Yes: the day that the rich, well-educated lady gives up her self-respect, and unconditionally surrenders the citadel of womanly modesty into the hands of a man, whatever be his name or titles, that he may freely put to her questions of the vilest character which she must answer, she is lost and degraded, just as if she were the humblest and poorest servant-girl.
I purposely say "the rich and well-educated woman," for I know that there is a prevalent opinion that the social position of her class places her above the corrupting influences of the confessional, as if she were out of reach of the common miseries of our poor fallen and sinful nature.
So long as the well-educated lady makes use of her accomplishments to defend the citadel of her womanly self-respect against the foe—so long as she sternly keeps the door of her heart shut against her deadly enemy—she is safe. But let no one forget this: she is safe only so long as she does not surrender. When the enemy is once master of the place, I emphatically repeat, the ruinous consequences are as great, if not greater, and more irreparable than in the lowest classes of society. Throw a piece of precious gold into the mud, and tell me if it will not plunge deeper than the piece of rotten wood.
What woman could be nobler, purer, and stronger than Eve when she came from the hands of her Divine Creator? But how quickly she fell when she gave ear to the seducing voice of the tempter! How irreparable was her ruin when she complacently looked on the forbidden fruit, and believed the lying voice which told her there was "no sin" in eating of it!
I solemnly, in the presence of the great God who ere long will judge me, give my testimony on this grave subject. After 25 years' experience in the confessional, I declare that the confessor himself encounters more terrible dangers when hearing the confessions of refined and highly-educated ladies, than when listening to those of the humbler classes of his female penitents.
I solemnly testify that the well-educated lady, when she has once surrendered herself to the power of her confessor, becomes, as a general rule, at least as vulnerable to the arrows of the enemy as the poorer and less educated. Nay, I must say that, once on the down-hill road of perdition, the high-bred lady runs headlong into the pit with a more deplorable rapidity than her humbler sister.
All Canada is witness that a few years ago it was among the highest ranks of society that the Grand Vicar Superior of one of the richest and most influential colleges of Canada, was choosing his victims, when the public cry of indignation and shame forced the Bishop to send him back to Europe, where he soon after died. Was it not also among the higher classes of society that a Superior of the Seminary of Quebec was destroying souls, when he was detected, and forced, during a dark night, to fly and conceal himself behind the walls of the Trappist Monastery of Iowa?
Many would be the folio volumes which I should have to write, were I to publish all that my twenty-five years' experience in the confessional has taught me of the unspeakable secret corruption of the greatest part of the so-called respectable ladies who have unconditionally surrendered themselves into the hands of their holy (?) confessors. But the following fact will suffice for those who have eyes to see, ears to hear, and an intelligence to understand.
In one of the most beautiful and thriving towns along the St. Lawrence River lived a rich merchant. He was young, and his marriage with a most lovely, rich, and accomplished young lady had made him one of the happiest men in the land.
A few years after his marriage, the Bishop appointed to that town a young priest, really remarkable for his eloquence, zeal, and amiable qualities, and the merchant and the priest soon became connected by links of the most sincere friendship.