By the vow of poverty, I had to give up all the material goods I possessed and all that I ever hoped to possess either by service or inheritance—being guided according to the Lord's counsel, "If thou wilt be perfect, go, sell all thou hast and give it to the poor." Even my material body no longer belonged to myself, I was an inherent part of the order. Nothing belonged to me—the clothes I wore, even to a pin, belonged to the community. I had to always say, "This is ours," never say "This is mine." If any presents were given to me in any of the work I was to do, I had to turn them over to the superior. Not a minute of time is mine any longer, the twenty-four hours of the day belongs to the community, and if I wish to do anything other than the daily routine, I must be dispensed by my superior.
By the vow of chastity I was forbidden to think of a man or marriage. I was not allowed to kiss and fondle children, especially male children, or to kiss another sister. After a long absence, sisters may embrace and greet each other by rubbing head-gears against the cheeks. I was not allowed to enter the curtained-off apartment of another sister in the dormitory. I was not allowed any more liberty towards even my mother or any of my relatives than I was towards strangers. I may, as my book of rule reads, see them for one-half an hour, upon permission from my superior, and if the time is extended I must be dispensed by my superior for the non-observance of this point of the "holy" rule. Now, when I had this permission to speak to some of my relatives, or some one else, I must never speak in a language not understood by the sister in near surveillance. If these visits occur more than once or twice a year, it is ample ground for humility, and mean, cutting things said by the superior and sisters. This is also a breach of the vow of poverty, as the time spent talking does not belong to the sister but to the community. She is told that it is a bad example to others who may wish the same privilege. It is a continual determined vigilance, keeping the sisters from any communication with the outside world. The rule particularly emphasizes that the sisters shall not keep birds or pet animals, as it would take time, which is not hers, and divert her affection which, as a sister spouse, must be given entirely to her heavenly spouse, Jesus Christ.
Another great teaching of this vow of chastity is modesty. A sister is taught to keep her eyes modestly cast down, fold her hands in the big sleeves of her garb when in the presence of the "opposite sex" (as men are called), and never look them in the face any higher than the chin. I tried this teaching for some time, but somehow Mother Nature was still with me, and every once in a while I would take a quick look at a man full in the face to see if he was good-looking, and if I could not see a good-looking man, I would look at the priest to see if he was handsome.
As an example for this virtue of modesty, we were told of the young Jesuit priest, St. Aloysius, who was so good and pure and holy, that he never looked his own mother full in the face.
By the vow of obedience a sister is to yield entire obedience of thought, word and understanding to her superior. The will of her superior must be her will, believing that black was white if the superior said so. Literally, she was like a corpse in her superior's hands, and still a tool to work for the Roman Catholic system. What is worse than mental slavery, the stultifying of all our intellectual powers and bringing them under the despotic will of another, and this behind the prison walls and barred doors of the Romish religious convent?
Obligations to convent life and practices crush all natural instinct. If the sister desires to aim at the high "ideals" taught in the sisterhood, she must abase and humiliate herself. If she has not the courage to make a fool of herself, by abasing and humiliating herself, she must ask her superior to give her some humiliating penance to suppress her feelings of higher nature as proud and coming from the devil. The more sinful and criminal a sister can believe herself in the eyes of God, and the more deserving of prisonlike treatment, and as a worm under the feet of all her companions, the more perfect and saintly she becomes in her own eyes and in the eyes of her superior, who can then use her as a better tool for the benefit of the system.
Any one who knows anything about nuns knows that they are nearly all like children, for under the ironclad, narrow and restricted rule, the sisters retrograde from the day they enter, and as time goes on they become as the rule itself—bitter and heartless, from a sense of morbidness and from the unnatural conditions, circumstances and environment surrounding them. There are the sisters who are childish and silly; others who are the cunning hypocrite. The latter type become the schemers among the sisters for the system, and believe me, they will leave nothing undone to gain favor with the heads of the order and the priests that they might gain some high office for themselves.
For nearly a year after I took my vows, I remained at the Orphanage in Vancouver.
As you already know, I was raised on a ranch, and was accustomed to being in the open air and having plenty of sunshine. These three years of almost complete confinement in this institution, and the long hours of hard, tedious work had begun to tell on my health. And, now as I could hardly attend to my duties, I was transferred to an Indian Mission at Tulalip, Washington, about June, 1884.
I was at this Mission five years. The first eight months I worked in the boys' department, assisting in the industrial training of about seventy-five Indian boys. The part I had in training these boys was more manual service than real instruction. But my labors kept me out of doors considerably and at the end of the eight months, my health was practically restored.