of the
"AWFUL DISCLOSURES BY MARIA MONK"
DEMONSTRATED.
1. Early means used to discredit the took. Different of objectors.—It was anticipated that persons who know little or nothing of the changeless spirit and uniform practices of the Papal ecclesiastics, would doubt or deny the statements which Maria Monk has given of the Hotel Dieu Nunnery at Montreal. The delineations, if true, are so loathsome and revolting, that they exhibit the principles of the Roman priesthood, and the corruption of the monastic system, as combining a social curse, which must be extinguished for the welfare of mankind.
From the period when the intimations were first published in the Protestant Vindicator, that a Nun had escaped from one of the Convents in Canada, and that a narrative of the secrets of that prison-house for females was preparing for the press; attempts have occasionally been made to prejudice the public judgment, by fulsome eulogies of the Roman Priests and Nuns, as paragons of immaculate perfection; and also by infuriated denunciations and calumnies of all persons, who seriously believe that every human institution which directly violates the constitution of nature, and the express commands of God, must necessarily be immoral.
The system of seclusion and celibacy adopted in Convents is altogether unnatural, and subverts all the appointments of Jehovah in reference to the duties and usefulness of man; while the impenetrable secrecy, which is the cement of the gloomy superstructure, not only extirpates every incentive to active virtue, but unavoidably opens the flood-gates of wickedness, without restraint or remorse, because it secures entire impunity.
Since the publication of the "Awful Disclosures," much solicitude has been felt for the result of the exhibitions which they present us: but it is most remarkable, that the incredulity is confined almost exclusively to Protestants, or at least, to those who pretend not to be Papists. The Roman Priests are too crafty to engage directly in any controversy respecting the credibility of Maria Monk's narrative. As long as they can induce the Roman Catholics privately to deny the statements, and to vilify Christians as the inventors of falsehoods concerning "the Holy Church and the Holy Priests!" so long will they laugh at the censures of the Protestants; and as long as they can influence the Editors of political papers vociferously to deny evangelical truth, and to decry every attempt to discover the secrets of the Romish priestcraft as false and uncharitable, so long will the Jesuits ridicule and despise that incredulity which is at once so blinding, deceitful, and dangerous.
The volume entitled "Awful Disclosures by Maria Monk," has been assailed by two classes of Objectors. Some persons affirm that they cannot, and that they will not believe her narrative, because it is so improbable. Who is to judge of the standard of improbabilities? Assuredly not they who are ignorant of the whole subject to which those improbabilities advert. Now it is certain, that persons who are acquainted with Popery, are generally convinced, and readily agree, that Maria Monk's narrative, is very much assimilated to the abstract view which a sound judgment, enlightened by the Holy Scriptures, would form of that antichristian system, as predicted by the prophet Daniel, and the apostles, Peter, Paul, and John.
2. The question of Probability.—But the question of probabilities may be tested by another fact; and that is the full, unshaken conviction, and the serious declaration of many persons who have lived in Canada, that Maria Monk's allegations against the Roman Priests and Nuns in that province, are precisely the counterpart of their ordinary character, spirit, and practice. There are many persons now residing in the city of New York, who long dwelt in Montreal and Quebec; and who are thoroughly acquainted with the situation of affairs among the Canadian Papists—and such of them as are known, with scarcely a dissenting voice, proclaim the same facts which every traveller, who has any discernment or curiosity, learns when he makes the northern summer tour. It is also indubitable, that intelligent persons in Canada generally, especially residents in Montreal and Quebec, who have no inducement either to falsify or to conceal the truth, uniformly testify, that the nunneries in those cities are notorious places of resort for the Roman Priests for habitual and unrestrained licentiousness; that, upon the payment of the stipulated price to the Chaplain, other persons, in the disguise of Priests, are regularly admitted within the Convents for the same infamous purpose; and that many Infants and Nuns, in proportion to the aggregate amount of the whole body of females, are annually murdered and buried within their precincts. All this turpitude is as assuredly believed by the vast majority of the enlightened Protestants, as well as by multitudes of even the Papists in Montreal and Quebec, as their own existence; and judging from their declarations, they have no more doubt of the fact, than they have of the summer's sunshine, and the winter's frost and snow. Of what value, therefore, is the cavil of ignorance respecting improbabilities?
But it is also objected, that the British government would not tolerate such a system of enormous wickedness. To which it is replied, that the inordinate licentiousness of the Roman Priests and Nuns in Canada, is demonstrated to be of long standing by the archives of that Province, as may be seen in Smith's History of Canada; year 1733, Chapter 5, p. 194.