“I know too well how the great majority of nuns keep their vows of chastity, to believe that the modern remedy against the temptations you mention, is an improvement on the old one found and given by our God!” I answered.
With an angry look, the bishop replied:
“This is Protestantism, Mr. Chiniquy. This is sheer Protestantism.”
“I respectfully ask your pardon for differing from your lordship. This is not Protestantism. It is simply and absolutely the ‘pure word of God.’ But, my lord, God knows that it is my sincere desire, as it is my interest and my duty, to do all in my power to deserve your esteem. I do not want to vex nor disobey you. Please give me a good reason why I should advise Mrs. Chenier to enter a monastery, and I will comply with your request the very first time she comes to confess.”
Resuming his most amiable manner, the bishop answered me:
“My first reason is, the spiritual good which she would receive from her vows of perpetual chastity and poverty in nunnery. The second reason is, that the lady is rich; and we are in need of money. We would soon possess her whole fortune; for her only child is already in the Congregation Convent.”
“My dear bishop,” I replied, “you already know what I think of your first reason. After having investigated that fact, not in the Protestant books, but from the lips of the nuns themselves, as well as from their father confessors, I am fully convinced that the real virtue of purity is much better kept in the homes of our Christian mothers, married sisters, and female friends, than in the secret rooms, not to say prisons, where the poor nuns are enchained by the heavy fetters assumed by their vows, which the great majority curse when they cannot break them.
“And for the second reason, your lordship gives me to induce Mrs. Chenier becoming a nun, I am again sorry to say, that I cannot conscientiously accept it. I have not consecrated myself to the priesthood to deprive respectable families of their legal inheritance in order to enrich myself, or anybody else. I know she has poor relations who need her fortune after her death.”
“Do you pretend to say that your bishop is a thief?” angrily rejoined the bishop.
“No, my lord! By no means. No doubt, from your high standpoint of view, your lordship may see things in a very different aspect, from what I see them, in the low position I occupy in the church. But, as your lordship is bound to follow the dictates of your conscience in everything, I also feel obliged to give heed to the voice of mine.”