No matter what he does he goes back to his altar and to his adulteries and debaucheries, and American women say it is none of their business. Sin palliated and condoned lowers the standard of morality and injures society.

 

            We believe the loose ideas of marriage and wedlock extant today ate chiefly due to the corrupting influences of the priesthood. Not long ago, in a music hall, Boston, a converted nun handed this request to the chairman of the meeting: “Pray for my poor benighted relations who are yet in the bonds of iniquity and the gall of bitterness. My poor little niece who is now in Boston and out of work, was put into a convent at three years of age, and since then had been the mother of two children before she was nineteen years of age. One is living and one dead. She was living with a priest when these children were born and is now turned out upon the world, without a home and can neither read or write.” This is but a specimen of an iniquity that is not only diabolical but marvelously prevalent among American people. We believe the priest to be the plague of society and the scourge of civilization.

 

            As confessor, he possesses the secrets of a woman’s soul. He knows every half-formed hope, every dim desire, every thwarted feeling. He moves her with his own will and fashions her according to his own fancy. The preservation of a woman’s virtue who is a faithful attendant upon the confession box is an accident or a miracle, and she becomes wax in her spiritual dictator’s hands. She ceases to be a person and becomes a thing. What can be more diabolical than the institution of a celibate priesthood? In its origin, growth and conquests we have a story of brutality that can scarcely be matched. It leaves men, women and children liable to be drawn into the vortex of animal passion that the outside world may seldom know their actions and their thoughts.

 

            A young woman will confess to a priest what she would never venture to tell her mother of acknowledge to her husband; but the father confessor must know. It is evident that auricular confession is a crime, but the substitution for marriage on the part of the priesthood is without excuse and can claim no toleration unless the American people consent to allow millions to sink into the mire of filthy abomination without a protest and without warning. There is that in it from which the pure in heart shrink back in holy horror. Be assured that vow of celibacy as a rule is deceptive and vain. History tells un trumpet tones that priests do not keep that vow. The theologians of the Roman Catholic church may palliate their crime and cover their lapses from virtue with a mantle woven out of the alleged wickedness of human nature, and match their moral delinquencies by their unparalleled temptations, and yet before God, we are compelled to protest against the violation of the fundamental law of Christianity, character and society-the law of chastity. We believe this substitution for marriage reveals a deeper depth of shame and a more diabolical plot against virtue and wantonness upon the part of these professed leaders of millions, that can be imagined, much less described.

 

            Father Quinn, for ten years pastor of the Roman Catholic church, Kalamazoo, Mich., was the man who uncovered the rascality and robbery of Archbishop Purcell. In that work he did much, but in the writing of a book entitles “Celibacy and Chastity, or the Substitution for Marriage for Priests,” and the horrid revelation he makes of the turpitude and infamies of the priesthood would surpass belief were it not by Rev. Anthony Gaven, an Episcopal minister of England and William Hogan, an ex-priest of Rome, and many more.

 

            The institution is thus described: In the year 1866 Pope Pius IX sanctioned one of the most appalling institutions of immorality and wickedness under the form and garb of religion; virtually adding another plague spot to that vile body, the mother of harlots-papalism, this offering to the clergy the opportunity which they had already taken in various ways to use this violation of marriage.

 

            This organization, with all its glaring indecencies, its frightful oppressions, its unlicensed privileges, its revolting and heartrending outrages, is simply another product of celibacy-another element in a system which is rotten with the accumulated iniquities of ages.

 

            Plans the safest, best and most expeditious were thought out and wrought out for the enslavement of women, by making them the brides of heaven, the consecrated courtesans, to be used by the Rev. Father in God. In many cities of the United States and Canada these societies flourish, having the sanction of the pope, bearing the name of the Rosary, Sacred Heart, Immaculate Conception or such pious titles as are calculated to awaken no suspicion. Not all, of course, have been installed into the secret order of the blessed creatures, but only those who are trained.

 

            Proofs for the existence of this order are ample and abundant. The first evidence came through the confessional, from some of the women who had been members and who had left their former homes to get rid of the burden of such a life. In all cases examined, the badges, pictures, instrument and printed matter were invariably the same, and the statements made by various women were identical throughout.

 

            Many inducements are held out for joining those societies. They differ according to the character, disposition and bearing of the ladies that may be selected. Priests have a wonderful knowledge of human nature, and what is more important-of woman’s nature. They have made her a special study, and are perfectly conversant with the duplicity, artifice and cunning by which their victim may be bound, sworn and delivered to the tender mercies of her spiritual adviser. Because priests know exactly the kind of material they work upon; they are able in at least nine cases out of ten to accomplish their purpose. The smooth-tongued villain, by special argument ingratiate themselves into the favor of their flock, ruling an swaying the bodies and souls of their devotees, touching as with a magic wand the secret springs of passion and of lust, until they rival in enormity the worst and most licentious institutions of paganism.

 

            At first it seems marvelously strange that women, under any pretext whatever, would join these societies to become the tools and fools of these wicked priests, but when we remember their early training, the superstition and nonsense, and lying wonders which they have been taught to accept without question, we are no longer surprised that they are thus enslaved, the marvel would be that they did not belong. Some are naturally so full of passion and lust that they gladly avail themselves of this society to be protected and secured by religion in their gratifications. They are taught that God and His holy church are highly pleased with the sacred duties of this institution. The ornaments and decorations of the sacred chapel have a hidden mystery and a sacred bearing on these societies.

 

            Priests never weary in persuading these female friends that there is much mystery connected with this divine church and its practices, and that it is the conscientious duty of every one, male or female, to yield a willing and hearty obedience to the voice of the priest, who is the true representative of Jesus.

 

            Every female identified with this society is to regard herself as highly honored-exalted as Mary was, and must consider herself as promoted to a celestial dignity far above the other women of the city or parish of which she belongs. Her timidity and modesty are overcome by learning that the priest or bishop requires this unusual and apparently wrong, yet mysteriously right service from her.

 

            Convinced that all is right, she gives the priest complete assurance of her willingness to submit to his unquestioned will. Then there are a few mumbled words in Latin, a sprinkling of holy water, a blessing asked, and the feast is ready for the priest who has accomplished by mock prayer and pagan ceremony what ought to send a poisoned arrow through his accursed heart.

 

            In our study of this subject last Sunday afternoon attention was directed to the origin of such sodality, the date and circumstances attending its institution by Pope Pius IX in 1866, the evidence of its existence, the qualifications for membership on the part of priests and the mysterious jugglery by which its despicable practices were justified by lecherous clergy. They admit that such immoral procedure is surrounded with much mystery which the initiated alone can understand. They admit that the Papal church committed and egregious blunder when enforcing celibacy among the clergy, and that this dogma has been a source of shocking corruption and scandal; but they maintain that the church had by divine authority, substituted this blessed institution rather than let the people discover that she had been deceiving them for ages on this vital question; and that those blessed creatures, or brides of heaven, are to take the place of and perform the duties of a lawful wife.

 

            The manner in which they wrench the Scriptures to justify their position is most remarkable. In commenting upon that Scripture which declares that bishop must be the husband of one wife they assert that no one shall be admitted to the order of bishop, priest or deacon who has been married more than once. By parity of reasoning it would be equally correct to construe or pervert the remaining parts of the verse, and say: “No one shall be admitted to these orders who has been blameless more than once; sober, prudent, chaste, of good behavior or given to hospitality more than once.” The simple fact is, that this institution places the Papal church in a frightful dilemma before her own followers and before the intelligent people of the world.

 

            If the people discovered these and other false explanations of the Papal church, they would revolt against her and abandon her dogmas as pernicious, pagan, unscrupulous and unchristian. Without diverging upon this subject further, it is manifest that the substitution for marriage on the part of the priests have become a necessity for the preservation of the Roman Catholic church in America. But this in no wise diminished the rotten stench which we are compelled to tolerate in our present condition.

 

            These fathers and their church teach these deluded women that Jesus used in this peculiar manner Mary Magdalene and other women, and that he pardoned the sins of many women because they had loved and served him in this manner during his earthly sojourn. Thus they ascribed to the Man of Nazareth in private, immorality and passion such as so-called infidels have never mentioned in connection with his career as a social reformer. They adduce as arguments in their favor also, that Peter, a great saint, was a married man, retained his wife and begat children, and claimed that Christ approved the relation because he loved Peter’s mother-in-law.

 

            They assert, also, that the clergy, from the days of Christ to the present, have used women in this way who were married to them privately, and blessed for their special comfort, though the majority of the people have not been taught that such was wrong and therefore not allowed. They even declared that the Virgin Mary had many children, and proved it by the statement of her neighbors, who generally knew about such things! and said: “Is this not the carpenter, the Son of Mary, the brother of James and Joseph and Jude and Simon?” And they likewise refer to Solomon, who had several hundred wives and concubines. They say that this sacred association of the very mystery of godliness; that the deacons, priests and bishops of the Church of Christ were chaste while married and begetting children; and that all those clergymen were authorized to have one wife and several concubines or consecrated mistresses, who were to render them this peculiar service, which was according to the desire of the flesh, purified by the blessing of the spirit, and accepted by God and the angels. To make the impression lasting and most powerful, and to give the form of sacredness and solemnity to the obligation, the Papal church requires both the priests and the female to observe many ceremonies at the time of intimation.

 

            Some of the pomp, shows, music, pictures, candles, incense, bells, holy water, together with all the paraphernalia used by the church on important occasions is brought into the requisition to mystify and impress the victim. The priest who is to bless or receive the female, is robed in a cassock, surplice and stole. The female usually wears a white veil; kneels on a cushion before the officiating clergyman who indicated and blesses her for such holy uses. She hold in her hand the lighted candle, answers all questions, and swears implicit obedience to all clergymen who are members of the society, especially to him who shall be her pastor; also to be most faithful in the discharge of all duties, particularly in not revealing the secrets, duties or insignia of the society. She swears to exercise a supervision of other females and report any delinquency to the priest or bishop. She obligates herself to oppose and pursue, even to death, any faithless or dissatisfied member; to defend other clergymen on all occasions, and to deny, under oath, if need be, every charge or statement made against her by any member who may complain of this society, or report its proceedings t the outside world. If she is a married woman when she is admitted to this order she promises to be faithful to her pastor, and to consider him, if a member, and serve him in all things as her holy, true and lawful husband, blessed before God and the church; she also agrees to abstain from serving her ostensible husband, as the laws of the church are more binging than the laws of men.

 

            Dr. Fulton relates an incident that occurred in Music Hall, in Boston, of which he received a letter that read as follows:

 

            “The priest wished me to subscribe five thousand dollars to a certain object. I could not do it and did not. My wife went to the confession and was told by the priest to deny me all rights as a husband until I subscribed the money.”

 

            She further agrees to get what money she can from her ostensible husband for the support of priests and the church and if required, to persuade her that, though living in the same house, she can no longer live as wife, because she has consecrated her whole being to the service of God and his holy church, in order that she may live a life of virtue and holiness, affirming that it would be displeasing to God to defile her body, and that it would be contrary to the vow which she has taken upon herself, when she became a member of one of the blessed fraternities of the church. Some husbands have actually believed this, and have lived, and are now living, in the same house, supporting and caring for them, supposing that God, conscience, purity and religion are the only motives which actuate their once loving and truthful companions, and little suspect that they are living a life of consecrated profligacy for the gratification of a salacious priesthood.

 

            The theory of the Papal church is, that there can be no true marriage outside of its jurisdiction, and that the offspring of all such alliances are illegitimate. She also insists that no clergyman belonging to her can be married and does not consider that bishops and priests who have forsaken the fold and taken unto themselves wives are married at all, and yet secretly she allows her chief priests and bishops, who are members of these infamous societies to make these deluded women believe that they are truly and honorably married to them; so much so that they are no longer permitted to live as wives with their legitimate husbands. In other words while priests are not permitted to have wives of their own, the papal power justifies them in having somebody else’s wife, and so debauch womanhood and wreck the home.

 

            The concluding ceremony is the sprinkling of the initiate with holy water and bestowing upon her the title of Blessed Creature. Henceforth the letter B.C. are used in their notes or letters to each other.

 

            These Blessed Creatures are also known by certain badges, the most important of which is the image of the Virgin Mary with the child of Jesus in her arms. The Virgin Mary is made the queen or mother and protectress of the entire organization. Another badge of membership is a pair of silken mittens, generally white and knit by hand.

 

            These Blessed Creatures wear some insignia, even in the best society, without being suspected. Many Roman Catholic women belong to an association having some religious title, while they have no knowledge of the hidden operations of the inner circles. Each of these Brides of Heaven is provided with a ring, worn on the third finger of the left hand as a wedding ring. Then there are certain grips of the hand by which the blessed creature can make herself known to any of the fathers without detection by strangers. The books containing instructions are circulated in a guarded manner. Every member of this fraternity is given a book which contains the rules and instructions. It must be kept in a secret place; the moment any one is suspected of infidelity the book is taken from her. The language of the book is susceptible of a double interpretation. It contains nothing that would lead to personal and local exposure, or bring scandal on the church. Every Blessed Creature is made familiar with the key which unlocks the real and immoral meaning of this book. Every possible effort is used to conceal the names of those who are members of the fraternity, lest the woman herself or her family might be disgraced.

 

            Protestants, as well as papists, have been generous in patronizing big fairs and swelling the treasury of this Roman church by liberal donations, for the ostensible purpose of building a new cathedral, or an orphan asylum; but in reality, a large portion of the money has been expended by persons, for the entertainment of these Brides of Heaven. Some of the nuns are members of these organizations are bound just the same as the Blessed Creatures who are still in the world. Others of the nuns know nothing of the existence, oaths, or duties of this society. Parents or friends of the young ladies about to become nuns, attend the grand ceremony, or wedding may be only the foreshadowing of the real marriage; when blessed anew, they enter into the joy awaiting them in their union with those fathers, by their initiation into this fraternity. Many priests and representatives of the church participate in these festivities. There is a grand dinner and holiday for the young ladies attending the school at the convent; special pleasures and attractions arranged by the sisters.

 

            After all is over, the Blessed Creature, whether a nun or a woman of the world, perhaps a convert from Protestantism, is invited by his lordship to meet him in his luxurious apartments, there to spend days and nights with him. Perhaps the ladies belonging to the convent know the whole secret and manage to disturb him as little as possible. The excuse given by the bishop is that this Bride of Heaven needs much private instruction on many matters of importance pertaining to their religion. This convert is usually supplied with all the money she requires for jewelry, ornaments and dress, that she may appear in her most attractive form. A thousand, five thousand or ten thousand dollars a year while she is in service in the estimation of the bishop, the very pink of perfection, is no unusual sum.

 

            The story is told of one who was enthusiastic, intensely emotional, who possessed in her nature powerful elements of the romantic, sentimental and visionary. Her emotions overruled her reason, and she loved not wisely, but too well. Her constitution was wrecked; she grew ill. The clammy touch and chill of death crept toward her; remorse gnawed at her heart string. The accumulated guilt of years rested like a heavy weight upon her conscience, and the thought of husband and children whom she loved and honored before she gave herself to the papal church. She grew to hate Rome, to despise the priesthood, she resolved to expose the substitution for marriage, and the church that upheld it and accomplished her ruin.

 

            The letters, badges, and books were placed in the hands of a trusted physician, and an exposure was resolved upon. She left the city and sought another home. In speaking of the enormities of the institution as abnormal, unnatural and diabolical, she warns Protestants against the wiles of Rome, set for them in the confessional, the convent school and the seductiveness of papal power. She admits that many of the sisters are good and will not intentionally corrupt the Protestant girls, but true to their calling they must and do plant the seeds of Papalism in their minds and hearts, in such a way that the clergy in due time can complete the conversion, draw them into these societies, debauch and ruin them. This woman testified that she served as spouse or consecrated courtesan to nineteen different Roman Catholic clergymen in less than two years. Do you wonder that she loathes their doings and fears their vengeance?

 

            Two young, unmarried ladies, members of a highly respectable family, became initiated, and have served as Brides of Heaven, one to twenty-two of these fathers. Owing to their high position in life, they move in the most aristocratic ranks of society, without the least suspicion resting upon them. They have no fear of the fathers, for they would expose the whole affair in the twinkling of an eye, and thus bring shame and scandal upon the church.

 

            Dr. Quinn tells also of three young ladies, children of Roman Catholic parents, who were members of this society, and have served respectively, seven, nine and thirteen of these holy fathers. On account of the sufferings though which they passed, and the cruelties inflicted upon them for disobedience to the rules of the society, they had abandoned the confraternity.

 

            Few physicians and thoroughly familiar with all these important facts. They are acquainted with some members of the sodality, but do not publish these facts lest they might bring ruin upon many worthy and happy families.

 

            And so we might narrate instance after instance, and cover page after page with the villainies that have characterized this mystery of iniquity.

 

            We believe that Romanism is a natural religion, appealing to the natural man, full of passion, and set on fire of hell; that the average Roman principle is described in these words: “the works of the flesh are these: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revilings, and such like, of which I tell you before, and I have also told you in time past, that they which do these things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” This proves that Roman Catholic priests, as a rule, are in danger, not of bigotry, but of eternal hell. It is the life of God in the soul which changed the nature, quenched the glow of passion and compels the individual to walk in harmony with the teachings of the word of God. Where the word of God rules and reigns, there is virtue, self-respect, domestic purity and honored wedlock and a righteous community.

 

            Chapter eight of Dr. Quinn’s book, tells of abortions and cruelties which result from these criminal marriages, the details of which are sufficient to sicken and sadden the heart. Many of these illegitimate children are prematurely born, and not a few, after having been baptized are turned over to the tender mercies of a good God, while still others are provided for the foundling asylums, orphanages and other places of refuge with which Rome abounds, because in such institutions the priesthood can be screened from infamy. A lady who was acquainted with the infamies of the priesthood rebuked some of them for their profligate doings, and asked how they could say mass while leading such profligate lives. They roared in laughter and asked, what is the confessional for unless they were granted absolution as well for as other men.

 

            The fear of persecution and death seals the lips of many of these Brides of Heaven, though their wrongs burn like fire into the soul. A beautiful girl had been seduced by priestly cunning and church influence, and had been brutally initiated into this society. Through the brutality of these men, she became disgusted with the society and its horrid crimes, and finally complained to some of the members, who reported her murmurs to the leading pastor. She was urged to submit. She refused. She was seized by priests, carried up to the garret, bound with a strong rope around the wrists to a post, and fearing that she might escape, they procured a chain, and fastened her to a large beam, and left her to her own reflections. They were certain she would repent and submit. They were mistaken. She was invincible. They brought her barley bread and water enough to keep her alive. She, the once loved and petted idol, neither ate nor drank, but reiterated constantly her determination to expose and denounce the whole crowd, until the overburdened mind gave way, and she became crazed in that temporary prison.

 

            In her insanity she tore her long, beautiful hair, and cursed it as one of the beauties which had been admired by the fathers. She tore her clothing from her body into shreds and stood there raving, cursing, crying and praying, while the human fiends, the father, and the other Brides of Heaven, invited others of their associates that were wavering or fault finding to witness the punishment of the poor girl, as a specimen of what they might expect should they venture to threaten to leave. Some said: “It is good enough for her talking as she did and not obeying the blessed father.” Death came to release the tired and worn out spirit. In a dimly lighted chapel, with the smoke and aroma of incense in the air-the altar draped in mourning, lies the broken-hearted, abused girl, all unconscious of the mock prayers and empty ceremonies performed seemingly for her benefit, but in reality, to show that nothing is wrong, and all is well, proper and religious in honor of the dead and living. No relatives were present, no fond mother, who might have discovered something wrong in the appearance of her dead child; no proud father to mourn over the object his whole heart was wrapped up in; no brother or sister to mingle their tears of love. All is a strange mockery and a snare.

 

            And yet this girl was sent from a distant home and entrusted to these spiritual sharks to train and educate for life’s responsibilities and privileges, and this is the way in which they did it. Let God and insulted humanity be the judges concerning this iniquitous system.

 

            With these facts in mind, one ceases to be surprised that the press should teem with reports of the scandals practiced in the Roman Catholic Church. We believe it to be a sewer in which to drain off scandals and loathsome deeds of society, rather than a representative of the Christ who went about doing good. Has not the time come when men and women should cut loose from this sink of corruption-turn upon it the eye of public investigation, and compel it by strenuous laws to behave or suffer the consequences of its abominable deeds.

 

[end of pamphlet]

 

 

 

Footnote below by Revs. Mr. & Mrs. H. Dean Daniels:

 

The above pamphlet was written in approximately 1903-1925. The current legal age of consent (reference found on the web and not necessarily accurate or up to date) is:

 

 

FOOTNOTES:

[1]Age 16 if the man is 21 or older.

[2]If the female is over 12, the status applies only to virgins.

 

 

Please also visit the Women’s History link that talks about the Age of Consent Campaign:

 

http://womhist.alexanderstreet.com/aoc/abstract.htm

 

 

 

Finally, we suggest that the next document that you study in our on-going series is:

 

JESUS CHRIST AND HIS BLOOD ARE STILL ALIVE

 

Click on the underlined link above to go to the document.

 

Revs. Mr. and Mrs. H. Dean Daniels Sui Juris