230.3 
 
 C5498p 
 
 191 
 
 iV 
 
 A BOOK FOR 
 
 WIVES, MOTHERS 
 DAUGHTERS 
 
 uuu 
 
 COMPILED BY 
 
(From tfie CiSrary of 0.%. and 
 Mary MapCe Jones 
 
 J? gift from ‘EstHer <Douglttie French, 
 
 Jane (Doughtie FayCor dE FicharcC F. (Doughtie III 
 
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 hus- 
 I bands and fathers of America, who should ibe 
 |the defenders of woman’s honor; and to all who 
 flove truth, virtue and purity, this book is dedi- 
 cated 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 gambling 
 hell, the convent, the parochial school, 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 restiictive 
 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 receives 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 in this free 
 land. Let the womanhood of America be valiant in the 
 fight for human freedom. 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 Mrs. Wm. Li^oyd Clark. 
 
Priest and Woman 
 
 T he age has passed when women are looked 
 upon as slaves of men. Only a savage 
 would want a slave for the mother of his chil- 
 dren. We are living in the morning sunlight of 
 the twentieth century — a glorious century that 
 will open a new area for woman in the western 
 world. Woman has made little progress in those 
 countries struggling under the emissaries of the 
 Pope, while in Protestant nations, such as Eng- 
 land, 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 v/ould be found a loyal citizen, a 
 faithful wife, a devoted mother and a steadfast 
 patriot. 
 
 History reveals the priest and the confes- 
 sional 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 
 
4 
 
 PRIEST /..ND WOMAN 
 
 institutions. i,Iany parents in the past nave 
 placed their daughters in convents, believing that 
 in so doing they were removing them from all 
 temptations ahd giving them good and holy com- 
 panions. 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 sun- 
 shine 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 
 w^ould not bear inspection, and very wisely keeps 
 the door shut. Many a noble woman has entered 
 the w’alls of Rome to escape the snares of the 
 world, only to find that she had entered a trap 
 to fall a 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 
 v/oman. Is it elevating to have married or un- 
 married v/omen subjected to the questions of a 
 celibate, or old bachelor priest? In the confes- 
 sional 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 moml 
 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 trans- 
 late and print in the English language the infa- 
 mous questions asked women, and even little j 
 
PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 5 
 
 girls in the Roman confessional box by old bach- 
 elor priests. 
 
 How degrading all this must be on the lives 
 of Rome’s women. As a rule the minds of 
 Roman Catholic women are very impure, the nat- 
 ural 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 the factories is one of the greatest curses of 
 the day. It is the opinion of our leading lady 
 physicians in this country that our girls are 
 worked too hard. The hours that they are com- 
 pelled to stand causes disease and unfits them to 
 become mothers. We have laws for the protec- 
 tion 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 solicita- 
 tions of our monied ruffians who crowd our large 
 towns. There should be legislation giving the 
 working girls shorter hours and 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 deal- 
 ing thus with the girl, bring up the villain who 
 
G 
 
 priest and woman 
 
 accomplished her ruin to the bar of public opinion 
 and make him feel that he has committed an 
 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 pro- 
 vided 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 some 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 descend- 
 ants 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 : 
 
 Delaware 
 Texas . . . 
 
 Age oe Consent. 
 
 7 years 
 
PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 7 
 
 Idaho 
 
 10 
 
 €( 
 
 South Dakota 
 
 
 (( 
 
 North Carolina 
 
 10 
 
 (( 
 
 Georgia 
 
 10 
 
 €t 
 
 Alabama 
 
 10 
 
 tc 
 
 Minnesota 
 
 
 (t 
 
 Colorado 
 
 
 i( 
 
 Kentucky 
 
 12 
 
 (( 
 
 Indiana 
 
 12 
 
 U 
 
 Wisconsin 
 
 
 ti 
 
 Virginia 
 
 
 it 
 
 West Virginia 
 
 12 
 
 t( 
 
 Louisiana 
 
 
 (( 
 
 Iowa 
 
 13 
 
 (( 
 
 New Hampshire 
 
 13 
 
 <t 
 
 Tennessee 
 
 13 
 
 ti 
 
 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 southorn of all the states, raises it to 17, 
 while Kansas and Wyoming place it at 18. The 
 time is coming when such laws as those which 
 practically hand over innocent and unsuspecting 
 girl children of 7 and 10 to 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 
 
8 
 
 PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 without the protection of law, the taunts about 
 American chivalry and high regard for women 
 and children sound as hollow as did the Declara- 
 tion of Independence in the old slave states. 
 
 The following extract is from the writings 
 of Maria Monk. It sheds much light on the 
 character of Rome’s infant murder factories : 
 
 ‘T went into the Mother Superior’s parlor 
 one day for something and found Jane Ray there 
 alone, looking into 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 was 
 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, flut- 
 tered 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 the entrance 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, 1884. 
 
 St. Clarice, delivered of a daughter, April 2 , 1834. 
 
PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 9 
 
 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 at 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 believe 
 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 im- 
 primature, John Cardinal McCloskey, Archbishop 
 of New York. On pages 138 and 139, under the 
 “Devotion 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 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 im- 
 proper or immodest language, or witnessed any indecent 
 conduct, without telling my instructors? Have I joined 
 
10 
 
 PRIEST AND woman 
 
 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 any- 
 thing in books or elsewhere, that was wrong or inde- 
 cent? Have I made indecent pictures or drawings? 
 Have I said or done anything indecent, and taken pleas- 
 ure in so doing? Have I ever willingly thought of any- 
 thing improper or indecent, or wished to speak of such 
 when an opportunity might offer itself? If you find any 
 difficulty in acknowledging any of these sins or any 
 similar fault, tell your confessor that you feel this dif- 
 ficulty, and ask him to assist you, then answer his ques- 
 tio7is 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 a 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 the discharge of their sacerdotal duties, 
 especially in hearing confessions, 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 
 
PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 11 
 
 will have some idea of the ‘beauties of popery': 
 
 Confessor — What sins have you committed? 
 
 Penitent — I don't know of any, sir. 
 
 Con. — Are you sure you did nothing wrong? Exam- 
 ine yourself well. 
 
 Pen. — Yes, I do recollect that I did wrong. I made 
 faces at school at Lucy A. 
 
 Con. — Nothing else? 
 
 Pen. — Yes; I told another that I hated Lucy A, and 
 that she was an ugly thing. 
 
 Con. — (Scarcely able to suppress a smile in finding 
 the girl perfectly innocent) — Have you had any im- 
 modest thoughts? 
 
 Pen. — What is that, sir? 
 
 Con. — Have you been thinking about men? 
 
 Pen. — ^Why yes, sir. 
 
 Con. — Are you fond of any of them? 
 
 Pen. — Why, yes, sir. I like Cousin A. or R. greatly. 
 
 Con. — Did you ever like to sleep with him? 
 
 Pen. — ^Oh, no. 
 
 Con. — How long did these thoughts about men con- 
 tinue? 
 
 Pen. — Not very long. 
 
 Con. — Had you these thoughts by day, or by night? 
 
 Pen.— 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 
 
12 
 
 PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 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 debauch- 
 ing 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 excep- 
 tionally 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 “Ffty Years in the Church of Rome,” 
 page 584 : 
 
PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 13 
 
 ‘‘How many times have I 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 ques- 
 tions and answers, and they have asked me to 
 have pity on them. Yes! I have often wept 
 bitterly on my degradation, when a priest of 
 Rome. He * He alas! I had soon to re- 
 
 proach 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 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 
 
14 
 
 PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 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 : 
 
 ‘Tn the beginning of my priesthood, when I 
 was in Quebec, I was not a little surprised and 
 embarrassed to see a very accomplished and beau- 
 tiful young lady, whom I used to meet almost 
 every week at her father’s house, entering the box 
 of my confessional. She had been used to con- 
 fess 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 correct- 
 ness of my impression, I left her entirely under 
 the hope that she was a perfect stranger to me. 
 
PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 15 
 
 Af 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 you do not know me, and 
 that you will never try to know me— I am a 
 desperately great sinner. Oh! I fear that I am 
 lost! But if there is still a hope for me to be 
 saved, for God’s sake do not rebuke me! Before 
 I begin my confession allow me to ask you not to 
 pollute my ears by questions which our confessors 
 are in the habit of putting to their female peni- 
 tents j I have already been destroyed by those 
 <]^estions. Before I was 17 years old, God knows 
 that His angels are not more pure than I was; 
 but the chd,pla.in of the nunnery where my par- 
 ents had sent me for my education, though 
 approaching old age, put to me in the confes- 
 sional, questions which at first, I did not under- 
 stand, 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 
 mem 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 pos- 
 able, overwhelmed my soul as with a deluge. 
 But the joys of the sinner are short. Struck 
 
le 
 
 PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 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 recon- 
 cile 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 repentance, I confessed to 
 him the greatest part of my sins, though I con- 
 cealed 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 last confession were, with the natural 
 corruption of my heart, the principal cause of my 
 destruction. 
 
 “ ‘He spoke to me very kindly, encouraged me 
 to fight against my bad inclinations, and, at first, 
 gave me very kind and good advice. But when I 
 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 out of my memory. These questions have 
 achieved my ruin; they have stuck to my mind 
 like two deadly arrows; they are day and nighi 
 before my imagination; they fill my arteries anc 
 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 incor- 
 porated with me, and as \f coming a second 
 
i'RlES'r AND WOMAN 
 
 17 
 
 nature. Those thoughts have become a new 
 source of 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 diabol- 
 ical pleasure in the thought that I should have a 
 long conversation with my confessor on those 
 matters, and that he would ask me more of his 
 strange questions. In fact, when I had told him 
 everything without a blush, he began to inter- 
 rogate 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 sensa- 
 tions ! After an hour of this criminal tete-a-tete 
 with my old confessor (for it was nothing else 
 but a criminal tete-a-tete) I perceived that he was 
 as depraved as I was myself. With some half- 
 covered words, he made a criminal proposition, 
 which I accepted with covered words also; and 
 during more than a year we have lived together 
 in 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 resi- 
 dence, for I was beginning to be tired of my crim- 
 inal life. My hope was that, under the directions 
 
18 
 
 PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 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 interroga- 
 tions. 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 than he was. It is my firm 
 conviction that he was a good and holy priest 
 before he knew 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 
 dov/n 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 com- 
 passion of the dear Saviour for the sinner. I 
 have wept day and night since that happy day 
 
PRIEST AND WOMAN 19 
 
 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 tears, are so great that my voice is 
 cho-ked. 
 
 ‘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 any- 
 thing to ascertain my name; the second is, that 
 you will never put to me any of those questions 
 by which so many penitents are lost, and so many 
 priests forever destroyed. Twice I have been 
 lost my those questions. We come to our con- 
 fessors that they may throw upon our guilty 
 souls the pure waters which flow from heaven to 
 purify us ; but instead of that, with their unmen- 
 tionable questions, they pour oil on 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 
 
20 PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 she owes to herself and to God ? No! You told 
 us not long ago that the only thing our Saviour 
 did was to look at her tears and her love. Well, 
 please do that, and you will save me !’ 
 
 “I was then a very young priest, and never 
 had any 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 mistagen 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 ques- 
 tion 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, 
 then Sainte a la mode, just as Marie Alacoque is 
 today, among the blind slaves 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 con- 
 fessor, the Rev. Mr. Baillargeon, then Curate of 
 Quebec, and afterwards Archbishop of Canada. 
 I told him the singular and unusual request she 
 
priest and woman 81 
 
 had made, that I should never put to her 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 pol- 
 luting 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 confess to me, and that, with the excep- 
 tion of two, they had told me they could not put 
 those questions and hear the censures they elicited 
 w^hout 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 wtue by the questions of the confes- 
 sional 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 
 so 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 
 
PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 commit against purity. It requires the utmost 
 charity in the confessors to prevent these unfor- 
 tunate 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 small- 
 est 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 yester- 
 day, is unwilling to make a full and detailed con- 
 fession 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 and the temptations 
 we have to encounter, in the confessions 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 
 them the sacrament of penance, where they can 
 receive their pardon as often as they ask for it. 
 The man of perfect chastity is a great 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 priest who falls only 
 
priest and woman 
 
 23 
 
 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 so much 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 confes- 
 sional, 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 
 
PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 S4 
 
 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 cc«itent. 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 for- 
 given r 
 
 "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, 
 
PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 25 
 
 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, I, 
 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 mer- 
 ciful 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 
 said with trembling voice: ‘Yes, dear father, I 
 am ready.’ 
 
 “But she then stopped again to weep and pray, 
 though I could hear what she said. 
 
26 
 
 PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 ‘‘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 
 popes 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 
 
PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 27 
 
 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, look- 
 ing through the aperture, I saw she was fainting ; 
 I heard the noise, of her body falling upon the 
 floor, and 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. 1 washed her face with some cold 
 water and vinegar. She was as pale as death, 
 but her lips were moving, and she was saying 
 something which nobody but I could understand : 
 
 “ 7 am lost — lost forever!** 
 
 “We took her home to her disconsolate fam- 
 ily, 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, Tor,' she said, 
 7 have only a few more days to live. Help me 
 to prepare myself for the solemn hour when will 
 open to me the gates of eternity !' 
 
 “Every day I visited her, and I prayed and I 
 wept with her. 
 
 “Many times, when alone, with tears I re- 
 
28 
 
 PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 quested 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 kneel- 
 ing by the side of her bed to pray, I was unable 
 to articulate a single word, because of the inex- 
 pressible anguish of my soul on her account, she 
 asked me : ‘Dear Father, why do you weep ?' 
 
 “I answered, ‘How can you put such a ques- 
 tion to your murderer! I weep because I have 
 killed you, dear friend T 
 
 “This answer seemed to trouble her exceed- 
 ingly. 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 of penance, since our holy church has 
 established it. But there is, somewhere, some- 
 thing exceedingly wrong in the confessional. 
 Twice I have been destroyed, and I know many 
 girls who have also been destroyed by the con- 
 fessional. This is a secret, but will that secret 
 be kept forever ? I pity the poor priests the 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 tv/o 
 confessors, if he could only know they have de- 
 stroyed 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 
 
PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 29 
 
 rebuke 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 bottom- 
 less sea of my iniquities to the shore where Jesus 
 was v/aiting to receive and pardon me. The night 
 after you 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 shoul- 
 ders. He said to me, with a voice so sweet that 
 no human tongue can imitate it : T 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 !’ 
 
 “She had hardly finished her last words when 
 she fainted, and I feared lest she should die just 
 then, when I was alone with her. 
 
 “I called the family, who rushed into the 
 room. The doctor was sent for. He found her 
 so weak that he thought it proper to allow only 
 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 
 
30 
 
 PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 the heart ; when it breaks she will go as quick 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 con- 
 fessional. She was there, on her bed of death, 
 her heart pierced with the dagger which my 
 church had put into my hands! and instead of 
 rebuking and cursing me for my savage, merci- 
 less 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 con- 
 solation and hope, for she had not made her con- 
 fession! 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 been suffocated and have 
 died that night, if the stream of tears which con- 
 tinually flowed from my eyes had not been as a 
 balm 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 
 
PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 31 
 
 some one who would allow me to forgive the sins 
 of that dear child, without forcing her to tell me 
 anything 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 toward me, that I might press it in mine, 
 and she said: 'I thought last evening that the 
 dear Saviour would take me to Him, but He 
 wants me, dear Father, to give you a little more 
 trouble; however, be patient, it cannot be long 
 before the solemn hour of the appeal will ring. 
 Will you please read me the history of the suffer- 
 ing and death of the beloved Saviour, which you 
 read me the other day ? It does me so much good 
 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 my 
 sins !’ And she shut her eyes as if to meditate in 
 silence, but there was a stream of big tears rolling 
 down her cheeks. 
 
PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 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 what 
 pleasure I v/ould have accepted those thousand 
 deaths I 
 
 "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 irre- 
 sistible 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 if they want to be forgiven. 
 
 "She calmly, but with an air of dignity which 
 no human words can express, said: Ts 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 Scrip- 
 tures tell us.’ 
 
 " 'Well, then, how is it possible that our con- 
 fessors dare to take away from us that holy, 
 divine coat of modesty and self-respect? Has not 
 Almighty God Himself made, with His own 
 Iiands^ that coat of womanly modesty and self- 
 
PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 33 
 
 respect that we might not be to you and our- 
 selves, a cause of shame and sin?’ 
 
 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 
 church, and pulverizing all my holy doctors and 
 theologians, that noble answer found such an echo 
 in my soul, that it seemed to me a sacrilege to try 
 to touch it v/ith 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, they are for- 
 ever lost! My merciful. Heavenly Father has 
 given me back that coat of skins, that nuptial robe 
 of m.odesty, 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 evi- 
 dent 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 
 
34 
 
 PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 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 confes- 
 sion, which is so often a pit of perdition and 
 supreme misery for the confessor and penitent. 
 I went out and walked for two hours on the 
 Plains of Abraham, to breathe pure and refresh- 
 ing air of the mountains. There, alone, I sat on 
 a stone, on the very spot where Wolf and Mont- 
 calm fought and died; and I wept to my heart's 
 content, on my irreparable degradation, and the 
 degradation of so many priests through the con- 
 fessional. 
 
 '^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 should receive the last 
 sacraments? She seemed to be much better this 
 morning, and we were full of hope; but she is 
 now rapidly sinking. Please lose no time in giving 
 her the holy viaticum and the extreme unction.' 
 
 ‘T 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 
 
PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 35 
 
 give you the holy communion without first giving 
 you absolution ? And how can I give you absolu- 
 tion when you earnestly persist in telling me that 
 you have so many sins which you will never de- 
 clare 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 Saviour ; 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 times to die than to say to you 
 a word which would pain you in any way, or 
 trouble the peace of your soul. Please, my dear 
 sister, tell me what I can and must do for you in 
 this solemn hour ?’ 
 
 “Calmly and with a smile of joy such as I had 
 never seen before, nor seen 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 of 
 the dear Saviour ; there I have 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 He has mercifully 
 
36 
 
 PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 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 Shai^i, Not 
 Be; Lost !’ 
 
 “While she was thus speaking to me, my 
 eyes were really turned into two fountains of 
 tears; I was unable, as well 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 begun to say, 
 ‘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 had 
 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 sub- 
 lime spectacle; it seemed to me at first, that she 
 was praying. 
 
PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 37 
 
 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 tlie 
 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 re- 
 deemed 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 Aklleluia. 
 
 “The revelation of the unmentionable corrup- 
 tions directly and unavoidably engendered by 
 auricular 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 by which Rome had wrapped my intelligence 
 on that subject/’ 
 
38 
 
 PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 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 Con- 
 vents. 
 
 ^^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 prob- 
 ably 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 Col- 
 lette. 
 
 In reference to nunneries, the Council of Trent 
 decreed that : 
 
PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 o9 
 
 ‘‘No professed nun should come out of her 
 nunnery under any 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 in a crypt under the church of St. Laur- 
 ent, and physicians inferred, from the distorted 
 state of their head and members, that they suf- 
 fered indescribable anguish before dying. The 
 crypt is exhibited to the public.” 
 
 The Pall Mall Gazette, in the same year, re- 
 ferred 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 
 
40 
 
 PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 picked up. Here citizen Moussa 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 strug- 
 gled in the vault, which had been newly painted 
 when she was confined in it.’’ 
 
 An English physician describes what he saw 
 during the official investigation made in the dun- 
 geon vaults of the church of Les Petit Paris in 
 1871: 
 
 ‘'Many bodies of women, in their ordinary 
 dress, and without any coffin, were there 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 evi- 
 dently 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 extreme- 
 ly 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 
 
PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 41 
 
 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 fester- 
 ing and rotting in the sun, and poisoning the air 
 with deadly aroma; a reeking, filthy, horrible 
 mass. The spot was visited by thousands, in- 
 cluding 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 to investi- 
 gate? Woe to him that had the temerity to do 
 
43 
 
 PRIEST AND Vv^OMAN 
 
 so ; he had no protection against his priestly ene-- 
 mies 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 v/ere 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 uttered by a young girl, emanated from 
 one of the convents. Passers-by sought to enter 
 but failed. The police were vainly appealed to. 
 Residents in the immediate neighborhood of the 
 convent 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 munic- 
 ipal, state nor national authority dared to inquire, 
 although the ''flag of the free” floated from the 
 frov/ning forts overlooking the city, and Ameri- 
 can Vv^'arships rode at anchor in the bay. 
 
 The convent and the hospitals of Romanism 
 in America must be regulated by civil authori- 
 ties. Today, in our cities, if a stranger is seri- 
 ously injured by accident, the chances are that 
 he will be carried to a Romanist hospital for treat- 
 
PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 43 
 
 ment. Suppose the hospital authorities discover 
 that the patient is an Orangeman, what sort of 
 treatment can he expect at 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 the property and expelled the inmates. 
 Can America do less than to open the doors of 
 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 
 or 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 
 to punish them.” The convent doors must be 
 opened. If there are trap-doors and underground 
 passages and dark cells connected with the con- 
 vents 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, even eminent citizens, Romanist 
 and Protestant, place their daughters, the pride 
 
44 
 
 PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 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 are closed; that evil 
 has prevailed in many of them, and that there is 
 a grave reason to fear its prevalence in 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 an 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-shut- 
 tered 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 blocks 
 of which are given over to the denomination of 
 the demimonde. In these blocks are centered the 
 worst of the ‘‘painted sirens’^ of the city. Yet 
 in many of these dens of infamy wax tapers 
 
PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 45 
 
 burn and religious formulae are observed, for 
 the inmates are all members. God pity all heret- 
 ics ! 
 
 Citizens in Denver remember a very zealous 
 Roman Catholic ^'priest of God,” who was a fre- 
 quenter of ‘‘the row” as it existed in the old 
 Holiday street days. Perhaps he merely desired 
 to see that his parishioners in that locality faith- 
 fully 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 her, and 
 showered bitter curses on his head, saying that 
 although she had been 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 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 on 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 
 of defense, managed to escape through the door 
 
46 
 
 PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 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 trans- 
 ferred 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. Pro? 
 tect the innocent and the helpless. Let the knights 
 of the cowl enter into lawful wedlock if they 
 insist upon having “all the comforts of home.” 
 
 “Rome never changes !” 
 
 Thus saith the American cardinal, and both the 
 motto and the 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, lusty, lustful, oyster-eating, wine- 
 guzzling class of priests walk the streets of Den- 
 ver 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 of Romanism in Duluth 
 have not hesitated to fling insult against Protest- 
 
PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 47 
 
 ant women. We have to deal with the institu- 
 tions of Catholicy — not its homes. Neither pen 
 nor tongue of Protestant seek to name with dis- 
 respect the mothers and daughters of the Cath- 
 olic 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 
 menace innocent enthusiasts when confronted by 
 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 investi- 
 gate! 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 the 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 inspec- 
 tion at the will of the civil authorities. 
 
 The opening of the convent doors will be the 
 work of Protestants, but the abolition of the 
 secret confessional-box must be the work of in- 
 telligent American Catholics. We have in our 
 possession a copy of a little book well knov/n to 
 all Catholics— 'How to Make' the Mission.’’ If 
 
48 
 
 PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 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 him- 
 self. 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 page 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 
 
PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 49 
 
 111 the confessional-box and induced 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 hag three Iiundred years ago, are now 
 being committed behind the stone walls of these 
 ecclesiastical hells erected by the Roman Catholic 
 church in every Annerican city. The two Ken- 
 tucky ladies wiio 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 one 
 no doubt Vvddcl}/ prevalent elsewhere, has, we 
 feel, imposed upon us the imperative duty of 
 issuing this a.ppeal to all friends of justice and 
 humanity. 
 
50 
 
 PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 The particular developments referred to, and 
 the immediate occasion of this appeal, are con- 
 nected with the unlawful imiprisonnient, 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-substan- 
 tiated 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 con- 
 vent 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 sur- 
 rounded 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 cloth- 
 ing, running an extensive laundry, and miaintain- 
 ing a dairy from which milk is sold to the public 
 in the summer. In addition to its incom.es 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 hun- 
 
PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 51 
 
 dred 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 the evi- 
 dence here offered, and which discloses a state 
 of facts that it is well nigh impossible to believe 
 exists in 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 county farm of Hardin County, Ken-i 
 tucky, by its county superintendent, and turned 
 over to the Mother Superior of the Convent. 
 
 Their father, William Wilhite, lived in a some-* 
 what ill-favored and sterile corner of Hardin 
 County, and their mother, by whom he had nine 
 children — four sons and five daughters — was his 
 fourth wife. Growing old and becoming broken 
 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 afforded 
 neither charity nor employment sufficient to sup- 
 port 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. 
 
53 
 
 PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 until the summer of 1887, when she died from 
 an affection of the heart. 
 
 In the meantiine, 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 chidren 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 took place, Hattie going first to see 
 her father, and then visiting her sister at the 
 county farm, her mother had just died. 
 
 A.fter she had been there some weeks, the 
 superintendent, believing the place 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 Wilhite. 
 
 When I was eight years old, my mother and 
 father separated, my mother taking with her my 
 
PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 53 
 
 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 that he and his wife 
 would come to see us, and so would our father. 
 He also told us that we would not be there miore 
 than a year. 
 
 About a year after we were put in, father did 
 com.e to the convent, and the girls told us he in- 
 quired for us, but Mother Anselm, the Mother 
 Provincial, told him we were not there, but had 
 gone avray. When Hattie and I heard this, we 
 hurried around to the window, looked through 
 and saw him, but dared not call to him. An- 
 other time after that he came, but they vrould 
 not let him see, nor let us speak to him, though 
 we could see him from the window. They 
 pushed us av/ay from the window and threatened 
 us, and told us not to dare to go back again. 
 
 Six weeks after I vras 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 I v/as there, except for two years while I 
 
54 
 
 PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 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 
 was 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 re- 
 fused 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 short 
 time a detective arrested me and carried me back. 
 
 About a year later I escaped again in the same 
 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 and was told that the police 
 were looking for me and that they were going 
 to search the boat. Then 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 through 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 
 
PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 55 
 
 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. 
 Then 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 slie 
 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 have 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 mie. When I got 
 out, I v/as about twenty-six years old and had 
 
56 
 
 PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 been thirteen years in this prison. 
 
 While in the convent I never received an hour 
 of teaching from the nuns, nor did any one 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 Sun- 
 days. 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 strip- 
 ping them of all their clothes but one under gar- 
 ment, make them 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-v/itted, were often cruelly 
 beaten and hit in the mouth. They would often 
 gag the girls and tie their hands and feet to- 
 gether. 
 
 Mrs. Hattie Moore's Statement. 
 
 I was born in Hardin County, Kentucky, on 
 February the 8th, 1871. My father’s name was 
 William, and my mother’s, Sarah Wilhite. My 
 mother was the fourth v/ife, 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 
 

 
 
 
 'V u 
 
 '\e-f ^ i 
 
 'f ■ Vi' 
 
 PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 57 
 
 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 m.y 
 mother died at the county farm and I went there 
 and cleaned up and arranged the things that had 
 belonged to her. While I was there the super- 
 intendent decided on taking my sisters to Louis- 
 ville, 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 the 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. 
 
 I A ‘ 
 
58 
 
 PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 Vincent’s, so we were told, but we never saw 
 nor heard of 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 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; so 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. Then 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 mQ 
 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 
 
PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 59 
 
 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 
 intense 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 
 began beating me with it 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 scrub- 
 bing 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 I would not take that from 
 both of them and picked up the keg used to hold 
 sand and struck Justina over the head with it. 
 Mother Paul then got a broomstock and set all 
 
CO PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 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 began beating Camilla 
 in the back with her fists. She then 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 
 v/anted to.'’ All the time the Mother was beat- 
 ing her, Camilla kept coughing, with the blood 
 flying from her mouth. This was on Thursday. 
 On the Saturday following she was carried out 
 of the house and buried. It was the most hor- 
 rible 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 peni- 
 tent, named Eustacia, who was a very cruel tool 
 
PRIEST AND WOMAN 61 
 
 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 on my back and bore me down, and then 
 tore off every shred of my clothes until I was 
 completely naked. They then tied my hands and 
 feet, and threw water on me from two hose 
 nozzles, beating me the while with sticks of wood 
 kept in the room for starting fires in the engine, 
 till I was unconscious. The girls told me after- 
 ward 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 to hold me up and lead me into 
 the chapel to be christened. After that I had 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 con- 
 sequence 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 
 a^bout her suspicious appearance and they sent 
 her away. 
 
 Often the Mother would grab the girls by the 
 
62 
 
 PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 ears and jerk them violently. My own have 
 been jerked many a time. One day Mother 
 Pancratius grabbed me by the ears and clawed 
 them, 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 Pancratius found her sitting in the 
 yard and broke a broomstock over her head for 
 it. Another time Mother Pancratius beat her 
 in the face till the blood ran out of her mouth 
 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 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 or go where he could see me. 
 
 We received no instruction of any kind in the 
 
PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 e*j 
 
 way of education, nor did any of the oilier girls. 
 Before I went in I could write my name, but I 
 have forgotten how, as I never had a chance to 
 write while in the 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 through 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 sub- 
 jected 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 
 
64 
 
 PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 body that bear out her contention of cruel beat- 
 ings. 
 
 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 Abra- 
 ham Lincoln, the great apostle and martyr of 
 freedom first saw the light, have been subjected 
 to, and what, doubtless, untold numbers of others 
 are being subjected to in our free country, in 
 this and other such prisons throughout the land. 
 
 From a legal viewpoint, in so far as can be 
 ascertained, Mrs. Moore and Rose Wilhite were 
 imprisoned without a shadow of right or author- 
 ity 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 kid- 
 napped 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 her 
 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 Roose- 
 
PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 65 
 
 velt IS today. For five years of her enforced 
 stay Rose Wilhite 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, at harder labor than any 
 condemned criminal in the penitentiary, she was 
 absolutely free under the laws of every State in 
 the Union. Even then she had to escape by 
 scaling high prison walls at imminent risk of 
 serious injury, with the certain prospect of fur- 
 ther maiming if she failed, and still to be pur- 
 sued by willing police equipped 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 any 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 v/e 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 account- 
 ability for such conduct. It appears from the 
 
66 
 
 PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 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 one is responsible. These people have 
 said so, and at 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 with- 
 out cause. The practice was regarded as so 
 wicked and so odious, that when in the muta- 
 tions of fortune it came 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 this in the teeth of the fact that the 
 Statutes of Kentucky make imprisonment with- 
 out due process of law a felony. Here is Section 
 1221 of the Revised Statutes: 
 
PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 67 
 
 Section 1221, Kentucky Statutes. 
 
 '^Arresting, imprisoning or transporting an- 
 other — aiding or abetting. If any person or per- 
 sons shall arrest or imprison another, or shall 
 transport him, against his will, beyond the bonds 
 of this commonwealth, otherwise than accord- 
 ing to law, or cause, or in any manner counsel, 
 aid or abet in such arrest, imprisonment or trans- 
 portation, the person or persons so offending 
 shall, on conviction thereof, be deemed guilty 
 of felony, and shall be confined in the peniten- 
 tiary not less than one or more than twenty 
 3^ears.'' 
 
 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 a ransom; but our domestic 
 bandits, when they capture our sisters and daugh- 
 ters, hide them in secret prisons behind iron 
 doors, and with cruel torture proceed to coin 
 their life blood 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 an 
 excuse for their cringing, or some simple-hearted 
 souls easily deceived may contend — that there 
 is among those who these prison factories re- 
 strain, a certain proportion of dissolute girls who 
 are thus led to a higher life. 
 
68 
 
 PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 The truth is they reform none. The most 
 refined girl ever thrust behind these walls must 
 associate with the most dissolute and most de- 
 praved, 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 indigni- 
 ties, produce such a cramped and dwarfed condi- 
 tion of the faculties of the body and mind, that 
 if those who have been confined for long do 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 
 them 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 employ- 
 ment? What else than the starvation wages 
 these more than sweatshop methods impose or 
 
PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 69 
 
 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 prisoned and 
 enslaved. And those of you who will persist in 
 encouraging and sustaining such things, examine 
 yourselves when at night you disrobe to enter 
 peaceful, unhaunted sleep, with only your droop- 
 ing 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 
 
PRIEST AND Vv^OMAN 
 
 TO 
 
 not linger in their folds, in phonographic tones, 
 the despairing moans and cries of beaten and 
 lacerated sisters. 
 
 The Woman's Liberty League has been formed 
 primarily to aid Mrs. Hattie Moore and Miss 
 Rose Wilhite in their just claim for damages 
 against the authors of their unlawful imprison- 
 ment and cruel and inhuman treatment, to em- 
 ploy able counsel for them as the case may re- 
 quire, to have the evidence taken down and pub- 
 lished when the case comes to trial, to take up 
 the cases of others in like situations when they 
 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 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 friends of liberty, justice and light, 
 everywhere, to assist us by whatever means the 
 blessings of a kind Providence has placed in their 
 hands. 
 
 THE WOMAN'S LIBERTY LEAGUE. 
 
 Mrs. C. K. Richardson, President. 
 
 LiIvUE E. Burch, Secretary. 
 
 Louisville, Kentucky, January 1, 1903. 
 
PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 71 
 
 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 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 ot 
 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 revolt- 
 ing 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 
 
73 
 
 PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 pollute the minds and hearts of the mothers, 
 wives and daughters with whom he comes in con- 
 tact, 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 Eupropean 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 na- 
 tions. 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 these 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 moth- 
 ers, sisters and daughters ? No wonder the priests 
 themselves are asking: ‘Would we not be more 
 chaste and pure by living with lawful wives than 
 by daily exposing ourselves in the confessional, 
 in the company of women whose presence will 
 
PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 Ti 
 
 irresistably drag us into the shameful pits of im- 
 purity ?’ ” 
 
 To expose these enormities and to state the 
 truth in reference to a celibate priesthood, is t<;) 
 incur the anger and displeasure of millions of 
 Roman Catholics who are bound hand and footi 
 by their father confessors and yet the truth about 
 Rome needs to be told ; the veil must be torn off, 
 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 shame. To portray her pollutions 
 would make a book too indelicate to read in pub- 
 lic, and hence to 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 closest and most dangerous relations 
 with women who regard them as being gifted 
 
74 
 
 PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 v/ith 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 trans- 
 gressions and he recognizes in himself instincts 
 and passions which are only the stronger by 
 reason of their whilom repression; that a youth- 
 ful 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-esti- 
 mated his self control. History attests that there 
 are few priests who have the grace to live with- 
 out the companionship of women. 
 
 The Vatican contains eleven hundred rooms 
 and a population of 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 pontifica- 
 tion of Pope Pius IX, has sued for the measure 
 of her father's estate, and in this vfay 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. 
 
PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 75 
 
 In Brooklyn, N. Y., m a case of the most aggra- 
 vating character, where the organist was as- 
 saulted 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 than 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 or debauches the peo- 
 ple, he finds a home in the state’s prison; but 
 seldom does a Romish priest look out from be- 
 hind the 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 representa- 
 tive of the state alone, apart from the surveillance 
 of any keeper or companion, at least once every 
 year, with the assurance of protection and deliv- 
 
76 
 
 PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 erance if desired. It was the insistence of a reg- 
 ulation 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 priest- 
 hood 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 
 
PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 77 
 
 palliated and condoned lowers the standard of 
 morality and injures society. 
 
 We believe the loose ideas of marriage and 
 wedlock extant today are chiefly due to the cor- 
 rupting influences of the priesthood. Not long 
 ago, in a music hall, Boston, a converted nun 
 handed this request to the chairman of the meet- 
 ing: ‘Tray 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 has been 
 the mother of two children before she was nine- 
 teen 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 preserva- 
 tion of a woman’s virtue who is a faithful attend- 
 ant 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 
 
78 
 
 PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 its crigin, 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 and that, 
 too, in a way so confidential that the outside 
 v/orld 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 or 
 acknowledge to her husband ; but the father con- 
 fessor must know. It is evident that auricular 
 confession is a crime, but the substitution for 
 marriage on the part of the priesthood is with- 
 out 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 in trum- 
 pet 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 
 m.oral delinquencies by their unparalelled tempta- 
 tions, 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 wanton- 
 
PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 79 
 
 ness upon the part of these professed leaders of 
 millions, than can be imagined, much less de- 
 scribed. 
 
 Father Quinn, for ten years pastor of tha 
 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 entitled 
 ‘‘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 that 
 these statements have been confirmed by Rev. 
 xAnthony Gaven, an Episcopal minister of Eng- 
 land 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 wicked- 
 ness under the form and garb of religion ; virtual- 
 ly adding another plague spot to that vile body, 
 the mother of harlots — papalism, thus 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 inde- 
 cencies, its frightful oppressions, its unlicensed 
 privileges, its revolting and heartrending out- 
 rages, 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 
 
80 
 
 PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 were thought out and wrought out for the en- 
 slavement 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 Rosary, Sacred Heart, Immaculate Con- 
 ception 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, instru- 
 ments 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 
 
PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 81 
 
 cases out of ten to accomplish their purpose. The 
 smooth-tongued villains, by special argument in- 
 gratiate themselves into the favor of their flock, 
 ruling and 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 sur- 
 prised 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 pro- 
 tected and secured by religion in their gratifica- 
 tions. They are taught that God and His holy 
 church are highly pleased with the sacred duties 
 of this institution. The ornaments and decora- 
 tions 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 repre- 
 sentative of Jesus. 
 
83 
 
 PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 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 after- 
 noon 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 
 a lecherous clergy. They admit that such im- 
 moral procedure is surrounded with much mys- 
 tery v/hich the initiated alone can understand. 
 They admit that the Papal church committed an 
 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 has by divine authority. 
 
PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 83 
 
 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 wdiich they wTencIi the Scrip- 
 tures to justify their position is most remarkable. 
 In commenting upon that Scripture which de- 
 clares that a bighop 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 a parity of rea- 
 soning 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, pru- 
 dent, chaste, of good behavior or ^?iven to hospi- 
 tality 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 has become a necessity for the 
 preservation of the Roman Catholic church in 
 America. But this in no wise diminishes the rot- 
 
84 
 
 PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 ten 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 be- 
 cause they had loved and served him in this man- 
 ner during his earthly sojourn. Thus they 
 ascribed to the Man of Nazareth in private, im- 
 morality 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 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 all about such things! and 
 said: 'Ts not this the carpenter, the Son of 
 Mary, the brother of James and Joseph and Jude 
 and Simon?” And they likewise refer to Solo- 
 mon, who had several hundred wives and concu- 
 bines. They say that this sacred association is 
 the very mystery of godliness ; that the deacons. 
 
PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 85 
 
 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 cere- 
 monies at the time of intimation. 
 
 Some of the pomp, shows, music, pictures, can- 
 dles, incense, bells, holy water, together with all 
 the paraphernalia used by the church on important 
 occasions is brought into requisition to mystify 
 and impress the victim. The priest who is to 
 bless or receive the female, is robed in cassock, 
 surplice and stole. The female usually wears a 
 white veil; kneels on a cushion before the offi- 
 ciating clergyman who indicates and blesses her 
 for such holy uses. She holds in her hand the 
 lighted candle, answers all questions, and swears 
 to obey and perform all enjoined. She swears 
 implicit obedience to all clergymen who are mem- 
 bers of the society, especially to him who shall 
 be her pastor ; also to be most faithful in the dis- 
 charge of all duties, particularly in not revealing 
 the secrets, duties or insignia of the society. She 
 swears to exercise a supervision over the conduct 
 and language of other females and report any 
 
86 
 
 PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 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 Avho may complain 
 of this society, or report its proceedings to 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 serv- 
 ing her ostensible husband, as the laws of the 
 church are more binding 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 thou- 
 sand 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 per- 
 suade 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. 
 
PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 87i 
 
 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, sup* 
 posing 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 prof- 
 ligacy for the gratification of a salacious priest- 
 hood. ' , . , . 
 
 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 con- 
 sider 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 legiti- 
 mate 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 
 
88 
 
 PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 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 cer- 
 tain 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 organiza- 
 tion. 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 asso- 
 ciation 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 fra- 
 ternity 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 infi- 
 delity the book is taken from her. The language 
 of the book is susceptible of a double interpreta- 
 tion. It contains nothing that would lead to per- 
 sonal and local exposure, or bring scandal on the 
 church. Every Blessed Creature is made familiar 
 with the key which unlocks the real and immoral 
 
PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 89 
 
 meaning of this book. Every possible effort is 
 used to conceal the names of those who are mem- 
 bers of the fraternity, lest the woman herself or 
 her family might be disgraced. 
 
 Protestants, as well as papists, have been gen- 
 erous in patronizing big fairs and swelling the 
 treasury of this Roman church by liberal dona- 
 tions, 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. Apartments are often 
 fitted up in some favorite convent for one of these 
 lordly fathers, where he can spend a few days in 
 private pleasure and meditation with his favorite 
 Bride of Heaven. Some of the nuns are members 
 of these organizations and 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 wed-, 
 ding of these brides of Jesus Christ; which wed- 
 ding may be only the foreshadowing of the real 
 marriage ; when blessed anew, they enter into the 
 joy awaiting them in their union with those fath- 
 ers, by their initiation into this fraternity. Many 
 priests and representatives of the church partici- 
 pate 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. 
 
90 
 
 PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 After all is over, the Blessed Creature, whether 
 a nun or a v/oinan of the world, perhaps a con- 
 vert from Protestantism, is invited by his lord- 
 ship 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 per- 
 taining to their religion. This convert is usually 
 supplied with all the money she requires for 
 jewelry, ornaments and dress, that she may ap- 
 pear 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 rea- 
 son, 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 hon- 
 ored before she gave herself to the papal church; 
 She grew to hate Rome, to despise the priesthood, 
 she resolved to expose the substitution for mar- 
 
priest and woman 
 
 01 
 
 riage, and the church that upheld it and accom- 
 plished 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 
 this institution as abnormal, unnatural and dia- 
 bolical, she warns Protestants against the wiles: 
 of Rome, set for them in the confessional, the 
 convent school and the seductiveness of the papal 
 power. She admits that many of the sisters are, 
 good and will not intentionally cornipt the Prot- 
 estant girls, but true to their calling they rnust 
 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 con- 
 secrated courtesan to nineteen different Roman 
 Catholic clergymen in less than two years. Do 
 you wonder that she loaths 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 posi- 
 tion in life, they move in the most aristocratic 
 ranks of society, without the least suspicion rest- 
 ing 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. 
 
93 
 
 PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 Dr. Quinn tells also of thtee young ladies, chil- 
 dren of Roman Catholic parents, who were mem- 
 bers of this society, and have served respectively, 
 seven, nine and thirteen of these holy fathers. 
 On account of the sufferings through which they 
 passed, and the cruelties inflicted upon them for 
 disobedience to the rules of the society, they had 
 abandoned the confraternity. 
 
 Few physicians are 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 in- 
 stance, and cover page after page with the vil- 
 lainies 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 prin- 
 ciple is described in these words : “the works of 
 the flesh are these i adultery, fornication, unclean- 
 ness, 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 changes the nature, quenches the glow of 
 
PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 93 
 
 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 suf- 
 ficient 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 insti- 
 tutions the priesthood can be screened from in- 
 famy. A lady who was acquainted with the in- 
 famies 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 absolu- 
 tion as well 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 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 lead- 
 
94 
 
 PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 ing pastor. She was urged to submit. She re- 
 fused. She was seized by the 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 reflec- 
 tions. They were certain she would repent and 
 submit. They were mistaken. She was invin- 
 cible. They brought her barley bread and water 
 enough to keep her alive. She, the once loved 
 and petted idol, neither ate nor drank, but re- 
 iterated constantly her determination to expose 
 and denounce the whole crowd, until the over- 
 burdened 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 cloth- ' 
 ing from her body into shreds and stood there 
 raving, cursing, crying and praying, while the 
 human fiends, the fathers, 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 for 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 
 floating through the air — ^the altar draped in 
 mourning, lies the broken-hearted, abused girl. 
 
PRIEST AND WOMAN 
 
 95 
 
 all unconscious of the mock prayers and emgty 
 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 some- 
 thing 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 privi- 
 leges, and this is the way in which they did it. 
 Let God and insulted humanity be the judges con- 
 cerning 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 the 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. 
 
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