We hardly started, when the poor man, raising his voice, said, in a most touching way: “I cannot leave my poor wife in the flames of purgatory; if you cannot sing a high mass, will you please say five low masses to rescue her soul from those burning flames?”
The priest turned towards him and said: “Yes, I can say five masses to take the soul of your wife out of purgatory, but give me five shillings; for you know the price of a low mass is one shilling.”
The poor man answered: “I can no more give one dollar than I can five. I have not a cent; and my three poor little children are as naked and starving as myself.”
“Well! well!” answered the curate, “when I passed this morning, before your house, I saw two beautiful sucking pigs. Give me one of them, and I will say your five low masses.”
The poor man said: “These small pigs were given me by a charitable neighbor, that I might raise them to feed my poor children next winter. They will surely starve to death, if I give my pigs away.”
But I could not listen any longer to that strange dialogue; every word of which fell upon my soul as a shower of burning coals. I was beside myself with shame and disgust. I abruptly left the merchant of souls, finishing his bargains, went to my sleeping-room, locked the door, and fell upon my knees to weep to my heart’s content.
A quarter of an hour later, the curate knocked at my door and said: “Tea is ready; please come down!” I answered: “I am not well; I want some rest. Please excuse me, if I do not take my tea to-night.”
It would require a more eloquent pen than mine to give the correct history of that sleepless night. The hours were dark and long.
“My God! my God!” I cried, a thousand times, “Is it possible that, in my so dear Church of Rome, there can be such abominations as I have seen and heard to-day? Dear and adorable Saviour, if thou wert still on earth, and should see the soul of a daughter of Israel fallen into a burning furnace, wouldst thou ask a shilling to take it out? Wouldst thou force the poor father, with his starving children, to give their last morsel of bread, to persuade thee to extinguish the burning flames? Thou hast shed the last drop of thy blood to save her. And how cruel, how merciless, we, thy priests, are, for the same precious soul! But are we really thy priests? Is it not blasphemous to call ourselves thy priests, when not only we will not sacrifice anything to save that soul, but will starve the poor husband and his orphans? What right have we to extort such sums of money from thy poor children to help them out of purgatory? Do not thy apostles say that thy blood alone can purify the soul?
“Is it possible that there is such a fiery prison for the sinners after death, and that neither thyself nor any of thy apostles has said a word about it?