For the absolution of any one practising usury, 7 d.
For concubinage, 7 d.
For intimacy with a woman in a church, 6 d.
For pardon of him who has violated a virgin, 6 d.
For one who has committed incest, 5 d.
(The d. stands for the coin known as the ducat.)
Can you imagine anything more conducive to immorality, than a "religion," sanctified by the name of Christ, which teaches that its priests can forgive sins, and which publishes a list of market prices for such forgiveness? Do you marvel that Roman Catholic countries are the immoral countries? Do you wonder at the mania for vice and crime among the lower Italians, Spaniards and Portuguese?
When a man could ravish a virgin for six ducats, what girl had any safety except in the fear that libertines might have of her father or her brother, or her sweetheart?
What sort of hell would we have in America if popery gained the upper hand, and the negro bucks were taught that they could buy pardons for violating white women?
God Almighty! It makes one sick to think that even now they are admitting young black men to the priesthood.