With this erroneous doctrine funneled into the minds of the female members of the Catholic Church, is it any wonder that the Priestcraft exerts a wonderful power over these members? And is it any wonder that thousands of trusting and confiding wives and daughters are forced to the level of immorality by this belief?
As an introduction to this chapter, and in order to make the conduct of the priestcraft in general thoroughly understood, so that the reader may know what character of men I refer to, I will give a part of a story told by a nun who had been in a convent for a number of years.
I repeat what this nun related in order that the reader may not be compelled to take my statements alone. Her story follows:
"It was customary with the sisters in our convent to give the bishop and priests of my diocese a grand dinner once every year. Of course, this entailed a great deal of extra work upon our part; however, we were glad to undergo these hardships, as I thought at that time that it was a part of my religion. The finest delicacies of the season and the choicest wines graced the table. The dinner was always served in the dining-room of the priest of the house. The bishop would usually arrive along in the afternoon about two or three o'clock. We would spread scarlet felt upon the floor of the cloister in honor of the occasion, and the drawing room would be banked with the rarest flowers; the dining table would groan beneath its rich silver and cut-glass."
Now, bear in mind that what I am going to tell you is what happened when there were a number of priests together with their bishop in their midst, and it is a well known fact that "numbers" is often a check to the actions and ungodly inclinations of many, but if what this nun related is true, with an assemblage of a score or more of priests, with their bishop in their midst, then what could be expected of one of these priests alone in the presence of a female whom he preferred? I make this statement so that the reader can draw an intelligent conclusion. I will now proceed with the nun's story:
"This annual dinner would be made an occasion for great rejoicing and recreation on the part of the holy ecclesiastics. Everything was all right as long as the meal was in progress, but as soon as the sisters who had waited on them had withdrawn, after placing an abundance of wine, whiskey and cigars on the table, then all restraint would be set aside and these holy fathers (?) would then exchange confidences as to the latest items of news they had gathered in the confessional from Catholic servants employed in Protestant families, and, without mentioning any names, would repeat, amid shouts of drunken laughter, the sins that some of their female penitents had confessed.
"We nuns would often put our ears to the key-hole and listen to the stories that were being told by the priests, and upon my word, I never in all my life heard as many dirty, immoral, filthy stories told as these vagabond priests would repeat, and it always seemed as though the bishop heartily enjoyed them.
"These carousals would proceed for hours. The whiskey bowl would be placed in the center of the table, then these drunken priests would sing songs which were vileness personified."
I feel that it is not necessary for me to go further to convince any one of my readers that the lustfulness of the priestcraft is a menace to the chastity of womankind, for if this nun has told the truth, and which I know from past experiences is true, and which I also know is a recital that could be intensified ten thousand times over, if the whole truth could be told, but which cannot be told in this volume, as I have too much respect for my readers to recite what I have seen with my own eyes and what I have had repeated to me by broken-hearted "sisters" who have come to me with tears in their eyes and with sighs in their throats to tell me of their miseries.
"I know of a nun who spent many years in a convent, who declared that on many occasions the priests would come to the convent and demand that a number of the nuns even do worse than expose their entire person; however, I cannot conceive of a demand that would be more degrading than this of forcing those benighted souls to prostitute their persons for the gratification of those who pretend to be the followers of a crucified Christ."