“No, sir, you are not guilty of that sin!”
“Confess here another truth,” I said to her; “Is it not true you have come to confess to me more with the desire to tempt me than to reconcile yourself to God?”
She said, “Yes, sir, that is the truth.” Then I said again, “Continue to say the truth, and I will forgive you, and God also will forgive your iniquity. Is it not through revenge for having failed in your criminal designs, that you have tried to destroy me by false accusation to the bishop?”
“Yes, sir, it was the only reason which has induced me to accuse you falsely.
“And all I say here, at least in substance, has been heard, written and signed by the Right Rev. Schneider, one of your priests, and the present director of the Jesuit college. That venerable priest is still living in Montreal; let the people of Canada go and interrogate him. Let the people of Canada also go to the Rev. Mr. Brassard, who has in his hands an authenticated copy of that declaration.
“Your lordship gives the public to understand that I was disgraced by that sentence some days before I left Canada for Illinois. Allow me to give you my reasons for differing from you in this matter.
There is a canon law of the church which says:
“If a censure is unjust and unfounded, let the man against whom the sentence has been passed pay no attention to it. For, before God and his church, no unjust sentence can bring any injury against anyone. Let the one against whom such unfounded and unjust judgment has been pronounced even take no step to annul it, for it is a nullity by itself.”
You know very well that the sentence you had passed against me was null and void, for many good reasons; that it was founded on a false testimony. Father Schneider is there, ready to prove it to you, if you have any doubt.
The second reason I have to believe that you had yourself considered your sentence a nullity, and that I was not suspended by it from my ecclesiastical dignity and honor, is founded on a good testimony, I hope—the testimony of your lordship himself.