Auricular Confession and Popish Nunneries Volumes I. and II., Complete — A Closer Reading

This was the first check my Popish enthusiasm met with; and now for the first time did a doubt of the infallibility of the church of Rome enter my mind. After witnessing these events I could not help asking myself, can a church which sanctions and countenances such flagitious iniquities as I have just witnessed, be a Christian church? Can a body of men, who individually practise such deeds of blood, treachery and crime as those which I have seen, be, collectively, _infallible?_ Are these the men whom the Saviour commissioned, in a particular manner, to preach the gospel to every creature? Are these the men, as a body, with whom he promised to be always, even to the consummation of the world? Are these the men who collectively constitute an infallible church? If so, unprofitable indeed has been my life. It is high time to come out from among them; and if I cannot live the life of luxury and ease, of sin and crime which a Romish priest can live, let me, at least, live that of an honorable man, and a useful member of society.

These were some of my reflections; and accordingly, that evening, I called on the Right Reverend Protestant bishop of--------, with a view of making a public recantation of my belief in the doctrine of the Roman Catholic church. But as chance would have it, he was out of town that week, and when next I made an effort to see him I found that effort in vain. I had not properly weighed the chains that bound me to Popery. I knew not their length, nor their strength. They were stronger than adamant, than steel. They were chains woven for me, in some measure, by beings that I loved. They were thrown around me and fastened to me by hands that I reverenced. They were the chains of early education. I could not break them; they were too strong for me. The force which alone could do this was the grace of God. This I had not. Until then I went about without faith in the world. I soon fell back, in a measure, into my former belief, but not without a resolution to examine more fully the nature of Popery itself, and the practices of its priests. It is well said, a drowning man will catch at straws. It occurred to me that, perhaps, all the crimes and iniquities committed by popes, priests and bishops, and sanctioned by the church of Rome, might be confined only to the old countries, where "use makes law," and that by leaving the old and coming to the new world, where the people made their own laws, and the human mind had its full swing, and thought is only bounded by its own interminable extent, I might find a different state of things. I fancied, at any rate, that man might worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience, without the interference, let or hindrance, save the inherent power and sovereignty of the people. I little supposed that a pure and enlightened people, such as Americans boast themselves, would sanction such institutions as those in which the young friend of whom I have spoken, lost her virtue, her honor and her life. But alas! how sadly have I been disappointed.

Europe is not the only portion of the world that contains legalized Sodoms. Its people are not the only people that support them. Its lawgivers are not the only men, nor its lawmakers the only ones, that make laws for them and give them charters. Its people are not the only people who contribute their time, their lands, their moneys, and who take almost from the necessaries of life, to support monk houses and nunneries, Jesuits and Dominicans. No, no. The new world, the new people, if I may say so, who boast of being the most enlightened people on the face of the earth,--these are the people who, in proportion to their number, contribute most to the support of Popish brothels, modestly called nunneries.

But it will be said that the young lady to whom 1 have alluded, has given no evidence of her being virtuous. As far as you tell us, she has made no resistance, and it is scarcely possible that one whom you have placed upon so high a prominence of virtue, could have so suddenly fallen into the depths of vice. This is all very plausible, and naturally to be expected from those who know nothing of _auricular confession_,--a Popish institution, one of the most ingenious devices ever invented by the great enemy of man, for the destruction of the human soul.