Mr. Hogan, who was eighteen months in the Jesuit Seminary at Montreal, and in constant intercourse and attendance upon Lartigue and his accomplices, unequivocally affirms, that Maria Monk's complex description of those Priests are most minutely and accurately true.
One hundred other persons probably can be adduced, who, during their residence in Canada, or on their tours to that province, by inquiries ascertained that things in accordance with Maria Monk's delineations are the undoubted belief of each class of persons, and of every variety of condition, and in all places which they visited in Lower Canada.
Mr. Greenfield, the father of the gentleman who owns the two steamboats on the river St. Lawrence, called the Lady of the Lake, and the Canadian Eagle, who is a citizen of New York, avows his unqualified assent to all Maria Monk's statements, and most emphatically adds—"Maria Monk has not disclosed one tenth part of the truth respecting the Roman Priests and Nuns in Canada."
Fifty other persons from that province, now residing in New York, likewise attest the truth of the "Disclosures."
At Sorel, Berthier, and Three Rivers, the usual stopping-places for the steamboats on the River St. Lawrence, the Priests, if they have any cause to be at the wharf, may be seen accompanied by one or more children, their "Nephews," as the Priests facetiously denominate their offspring; and if any person on the steamboat should be heard expatiating upon the piety, the temperance, the honesty, or the purity of Roman Priests and Nuns, he would be laughed at outright, either as a natural or an ironical jester; while the priest himself would join in the merriment, as being a "capital joke."
We are assured by the most indisputable authority in Montreal, that the strictly religious people in that city do generally credit Maria Monk's statements without hesitation; and the decisive impression of her veracity can never be removed. If it were possible at once to reform the nunneries, and to transform them from castles of ignorance, uncleanness, and murder, where all their arts are concealed in impervious secrecy, into abodes of wisdom, chastity, and benevolence to every recess of which all persons, at every hour, might have unrestricted admission—that would not change the past; it would leave them indelibly branded with the emphatical title applied to the nunnery at Charlestown, "FILTHY, MURDEROUS DENS."
3. Who are those who deny the truth of the book? Case of Father Conroy. Father Conroy's deception.
In addition to the objections from improbability, another series of opposition consists of flat, broad denials of the truth of Maria Monk's "Awful Disclosures." This mode of vanquishing direct charges is even more invalid than the former futile cavilling. It is also remarkable, when we remember who are the persons that deny the statements made by Maria Monk. Are they the Roman Priests implicated? Not at all. They are too crafty. The only persons who attempt to hint even a suspicion of the truth of the secrets divulged in the "Awful Disclosures," are editors of Newspapers: some of whom are ever found on the side of infidelity and vice; men always reproaching religion; and directly calumniating, or scornfully ridiculing the best Christians in the land; and profoundly ignorant of Popery and Jesuitism, and the monastic system.
It is true that Priest Conroy of New York, has contradicted in general terms the truth of the statement respecting himself, and his attempt to abduct Maria Monk from the Almshouse. But what does he deny? He is plainly charged, in the "Awful Disclosures," with a protracted endeavor, by fraud or by force to remove Maria Monk from that institution. Now that charge involves a flagrant misdemeanor, or it is a wicked and gross libel. Let him answer the following questions:
Did he not frequently visit the house, and lurk about at various times, for longer and shorter periods, expressly to have an interview with Maria Monk?