Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal Part 14

Such was the CURSE p.r.o.nounced on the Rev. Wm. Hogan, (a converted Roman Catholic priest) a few years since, in Philadelphia.

As a further proof of the cruel, persecuting spirit of Catholicism, let us glance at a few extracts from their own publications.

"Children," they say, "are obliged to denounce their parents or relations who are guilty of heresy; ALTHOUGH THEY KNOW THAT THEY WILL BE BURNT. They may refuse them all nourishment, and permit them to die with hunger; or they may KILL THEM as enemies, who violate the rights of humanity.--Escobar, Theolg. Moral, vol. 4, lib. 31, sec. 2, precept 4, prop. 5, p. 239."

"A man condemned by the Pope, may be killed wherever he is found."--La Croix, vol. 1, p. 294.

"Children may kill their parents, if they would turn their children from the Popish faith." "If a judge decide contrary to law, the injured person may defend himself by killing the judge."--Fangundez Precept Decal, vol. 1, lib. 4, chap. 2, p. 501, 655, and vol. 2, lib. 8, chap.

32; p. 390.

"To secretly kill your calumniator, to avoid scandal, is justifiable."--Ayrault, Cens. p. 319.

"You may kill before hand, any person who may put you to death, not EXCEPTING THE JUDGE, AND WITNESSES, because it is self-defence."--Emanuel Sa. Aphor, p. 178.

"A priest may kill those who hinder him from taking possession of any Ecclesiastical office."--Arnicus, Num, 131.

"You may charge your opponent with false crime to take away his credit, as well as kill him."--Guimenius, prop, 8, p. 86.

"Priests may kill the laity to preserve their goods."--Nolina, vol. 3, disput. 16, p. 1786.

"You may kill any man to save a crown."--Taberna, Synop. Theol. Tract, pars. 2, chap. 27, p. 256.

"BY THE COMMAND OF G.o.d IT IS LAWFUL TO MURDER THE INNOCENT, TO ROB, AND TO COMMIT ALL KIND OF WICKEDNESS, BECAUSE HE IS THE LORD OF LIFE AND DEATH, AND ALL THINGS; AND THUS TO FULFILL HIS MANDATE IS OUR DUTY."--Alagona, Thorn. Aquin, Sum. Theol. Compend, Quest. 94, p. 230.

Again, in the Romish Creed found in the pocket of Priest Murphy, who was killed in the battle of Arklow, 1798, we find the following articles.

"We acknowledge that the priests can make vice virtue, and virtue vice, according to their pleasure.

"We are bound to believe that the holy ma.s.sacre was lawful, and lawfully put into execution, against Protestants, and likewise WE ARE TO CONTINUE THE SAME, PROVIDED WITH SAFETY TO OUR LIVES!

"We are bound not to keep our oaths with heretics, though bound by the most sacred ties. We are bound not to believe their oaths; for their principles are d.a.m.nation. We are bound to drive heretics with fire, sword, f.a.ggot, and confusion, out of the land; as our holy fathers say, if their heresies prevail we will become their slaves. We are bound to absolve without money or price, those who imbrue their hands in the blood of a heretic!" Do not these extracts show very clearly that Romanism can do things as bad as anything in the foregoing narrative?

APPENDIX VI.

ROMANISM OF THE PRESENT DAY.

Whenever we refer to the relentless cruelties of the Romanists, we are told, and that, too, by the influential, the intelligent, those who are well-informed on other subjects, that "these horrid scenes transpired only in the 'dark ages;'" that "the civilization and refinement of the present age has so modified human society, so increased the milk of human kindness, that even Rome would not dare, if indeed she had the heart, to repeat the cruelties of by-gone days."

For the honor of humanity we could hope that this opinion was correct; but facts of recent date compel us to believe that it is as false as it is ruinous to the best interests of our country and the souls of men.

A few of these facts, gathered from unquestionable sources, and some of them related by the actors and sufferers themselves, we place before the reader.

In November, 1854, Ubaldus Borzinski, a monk of the Brothers of Mercy, addressed an earnest pet.i.tion to the Pope, setting forth the shocking immoralities practised in the convents of his order in Bohemia.

He specifies nearly forty crimes, mostly perpetrated by priors and subpriors, giving time, place, and other particulars, entreating the Pope to interpose his power, and correct those horrible abuses.

For sending this pet.i.tion, he was thrown into a madhouse of the Brothers of Mercy, at Prague, where he still languishes in dreary confinement, though the only mark of insanity he ever showed was in imagining that the Pope would interfere with the pleasures of the monks.

This Ubaldus has a brother, like minded with himself, also a member of the same misnamed order of monks, who has recently effected his escape from durance vile.

John Evangelist Borzinski was a physician in the convent of the Brothers of Mercy at Prague. He is a scientific and cultivated man. By the study of the Psalms and Lessons from the New Testament, which make up a considerable part of the Breviary used in cloisters, he was first led into Protestant views. He had been for seventeen years resident in different cloisters of his order, as sick-nurse, alms gatherer, student, and physician, and knew the conventual life out and out. As he testifies: "There was little of the fear of G.o.d, so far as I could see, little of true piety; but abundance of hypocrisy, eye-service, deception, abuse of the poor sick people in the hospitals, such love and hatred as are common among the children of this world, and the most shocking vices of every kind."

He now felt disgust for the cloister life, and for the Romish religion, and he sought, by the aid of divine grace, to attain to the new birth through the Word of G.o.d. Speaking of his change of views to a Prussian clergyman, he thus describes his conversion: "Look you, it was thus I became a Protestant. I found a treasure in that dustheap, and went away with it." This treasure he prized more and more. He then thought within himself, if these detached pa.s.sages can give such light, what an illumination he must receive if he could read and understand the whole Bible.

He did not, however, betray his dissatisfaction, but devoted himself to his professional duties with greater diligence. He might still have remained in the Order, his life hid with Christ in G.o.d, had not the hierarchy, under pretence of making reforms and restoring the neglected statutes of the Order, brought in such changes for the worse as led him to resolve to leave the order, and the Romish church as well. Following his convictions, and the advice of a faithful but very cautious clergyman, he betook himself to the territories of Prussia, where, on the 17th of January, 1855, he was received into the national church at Petershain, by Dr. Nowotny, himself formerly a Bohemian priest. This was not done till great efforts had been made to induce him to change his purpose, and also to get his person into the power of his adversaries.

As he had now left the church of Rome, become an openly acknowledged member of another communion, he thought he might venture to return to his own country. Taking leave of his Prussian friends, to whom he had greatly endeared himself by his modesty and his lively faith, he went back to Bohemia, with a heart full of peace and joy.

He lived for some time amidst many perplexities, secluded in the house of his parents at Prosnitz, till betrayed by some who dwelt in the same habitation. On the 6th of March he was taken out of bed, at eight, by the police, and conveyed first to the cloister in Prosnitz, where he suffered much abuse, and from thence to the cloister in Prague. Here the canon Dittrich, "Apostolical Convisitator of the Order of the Brothers of Mercy," justified all the inhuman treatment he had suffered, and threatened him with worse in case he refused to recant and repent.

Dittrich not only deprived him of his medical books, but told him that his going over to Protestantism was a greater crime than if he had plundered the convent of two thousand florins. He was continually dinned with the cry, "Retract, retract!" He was not allowed to see his brother, confined in the same convent, nor other friends, and was so sequestered in his cell as to make him feel that he was forgotten by all the world.

He managed, through some monks who secretly sympathized with him, to get a letter conveyed occasionally to Dr. Nowotny. These letters were filled with painful details of the severities practised upon him. In one of them he says, "My only converse is with G.o.d, and the gloomy walls around me." He was transferred to a cell in the most unwholesome spot, and infested with noisome smells not to be described. Close by him were confined some poor maniacs, sunk below the irrational brutes.

Under date of April 23d he writes: "Every hour, in this frightful dungeon seems endless to me. For many weeks have I sat idle in this durance, with no occupation but prayer and communion with G.o.d." His appeals to civil authority and to the Primate of Hungary procured him no redress, but only subjected him to additional annoyances and hards.h.i.+ps.

His aged father, a man of four-score years, wept to see him, though of sound understanding, locked up among madmen; and when urged to make his son recant, would have nothing to do with it, and returned the same day to his sorrowful home. As he had been notified that he was to be imprisoned for life, he prayed most earnestly to the Father of mercies for deliverance; and he was heard, for his prayers and endeavors wrought together. The sinking of his health increased his efforts to escape; for, though he feared not to die, he could not bear the thought of dying imprisoned in a mad-house, where he knew that his enemies would take advantage of his mortal weakness to administer their sacraments to him, and give out that he had returned to the bosom of the church, or at least to shave his head, that he might be considered as an insane person, and his renunciation of Romanism as the effect of derangement of mind. Several plans of escape were projected, all beset with much difficulty and danger. The one he decided upon proved to be successful.

On Sat.u.r.day, the 13th of October, at half-past nine in the evening, he fastened a cord made of strips of linen to the grate of a window, which grate did not extend to the top. Having climbed over this, he lowered himself into a small court-yard. He had now left that part of the establishment reserved for the insane, and was now in the cloistered part where the brethren dwelt. But here his fortune failed him. He saw at a distance a servant of the insane approaching with a light; and with aching heart and trembling limbs, by a desperate effort, climbed up again. He returned to his cell, concealing his cord, and laid himself down to rest.

On the following Monday, he renewed his efforts to escape. He lowered himself, as before, into the little court-yard; but being weak in health and much shaken in his nervous system by all he had suffered in body and mind, he was seized with palpitation of the heart and trembled all over, so that he could not walk a step. He laid down to rest and recover his breath. He felt as if he could get no further. "But," he says in his affecting narrative, "My dear Saviour to whom I turned in this time of need, helped me wonderfully. I felt now, more than ever in my life, His gracious and comforting presence, and believed, in that dismal moment, with my whole soul, His holy word;" "My grace is sufficient for thee; for my strength is made perfect in weakness."

Borzinski now arose, pulled off his boots, and though every step was made with difficulty, he ascended the stairs leading to the first story.

He went along the pa.s.sage way until he came to a door leading into corridors where the cloister brethren lodged. But the trembling fit came over him again, with indescribable anguish, as he sought to open the door with a key with which he had been furnished. He soon rallied again, and, like a spectre, gliding by the doors of the brethren, who occupied the second and third corridors, many of whom had lights still burning, he came with his boots in one hand, and his bundle in the other, to a fourth pa.s.sage way, in which was an outside window he was trying to reach. The cord was soon fastened to the window frame, yet still in bitter apprehension; for this window was seldom opened, and opened hard, and with some noise. It was also only two steps distant from the apartment of the cloister physician, where there was a light, and it was most likely that, on the first grating of the window, he would rush out and apprehend the fugitive. However the window was opened without raising any alarm, and now it was necessary to see that no one was pa.s.sing below; for though the spot is not very much frequented, yet the streets cross there, and people approach it from four different directions. During these critical moments, one person and another kept pa.s.sing, and poor Borzinski tarried s.h.i.+vering in the window for near a quarter of an hour before he ventured to let himself down. While he was waiting his opportunity he heard the clock strike the third quarter after nine and knew that he had but fifteen minutes to reach the house where he was to conceal himself, which would be closed at ten. When all was still, he called most fervently on the Saviour, and grasping the cord, slid down into the street. He could scarce believe his feet were on the ground. Trembling now with joy and grat.i.tude rather than fear, he ran bareheaded to his place of refuge, where he received a glad welcome.

Having changed his garb, and tarried till three o'clock in the morning, he took leave of his friends and pa.s.sing through the gloomy old capital of Bohemia, he reached the Portzitscher Gate, in order to pa.s.s out as early as possible. Just then a police corporal let in a wagon, and Borzinski, pa.s.sed out unchallenged. It is needless to follow him further in his flight. We have given enough, of his history to prove that conventual establishments are at this moment what they ever have been--dangerous alike to liberty and life. AMERICAN AND FOREIGN CHRISTIAN UNION.

In place of labored arguments we give the following history of personal suffering as strikingly ill.u.s.trative of the spirit of Romanism at the present day.

APPENDIX VII

NARRATIVE OP SIGNORINA FLORIENCIA D' ROMANI, A NATIVE OF THE CITY OF NAPLES.

I was born in the year 1826, of n.o.ble and wealthy parents. Our mansion contained a small chapel, with many images, sacred paintings, and a neatly furnished ma.s.s altar. My father was a man of the world. He loved the society of fas.h.i.+onable men. As he lived on the rents and income of his estates, he had little to do, except to amuse himself with his friends. My mother, who was of as mild and sweet disposition, loved my father very dearly, but was very unhappy the most of the time because my father spent so much of his time in drinking with his dissolute companions, card playing, and in b.a.l.l.s, parties, theatres, operas, billiards, &c. Father did not intend to be unkind to my mother, for he gave her many servants, and abundance of gold, horses, carriages and grooms, and said frequently in my hearing, that his wife should be as happy as a princess. Such was the state of society in Italy that men thought their wives had no just reason to complain, so long as they were furnished with plenty of food, raiment and shelter.

One of my father's most intimate friends was the very Rev. Father Salvator, a Priest of the order of St. Francis; he wore the habit of the order, his head was about half shaved. The sleeves of his habit were very large at the elbow; in these sleeves he had small pockets, in which he usually carried his snuff box, handkerchief, and purse of gold. This priest was merry, full of fun and frolic; he could dance, sing, play cards, and tell admirably funny stories, such as would make even the devils laugh in their chains.

Such was the influence and power this Franciscan had over my father and mother, that in our house, his word was law. He was our confessor, knew the secrets and sins, and all the weak points of every mind in the whole household. My own dear mother taught me to read before I was seven years of age. As I was the only child, I was much petted and caressed, indeed, such was my mother's affection for me that I was seldom a moment out of her sight. There was a handsome mahogany confessional in our own chapel.

When the priest wanted any member of the household to come to him to confession, he wrote the name on a slate that hung outside the chapel door, saying that he would hear confessions at such a time to-morrow.

Thus, we would always have time for the full examination of our consciences. Only one at a time was ever admitted into the chapel, for confessional duty, and the priest always took care to lock the door inside and place the key in his sleeve pocket. My mother and myself were obliged to confess once a week; the household servants, generally once a month. My father only once a year, during Lent, when all the inhabitants of seven years, and upwards, are obliged to kneel down to the priests, in the confessional, and receive the wafer G.o.d under the severest penalties. Woe to the individual who resists the ecclesiastical mandate.

When I was about fourteen years of age, I was sent to the Ursuline Convent, to receive my education. My dear mother would have preferred a governess or a competent teacher to teach me at home but her will was but a mere straw in the hands of our confessor and priestly tyrant. It was solely at the recommendation of the confessor, that I was imprisoned four years in the Ursuline Convent. As my confessor was also the confessor of the convent, he called himself my guardian and protector, and recommended me to the special care of the Mother Abbess, and her holy nuns, the teachers, who spent much of their time in the school department. As my father paid a high price, quarterly, for my tuition and board, I had a good room to myself, my living was of the best kind, and I always had wine at dinner. The nuns, my teachers, took much more pains to teach me the fear of the Pope, bishops and confessors, than the fear of G.o.d, or the love of virtue. In fact, with the exception of a little Latin and embroidery, which I learned in those four years, I came out as ignorant as I was before, unless a little hypocrisy may be called a useful accomplishment. For, of all human beings on earth, none can teach hypocrisy so well as the Romish priests and nuns. In the school department young ladies seldom have much to complain of, unless they are charity scholars; in that case the poor girls have to put up with very poor fare, and much hard work, hard usage and even heavy blows; how my heart has ached for some of those unfortunate girls, who are treated more like brutes, than human beings, because they are orphans, and poor.

Yet they in justice are ent.i.tled to good treatment, for thousands of scudi (dollars) are sent as donations to the convents for the support of these orphans, every year, by benevolent individuals. So that as poor and unfortunate as these girls are, they are a source of revenue to the convents.

For the first three years of my convent life, I pa.s.sed the time in the school department, without much anxiety of mind. I was gay and thoughtless, my great trouble was to find something to amuse myself, and kill time in some way. Though I treated all the school-mates with kindness, and true Italian politeness, I became intimate with only one.

She was a beautiful girl, from the dukedom of Tuscany. She made me her confidant, and told me all her heart. Her parents were wealthy, and both very strict members of the Romish Church. But she had an aunt in the city of Geneva, who was a follower of John Calvin, or a member of the Christian church of Switzerland. This aunt had been yearly a visitor at her father's house. She being her father's only sister, an affectionate intimacy was formed between the aunt and niece. The aunt, being a very pious, amiable woman, felt it her duty to impress the mind of the niece, with the superiority of the religion of the holy bible over popish traditions; and the truth of the Scriptures soon found its way to the heart of my young friend. But her confessor soon found out that some change was going on in her mind, and told her father. There were only two ways to save her soul from utter ruin; one was to give her absolution and kill her before she got entirely out of the holy mother church; the other, was to send her to the Ursuline convent at Naples, where by the zeal and piety of those celebrated nuns, she might be secured from further heresy.

From this, the best friend of my school days, I learned more about G.o.d's word, and virtue, and truth, and the value of the soul, than from all other sources. There was a garden surrounded by a high wall, in which we frequently walked, and whispered to each other, though we trembled all the while for fear our confessor would by some means, find out that we looked upon the Romish church as the Babylon destined to destruction, plainly spoken of by St. John the revelator.