CHAPTER 1
My
father, Charles Chiniquy [pronounced, "Chi-ni-quay"], born in Quebec,
had studied in the Theological Seminary of that city, to prepare himself for
the priesthood. But a few days before making his vows, having been the witness of
a great iniquity in the high quarters of the church, he changed his mind,
studied law, and became a notary.
Married to Reine Perrault, daughter of Mitchel Perrault, in 1803 he settled at
first in Kamoraska, where I was born on the 30th July, 1809.
About four or five years later my parents emigrated to Murray Bay. That place
was then in its infancy, and no school had yet been established. My mother was,
therefore, my first teacher.
Before leaving the Seminary of Quebec my father had received from one of the
Superiors, as a token of his esteem, a beautiful French and Latin Bible. That
Bible was the first book, after the A B C, in which I was taught to read. My
mother selected the chapters which she considered the most interesting for me;
and I read them every day with the greatest attention and pleasure. I was even
so much pleased with several chapters, that I read them over and over again
till I knew them by heart.
When eight or nine years of age, I had learned by heart the history of the
creation and fall of man; the deluge; the sacrifice of Isaac; the history of
Moses; the plagues of Egypt; the sublime hymn of Moses after crossing the Red
Sea; the history of Samson; the most interesting events of the life of David;
several Psalms; all the speeches and parables of Christ; and the whole history
of the sufferings and death of our Saviour as narrated by John.
I had two brothers, Louis and Achille; the first about four, the second about
eight years younger than myself. When they were sleeping or playing together,
how many delicious hours I have spent by my mother's side, in reading to her
the sublime pages of the divine book.
Sometimes she interrupted me to see if I understood what I read; and when my
answers made her sure that I understood it, she used to kiss me and press me on
her bosom as an expression of her joy.
One day, while I was reading the history of the sufferings of the Saviour, my
young heart was so much impressed that I could hardly enunciate the words, and
my voice trembled. My mother, perceiving my emotion, tried to say something on
the love of Jesus for us, but she could not utter a word her voice was
suffocated by her sobs. She leaned her head on my forehead, and I felt two
streams of tears falling from her eyes on my cheeks. I could not contain myself
any longer. I wept also; and my tears were mixed with hers. The holy book fell
from my hands, and I threw myself into my dear mother's arms.
No human words can express what was felt in her soul and in mine in that most
blessed hour! No! I will never forget that solemn hour, when my mother's heart
was perfectly blended with mine at the feet of our dying Saviour. There was a
real perfume from heaven in those my mother's tears which were flowing on me.
It seemed then, as it does seem to me today, that there was a celestial harmony
in the sound of her voice and in her sobs. Though more than half a century has
passed since that solemn hour when Jesus, for the first time, revealed to me
something of His suffering and of His love, my heart leaps with joy every time
I think of it.
We were some distance from the church, and the roads, in the rainy days, were
very bad. On the Sabbath days the neighbouring farmers, unable to go to church,
were accustomed to gather at our house in the evening. Then my parents used to
put me up on a large table in the midst of the assembly, and I delivered to
those good people the most beautiful parts of the Old and New Testaments. The
breathless attention, the applause of our guests, and may I tell it often the
tears of joy which my mother tried in vain to conceal, supported my strength
and gave me the courage I wanted, to speak when so young before so many people.
When my parents saw that I was growing tired, my mother, who had a fine voice,
sang some of the beautiful French hymns with which her memory was filled.
Several times, when the fine weather allowed me to go to church with my
parents, the farmers would take me into their caleches (buggies) at the door of
the temple, and request me to give them some chapter of the Gospel. With a most
perfect attention they listened to the voice of the child, whom the Good Master
had chosen to give them the bread which comes from heaven. More than once, I
remember, that when the bell called us to the church, they expressed their regret
that they could not hear more.
On one of the beautiful spring days of 1818 my father was writing in his
office, and my mother was working with her needle, singing one of her favourite
hymns, and I was at the door, playing and talking to a fine robin which I had
so perfectly trained that he followed me wherever I went. All of a sudden I saw
the priest coming near the gate. The sight of him sent a thrill of uneasiness
through my whole frame. It was his first visit to our home.
The priest was a person below the common stature, and had an unpleasant
appearance his shoulders were large and he was very corpulent; his hair was
long and uncombed, and his double chin seemed to groan under the weight of his
flabby cheeks.
I hastily ran to the door and whispered to my parents, "M. le Cur'e arrive
("Mr. Curate is coming"). The last sound was hardly out of my lips
when the Rev. Mr. Courtois was at the door, and my father, shaking hands with
him, gave him a welcome.
That priest was born in France, where he had a narrow escape, having been
condemned to death under the bloody administration of Robespierre. He had found
a refuge, with many other French priests, in England, whence he came to Quebec,
and the bishop of that place had given him the charge of the parish of Murray
Bay.
His conversation was animated and interesting for the first quarter of an hour.
It was a real pleasure to hear him. But of a sudden his countenance changed as
if a dark cloud had come over his mind, and he stopped talking. My parents had
kept themselves on a respectful reserve with the priest. They seemed to have no
other mind than to listen to him. The silence which followed was exceedingly
unpleasant for all the parties. It looked like the heavy hour which precedes a
storm. At length the priest, addressing my faith, said, "Mr. Chiniquy, is
it true that you and your child read the Bible?"
"Yes, sir," was the quick reply, "my little boy and I read the
Bible, and what is still better, he has learned by heart a great number of its
most interesting chapters. If you will allow it, Mr. Curate, he will give you
some of them."
"I did not come for that purpose," abruptly replied the priest;
"but do you not know that you are forbidden by the holy Council of Trent
to read the Bible in French."
"It makes very little difference to me whether I read the Bible in French,
Greek, or Latin," answered my father, "for I understand these
languages equally well."
"But are you ignorant of the fact that you cannot allow your child to read
the Bible?" replied the priest.
"My wife directs her own child in the reading of the Bible, and I cannot
see that we commit any sin by continuing to do in future what we have done till
now in that matter."
"Mr. Chiniquy," rejoined the priest, "you have gone through a
whole course of theology; you know the duties of a curate; you know it is my
painful duty to come here, get the Bible from you and burn it."
My grandfather was a fearless Spanish sailor (our original name was
Etchiniquia), and there was too much Spanish blood and pride in my father to
hear such a sentence with patience in his own house. Quick as lightning he was
on his feet. I pressed myself, trembling, near my mother, who trembled also.
At first I feared lest some very unfortunate and violent scene should occur;
for my father's anger in that moment was really terrible.
But there was another thing which affected me. I feared lest the priest should
lay his hands on my dear Bible, which was just before him on the table; for it
was mine, as it had been given me the last year as a Christmas gift.
Fortunately, my father had subdued himself after the first moment of his anger.
He was pacing the room with a double-quick step; his lips were pale and
trembling, and he was muttering between his teeth words which were unintelligible
to any one of us.
The priest was closely watching all my father's movements; his hands were
convulsively pressing his heavy cane, and his face was giving the sure evidence
of a too well-grounded terror. It was clear that the ambassador of Rome did not
find himself infallibly sure of his position on the ground he had so foolishly
chosen to take; since his last words he had remained as silent as a tomb.
At last, after having paced the room for a considerable time, my father
suddenly stopped before the priest, and said, "Sir, is that all you have
to say here."
"Yes, sir," said the trembling priest.
"Well, sir," added my father, "you know the door by which you
entered my house: please take the same door and go away quickly."
The priest went out immediately. I felt an inexpressible joy when I saw that my
Bible was safe. I ran to my father's neck, kissed and thanked him for his
victory. And to pay him, in my childish way, I jumped upon the large table and
recited, in my best style, the fight between David and Goliath. Of course, in
my mind, my father was David and the priest of Rome was the giant whom the
little stone from the brook had stricken down.
Thou knowest, O God, that it is to that Bible, read on my mother's knees, I
owe, by thy infinite mercy, the knowledge of the truth to-day; that Bible had
sent, to my young heart and intelligence, rays of light which all the sophisms
and dark errors of Rome could never completely extinguish.
.
CHAPTER 2
In
the month of June, 1818, my parents sent me to an excellent school at St.
Thomas. One of my mother's sisters resided there, who was the wife of an
industrious miller called Stephen Eschenbach. They had no children, and they
received me as their own son.
The beautiful village of St. Thomas had already, at that time, a considerable
population. The tow fine rivers which unite their rapid waters in its very
midst before they fall into the magnificent basin from which they flow into the
St. Lawrence, supplied the water-power for several mills and factories.
There was in the village a considerable trade in grain, flour and lumber. The
fisheries were very profitable, and the game was abundant. Life was really
pleasant and easy.
The families Tachez, Cazeault, Fournier, Dubord, Frechette, Tetu, Dupuis,
Couillard, Duberges, which were among the most ancient and notable of Canada,
were at the head of the intellectual and material movement of the place, and
they were a real honour to the French Canadian name.
I met there with one of my ancestors on my mother's side whose name was F.
Amour des Plaines. He was an old and brave soldier, and would sometimes show us
the numerous wounds he had received in the battles in which he had fought for
his country. Though nearly eighty years old, he sang to us the songs of the
good old times with all the vivacity of a young man.
The school of Mr. Allen Jones, to which I had been sent, was worthy of its
wide-spread reputation. I had never known any teacher who deserved more, or who
enjoyed in a higher degree the respect and confidence of his pupils.
He was born in England, and belonged to one of the most respectable families
there. He had received the best education which England could give to her sons.
After having gone through a perfect course of study at home, he had gone to
Paris, where he had also completed an academical course. He was perfectly
master of the French and English languages. And it was not without good reasons
that he was surrounded by a great number of scholars from every corner of
Canada. The children of the best families of St. Thomas were, with me,
attending the school of Mr. Jones. But as he was a Protestant, the priest was
much opposed to him, and every effort was made by that priest to induce my
relatives to take me away from that school and send me to the one under his
care.
The name of the priest was Loranger. He had a swarthy countenance, and in
person was lean and tall. His preaching had no attraction, and he was far from
being popular among the intelligent part of the people of St. Thomas.
Dr. Tachez, whose high capacity afterwards brought him to the head of the
Canadian Government, was the leading man of St. Thomas. Being united by the
bonds of a sincere friendship with his nephew, L. Cazeault, who was afterwards
placed at the head of the University of Laval, in Quebec, I had more
opportunities of going to the house of Mr. Tachez, where my young friend was
boarding.
In those days Dr. Tachez had no need of the influence of the priests, and he
frequently gave vent to his supreme contempt for them. Once a week there was a
meeting in his house of the principal citizens of St. Thomas, where the highest
questions of history and religion were freely and warmly discussed; but the
premises as well as the conclusions of these discussions were invariably
adverse to the priests and religion of Rome, and too often to every form of
Christianity.
Though these meetings had not entirely the character or exclusiveness of secret
societies, they were secret to a great extent. My friend Cazeault was punctual
in telling me the days and hours of the meetings, and I used to go with him to
an adjoining room, from which we could hear everything without being suspected.
From what I heard and saw in these meetings I most certainly would have been
ruined, had not the Word of God, with which my mother had filled my young mind
and heart, been my shield and strength. I was often struck with terror and
filled with disgust at what I heard in those meetings. But what a strange and
deplorable thing! My conscience was condemning me every time I listened to
these impious discussions, while there was a strong craving in me to hear them
that I could not resist.
There was then in St. Thomas a personage who was unique in his character. He
never mixed with the society of the village, but was, nevertheless, the object
of much respectful attention and inquiry from every one. He was one of the
former monks of Canada, known under the name of Capucin or Recollets, whom the
conquest of Canada by Great Britain had forced to leave their monastery. He was
a clock-maker, and lived honourably by his trade. His little white house, in
the very midst of the village, was the perfection of neatness.
Brother Mark, as he was called, was a remarkably well-built man; high stature,
large and splendid shoulders, and the most beautiful hands I ever saw. His long
black robe, tied around his waist by a white sash, was remarkable for its
cleanliness. His life was really a solitary one, always alone with his sister,
who kept his house.
Every day that the weather was propitious, Brother Mark spent a couple of hours
in fishing, and I myself was exceedingly fond of that exercise, I used to meet
him often along the banks of the beautiful rivers of St. Thomas.
His presence was always a good omen to me; for he was more expert than I in
finding the best places for fishing. As soon as he found a place where the fish
were abundant, he would make signs to me, or call me at the top of his voice,
that I might share in his good luck. I appreciated his delicate attention to
me, and repaid him with the marks of a sincere gratitude. The good monk had
entirely conquered my young heart, and I cherished a sincere regard for him. He
often invited me to his solitary but neat little home, and I never visited him
without receiving some proofs of a sincere kindness. His good sister rivaled
him in overwhelming me with such marks of attention and love as I could only
expect from a dear mother.
There was a mixture of timidity and dignity in the manners of Brother Mark
which I have found in on one else. He was fond of children; and nothing could
be more graceful than his smile every time that he could see that I appreciated
his kindness, and that I gave him any proof of my gratitude. But that smile,
and any other expression of joy, were very transient. On a sudden he would
change, and it was obvious that a mysterious cloud was passing over his heart.
The pope had released the monks of the monastery to which he belonged, from
their vows of poverty and obedience. The consequence was that they could become
independent, and even rich by their own industry. It was in their power to rise
to a respectable position in the world by their honourable efforts. The pope
had given them the permission they wanted, that they might earn an honest
living. But what a strange and incredible folly to ask the permission of a pope
to be allowed to live honourably on the fruits of one's own industry!
These poor monks, having been released from their vows of obedience, were no
longer the slaves of a man; but were now permitted to go to heaven on the sole
condition that they would obey the laws of God and the laws of their country!
But into what a frightful abyss of degradation men must have fallen, to believe
that they required a license from Rome for such a purpose. This is, nevertheless,
the simple and naked truth. That excess of folly, and that supreme impiety and
degradation are among the fundamental dogmas of Rome. The infallible pope
assures the world that there is no possible salvation for any one who does not
sincerely believe what he teaches in this matter.
But the pope who had so graciously relieved the Canadian monks from their vows
of obedience and poverty, had been inflexible in reference to their vows of
celibacy. From this there was no relief.
The honest desires of the good monk to live according to the laws of God, with
a wife whom heaven might have given him, had become an impossibility the pope
vetoed it.
The unfortunate monk was bound to believe that he would be for ever damned if
he dared to accept as a gospel truth the Word of God which says:-
"Propter fornicationem autem, unusquisque uxorem suam habeat, unaquaque
virum suum habeat. (Vulgate Bible of Rome.) Nevertheless to avoid fornication
let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own
husband." (I Cor. vii. 2.) That shining light which the world contains and
which gives life to man, was entirely shut out from Brother Mark. He was not
allowed to know that God himself had said, "It is not good that man should
be alone, I will make him an help-meet for him" (Gen. ii. 18.) Brother
Mark was endowed with such a loving heart! He could not be known without being
loved; and he must have suffered much in that celibacy which his faith in the
pope had imposed upon him.
Far away from the regions of light, truth and life, that soul, tied to the feet
of the implacable modern Divinity, which the Romanists worship under the same
name of Sovereign Pontiff, was trying in vain to annihilate and destroy the
instincts and affections which God himself had implanted in him.
One day, as I was amusing myself, with a few other young friends, near the
house of Brother Mark, suddenly we saw something covered with blood thrown from
a window, and falling at a short distance from us. At the same instant we heard
loud cries, evidently coming from the monk's house: "O my God! Have mercy
upon me! Save me! I am lost!"
The sister of Brother Mark rushed out of doors and cried to some men who were
passing by: "Come to our help! My poor brother is dying! For God's sake
make haste, he is losing all his blood!"
I ran to the door, but the lady shut it abruptly and turned me out, saying,
"We do not want children here."
I had a sincere affection for the good brother. He had invariably been so kind
to me! I insisted, and respectfully requested to be allowed to enter. Though
young and weak, it seemed that my friendly feelings towards the suffering
brother would add to my strength, and enable me to be of some service. But my
request was sternly rejected, and I had to go back to the street, among the
crowd which was fast gathering. The singular mystery in which they were trying
to wrap the poor monk, filled me with trouble and anxiety.
But that trouble was soon changed into an unspeakable confusion when I heard
the convulsive laughing of the low people, and the shameful jokes of the crowd,
after the doctor had told the nature of the wound which was causing the
unfortunate man to bleed almost to death. I was struck with such horror that I
fled away; I did not want to know any more of that tragedy. I had already known
too much!
Poor Brother Mark had ceased to be a man he had become an eunuch!
O cruel and godless church of Rome! How many souls hast thou deceived and
tortured! How many hearts hast thou broken with that celibacy which Satan alone
could invent! This unfortunate victim of a most degrading religion, did not,
however, die from his rash action: he soon recovered his usual health.
Having, meanwhile, ceased to visit him; some months later I was fishing along
the river in a very solitary place. The fish were abundant and I was completely
absorbed in catching them, when, on a sudden, I felt on my shoulder the gentle
pressure of a hand. It was Brother Mark's.
I thought I would faint through the opposite sentiments of surprise, of pain
and joy, which at the same time crossed my mind.
With an affectionate and trembling voice he said to me, "My dear child,
why do you not any more come to see me?"
I did not dare to look at him after he had addressed me those words. I liked
him on account of his acts of kindness to me. But the fatal hour when, in the
street before the door, I had suffered so much on his account that fatal hour
was on my heart as a mountain which I could not put away I could not answer
him.
He then asked me again with the tone of a criminal who sues for mercy:
"Why is it, my dear child, that you do not come any longer to see me? you
know that I love you."
"Dear Brother Mark," I answered, "I will never forget your
kindness to me. I will for ever be grateful to you! I wish that it would be in
my power to continue, as formerly, to go and see you. But I cannot, and you
ought to know the reason why I cannot."
I had pronounced these words with downcast eyes. I was a child, with the
timidity and happy ignorance of a child. But the action of that unfortunate man
had struck me with such a horror that I could not entertain the idea of
visiting him any more.
He spent two or three minutes without saying a word, and without moving. But I
heard his sobs and his cries, and his cries were those of despair and anguish,
the like of which I have never heard since.
I could not contain myself any longer, I was suffocating with suppressed
emotion, and I would have fallen insensible to the ground if two streams of
tears had not burst from my eyes. Those tears did me good they did him good
also they told him that I was still his friend.
He took me in his arms and pressed me to his bosom his tears were mixed with
mine. But I could not speak the emotions of my heart were too much for my age.
I sat on a damp and cold stone in order not to faint. He fell on his knees by
my side.
Ah! if I were a painter I would make a most striking tableau of that scene. His
eyes, swollen and red with weeping, were raised to heaven, his hand lifted up
in the attitude of supplication: he was crying out with an accent which seemed
as though it would break my heart -
"Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! que je suis malheureux!"
My God! My God! what a wretched man am I!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The twenty-five years that I have been a priest of Rome, have revealed to me
the fact that the cries of desolation I heard that day, were but the echo of
the cries of desolation which go out from almost every nunnery, every parsonage
and every house where human beings are bound by the ties of Romish Celibacy.
God knows that I am a faithful witness of what my eyes have seen and my ears
have heard, when I say to the multitudes which the Church of Rome has bewitched
with her enchantments: Wherever there are nuns, monks and priests who live in
forced violation of the ways which God had appointed for man to walk in, there
are torrents of tears, there are desolated hearts, there are cries of anguish
and despair which say in the words of brother Mark:
"Oh! que je suis malheureux!"
Oh! how miserable and wretched I am!
.
CHAPTER 3
No
words can express to those who have never had any experience in the matter, the
consternation, anxiety and shame of a poor Romish child, when he hears, for the
first time, his priest saying from the pulpit, in a grave and solemn tone,
"This week, you will send your children to confession. Make them
understand that this action is one of the most important of their lives, and
that for every one of them, it will decide their eternal happiness or misery.
Fathers and mothers, if, through your fault, or his own, your child is guilty
of a bad confession if he conceals his sins and commences lying to the priest,
who holds the place of God Himself, this sin is often irreparable. The devil
will take possession of his heart: he will become accustomed to lie to his
father confessor, or rather to Jesus Christ, of whom he is a representative.
His life will be a series of sacrileges; his death and eternity those of the
reprobate. Teach him, therefore, to examine thoroughly his actions, words and
thoughts, in order to confess without disguise."
I was in the church of St. Thomas when these words fell upon me like a
thunderbolt.
I had often heard my mother say, when at home and my aunt since I had come to
St. Thomas, that upon the first confession depended my eternal happiness or
misery. That week was, therefore, to decide about my eternity.
Pale and dismayed, I left the church, and returned to the house of my
relatives. I took my place at the table, but could not eat, so much was I
troubled. I went to my room for the purpose of commencing my examination of
conscience and to recall all my sinful actions, words, and thoughts. Although I
was scarcely over ten years of age, this task was really overwhelming for me. I
knelt down to pray to the Virgin Mary for help; but I was so much taken up with
the fear of forgetting something, and of making a bad confession, that I
muttered my prayers without the least attention to what I said. It became still
worse when I commenced counting my sins. My memory became confused, my head
grew dizzy; my heart beat with a rapidity which exhausted me, and my brow was
covered with perspiration. After a considerable length of time spent in those
painful efforts, I felt bordering on despair, from the fear that it was impossible
for me to remember everything. The night following was almost a sleepless one;
and when sleep did come, it could scarcely be called a sleep, but a suffocating
delirium. In a frightful dream, I felt as if I had been cast into hell, for not
having confessed all my sins to the priest. In the morning, I awoke, fatigued
and prostrated by the phantoms of that terrible night. In similar troubles of
mind were passed the three days which preceded my first confession. I had
constantly before me the countenance of that stern priest who had never smiled
upon me. He was present in my thoughts during the day, and in my dreams during
the night, as the minister of an angry God, justly irritated against me on
account of my sins. Forgiveness had indeed been promised to me, on condition of
a good confession; but my place had also been shown to me in hell, if any
confession was not as near perfection as possible. Now, my troubled conscience
told me that there were ninety-nine chances against one, that my confession
would be bad, whether by my own fault I forgot some sins, or I was without that
contrition of which I had heard so much, but the nature and effects of which
were a perfect chaos in my mind.
Thus it was that the cruel and perfidious Church of Rome took away from my
young heart the good and merciful Jesus, whose love and compassion had caused
me to shed tears of joy when I was beside my mother. The Saviour whom that
church made me to worship, through fear, was not the Saviour who called little
children unto Him, to bless them and take them in His arms. Her impious hands
were soon to torture and defile my childish heart, and place me at the feet of
a pale and severe looking man worthy representative of a pitiless God. I was
made to tremble with terror at the footstool of an implacable divinity, while
the gospel asked from me only tears of love and joy, shed at the feet of the
incomparable Friend of sinners. At length came the day of confession; or rather
of judgment and condemnation. I presented myself to the priest.
Mr. Loranger was no longer priest of St. Thomas. He had been succeeded by Mr.
Beaubien, who did not favour our school any more than his predecessor. He had
even taken upon himself to preach a sermon against the heretical school, by
which we had been excessively wounded. His want of love for us, however, I must
say, was fully reciprocated.
Mr. Beaubien had, then, the defect of lisping and stammering. This we often
turned into ridicule, and one of my favourite amusements was to imitate him,
which brought bursts of laughter from us all.
It had been necessary for me to examine myself upon the number of times I had
mocked him. This circumstance was not calculated to make my confession easier,
or more agreeable.
At last the dreaded moment came. I knelt at the side of my confessor. My whole
frame trembled. I repeated the prayer preparatory to confession, scarcely
knowing what I said, so much was I troubled by fear.
By the instructions which had been given us before confession, we had been made
to believe that the priest was the true representative yes, almost the
personification of Jesus Christ. The consequence was, that I believed my
greatest sin had been that of mocking the priest. Having always been told that
it was best to confess the greatest sin first, I commenced thus: "Father,
I accuse myself of having mocked a priest."
Scarcely had I uttered these words, "mocked a priest," when this
pretended representative of the humble Saviour, turning towards me, and looking
in my face in order to know me better, asked abruptly, "What priest did
you mock, my boy?" I would rather have chosen to cut out my tongue than to
tell him to his face who it was. I therefore kept silent for a while. By my
silence made him very nervous and almost angry. With a haughty tone of voice he
said, "What priest did you take the liberty of thus mocking?"
I saw that I had to answer. Happily his haughtiness had made me firmer and
bolder. I said, "Sir, you are the priest whom I mocked."
"But how many times did you take upon you to mock me, my boy?"
"I tried to find out," I answered, "but I never could."
"You must tell me how many times; for to mock one's own priest is a great
sin."
"It is impossible for me to give you the number of times," answered
I.
"Well, my child, I will help your memory by asking you questions. Tell me
the truth. Do you think you have mocked me ten times?"
"A great many times more, sir."
"Fifty times?"
"Many more still."
"A hundred times?"
"Say five hundred times, and perhaps more," answered I.
"Why, my boy, do you spend all your time in mocking me?"
"Not all; but unfortunately I do it very often."
"Well may you say unfortunately; for so to mock your priest, who holds the
place of our Lord Jesus Christ, is a great misfortune, and a great sin for you.
But tell me, my little boy, what reason have you for mocking me thus?"
In my examinations of conscience I had not foreseen that I should be obliged to
give the reasons for mocking the priest; and I was really thunderstruck by his
questions. I dared not answer, and I remained for a long time dumb, from the
shame that overpowered me. But with a harassing perseverance the priest
insisted upon my telling why I had mocked him; telling me that I should be
damned if I did not tell the whole truth. So I decided to speak, and said,
"I mocked you for several things."
"What made you first mock me?" continued the priest.
"I laughed at you because you lisped. Among our pupils of our school, it
often happens that we imitate your preaching to excite laughter."
"Have you often done that?"
"Almost every day,especially in our holidays, and since you preached
against us."
"For what other reasons did you laugh at me, my little boy?"
For a long time I was silent. Every time I opened my mouth to speak courage
failed me. However, the priest continuing to urge me, I said at last, "It
is rumoured in town that you love girls; that you visit the Misses Richards
every evening, and this often makes us laugh."
The poor priest was evidently overwhelmed by my answer, and ceased questioning
me on this subject. Changing the conversation, he said:
"What are your other sins?"
I began to confess them in the order in which they came to my memory. But the
feeling of shame which overpowered me in repeating all my sins to this man was
a thousand times greater than that of having offended God. In reality this
feeling of human shame which absorbed my thought nay, my whole being left no
room for any religious feeling at all.
When I had confessed all the sins I could remember, the priest began to ask me
the strangest questions on matters about which my pen must be silent. I
replied, "Father, I do not understand what you ask me."
"I question you on the sixth commandment (seventh in the Bible). Confess
all. You will go to hell, if through your fault you omit anything."
Thereupon he dragged my thoughts to regions which, thank God, had hitherto been
unknown to me.
I answered him: "I do not understand you," or "I have never done
these things."
Then, skillfully shifting to some secondary matter, he would soon slyly and
cunningly come back to his favourite subject, namely, sins of licentiousness.
His questions were so unclean that I blushed, and felt sick with disgust and
shame. More than once I had been, to my regret, in the company of bad boys; but
not one of them had offended my moral nature so much as this priest had done.
Not one of them had ever approached the shadow of the things from which that
man tore the veil, and which he placed before the eye of my soul. In vain did I
tell him that I was not guilty of such things; that I did not even understand
what he asked me; he would not let me off. Like the vulture bent upon tearing
the poor bird that falls into his claws, that cruel priest seemed determined to
defile and ruin my heart.
At last he asked me a question in a form of expression so bad that I was really
pained. I felt as if I had received a shock from an electric battery; a feeling
of horror made me shudder. I was so filled with indignation that speaking loud
enough to be heard by many, I told him: "Sir, I am very wicked; I have
seen, heard and done many things which I regret; but I never was guilty of what
you mention to me. My ears have never heard anything so wicked as what they
have heard from your lips. Please do not ask me any more of those questions; do
not teach me any more evil than I already know."
The remainder of my confession was short. The firmness of my voice had
evidently frightened the priest, and made him blush. He stopped short and began
to give me some good advice, which might have been useful to me if the deep
wounds which his questions had inflicted upon my soul had not so absorbed my
thoughts as to prevent me from giving attention to what he said.
He gave me a short penance and dismissed me.
I left the confessional irritated and confused. From the shame of what I had
just heard from the mouth of that priest I dared not life my eyes from the
ground. I went into a retired corner of the church to do my penance; that is,
to recite the prayers he had indicated to me. I remained for a long time in
church. I had need of a calm after the terrible trial through which I had just
passed. But vainly sought I for rest. The shameful questions which had been
asked me, the new world of iniquity into which I had been introduced, the
impure phantoms by which my childish heart had been defiled, confused and
troubled my mind so strangely that I began to weep bitterly.
Why those tears? Why that desolation? Wept I over my sins? Alas! I confess it
was shame, my sins did not call forth these tears. And yet how many sins had I
already committed, for which Jesus shed His precious blood. But I confess my
sins were not the cause of my desolation. I was rather thinking of my mother,
who had taken such good care of me, and who had so well succeeded in keeping away
from my thoughts those impure forms of sin, the thoughts of which had just now
defiled my heart. I said to myself, "Ah! if my mother had heard those
questions; if she could see the evil thoughts which overwhelm me at this moment
if she knew to what school she sent me when she advised me in her last letter
to go to confession, how her tears would mingle with mine!" It seemed to
me that my mother would love me not more that she would see written upon my
brow the pollution with which that priest had profaned my soul.
Perhaps the feeling of pride was what made me weep. Or perhaps I wept because
of a remnant of that feeling of original dignity whose traces had still been
left in me. I felt so downcast by the disappointment of being removed farther
from the Saviour by that confessional which had promised to bring me nearer to
Him. God only knows what was the depth of my sorrow at feeling myself more
defiled and more guilty after than before my confession.
I left the church only when forced to do so by the shades of night, and came to
my uncle's house with that feeling of uneasiness caused by the consciousness of
having done a bad action, and by the fear of being discovered.
Though this uncle, as well as most of the principal citizens of the village of
St. Thomas, had the name of being a Roman Catholic, he yet did not believe a
word of the doctrines of the Roman Church. He laughed at the priests, their
masses, their purgatory, and especially their confession. He did not conceal
that, when young, he had been scandalized by the words and actions of a priest
in the confessional. He spoke to me jestingly. This increased my trouble and my
grief. "Now," said he, "you will be a good boy. But if you have
heard as many new things as I did the first time I went to confess, you are a
very learned boy;" and he burst into laughter.
I blushed and remained silent. My aunt, who was a devoted Roman Catholic, said
to me, "Your heart is relieved, is it not, since you confessed all your
sins?" I gave her an evasive answer, but I could not conceal the sadness
that overcame me. I thought I was the only one from whom the priest had asked
those polluting questions. But great was my surprise, on the following day,
when going to school I learned that my fellow pupils had not been happier than
I had been. The only difference was, that instead of being grieved, they
laughed at it. "Did the priest ask you such and such questions?" they
would demand, laughing boisterously. I refused to reply, and said, "Are
you not ashamed to speak of these things?"
"Ah! ah! how very scrupulous you are," continued they. "If it is
not a sin for the priest to speak to us on these matters, how can it be a sin
for us?" I stopped, confounded, not knowing what to say.
I soon perceived that even the young schoolgirls had not been less polluted and
scandalized by the questions of the priest than the boys. Although keeping at a
distance, such as to prevent us from hearing all they said, I could understand
enough to convince me that they had been asked about the same questions. Some
of them appeared indignant, while others laughed heartily.
I should be misunderstood where it supposed that I mean to convey the idea that
this priest was more to blame than others, or that he did more than fulfill the
duties of his ministry in asking these questions. Such, however, was my opinion
at the time, and I detested that man with all my heart until I knew better. I
had been unjust towards him, for this priest had only done his duty. He was
only obeying the pope and his theologians. His being a priest of Rome was,
therefore, less in crime than his misfortune. He was, as I have been myself,
bound hand and foot at the feet of the greatest enemy that the holiness and
truth of God have ever had on earth the pope.
The misfortune of Mr. Beaubien, like that of all the priests of Rome, was that
of having bound himself by terrible oaths not to think for himself, or to use
the light of his own reason.
Many Roman Catholics, even many Protestants, refuse to believe this. It is,
notwithstanding, a sad truth. The priest of Rome is an automaton a machine
which acts, thinks and speaks in matters of morals and of faith, only according
to the order and the will of the pope and of his theologians.
Had Mr. Beaubien been left to himself, he was naturally too much of a gentleman
to ask such questions. But no doubt he had read Liguori, Dens, Debreyne,
authors approved by the pope, and he was obliged to take darkness for light,
and vice for virtue.
.
CHAPTER 4
Shortly
after the trial of auricular confession, my young friend, Louis Cazeault,
accosted me on a beautiful morning and said, "Do you know what happened
last night?"
"No," I answered. "What was the wonder?"
"You know that our priest spends almost all his evenings at Mr. Richard's
house. Everybody thinks that he goes there for the sake of the two daughters.
Well, in order to cure him of that disease, my uncle, Dr. Tache, and six
others, masked, whipped him without mercy and he was coming back at eleven
o'clock at night. It is already known by everyone in the village, and they
split their sides with laughing."
My first feeling on hearing that news was one of joy. Ever since my first
confession I felt angry every time I thought of that priest. His questions had
so wounded me that I could not forgive him. I had enough self-control, however,
to conceal my pleasure, and I answered my friend:
"You are telling me a wicked story; I can't believe a word of it."
"Well," said young Cazeault, "come at eight o'clock this evening
to my uncle's. A secret meeting is to take place then. No doubt they will speak
of the pill given to the priest last night. We shall place ourselves in our
little room as usual and shall hear everything, our presence not being
suspected. You may be sure that it will be interesting."
"I will go," I answered, "but I do not believe a word of that
story."
I went to school at the usual hour. Most of the pupils had preceded me. Divided
into groups of eight or ten, they were engaged in a most lively conversation.
Bursts of convulsive laughter were heard from every corner. I could very well
see that something uncommon had taken place in the village.
I approached several of these groups, and all received me with the question:
"Do you know that the priest was whipped last night as he was coming from
the Misses Richards'?"
"That is a story invented for fun," said I. "You were not there
to see him, were you? You therefore know nothing about it; for it anybody had
whipped the priest he would not surely boast of it."
"But we heard his screams," answered many voices.
"What! was he then screaming out?" I asked.
"He shouted out at the top of his voice, `Help, help! Murder!'"
"But you were surely mistaken about the voice," said I. "It was
not the priest who shouted, it was somebody else. I could never believe that
anybody would whip a priest in such a crowded village."
"But," said several, "we ran to his help and we recognized the
priest's voice. He is the only one who lisps in the village."
"And we saw him with our own eyes," said several.
The school bell put an end to this conversation. As soon as school was out I
returned to the house of my relatives, not wishing to learn any more about this
matter. Although I did not like this priest, yet I was much mortified by some
remarks which the older pupils made about him.
But it was difficult not to hear any more. On my arrival home I found my uncle
and aunt engaged in a very warm debate on the subject. My uncle wished to
conceal the fact that he was among those who had whipped him. But he gave the
details so precisely, he was so merry over the adventure, that it was easy to
see that he had a hand in the plot. My aunt was indignant, and used the most
energetic expressions to show her disapprobation.
That bitter debate annoyed me so that I did not stay long to hear it all. I
withdrew to my study.
During the remainder of the day I changed my resolution many times about my
going to the secret meeting in the evening. At one moment I would decide firmly
not to go. My conscience told me that, as usual, things would be uttered which
it was not good for me to her. I had refused to go to the two last meetings,
and a silent voice, as it were, told me I had done well. Then a moment after I
was tormented by the desire to know precisely what had taken place the evening before.
The flagellation of a priest in the midst of a large village was a fact too
worthy of note to fail to excite the curiosity of a child. Besides, my aversion
to the priest, though I concealed it as well as I could, made me wish to know
whether everything was true on the subject of the chastisement. But in the
struggle between good and evil which took place in my mind during that day, the
evil was finally to triumph. A quarter of an hour before the meeting my friend
came to me and said:
"Make haste, the members of the association are coming."
At this call all my good resolutions vanished. I hushed the voice of my
conscience, and a few minutes later I was placed in an angle of that little
room, where for more than two hours I learned so many strange and scandalous
things about the lives of the priests of Canada.
Dr. Tache presided. He opened the meeting in a low tone of voice. At the
beginning of his discourse I had some difficulty to understand what he said. He
spoke as one who feared to be overheard when disclosing a secret to a friend.
But after a few preliminary sentences he forgot the rule of prudence which he
had imposed upon himself, and spoke with energy and power.
Mr. Etienne Tache was naturally eloquent. He seemed to speak on no question
except under the influence of the deepest conviction of its truth. His speech
was passionate, and the tone of his voice clear and agreeable. His short and
cutting sentences did not reach the ear only: they penetrated even the secret
folds of the soul. He spoke in substance as follows:
"Gentlemen, I am happy to see you here more numerously than ever. The
grave events of last night have, no doubt, decided many of you to attend
debates which some began to forsake, but the importance of which, it seems to
me, increases day by day.
"The question debated in our last meeting `The Priests' is one of life and
death, not only for our young and beautiful Canada, but in a moral point of
view it is a question of life and death for our families, and for every one of
us in particular.
"There is, I know, only one opinion among us on the subject of priests;
and I am glad that this opinion is not only that of all educated men in Canada,
but also of learned France nay, of the whole world. The reign of the priest is
the reign of ignorance, of corruption, and of the most barefaced immorality,
under the mask of the most refined hypocrisy. The reign of the priest is the
death of our schools; it is the degradation of our wives, the prostitution of
our daughters; it is the reign of tyranny the loss of liberty.
"We have only one good school, I will not say in St. Thomas, but in all
our county. This school in our midst is a great honour to our village. Now see
the energy with which all the priests who come here work for the closing of
that school. They use every means to destroy that focus of light which we have
started with so much difficulty, and which we support by so many sacrifices.
"With the priest of Rome our children do not belong to us: he is their
master. Let me explain. The priest honours us with the belief that the bodies,
the flesh and bones of our children, are ours, and that our duty in consequence
is to clothe and feed them. But the nobler and more sacred part, namely, the
intellect, the heart, the soul, the priest claims as his own patrimony, his own
property. The priest has the audacity to tell us that to him alone it belongs
to enlighten those intelligences, to form those hearts, to fashion those souls
as it may best suit him. He has the impudence to tell us that we are too silly
or perverse to know our duties in this respect. We have not the right of
choosing our school teachers. We have not the right to send a single ray of
light into those intellects, or to give to those souls who hunger and thirst
after truth a single crumb of that food prepared with so much wisdom and
success by enlightened men of all ages.
"By the confessional the priests poison the springs of life in our
children. They initiate them into such mysteries of iniquity as would terrify
old galley slaves. By their questions they reveal to them secrets of a
corruption such as carries its germs of death into the very marrow of their
bones, and that from the earliest years of their infancy. Before I was fifteen
years old I had learned more real blackguardism from the mouth of my confessor
than I have learned ever since, in my studies and in my life as a physician for
twenty years.
"A few days ago I questioned my little nephew, Louis Cazeault, upon what
he had learned in his confession. He answered me ingenuously, and repeated
things to me which I would be ashamed to utter in your presence, and which you,
fathers of families, could not listen to without blushing. And just think, that
not only of little boys are those questions asked, but also of our dear little girls.
Are we not the most degraded of men if we do not set ourselves to work in order
to break the iron yoke under which the priest keeps our dear country, and by
means of which he keeps us, with our wives and children, at his feet like vile
slaves.
"While speaking to you of the deleterious effects of the confessional upon
our children, shall I forget its effects upon our wives and upon ourselves?
Need I tell you that, for most women, the confessional is a rendezvous of
coquetry and of love? Do you not feel as I do myself, that by means of the
confessional the priest is more the master of the hearts of our wives than
ourselves? Is not the priest the private and public confidant of our wives? Do
not our wives go invariably to the feet of the priest, opening to him what is
most sacred and intimate in the secrets of our lives as husbands and as
fathers? The husband belongs no more to his wife as her guide through the dark
and difficult paths of life: it is the priest! We are no more their friends and
natural advisers. Their anxieties and their cares they do not confide to us.
They do not expect from us the remedies for the miseries of this life. Towards
the priest they turn their thoughts and desires. He has their entire and
exclusive confidence. In a word, it is the priest who is the real husband of
our wives! It is he who has the possession of their respect and of their hearts
to a degree to which no one of us need ever aspire!
"Were the priest an angel, were he not made of flesh and bones just as we
are, were not his organization absolutely the same as our own, then might we be
indifferent to what might take place between him and our wives, whom he has at
his feet, in his hands even more, in his heart. But what does my experience
tell me, not only as a physician, but also as a citizen of St. Thomas? What
does yours tell you? Our experience tells us that the priest, instead of being
stronger, is weaker than we generally are with respect to women.
His sham vows of perfect chastity, far from rendering him more invulnerable to
the arrows of Cupid, expose him to be made more easily the victim of that god,
so small in form, but so dreadful a giant by the irresistible power of his
weapons and the extent of his conquests.
"As a matter of fact, of the last four priest who came to St. Thomas, have
not three seduced many of the wives and daughters of our most respectable
families? And what security have we that the priest who is now with us does not
walk in the same path? Is not the whole parish filled with indignation at the
long nightly visits made by him to two girls whose dissolute morals are a
secret to nobody? And when the priest does not respect himself, would we not be
silly in continuing to give him that respect of which he himself knows he is
unworthy?
"At out last meeting the opinions were divided at the beginning of the
discussion. Many thought it would be well to speak to the bishop about the
scandal caused by those nightly visits. But the majority judged that such steps
would be useless, since the bishop would do one of two things, namely, he would
either pay no attention to our just complaints, as has often been the case, or
he would remove this priest, filling his place with one who would do no better.
That majority, which became a unanimity, acceded to my thought of taking
justice into our own hands. The priest is our servant. We pay him a large
tithe. We have therefore claims upon him. He has abused us, and does so every
day by his public neglect of the most elementary laws of morality. In visiting
every night that house whose degradation is known to everybody, he gives to
youth an example of perversity the effects of which no one can estimate.
"It had been unanimously decided that he should be whipped. Without my
telling you by whom it was done, you may be assured that Mr. Beaubien's
flagellation of last night will never be forgotten by him!
"Heaven grant that this brotherly correction be a lesson to teach all the
priests of Canada that their golden reign is over, that the eyes of the people
are opened, and that their domination is drawing to an end!"
This discourse was listened to with deep silence, and Dr. Tache saw by the
applause that followed that his speech had been the expression of every one.
Next followed a gentleman named Dubord, who in substance spoke as follows:
"Mr. President, I was not among those who gave the priest the expression
of public feeling with the energetic tongue of the whip. I wish I had been,
however; I would heartily have co-operated in giving that lesson to the priest
of Canada. Let me give my reason.
"My daughter who is twelve years old, went to confession as did the others
a few weeks ago. It was against my will. I know by my own experience that of
all actions confession is the most degrading in a person's life. I can imagine
nothing so well calculated to destroy for every one's self-respect as the
modern invention of the confessional. Now, what is a person without
self-respect especially a woman? Without this all is lost to her for ever.
"In the confessional everything is corruption of the lowest grade.
"In the confessional, a girl's thoughts are polluted, her tongue is
polluted, her heart is polluted yes, and forever polluted! Do I need to tell
you this? You know it as well as I do. Though you are now all too intelligent
to degrade yourselves at the feet of a priest, though it is long since you have
been guilty of that meanness, not one of you have forgotten the lessons of
corruption received, when young, in the confessional. Those lessons were
engraved on your memory, your thoughts, your heart, and your souls like the
scar left by the red-hot iron upon the brow of the slave, to remain a perpetual
witness of his shame and servitude. The confessional is a place where one gets
accustomed to hear, and repeat without a scruple, things which would cause even
a prostitute to blush!
"Why are Roman Catholic nations inferior to nations belonging to
Protestantism? Only in the confessional can the solution of that problem be
found. And why are Roman Catholic nations degraded in proportion to their
submission to the priest? It is because the oftener the individuals composing
those nations go to confession, the more rapidly they sink in the scale of
intelligence and morality. A terrible example of this I had in my own house.
"As I said a moment ago, I was against my daughter going to confession;
but her poor mother, who is under the control of the priest, earnestly wanted
her to go. Not to have a disagreeable scene in my house, I had to yield to the
tears of my wife.
"On the day following that of her confession they believed I was absent;
but I was in my office, with the door sufficiently open to allow me to hear
what was said. My wife and daughter had the following conversation:
"`What makes you so thoughtful and sad, my dear Lucy, since you went to
confession? It seems to me you should feel happier since you had the privilege
of confession your sins.'
"Lucy made no answer.
"After a silence of two or three minutes her mother said:
"`Why do you weep, dear child? Are you ill?'
"Still no answer from the child.
"You may well suppose that I was all attention. I had my suspicions about
the dreadful ordeal which had taken place. My heart throbbed with uneasiness
and anger.
"After a short time my wife spoke to her child with sufficient firmness to
force her to answer. In a trembling voice and half suppressed with sobs my dear
little daughter answered:
"`Ah! mamma, if you knew what the priest asked me, and what he said to me
in the confessional, you would be as sad as I am.'
"`But what did he say to you? He is a holy man. You surely did not
understand him if you think he said anything to pain you.'
"`Dear mother,' as she threw herself into her mother's arms, `do not ask
me to confess what the priest said! He told to me things so shameful that I
cannot repeat them. But that which pains me most is the impossibility of
banishing from my thoughts the hateful things which he has taught me. His
impure words are like the leeches put upon the chest of my friend Louise they
could not be removed without tearing the flesh. What must have been his opinion
of me to ask such questions!'
"My child said no more, and began to sob again.
"After a short silence my wife rejoined:
"`I'll go to the priest. I'll tell him to beware how he speaks in the
confessional. I have noticed myself that he goes too far with his questions. I,
however thought that he was more prudent with children. After the lesson that
I'll give him, be sure that you will have only to tell your sins, and that you
will be no more troubled by his endless questions. I ask of you, however, never
to speak of this to anybody, especially never let your poor father know
anything about it; for he has little enough religion already, and this would
leave him without any at all.'
"I could contain myself no longer. I rose and abruptly entered the
parlour. My daughter threw herself, weeping, into my arms. My wife screamed
with terror, and almost fell into a swoon. I said to my child:
"If you love me, put your hand on my heart and promise me that you'll never
go to confession again. Fear God, my child; walk in His presence, for His eye
seeth you everywhere. Remember that day and night He is ready to forgive us.
Never place yourself again at the feet of a priest to be defiled and degraded
by him!
"This my daughter promised me.
"When my wife had recovered from her surprise I said to her:
"Madam, for a long time the priest has been everything, and your husband
nothing to you. There is a hidden and terrible power that governs your thoughts
and affections as it governs your deeds-- it is the power of the priest. This
you have often denied; but providence has decided to-day that this power should
be for ever broken for you and for me. I want to be the ruler in my own house;
and from this moment the power of the priest over you must cease, unless you
prefer to leave my house for ever. The priest has reigned here too long! But
now that I know he has stained and defiled the soul of my daughter, his empire
must fall! Whenever you go and take your heart and secrets to the feet of the
priest, be so kind as not to come back to the same house with me."
Three other discourses followed that of Mr. Dubord, all of which were pregnant
with details and facts going to prove that the confessional was the principal
cause of the deplorable demoralisation of St. Thomas.
If, in addition to all that, I could have mentioned before that association
what I already know of the corrupting influences of that institution given to
the world by centuries of darkness, certainly the determination of its members
to make use of every means to abolish the usage would have been strengthened.
.
CHAPTER 5
The
day following that of the meeting at which Mr. Tache had given his reasons for
boasting that he had whipped the priest, I wrote to my mother: "For God's
sake, come for me; I can stay here no longer. If you knew what my eyes have
seen and my ears have heard for some time past, you would not delay your coming
a single day."
Indeed, such was the impression left upon me by that flagellation, and by the
speeches which I had heard, that had it not been for the crossing of the St.
Lawrence, I would have started for Murray Bay on the day after the secret
meeting at which I had heard things that so terribly frightened me. How I
regretted the happy and peaceful days spent with my mother in reading the
beautiful chapters of the Bible, so well chosen by her to instruct and interest
me! What a difference there was between our conversations after these readings,
and the conversations I heard at St. Thomas!
Happily my parents' desire to see me again was as great as mine to go back to
them. So that a few weeks later my mother came for me. She pressed me to her
heart, and brought me back to the arms of my father.
I arrived at home on the 17th of July, 1821, and spent the afternoon and
evening till late by my father's side. With what pleasure did he see me working
difficult problems in algebra, and even in geometry! for under my teacher, Mr.
Jones, I had really made rapid progress in those branches. More than once I
noticed tears of joy in my father's eyes when, taking my slate, he saw that my
calculations were correct. He also examined me in grammar. "What an
admirable teacher this Mr. Jones must be," he would say, "to have
advanced a child so much in the short space of fourteen months!"
How sweet to me, but how short, were those hours of happiness passed between my
good mother and my father! We had family worship. I read the fifteenth chapter
of Luke, the return of the prodigal son. My mother then sang a hymn of joy and
gratitude, and I went to bed with my heart full of happiness to take the
sweetest sleep of my life. But, O God! what an awful awakening Thou hadst
prepared for me!
About four o'clock in the morning heartrending screams fell upon my ear. I
recognized my mother's voice.
"What is the matter, dear mother?"
"Oh, my dear child, you have no more a father! He is dead!"
In saying these words she lost consciousness and fell on the floor!
While a friend who had passed the night with us gave her proper care, I
hastened to my father's bed. I pressed him to my heart, I kissed him, I covered
him with my tears, I moved his head, I pressed his hands, I tried to lift him
up on his pillow: I could not believe that he was dead! It seemed to me that
even if dead he would come back to life that God could not thus take my father
away from me at the very moment when I had come back to him after so long an
absence! I knelt to pray to God for the life of my father. But my tears and
cries were useless. He was dead! He was already cold as ice!
Two days after he was buried. My mother was so overwhelmed with grief that she
could not follow the funeral procession. I remained with her as her only
earthly support. Poor mother! How many tears thou hast shed! What sobs came
from thine afflicted heart in those days of supreme grief!
Though I was very young, I could understand the greatness of our loss, and I
mingled my tears with those of my mother.
What pen can portray what takes place in the heart of a woman when God takes
suddenly her husband away in the prime of his life, and leaves her alone,
plunged in misery, with three small children, two of whom are even too young to
know their loss! How long are the hours of the day for the poor widow who is
left alone, and without means, among strangers! How painful the sleepless night
to the heart which has lost everything! How empty a house is left by the
eternal absence of him who was its master, support, and father! Every object in
the house and every step she takes remind her of her loss and sinks the sword
deeper which pierces her heart. Oh, how bitter are the tears which flow from
her eyes when her youngest child, who as yet does not understand the mystery of
death, throws himself into her arms and says: "Mamma, where is papa? Why
does he not come back? I am lonely!"
My poor mother passed through those heartrending trials. I heard her sobs
during the long hours of the day, and also during the longer hours of the
night. Many times I have seen her fall upon her knees to implore God to be
merciful to her and to her three unhappy orphans. I could do nothing then to
comfort her, but love her, pray and weep with her!
Only a few days had elapsed after the burial of my father when I saw Mr.
Courtois, the parish priest, coming to our house (he who had tried to take away
our Bible from us). He had the reputation of being rich, and as we were poor
and unhappy since my father's death, my first thought was that he had come to
comfort and to help us. I could see that my mother had the same hopes. She
welcomed him as an angel from heaven. The least gleam of hope is so sweet to
one who is unhappy!
From his very first words, however, I could see that our hopes were not to be
realized. He tried to be sympathetic, and even said something about the confidence
that we should have in God, especially in times of trial; but his words were
cold and dry.
Turning to me, he said:
"Do you continue to read the Bible, my little boy?"
"Yes, sir," answered I, with a voice trembling with anxiety, for I
feared that he would make another effort to take away that treasure, and I had
no longer a father to defend it.
Then, addressing my mother, he said:
"Madam, I told you that it was not right for you or your child to read
that book."
My mother cast down her eyes, and answered only by the tears which ran down her
cheeks.
That question was followed by a long silence, and the priest then continued:
"Madam, there is something due for the prayers which have been sung, and
the services which you requested to be offered for the repose of your husband's
soul. I will be very much obliged to you if you pay me that little debt."
"Mr. Courtis," answered my mother, "my husband left me nothing
but debts. I have only the work of my own hands to procure a living for my
three children, the eldest of whom is before you. For these little orphans'
sake, if not for mine, do not take from us the little that is left."
"But, madam, you do not reflect. Your husband died suddenly and without
any preparation; he is therefore in the flames of purgatory. If you want him to
be delivered, you must necessarily unite your personal sacrifices to the
prayers of the Church and the masses which we offer."
"As I said, my husband has left me absolutely without means, and it is
impossible for me to give you any money," replied my mother.
"But, madam, your husband was for a long time the only notary of Mal Bay.
He surely must have made much money. I can scarcely think that he has left you
without any means to help him now that his desolation and sufferings are far
greater than yours."
"My husband did indeed coin much money, but he spent still more. Thanks to
God, we have not been in want while he lived. But lately he got this house
built, and what is still due on it makes me fear that I will lose it. He also
bought a piece of land not long ago, only half of which is paid and I will,
therefore, probably not be able to keep it. Hence I may soon, with my poor
orphans, be deprived of everything that is left us. In the meantime I hope,
sir, that you are not a man to take away from us our last piece of bread."
"But, madam, the masses offered for the rest of your husband's soul must
be paid for," answered the priest.
My mother covered her face with her handkerchief and wept.
As for me, I did not mingle my tears with hers this time. My feelings were not
those of grief, but of anger and unspeakable horror. My eyes were fixed on the
face of that man who tortured my mother's heart. I looked with tearless eyes
upon the man who added to my mother's anguish, and made her weep more bitterly
than ever. My hands were clenched, as if ready to strike. All my muscles
trembled; my teeth chattered as if from intense cold. My greatest sorrow was my
weakness in the presence of that big man, and my not being able to send him
away from our house, and driving him far away from my mother.
I felt inclined to say to him: "Are you not ashamed, you who are so rich,
to come to take away the last piece of bread from our mouths?" But my
physical and moral strength were not sufficient to accomplish the task before
me, and I was filled with regret and disappointment.
After a long silence, my mother raised her eyes, reddened with tears, towards
the priest and said:
"Sir, you see that cow in the meadow, not far from our house? Her milk and
the butter made from it form the principal part of my children's food. I hope
you will not take her away from us. If, however, such a sacrifice must be made
to deliver my poor husband's soul from purgatory, take her as payment of the
masses to be offered to extinguish those devouring flames."
The priest instantly arose, saying, "Very well, madam," and went out.
Our eyes anxiously followed him; but instead of walking towards the little gate
which was in front of the house, he directed his steps towards the meadow, and
drove the cow before him in the direction of his home.
At that sight I screamed with despair: "Oh, my mother! he is taking our
cow away! What will become of us?"
Lord Nairn had given us that splendid cow when it was three months old. Her
mother had been brought from Scotland, and belonged to one of the best breeds
of that country. I fed her with my own hands, and had often shared my bread
with her. I loved her as a child always loves an animal which he has brought up
himself. She seemed to understand and love me also. From whatever distance she
could see me, she would run to me to receive my caresses, and whatever else I
might have to give her. My mother herself milked her; and her rich milk was
such delicious and substantial food for us.
My mother also cried out with grief as she saw the priest taking away the only
means heaven had left her to feed her children.
Throwing myself into her arms, I asked her: "Why have you given away our
cow? What will become of us? We shall surely die of hunger?"
"Dear child," she answered. "I did not think the priest would be
so cruel as to take away the last resource which God had left us. Ah! if I had
believed him to be so unmerciful I would never have spoken to him as I did. As
you say, my dear child, what will become of us? But have you not often read to
me in your Bible that God is the Father of the widow and the orphan? We shall
pray to that God who is willing to be your father and mine: He will listen to
us, and see our tears. Let us kneel down and ask Him to be merciful to us, and
to give us back the support which the priest deprived us."
We both knelt down. She took my right hand with her left, and, lifting the
other hand towards heaven, she offered a prayer to the God of mercies for her
poor children such as I have never since heard. Her words were often choked by
her sobs. But when she could not speak with her voice, she spoke with her
burning eyes raised to heaven, and with her hand uplifted. I also prayed to God
with her, and repeated her words, which were broken by my sobs.
When her prayer was ended she remained for a long time pale and trembling. Cold
sweat was flowing on her face, and she fell on the floor. I thought she was
going to die. I ran for cold water, which I gave her, saying: "Dear
mother! Oh, do not leave me alone upon earth!" After drinking a few drops
she felt better, and taking my hand, she put it to her trembling lips; then
drawing me near her, and pressing me to her bosom, she said: "Dear child,
if ever you become a priest, I ask of you never to be so hard-hearted towards
poor widows as are the priests of today." When she said these words, I
felt her burning tears falling upon my cheek.
The memory of these tears has never left me. I felt them constantly during the
twenty-five years I spent in preaching the inconceivable superstitions of Rome.
I was not better, naturally, than many of the other priests. I believed, as
they did, the impious fables of purgatory; and as well as they (I confess it to
my shame), if I refused to take, or if I gave back the money of the poor, I
accepted the money which the rich gave me for the masses I said to extinguish
the flames of that fabulous place. But the remembrance of my mother's words and
tears has kept me from being so cruel and unmerciful towards the poor widows as
Romish priests are, for the most part, obliged to be.
When my heart, depraved by the false and impious doctrines of Rome, was tempted
to take money from widows and orphans, under pretense of my long prayers, I
then heard the voice of my mother, from the depth of her sepulchre, saying,
"My dear child, do not be cruel towards poor widows and orphans, as are
the priests of today." If, during the days of my priesthood at Quebec, at
Beauport, and Kamarouska, I have given almost all that I had to feed and clothe
the poor, especially the widows and orphans, it was not owing to my being
better than others, but it was because my mother had spoken to me with words
never to be forgotten. The Lord, I believe, had put into my mother's mouth
those words, so simple but so full of eloquence and beauty, as one of His great
mercies towards me. Those tears the hand of Rome has never been able to wipe
off: those words of my mother the sophisms of Popery could not make me forget.
How long, O Lord, shall that insolent enemy of the gospel, the Church of Rome,
be permitted to fatten herself upon the tears of the widow and of the orphan by
means of that cruel and impious invention of paganism purgatory? Wilt Thou not
be merciful unto so many nations which are still the victims of that great
imposture? Oh, do remove the veil which covers the eyes of the priests and
people of Rome, as Thou hast removed it from mine! Make them to understand that
their hopes of purification must not rest on these fabulous fires, but only on
the blood of the Lamb shed on Calvary to save the world.
.
CHAPTER 6
God
had heard the poor widow's prayer. A few days after the priest had taken our
cow she received a letter from each of her two sisters, Genevieve and
Catherine.
The former, who was married to Etienne Eschenbach, of St. Thomas, told her to
sell all she had and come, with her children, to live with her.
"We have no family," she said, "and God has given us the good
things of this life in abundance. We shall be happy to share them with you and
your children."
The latter, married in Kamouraska to the Hon. Amaable Dionne wrote: "We
have learned the sad news of your husband's death. We have lately lost our only
son. We wish to fill the vacant place with Charles, your eldest. Send him to us.
We shall bring him up as our own child, and before long he will be your
support. In the meantime, sell by auction all you have, and go to St. Thomas
with your two younger children. There Genevieve and myself will supply your
wants."
In a few days all our furniture was sold. Unfortunately, though I had carefully
concealed my cherished Bible, it disappeared. I could never discover what
became of it. Had mother herself, frightened by the threats of the priest,
relinquished that treasure? or had some of our relatives, believing it to be
their duty, destroyed it? I do not know. I deeply felt that loss, which was
then irreparable to me.
On the following day, in the midst of bitter tears and sobs, I bade farewell to
my poor mother and young brothers. They went to St. Thomas on board a schooner,
and I crossed in a sloop to Kamouraska.
My uncle and aunt Dionne welcomed me with every mark of the most sincere
affection. Having soon made known to them that I wished to become a priest, I
begun to study Latin under the direction of Rev. Mr. Morin, vicar of
Kamouraska. That priest was esteemed to be a learned man. He was about forty or
fifty years old, and had been priest of a parish in the district of Montreal.
But, as is the case with the majority of priests, his vows of celibacy had not
proved a sufficient guarantee against the charms of one of his beautiful
parishioners. This had caused a great scandal. He consequently lost his
position, and the bishop had sent him to Kamouraska, where his past conduct was
not so generally known. He was very good to me, and I soon loved him with
sincere affection.
One day, about the beginning of the year 1882, he called me aside and said:
"Mr. Varin (the parish priest) is in the habit of giving a great festival
on his birthday. Now, the principal citizens of the village wish on that
occasion to present him with a bouquet. I am appointed to write an address, and
to choose some one to deliver it before the priest. You are the one whom I have
chosen. What do you think of it?"
"But I am very young," I replied.
"Your youth will only give more interest to what we wish to say and
do," said the priest.
"Well, I have no objection to do so, provided the piece be not too long,
and that I have it sufficiently soon to learn it well."
It was already prepared. The time of delivering it soon came. The best society
of Kamouraska, composed of about fifteen gentlemen and as many ladies, were
assembled in the beautiful parlours of the parsonage. Mr. Varin was in their
midst. Suddenly Squire Paschal Tache, the seigneur of the parish, and his lady
entered the room, holding me by each hand, and placed me in the midst of the
guests. My head was crowned with flowers, for I was to represent the angel of
the parish, whom the people had chosen to give to their pastor the expression
of public admiration and gratitude. When the address was finished, I presented
to the priest the beautiful bouquet of symbolical flowers prepared by the
ladies for the occasion.
Mr. Varin was a small but well-built man. His thin lips were ever ready to
smile graciously. The remarkable whiteness of his skin was still heightened by
the red colour of his cheeks. Intelligence and goodness beamed from his
expressive black eyes. Nothing could be more amiable and gracious than his
conversation during the first quarter of an hour passed in his company. He was
passionately fond of these little fetes, and the charm of his manners could not
be surpassed as the host of the evening.
He was moved to tears before hearing half of the address, and the eyes of many
were moistened when the pastor, with a voice trembling and full of emotion,
expressed his joy and gratitude at being so highly appreciated by his
parishioners.
As soon as the happy pastor had expressed his thanks, the ladies sang two or three
beautiful songs. The door of the dining-room was then opened, and we could see
a long table laden with the most delicious meats and wines that Canada could
offer.
I had never before been present at a priest's dinner. The honourable position
given me at that little fete permitted me to see it in all its details, and
nothing could equal the curiosity with which I sought to hear and see all that
was said and done by thuds guests.
Besides Mr. Varin and his vicar, there were three other priests, who were artistically
placed in the midst of the most beautiful ladies of the company. The ladies,
after honouring us with their presence for an hour or so, left the table and
retired to the drawing-room. Scarcely had the last lady disappeared when Mr.
Varin rose and said:
"Gentlemen, let us drink to the health of these amiable ladies, whose
presence has thrown so many charms over the first part of our little
fete."
Following the example of Mr. Varin each guest filled and emptied his long wine
glass in honour of the ladies.
Squire Tache then proposed "The health of the most venerable and beloved
priest of Canada, the Rev. Mr. Varin." Again the glasses were filled and
emptied, except mine; for I had been placed at he side of my uncle Dionne, who,
sternly looking at me as soon as I had emptied my first glass, said: "If
you drink another I will send you from the table. A little boy like you should
not drink, but only touch the glass with his lips."
It would have been difficult to count the healths which were drank after the
ladies had left us. After each health a song or a story was called for, several
of which were followed by applause, shouts of joy, and convulsive laughter.
When my turn to propose a health came, I wished to be excused, but they would
not exempt me. So I had to say about whose health I was most interested. I
rose, and turning to Mr. Varin, I said, "Let us drink to the health of our
Holy Father, the Pope."
Nobody had yet thought of our Holy Father the Pope, and the name, mentioned
under such circumstances by a child, appeared so droll to the priests and their
merry guests that they burst into laughter, stamped their feet, and shouted,
"Bravo! bravo! To the health of the Pope!" Everyone stood up, and at
the invitation of Mr. Varin, the glasses were filled and emptied as usual.
So many healths could not be drunk without their natural effect intoxication.
The first that was overcome was a priest, Noel by name. He was a tall man, and
a great drinker. I had noticed more than once, that instead of taking his wine
glass he drank from a large tumbler. The first symptoms of his intoxication,
instead of drawing sympathy from his friends, only increased their noisy bursts
of laughter. He endeavored to take a bottle to fill his glass, but his hand
shook, and the bottle, falling on the floor, was broken to pieces. Wishing to
keep up his merriment he began to sing a Bacchic song, but could not finish. He
dropped his head on the table, quite overcome, and trying to rise, he fell
heavily upon his chair. While all this took place the other priests and all the
guests looked at him, laughing loudly. At last, making a desperate effort, he
rose, but after taking two or three steps, fell headlong on the floor. His two
neighbours went to help him, but they were not in a condition to help him.
Twice they rolled with him under the table. At length another, less affected by
the fumes of wine, took him by the feet and dragged him into an adjoining room,
where they left him.
This first scene seemed strange enough to me, for I had never before seen a
priest intoxicated. But what astonished me most was the laughter of the other
priests over that spectacle. Another scene, however, soon followed, which made
me sadder. My young companion and friend, Achilles Tache, had not been warned,
as I had, only to touch the wine with his lips. More than once he had emptied
his glass. He also rolled upon the floor before the eyes of his father, who was
too full of wine to help him. He cried aloud, "I am choking!" I tried
to lift him up, but was not strong enough. I ran for his mother. She came,
accompanied by another lady, but the vicar had carried him into another room,
where he fell asleep after having thrown off the wine he had taken.
Poor Achilles! he was learning, in the house of his own priest, to take the
first step of that life of debauchery and drunkenness which twelve or fifteen
years later was to rob him of his manor, take from him his wife and children,
and to make him fall a victim to the bloody hand of a murderer upon the
solitary shores of Kamouraska!
This first and sad experience which I made of the real and intimate life of the
Roman Catholic priest was so deeply engraved on my memory that I still remember
with shame the bacchic song which that priest Morin had taught me, and which I sang
on that occasion. It commenced with these Latin words: -
Ego, in arte Bacchi,
Multum profeci:
Decies pintum vini
Hodie bibi.
I also remember one sung by Mr. Varin. Here it is: -
Savez-vous pourquoi, mes amis, (bis)
Nous sommes tous si rejouis? (bis)
Amis n'endoutez pas,
C'est qu'un repas
N'est bon.
Qu' apprete sans facon,
Mangeons a la gamelle.
Vive le son, vive le son,
Mangeons a la gamelle,
Vive le son du flacon!
When
the priests and their friends had sung, laughed, and drank for more than an
hour, Mr. Vain rose and said, "The ladies must not be left along all the
evening. Will not our joy and happiness be doubled if they are pleased to share
them with us."
This proposition was received with applause, and we passed into the
drawing-room, where the ladies awaited us.
Several pieces of music, well executed, gave new life to this part of the
entertainment. This resource, however, was soon exhausted. Besides, some of the
ladies could well see that their husbands were half drunk, and they felt
ashamed. Madam Tache could not conceal the grief she felt, caused by what had
happened to her dear Achilles. Had she some presentiment, as may persons have,
of the tears which she was to shed one day on his account? Was the vision of a
mutilated and bloody corpse the corpse of her own drunken son fallen dead,
under the blow of an assassin's dagger, before her eyes?
Mr. Varin feared nothing more than an interruption in those hours of lively
pleasure, of which his life was full, and which took place in his parsonage.
"Well, well, ladies and gentlemen, let us entertain no dark thoughts of
this evening, the happiest of my life. Let us play blind man's bluff."
"Let us play blind man's bluff!" was repeated by everybody.
On hearing this noise, the gentlemen who were half asleep by the fumes of wine
seemed to awaken as if from a long dream. Young gentlemen clapped their hands;
ladies, young and old, congratulated one another on the happy idea.
"But whose eyes shall be covered first?" asked the priest.
"Yours, Mr. Varin," cried all the ladies. "We look to you for
the good example, and we shall follow it."
"The power and unanimity of the jury by which I am condemned cannot be
resisted. I feel that there is no appeal. I must submit."
Immediately one of the ladies placed her nicely-perfumed handkerchief over the
eyes of her priest, took him by the hand, led him to an angle of the room, and
having pushed him gently with her delicate hand, said, "Mr. Blindman! Let
everyone flee! Woe to him who is caught!"
There is nothing more curious and comical than to see a man walk when he is
under the influence of wine, especially if he wishes nobody to notice it. How
stiff and straight he keeps his legs! How varied and complicated, in order to
keep his equilibrium, are his motions to right and left! Such was the position
of priest Varin. He was not very drunk. Though he had taken a large quantity of
wine he did not fall. He carried with wonderful courage the weight with which
he was laden. The wine which he had drank would have intoxicated three ordinary
men; but such was his capacity for drinking that he could still walk without
falling. However, his condition was sadly betrayed by each step he took and by
each word he spoke. Nothing, therefore, was more comical than the first steps
of the poor priest in his efforts to lay hold of somebody in order to pass his
band to him.
He would take one forward and two backward steps, and would then stagger to the
right and to the left. Everybody laughed to tears. One after another they would
all either pinch him or touch him gently on his hand, arm, or shoulder, and,
passing rapidly off, would exclaim, "Run away!" The priest went to
the right and then to the left, threw his arms suddenly now here and then
there. His legs evidently bent under their burden; he panted, perspired,
coughed, and everyone began to fear that the trial might be carried too far,
and beyond propriety. But suddenly, by a happy turn he caught the arm of a lady
who in teasing him had come too near. In vain the lady tries to escape. She
struggles, turns round, but the priest's hand holds her firmly.
While holding his victim with his right hand he wishes to touch her head with
his left, in order to know and name the pretty bird he has caught. But at that
moment his legs gave way. He falls, and drags with him his beautiful
parishioner. She turns upon him in order to escape, but he soon turns on her in
order to hold her better.
All this, though the affair of a moment, was long enough to cause the ladies to
blush and cover their faces. Never in all my life did I see anything so
shameful as that scene. This ended the game.
Everyone felt ashamed. I make a mistake when I say everyone, because the men
were almost all too intoxicated to blush. The priests also were either too
drunk or too much accustomed to see such scenes to be ashamed.
On the following day every one of those priests celebrated mass, and ate what
they called the body and blood, the soul and divinity of Jesus Christ, just as
if they had spent the previous evening in prayer and meditation on the laws of
God! Mr. Varin was the arch-priest of the important part of the diocese of
Quebec from La Riviere Ouelle to Gaspe.
Thus, O perfidious Church of Rome, thou deceivest the nations who follow thee,
and ruinest even the priests whom thou makest thy slaves.
.
CHAPTER 7
Nothing
can exceed the care with which Roman Catholic priests prepare children for
their first communion. Two and three months are set apart every year for that
purpose. All that time the children between ten and twelve years of age are
obliged to go to Church almost every day, not only to learn by heart their
catechism, but to hear the explanations of all its teachings.
The priest who instructed us was the Rev. Mr. Morin, whom I have already
mentioned. He was exceedingly kind to children, and we respected and loved him
sincerely. His instructions to us were somewhat long; but we liked to hear him,
for he always had some new and interesting stories to give us.
The catechism taught as a preparation for our first communion was the
foundation of the idolatries and superstitions which the Church of Rome gives
as the religion of Christ. It is by means of that catechetical instruction that
she obtains for the Pope and his representatives that profound respect, I might
say adoration, which is the secret of her power and influence. With this
catechism Rome corrupts the most sacred truths of the Gospel. It is there that
Jesus is removed from the hearts for which He paid so great a price, and that
Mary is put in His place. But the great iniquity of substituting Mary for Jesus
is so skilfully concealed, it is given with colours so poetic and beautiful,
and so well adapted to captivate human nature, that it is almost impossible for
a poor child to escape the snare.
One day the priest said to me, "Stand up, my child, in order to answer the
many important questions which I have to ask you."
I stood up.
"My child," he said, "when you had been guilty of some fault at
home who was the first to punish you your father or your mother?"
After a few moments of hesitation I answered, "My father."
"You have answered correctly, my child," said the priest. "As a
matter of fact, the father is almost always more impatient with his children,
and more ready to punish them, than the mother."
"Now, my child, tell us who punished you most severely your father or your
mother?"
"My father," I said, without hesitation.
"Still true, my child. The superior goodness of a kind mother is perceived
even in the act of correction. Her blows are lighter than those of the father.
Further, when you had deserved to be chastised, did not one sometimes come
between you and your father's rod, taking it away from him and pacifying
him?"
"Yes," I said; "mother did that very often, and saved me from
severe punishment more than once."
"That is so, my child, not only for you, but for all your companions here.
Have not your good mothers, my children, often saved you from your father's
corrections even when you deserved it? Answer me."
"Yes, sir," they all answered.
"One question more. When your father was coming to whip you, did you not
throw yourself into the arms of some one to escape?" "Yes, sir; when
guilty of something, more than once, I threw myself into my mother's arms as
soon as I saw my father coming to whip me. She begged pardon for me, and
pleaded so well that I often escaped punishment."
"You have answered well," said the priest. Then turning to the
children, he continued:
"You have a Father and a Mother in heaven, dear children. Your Father is
Jesus, and your Mother is Mary. Do not forget that a mother's heart is always
more tender and more prone to mercy than that of a father.
"Often you offend your Father by your sins; you make Him angry against
you. What takes place in heaven then? Your Father in heaven takes His rod to
punish you. He threatens to crush you down with His roaring thunder; He opens
the gates of hell to cast you into it, and you would have been damned long ago
had it not been for the loving Mother whom you have in heaven, who has disarmed
your angry and irritated Father. When Jesus would punish you as you deserve,
the good Virgin Mary hastens to Him and pacifies Him. She places herself
between Him and you, and prevents Him from smiting you. She speaks in your
favour, she asks for your pardon and she obtains it.
"Also, as young Chiniquy has told you, he often threw himself into the
arms of his mother to escape punishment. She took his part, and pleaded so well
that his father yielded and put away the rod. Thus, my children, when your
conscience tells you that you are guilty, that Jesus is angry against you and
that you have good reason to fear hell, hasten to Mary! Throw yourselves into
the arms of that good mother; have recourse to her sovereign power over Jesus,
and be assured that you will be saved through her!"
It is thus that the Pope and the priests of Rome have entirely disfigured and
changed the holy religion of the Gospel! In the Church of Rome it is not Jesus,
but Mary, who represents the infinite love and mercy of God for the sinner. The
sinner is not advised or directed to place his hope in Jesus, but in Mary, for
his escape from deserved chastisement! It is not Jesus, but Mary, who saves the
sinner! Jesus is always bent on punishing sinners; Mary is always merciful to
them!
The Church of Rome has thus fallen into idolatry: she rather trusts in Mary
than in Jesus. She constantly invites sinners to turn their thoughts, their
hopes, their affections, not to Jesus, but to Mary!
By means of that impious doctrine Rome deceives the intellects, seduces the
hearts, and destroys the souls of the young for ever. Under the pretext of
honouring the Virgin Mary, she insults her by outraging and misrepresenting her
adorable Son.
Rome has brought back the idolatry of old paganism under a new name. She has
replaced upon her altars the Jupiter Tonans of the Greeks and Romans, only she
places upon his shoulders the mantle and she writes on the forehead of her idol
the name of Jesus, in order the better to deceive the world!
.
CHAPTER 8
For
the Roman Catholic child, how beautiful and yet how sad is the day of his first
communion! How many joys and anxieties by turn rise in his soul when for the
first time he is about to eat what he has been taught to believe to be his God!
How many efforts has he to make, in order to destroy the manifest teachings of
his own rational faculties! I confess with deep regret that I had almost
destroyed my reason, in order to prepare myself for my first communion. Yes, I
was almost exhausted when the day came that I had to eat what the priest has
assured us was the true body, the true blood, soul and divinity of Jesus
Christ. I was about to eat Him, not in a symbolical or commemorative, but in a
literal way. I was to eat His flesh, His bones, His hands, His feet, His head,
His whole body! I had to believe this or be cast for ever into hell, while, all
the time, my eyes, my hands, my mouth, my tongue, my reason told me that what I
was eating was only bread!
Has there ever been, or will there ever be, a priest or a layman to believe
what the Church of Rome teaches on this dreadful mystery of the Real Presence?
Shall I say that I believed in the real presence of Jesus Christ in the
communion? I believed in it as all those who are good Roman Catholics believe.
I believed as a perfect idiot or a corpse believes. Whatever is essential to a
reasonable act of faith had been destroyed in me on that point, as it is
destroyed in every priest and layman in the Church of Rome. My reason as well
as my external senses had been, as much as possible, sacrificed at the feet of
that terrible modern god, the Pope! I had been guilty of the incredibility
foolish act, of which all good Roman Catholics are guilty I had said to my
intellectual faculties, and to all my senses, "Hush, you are liars! I had
believed to this day that you had been given to me by God in order to enable me
to walk in the dark paths of life, but, behold! the holy Pope teaches me that
you are only instruments of the devil to deceive me!"
What is a man who resigns his intellectual liberty, and who cares not to
believe in the testimony of his senses? Is he not acting the part of one who
has no gift or power of intelligence? A good Roman Catholic must reach that
point! That was my own condition on the day of my first communion.
When Jesus said, "If I had not come and spoken unto them they had not had
sin; but now they have no cloke for their sin....If I had not done among them
the works which none other man did, they had not had sin; but now have they
both seen and hated both Me and My Father" (John xv.22,24). He showed that
the sin of the Jews consisted in not having believed in what their eyes had
seen and their ears had heard. But behold, the Pope says to Roman Catholics
that they must not believe in what their hands undoubtedly handle and their
eyes most clearly see! The Pope sets aside the testimony most approved by
Jesus. The very witnesses invoked by the Son of God are ignominiously turned
out of court by the Pope as false witnesses!
As the moment of taking the communion drew near, two feelings were at war in my
mind, each struggling for victory. I rejoiced in the thought that I would soon
have full possession of Jesus Christ, but at the same time I was troubled and
humbled by the absurdity which I had to believe before receiving that
sacrament. Though scarcely twelve years old, I had sufficiently accustomed
myself to reflect on the profound darkness which covered that dogma. I had been
also greatly in the habit of trusting my eyes, and I thought that I could
easily distinguish between a small piece of bread and a full-grown man!
Besides, I extremely abhorred the idea of eating human flesh and drinking human
blood, even when they assured me that they were the flesh and blood of Jesus
Christ Himself. But what troubled me most was the idea of that God, who was
represented to me as being so great, so glorious, so holy, being eaten by me
like a piece of common bread! Terrible then was the struggle in my young heart,
were joy and dread, trust and fear, faith and unbelief by turns had the upper
hand.
While that secret struggle, known only to God and to myself, was going on, I
had often to wipe off the cold perspiration which came on my brow. With all the
strength of my soul I prayed to God and the Holy Virgin to be merciful unto me,
to help, and give me sufficient strength and light to pass over these hours of
anguish.
The Church of Rome is evidently the most skillful human machine the world has
ever seen. Those who guide her in the dark paths which she follows are often
men of deep thought. They understand how difficult it would be to get calm,
honest and thinking minds to receive that monstrous dogma of the real corporal
presence of Jesus Christ in the communion. They well foresaw the struggle which
would take place even in the minds of children at the supreme moment when they
would have to sacrifice their reason on the altar of Rome. In order to prevent
those struggles, always so dangerous to the Church, nothing has been neglected
to distract the mind and draw the attention to other subjects than that of the
communion itself.
First, at the request of the parish priest, helped by the vanity of the parents
themselves, the children are dressed as elegantly as possible. They young
communicant is clothed in every way best calculated to flatter his own vanity
also. The church building is pompously decorated. The charms of choice vocal
and instrumental music form a part of the fete. The most odorous incense burns
around the altar and ascends in a sweetsmelling cloud towards heaven. The whole
parish is invited, and people come from every direction to enjoy a most
beautiful spectacle. Priests from the neighbouring churches are called, in
order to add to the solemnity of the day. The officiating priest is dressed in
the most costly attire. This is the day on which silver and gold altar cloths
are displayed before the eyes of the wondering spectators. Often a lighted wax
taper is placed in the hand of each young communicant, which itself would be
sufficient to draw his whole attention; for a single false motion would be
sufficient to set fire to the clothes of his neighbour, or his own, a
misfortune which has happened more than once in my presence.
Now, in the midst of that new and wonderful spectacle of singing Latin Psalms,
not a word of which he understands; in view of gold and silver ornaments, which
glitter everywhere before his dazzled eyes; busy with the holding of the
lighted taper, which keeps him constantly in fear of being burned alive can the
young communicant think for a moment of what he is about to do?
Poor child! his mind, ears, eyes, nostrils are so much taken up with those new,
striking and wonderful things that, while his imagination is wandering from one
object to another, the moment of communion arrives, without leaving him time to
think of what he is about to do! He opens his mouth, and the priest puts upon
his tongue a flat thin cake of unleavened bread, which either firmly sticks to
his palate or otherwise melts in his mouth, soon to go down into his stomach
just like the food he takes three times a day!
The first feeling of the child, then, is that of surprise at the thought that
the Creator of heaven and earth, the upholder of the universe, the Saviour of
the world, could so easily pass down his throat!
Now, follow those children to their homes after that great and monstrous
comedy. See their gait! Listen to their conversation and their bursts of
laughter! Study their manners, their coming in, their going out, their glances
of satisfaction on their fine clothes, and the vanity which they manifest in
return for the congratulations they receive on their fine dresses. Notice the
lightness of their actions and conversation immediately after their communion,
and tell me if you find anything indicating that they believed in the terrible
dogma they have been taught.
No, they have not believed in it, neither will they ever do so with the
firmness of faith which is accomplished by intelligence. The poor child thinks
he believes, and he sincerely tries to do so. He believes in it as much as it
is possible to believe in a most monstrous and ridiculous story, opposed to the
simplest notions of truth and common sense. He believes as Roman Catholics
believe. He believes as an idiot believes!!
That first communion has made of him, for the rest of his life, a real machine
in the hands of the Pope. It is the first but most powerful link of that long
chain of slavery which the priest and the Church pass around his neck. The Pope
holds the end of that chain, and with it he will make his victim go right or
left at his pleasure, in the same way that we govern the lower animals. If
those children have made a good first communion they will be submissive to the
Pope, according to the energetic word of Loyola. They will be in the hands of
the traveler they will have no will, no thought of their own!
And if God does not work a miracle to bring them out from that bondage which is
a thousand times worse than the Egyptian, they will remain in that state during
the rest of their lives.
My soul has known the weight of those chains. It has felt the ignominy of that
slavery! But the great Conqueror of souls has cast down a merciful eye upon me.
He has broken my chains, and with His holy Word He has made me free.
May His name be for ever blessed.
.
CHAPTER 9
I
finished, at the College of Nicolet, in the month of August, 1829, my classical
course of study which I had begun in 1822. I could easily have learned in three
or four years what was taught in these seven years.
It took us three years to study the Latin grammar, when twelve months would
have sufficed for all we learned of it. It is true that during that time we
were taught some of the rudiments of the French grammar, with the elements of
arithmetic and geography. But all this was so superficial, that our teachers
often seemed more desirous to pass away our time than to enlarge our
understandings.
I can say the same thing of the Belles Letters and of rhetoric, which we
studied two years. A year of earnest study would have sufficed to learn what
was taught us during these twenty-four months. As for the two years devoted to
the study of logic, and of the subjects classed under the name of philosophy,
it would not have been too long a time if those questions of philosophy had
been honestly given us. But the student in the college of the Church of Rome is
condemned to the torments of Tantalus. He has, indeed, the refreshing waters of
Science put to his lips, but he is constantly prevented from tasting them. To
enlarge and seriously cultivate the intelligence in a Roman Catholic college is
a thing absolutely out of the question. More than that, all the efforts of the
principals in their colleges and convents tend to prove to the pupil that his
intelligence is his greatest and most dangerous enemy that it is like an
untamable animal, which must constantly be kept in chains. Every day the
scholar is told that his reason was not given him that he might be guided by
it, but only that he may know the hand of the man by whom he must be guided.
And that hand is none other than the Pope's. All the resources of language, all
the most ingenious sophisms, all the passages of both the Fathers and the Holy
Scriptures bearing on this question are arranged and perverted with
inconceivable art to demonstrate to the pupil that his reason has no power to
teach him anything else than that it must be subjected to the Supreme Pontiff
of Rome, who is the only foundation of truth and light given by God to guide
the intelligence and to enlighten and save the world.
Rome, in her colleges and convents, brings up, or raises up, the youth from
their earliest years; but to what height does she permit the young man or woman
to be raised? Never higher than the feet of the Pope!! As soon as his
intelligence, guided by the Jesuit, has ascended to the feet of the Pope, it
must remain there, prostrate itself and fall asleep.
The Pope! That is the great object towards which all the intelligence of the
Roman Catholics must be converged. It is the sun of the world, the foundation
and the only support of Christian knowledge and civilization.
What a privilege it is to be lazy, stupid, and sluggish in a college of Rome!
How soon such an one gets to the summit of science, and becomes master of all
knowledge. One needs only to kiss the feet of the Pope, and fall into a perfect
slumber there! The Pope thinks for him! It is he (the Pope) who will tell him
what he can and should think, and what he can and should believe!
I had arrived at that degree of perfection at the end of my studies, and J.B.
Barthe, Esq., M.P.P., being editor of one of the principal papers of Montreal
in 1844, could write in his paper when my "Manual of Temperance" was
published: "Mr. Chiniquy has crowned his apostleship of temperance by that
work, with that ardent and holy ambition of character of which he gave us so
many tokens in his collegiate life, where we have been so many years the
witness of his piety, when he was the model of his fellow-students, who had
called him the Louis de Gonzague of Nicolet."
These words of the Montreal Member of Parliament mean only that, wishing to be
saved as St. Louis de Gonzague, I had blindly tied myself to the feet of my
superiors.
I had, as much as possible, extinguished all the enlightenments of my own mind
to follow the reason and the will of my superiors. These compliments mean that
I was walking like a blind man whom his guide holds by the hand.
Though my intelligence often revolted against the fables with which I was
nurtured, I yet forced myself to accept them as gospel truths; and though I often
rebelled against the ridiculous sophisms which were babbled to me as the only
principles of truth and Christian philosophy, yet as often did I impose silence
on my reason, and force it to submit to the falsehoods which I was obliged to
take for God's truth! But, as I have just confessed it, notwithstanding my
goodwill to submit to my superiors, there were times of terrible struggle in my
soul, when all the powers of my mind seemed to revolt against the degrading
fetters which I was forced to forge for myself.
I shall never forget the day when, in the following terms, I expressed to my
Professor of Philosophy, the Rev. Charles Harper, doubts which I had conceived
concerning the absolute necessity of the inferior to submit his reason to his
superior. "When I shall have completely bound myself to obey my superior,
if he abuses his authority over me to deceive me by false doctrines, or if he
commands me to do things which I consider wrong and dishonest, shall I not be
lost if I obey him?"
He answered: "You will never have to give an account to God for the
actions that you do by the order of your legitimate superiors. If they were to
deceive you, being themselves deceived, they alone would be responsible for the
error which you would have committed. Your sin would not be imputed to you as
long as you follow the golden rule which is the base of all Christian
philosophy and perfection humility and obedience!"
Little satisfied with that answer, when the lesson was over I expressed my
reluctance to accept such principles to several of my fellow-students. Among
them was Joseph Turcot, who died some years ago when, I think, he was Minister
of Public Works in Canada.
He answered me: "The more I study what they call their principles of
Christian philosophy and logic, the more I think that they intend to make asses
of every one of us!"
On the following day I opened my heart to the venerable man who was our
principal the Rev. Mr. Leprohon. I used to venerate him as a saint and to love
him as a father. I frankly told him that I felt very reluctant in submitting
myself to the crude principles which seemed to lead us into the most abject
slavery, the slavery of our reason and intelligence. I wrote down his answer,
which I give here:
"My dear Chiniquy, how did Adam and Eve lose themselves in the Garden of
Eden, and how did they bring upon us all the deluge of evils by which we are
overwhelmed? Is it not because they raised their miserable reason above that of
God? They had the promise of eternal life if they had submitted their reason to
that of their Supreme Master.They were lost on account of their rebelling
against the authority, the reason of God. Thus it is today. All the evils, the
errors, the crimes by which the world is over flooded come from the same revolt
of the human will and reason against the will and reason of God. God reigns yet
over a part of the world, the world of the elect, through the Pope, who
controls the teachings of our infallible and holy Church. In submitting
ourselves to God, who speaks to us through the Pope, we are saved. We walk in
the paths of truth and holiness. But we would err, and infallibly perish, as
soon as we put our reason above that of our superior, the Pope, speaking to us
in person, or through some of our superiors who have received from him the
authority to guide us."
"But," said I, "if my reason tells me that the Pope, or some of
those other superiors who are put by him over me, are mistaken, and that they
command me something wrong, would I not be guilty before God if I obey them?"
"You suppose a thing utterly impossible," answered Mr. Leprohon,
"for the Pope and the bishops who are united to him have the promise of
never failing in the faith. They cannot lead you into any errors, nor command
you to believe or do something contrary to the teachings of the Gospel, God
would not ask of you any account of an error committed when you are obeying
your legitimate superior."
I had to content myself with that answer, which I put down word for word in my
note-book. But in spite of my respectful silence, the Rev. Mr. Leprohon saw
that I was yet uneasy and sad. In order to convince me of the orthodoxy of his
doctrines, he instantly put into my hands the two works of De Maistre, "Le
Pape" and "Les Soirees de St. Petersburgh," where I found the
same doctrines supported. My superior was honest in his convictions. He
sincerely believed in the sound philosophy and Christianity of his principles,
for he had found them in these books approved by the "infallible
Popes."
I will mention another occurrence to show the inconceivable intellectual
degradation to which we had been dragged at the end of seven years of
collegiate studies. About the year 1829 the curate of St. Anne de la Parade
wrote to our principal, Rev. Mr. Leprohon, to ask the assistance of the prayers
of all the students of the College of Nicolet in order to obtain the
discontinuance of the following calamity: "For more than three weeks one
of the most respectable farmers was in danger of losing all his horses from the
effects of a sorcery! From morning, and during most of the night, repeated
blows of whips and sticks were heard falling upon these poor horses, which were
trembling, foaming and struggling! We can see nothing! The hand of the wizard
remains invisible. Pray for us, that we may discover the monster, and that he
may be punished as he deserves."
Such were the contents of the priest's letter; and as my superior sincerely
believed in that fable I also believed it, as well as all the students of the
college who had a true piety. On that shore of abject and degrading
superstitions I had to land after sailing seven years in the bark called a
college of the Church of Rome!
The intellectual part of the studies in a college of Rome, and it is the same
in a convent, is therefore entirely worthless. Worse than that, the
intelligence is dwarfed under the chains by which it is bound. If the
intelligence does sometimes advance, it is in spite of the fetters placed upon
it; it is only like some few noble ships which, through the extraordinary skill
of their pilots, go ahead against wind and tide.
I know that the priests of Rome can show a certain number of intelligent men in
every branch of science who have studied in their colleges. But these
remarkable men had from the beginning secretly broken for themselves the chains
with which their superiors had tried to bind them. For peace' sake they had
outwardly followed the rules of the house, but they had secretly trampled under
the feet of their noble souls the ignoble fetters which had been prepared for
their understanding. True children of God and light, they had found the secret
of remaining free even when in the dark cells of a dungeon!
Give me the names of the remarkable and intelligent men who have studied in a
college of Rome, and have become real lights in the firmament of science, and I
will prove that nine-tenths of them have been persecuted, excommunicated,
tortured, some even put to death for having to think for themselves.
Galileo was a Roman Catholic, and he is surely one of the greatest men whom
science claims as her most gifted sons. But was he not sent to a dungeon? Was
he not publicly flogged by the hands of the executioner? Had he not to ask
pardon from God and man for having dared to think differently from the Pope
about the motion of the earth around the sun!
Copernicus was surely one of the greatest lights of his time, but was he not
censured and excommunicated for his admirable scientific discoveries?
France does not know any greater genius among her most gifted sons than Pascal.
He was a Catholic. But he lived and died excommunicated.
The Church of Rome boasts of Bossuet, the Bishop of Meaux, as one of the
greatest men she ever had. Yes; but has not Veuillot, the editor of the
Univers, who knows his man well, confessed and declared before the world that
Bossuet was a disguised Protestant?
Where can we find a more amiable or learned writer than Montalembert, who has
so faithfully and bravely fought the battle of the Church of Rome in France
during more than a quarter of a century? But has he not publicly declared on
his death-bed that that Church was an apostate and idolatrous Church from the
day that she proclaimed the dogma of the Infallibility of the Pope? Has he not
virtually died an excommunicated man for having said with his last breath that
the Pope was nothing else than a false god?
Those pupils of Roman Catholic colleges of whom sometimes the priests so
imprudently boast, have gone out from the hands of their Jesuit teachers to
proclaim their supreme contempt for the Roman Catholic priesthood and Papacy.
They have been near enough to the priest to know him. They have seen with their
own eyes that the priest of Rome is the most dangerous, the most implacable
enemy of intelligence, progress and liberty; and if their arm be not paralyzed
by cowardice, selfishness, or hypocrisy, those pupils of the colleges of Rome
will be the first to denounce the priesthood of Rome and demolish her citadels.
Voltaire studied in a Roman Catholic college, and it was probably when at their
school he nerved himself for the terrible battle he has fought against Rome.
That Church will never recover from the blow which Voltaire has struck at her
in France.
Cavour, in Italy, had studied in a Roman Catholic college also, and under that
very roof it is more than probable that his noble intelligence had sworn to
break the ignominious fetters with which Rome had enslaved his fair country.
The most eloquent of the orators of Spain, Castelar, studied in a Roman
Catholic college; but hear with what eloquence he denounces the tyranny,
hypocrisy, selfishness and ignorance of the priests.
Papineau studied under the priests of Rome in their college at Montreal. From
his earliest years that Eagle of Canada could see and know the priests of Rome
as they are; he has weighed them in the balance; he has measured them; he has
fathomed the dark recesses of their anti-social principles; he has felt his
shoulders wounded and bleeding under the ignominious chains with which they
dragged our dear Canada in the mire for nearly two centuries. Papineau was a
pupil of the priests; and I have heard several priests boasting of that as a
glorious thing. But the echoes of Canada are still repeating the thundering
words with which Papineau denounced the priests as the most deadly enemies of
the education and liberty of Canada! He was one of the first men of Canada to
understand that there was no progress, no liberty possible for our beloved
country so long as the priests would have the education of our people in their
hands. The whole life of Papineau was a struggle to wrest Canada from their
grasp. Everyone knows how he constantly branded them, without pity, during his
life, and the whole world has been the witness of the supreme contempt with
which he has refused their services, and turned them out at the solemn hour of
his death!
When, in 1792, France wanted to be free, she understood that the priests of
Rome were the greatest enemies of her liberties. She turned them out from her
soil or hung them to her gibbets. If today that noble country of our ancestors
is stumbling and struggling in her tears and her blood if she has fallen at the
feet of her enemies if her valiant arm has been paralyzed, her sword broken,
and her strong heart saddened above measure, is it not because she had most
imprudently put herself again under the yoke of Rome?
Canada's children will continue to flee from the country of their birth so long
as the priest of Rome holds the influence which is blasting everything that
falls within his grasp, on this continent as well as in Europe; and the United
States will soon see their most sacred institutions fall, one after the other,
if the Americans continue to send their sons and daughters to the Jesuit
colleges and nunneries.
When, in the warmest days of summer, you see a large swamp of stagnant and
putrid water, you are sure that deadly miasma will spread around, that diseases
of the most malignant character, poverty, sufferings of every kind, and death
will soon devastate the unfortunate country; so, when you see Roman Catholic
colleges and nunneries raising their haughty steeples over some commanding
hills or in the midst of some beautiful valleys, you may confidently expect
that the self-respect and the many virtues of the people will soon disappear
intelligence, progress, prosperity will soon wane away, to be replaced by
superstition, idleness, drunkenness, Sabbath-breaking, ignorance, poverty and
degradation of every kind. The colleges and nunneries are the high citadels
from which the Pope darts his surest missiles against the rights and liberties
of nations. The colleges and nunneries are the arsenals where the most deadly
weapons are night and day prepared to fight and destroy the soldiers of liberty
all over the world.
The colleges and nunneries of the priests are the secret places where the
enemies of progress, equality and liberty are holding their councils and
fomenting that great conspiracy the object of which is to enslave the world at
the feet of the Pope.
The colleges and nunneries of Rome are the schools where the rising generations
are taught that it is an impiety to follow the dictates of their own
conscience, hear the voice of their intelligence, read the Word of God, and
worship their Creator according to the rules laid down in the Gospel.
It is in the colleges and nunneries of Rome that men learn that they are
created to obey the Pope in everything-- that the Bible must be burnt, and that
liberty must be destroyed at any cost all over the world.
.
CHAPTER 10
In
order to understand what kind of moral education students in Roman Catholic
colleges receive, one must only be told that from the beginning to the end they
are surrounded by an atmosphere in which nothing but Paganism is breathed. The
models of eloquence which we learned by heart were almost exclusively taken
from Pagan literature. In the same manner Pagan models of wisdom, of honour, of
chastity were offered to our admiration. Our minds were constantly fixed on the
masterpieces which Paganism has left. The doors of our understanding were left
open only to receive the rays of light which Paganism has shed on the world.
Homer, Socrates, Lycurgus, Virgil, Horace, Cicero, Tacitus, Caesar, Xenophon,
Demosthenes, Alexander, Lucretia, Regulus, Brutus, Jupiter, Venus, Minerva,
Mars, Diana, ect., ect., crowded each other in our thoughts, to occupy them and
be their models, examples and masters for ever.
It may be said that the same Pagan writers, orators and heroes are studied,
read and admired in Protestant colleges. But there the infallible antidote, the
Bible, is given to the students. Just as nothing remains of the darkness of
night after the splendid morning sun has arisen on the horizon, so nothing of
the fallacies, superstitions and sophisms of Paganism can trouble or obscure
the mind on which that light from heaven, the Word of God, comes every day with
its millions of shining rays. How insignificant is the Poetry of Homer when
compared with the sublime songs of Moses! How pale is the eloquence of
Demosthenes, Cicero, Virgil, ect., when read after Job, David or Solomon! How
quickly crumble down the theories which those haughty heathens of old wanted to
raise over the intelligence of men when the thundering voice from Sinai is
heard; when the incomparable songs of David, Solomon, Isaiah or Jeremiah are
ravishing the soul which is listening to their celestial strains! It is a fact
that Pagan eloquence and philosophy can be but very tasteless to men accustomed
to be fed with the bread which comes down from heaven, whose souls are filled
with the eloquence of God, and whose intelligence is fed with the philosophy of
heaven.
But, alas! for me and my fellow-students in the college of Rome! No sun ever
appeared on the horizon to dispel the night in which our intelligence was
wrapped. The dark clouds with which Paganism had surrounded us were suffocating
us, and no breath from heaven was allowed to come and dispel them. Moses with
his incomparable legislation, David and Solomon with their divine poems, Job
with his celestial philosophy, Jeremiah, Isaiah and Daniel with their sublime
songs, Jesus Christ Himself with His soul-saving Gospel, as well as His
apostles Peter, John, Jude, James and Paul these were all put in the Index!
They had not the liberty to speak to us, and we were forbidden, absolutely forbidden,
to read and hear them!
It is true that the Church of Rome, as an offset to that, gave us her
principles, precepts, fables and legends that we might be attached to her, and
that she might remain the mistress of our hearts. But these doctrines, practices,
principles and fables seemed to us so evidently borrowed from Paganism they
were so cold, so naked, so stripped of all true poetry, that if the Paganism of
the ancients was not left absolute master of our affections, it still claimed a
large part of our souls. To create in us a love for the Church of Rome our
superiors depended greatly on the works of Chateaubriand. The "Genie du
Christianisme" was the book of books to dispel all our doubts, and attach
us to the Pope's religion. But this author, whose style is sometimes really
beautiful, destroyed, by the weakness of his logic, the Christianity which he
wanted to build up. We could easily see that Chateaubriand was not sincere, and
his exaggerations were to many of us a sure indication that he did not believe
in what he said. The works of De Maistre, the most important
history-falsificator of France, were also put into our hands as a sure guide in
philosophical and historical studies. The "Memoirs du Conte Valmont,"
with some authors of the same stamp, were much relied upon by our superiors to
prove to us that the dogmas, precepts and practices of the Roman Catholic
religion were brought from heaven.
It was certainly our desire as well as our interest to believe them. But how
our faith was shaken, and how we felt troubled when Livy, Tacitus, Cicero,
Virgil, Homer, ect., gave us the evidence that the greater part of these things
had their root and their origin in Paganism.
For instance, our superiors had convinced us that scapulars, medals, holy water,
ect., would be of great service to us in battling with the most dangerous
temptations, as well as in avoiding the most common dangers of life.
Consequently, we all had scapulars and medals, which we kept with the greatest
respect, and even kissed morning and evening with affection, as if they were
powerful instruments of the mercy of God to us. How great, then, was our
confusion and disappointment when we discovered in the Greek and Latin
historians that those scapulars and medals and statuettes were nothing but a
remnant of Paganism, and that the worshipers of Jupiter, Minerva, Diana and
Venus believed themselves also free, as we did, from all calamity when they
carried them in honour of these divinities! The further we advanced in the
study of Pagan antiquity, the more we were forced to believe that our religion,
instead of being born at the foot of Calvary, was only a pale and awkward
imitation of Paganism. The modern Pontifex Maximus (the Pope of Rome), who, as
we were assured, was the successor of St. Peter, the Vicar of Jesus Christ,
resembled the "Pontifex Maximus" of the great republic and empire of
Rome as much as two drops of water resemble each other. Had not our Pope
preserved not only the name, but also the attributes, the pageantry, the pride,
and even the garb of that high pagan priest? Was not the worship of the saints
absolutely the same as the worship of the demigods of olden time? Was not our
purgatory minutely described by Virgil? Were not our prayers to the Virgin and
to the saints repeated, almost in the same words, by the worshipers who
repeated them every day before the images which adorned our churches? Was not
our holy water in use among the idolaters, and for the same purpose for which
it was used among us?
We know by history the year in which the magnificent temple consecrated to all
the gods, bearing the name of Pantheon, had been built at Rome. We were
acquainted with the names of several of the sculptors who had carved the
statues of the gods in that heathen temple, at whose feet the idolaters bowed
respectfully, and words cannot express he shame we felt on learning that the
Roman Catholics of our day, under the very eyes and with the sanction of the
Pope, still prostrated themselves before the same idols, in the same temple, and
to obtain the same favours!
When we asked each other the question, "What is the difference between the
religion of heathen Rome and that of the Rome of today?" more than one
student would answer: "The only difference is in the name. The idolatrous
temples are the same: the idols have not left their places. Today, as formerly,
the same incense burns in their honour? Nations are still prostrated at their
feet to give them the same homage and to ask of them the same favours; but
instead of calling this statue Jupiter, we call it Peter; and instead of
calling that one Minerva or Venus, it is called St. Mary. It is the old
idolatry coming to us under Christian names."
I earnestly desired to be an honest and sincere Roman Catholic. These
impressions and thoughts distracted me greatly, inasmuch as I could find
nothing in reason to diminish their force. Unfortunately many of the books
placed in our hands by our superiors to confirm our faith, form our moral
character, and sustain our piety and our confidence in the dogmas of the Church
of Rome, had a frightful resemblance to the histories I had read of the gods
and goddesses. The miracles attributed to the Virgin Mary often appeared to be
only a reproduction of the tricks and deceits by which the priests of Jupiter,
Venus, Minerva, ect., used to obtain their ends and grant the requests of their
worshipers. Some of those miracles of the Virgin Mary equaled, if they did not
surpass, in absurdity and immorality what mythology taught us among the most
hideous accounts of the heathen gods and goddesses.
I could cite hundreds of such miracles which shocked my faith and caused me to
blush in secret at the conclusion to which I was forced to come, in comparing
the worship of ancient and modern Rome. I will only quote three of these modern
miracles, which are found in one of the books the best approved by the Pope,
entitled "The Glories of Mary."
First miracle. The great favour bestowed by the Holy Virgin upon a nun named
Beatrix, of the Convent of Frontebraldo, show how merciful she is to sinners.
This fact is related by Cesanus, and by Father Rho. This unfortunate nun,
having been possessed by a criminal passion for a young man, determined to
leave her convent and elope with him. She was the doorkeeper of the convent,
and having placed the keys of the monastery at the feet of a statue of the Holy
Virgin she boldly went out, and then led a life of prostitution during fifteen
years in a far off place.
"One day, accidentally meeting the purveyor of her convent, and thinking
she would not be recognized by him, she asked him news of Sister Beatrix.
"`I know her well,' answered this man; `she is a holy nun, and is mistress
of the novices.'
"At these words Beatrix was confused; but to understand what it meant she
changed her clothing, and going to the convent, enquired after Sister Beatrix.
"The Holy Virgin instantly appeared to her in the form of the statue at
whose feet she had placed the keys at her departure. The Divine Mother spoke to
her in this wise: `Know, Beatrix, that in order to preserve your honour I have
taken your place and done your duty since you have left your convent. My
daughter, return to God and be penitent, for my Son is still waiting for you.
Try, by the holiness of your life, to preserve the good reputation which I have
earned you.' Having thus spoken, the Holy Virgin disappeared. Beatrix reentered
the monastery, donned her religious dress, and, grateful for the mercies of
Mary, she led the life of a saint." ("Glories of Mary," chap.
vi., sec. 2.)
Second miracle. Rev. Father Rierenberg relates that there existed in a city
called Aragona a beautiful and noble girl by the name of Alexandra, whom two
young men loved passionately. One day, maddened by the jealousy each one had of
the other, they fought together, and both were killed. Their parents were so
infuriated at the young girl, the author of these calamities, that they killed
her, cut her head off, and threw her into a well. A few days after St. Dominic,
passing by the place, was inspired to approach the well and to cry out,
"Alexandra, come here!" The head of the deceased immediately placed
itself upon the edge of the well, and entreated St. Dominic to hear its
confession. Having heard it, the Saint gave her the communion in the presence
of a great multitude of people, and then he commanded her to tell them why she
had received so great a favour.
She answered that, though she was in a state of mortal sin when she was
decapitated, yet as she had a habit of reciting the holy rosary, the Virgin had
preserved her life.
The head, full of life, remained on the edge of the well two days before the
eyes of a great many people, and then the soul went to purgatory. But fifteen
days after this the soul of Alexandra appeared to St. Dominic, bright and
beautiful as a star, and told him that one of the surest means of removing
souls from purgatory was the recitation of the rosary in their favour.
("Glories of Mary," chap. viii., sec. 2)
Third miracle. "A servant of Mary one day went into one of her churches to
pray, without telling her husband about it. Owing to a terrible storm she was
prevented from returning home that night. Harassed by the fear that her husband
would be angry, she implored Mary's help. But on returning home she found her
husband full of kindness. After asking her husband a few questions on the
subject she discovered that during that very night the Divine Mother had taken
her form and features and had taken her place in all the affairs of the
household! She informed her husband of the great miracle, and they both became
very much devoted to the Holy Virgin." (Glories of Mary," Examples of
Protection, 40.)
Persons who have never studied in a Roman Catholic college will hardly believe
that such fables were told us as an appeal for us to become Christians. But,
God knows, I tell the truth. Is not a profanation of a holy word to say that
Christianity is the religion taught the students in Rome's colleges?
After reading the monstrous metamorphoses of the gods of Olympus, the student
feels a profound pity for the nations who have lived so long in the darkness of
Paganism. He cannot understand how so many millions of men were, for such a
long time, deceived by such crude fables. With joy his thoughts are turned to
the God of Calvary, there to receive light and life. He feels, as it were, a
burning desire to nourish himself with the words of life, fallen from the lips
of the "great victim." But here comes the priest of the college, who
places himself between the student and Christ, and instead of allowing him to
be nourished with the Bread of Life he offers him fables, husks with which to
appease his hunger. Instead of allowing him to slake his thirst from the waters
which flow from the fountains of eternal life, he offers him a corrupt
beverage!
God alone knows what I have suffered during my studies to find myself
absolutely deprived of the privilege of eating this bread of life His Holy
Word!
During the last years of my studies my superiors often confided to me the
charge of the library. Once it happened that, as the students were taking a
holiday, I remained alone in the college, and shutting myself up in the library
I began to examine all the books. I was not a little surprised to discover that
the books which were the most proper to instruct us stood on the catalogue of
the library marked among the forbidden books. I felt an inexpressible shame on
seeing with my own eyes that none but the most indifferent books were placed in
our hands that we were permitted to read authors of the third rank only (if
this expression is suitable to such whose only merit consisted in flattering
the Popes, and in concealing or excusing their crimes). Several students more
advanced than myself, had already made the observation to me, but I did not
believe them. Self-love gave me the hope that I was as well educated as one
could be at my age. Until then I had spurned the idea that, with the rest of
the students, I was the victim of an incredible system of moral and
intellectual blindness.
Among the forbidden books of the college I found a splendid Bible. It seemed to
be of the same edition as the one whose perusal had made the hours pass away so
pleasantly when I was at home with my mother. I seized it with the transports
of a miser finding a lost treasure. I lifted it to my lips, and kissed it
respectfully. I pressed it against my heart, as one embraces a friend from whom
he has long been separated. This Bible brought back to my memory the most
delightful hours of my life. I read in its divine pages till the scholars
returned.
The next day Rev. Mr. Leprohon, our director, called me to his room during the
recreation, and said: "You seem to be troubled, and very sad today. I
noticed that you remained alone while the other scholars were enjoying
themselves so well. Have you any cause of grief? or are you sick?"
I could not sufficiently express my love and respect for this venerable man. He
was at the same time my friend and benefactor. For four years he and Rev. Mr.
Brassard had been paying my board; for, owing to a misunderstanding between
myself and my uncle Dionne, he had ceased to maintain me at college. By reading
the Bible the previous day I had disobeyed my benefactor, Mr. Leprohon; for
when he entrusted me with the care of the library he made me promise not to
read the books in the forbidden catalogue.
It was painful to me to sadden him by acknowledging that I had broken my word
of honour, but it pained me far more to deceive him by concealing the truth. I
therefore answered him: "You are right in supposing that I am uneasy and sad.
I confess there is one thing which perplexes me greatly among the rules that
govern us. I never dared to speak to you about it: but as you wish to know the
cause of my sadness, I will tell you. You have placed in our hands, not only to
read, but to learn by heart, books which are, as you know, partly inspired by
hell, and you forbid us to read the only book whose every word is sent from
heaven! You permit us to read books dictated by the spirit of darkness and sin,
and you make it a crime for us to read the only book written under the
dictation of the Spirit of light and holiness. This conduct on your part, and
on the part of all the superiors of the college, disturbs and scandalizes me!
Shall I tell you, your dread of the Bible shakes my faith, and causes me to
fear that we are going astray in our Church."
Mr. Leprohon answered me: "I have been the director of this college for
more than twenty years, and I have never heard from the lips of any of the
students such remarks and complaints as you are making to me today. Have you no
fear of being the victim of a deception of the devil, in meddling with a
question so strange and so new for a scholar whose only aim should be to obey
his superiors?"
"It may be" said I, "that I am the first to speak to you in this
manner, for it is very probable that I am the only student in this college who
has read the Holy Bible in his youthful days. I have already told you there was
a Bible in my father's house, which disappeared only after his death, though I
never could know what became of it. I can assure you that the perusal of that
admirable book has done me a good that is still felt. It is, therefore, because
I know by a personal experience that there is no book in the world so good, and
so proper to read, that I am extremely grieved, and even scandalized, by the
dread you have of it. I acknowledge to you I spent the afternoon of yesterday
in the library reading the Bible. I found things in it which made me weep for
joy and happiness things that did more good to my soul and heart than all you
have given me to read for six years. And I am so sad today because you approve
of me when I read the words of the devil, and condemn me when I read the Word
of God."
My superior answered: "Since you have read the Bible, you must know that
there are things in it on matters of such a delicate nature that it is improper
for a young man, and more so for a young lady, to read them."
"I understand," answered I; "but these delicate matters, of
which you do not want God to speak a word to us, you know very well that Satan
speaks to us about them day and night. Now, when Satan speaks about and
attracts our thoughts towards an evil and criminal thing, it is always in order
that we may like it and be lost. But when the God of purity speaks to us of
evil things (of which it is pretty much impossible for men to be ignorant), He
does it that we may hate and abhor them, and He gives us grace to avoid them.
Well, then, since you cannot prevent the devil from whispering to us things so
delicate and dangerous to seduce us, how dare you hinder God from speaking of
the same things to shield us from their allurements? Besides, when my God
desires to speak to me Himself on any question whatever, where is your right to
obstruct His word on its way to my heart?"
Though Mr Leprohon's intelligence was as much wrapped up in the darkness of the
Church of Rome as it could be, his heart had remained honest and true; and
while I respected and loved him as my father, though differing from him in
opinion, I knew he loved me as if I had been his own child. He was
thunderstruck by my answer. He turned pale, and I saw tears about to flow from
his eyes. He sighed deeply, and looked at me some time reflectingly, without
answering. At last he said: "My dear Chiniquy, your answer and your
arguments have a force that frightens me, and if I had no other but my own
personal ideas to disprove them, I acknowledge I do not know how I would do it.
But I have something better than my own weak thoughts. I have the thoughts of
the Church, and of our Holy father the Pope. They forbid us to put the Bible in
the hands of our students. This should suffice to put an end to your troubles.
To obey his legitimate superiors in all things and everywhere is the rule a
Christian scholar like you should follow; and if you have broken it yesterday,
I hope it will be the last time that the child whom I love better than myself
will cause me such pain."
On saying this he threw his arms around me, clasped me to his heart, and bathed
my face in tears. I wept also. Yes, I wept abundantly.
But God knoweth, that through the regret of having grieved my benefactor and
father caused me to shed tears at that moment, yet I wept much more on
perceiving that I would no more be permitted to read His Holy Word.
If, therefore, I am asked what moral and religious education we received at
college, I will ask in return, What religious education can we receive in an
institution where seven years are spent without once being permitted to read
the Gospel of God? The gods of the heathen spoke to us daily by their apostles
and disciples Homer, Virgil, Pindar, Horace! and the God of the Christians had
not permission to say a single word to us in that college!
Our religion, therefore, could be nothing by Paganism disguised under a
Christian name. Christianity in a college or convent of Rome is such a strange
mixture of heathenism and superstition, both ridiculous and childish, and of
shocking fables, that the majority of those who have not entirely smothered the
voice of reason cannot accept it. A few do, as I did, all in their power, and
succeed to a certain extent, in believing only what the superior tell them to
believe. They close their eyes and permit themselves to be led exactly as if
they were blind, and a friendly hand were offering to guide them. But the
greater number of students in Roman Catholic colleges cannot accept the bastard
Christianity which Rome presents to them. Of course, during the studies they
follow its rules, for the sake of peace; but they have hardly left college
before they proceed to join and increase the ranks of the army of skeptics and
infidels which overruns France, Spain, Italy and Canada which overruns, in
fact, all the countries where Rome has the education of the people in her
hands.
I must say, though with a sad heart, that moral and religious education in
Roman Catholic colleges is worse and void, for from them has been excluded the
only true standard of morals and religion, The Word of God!
.
CHAPTER 11
We
read in the history of Paganism that parents were often, in those dark ages,
slaying their children upon the altars of their gods, to appease their wrath or
obtain their favours. But we now see a strange thing. It is that of Christian
parents forcing their children into the temples and to the very feet of the
idols of Rome, under the fallacious notion of having them educated! While the
Pagan parent destroyed only the temporal life of his child, the Christian
parent, for the most part, destroys his eternal life. The Pagan was consistent:
he believed in the almighty power and holiness of his gods; he sincerely
thought that they ruled the world, and that they blessed both the victims and
those who offered them. But where is the consistency of the Protestant who
drags his child and offers him as a sacrifice on the altars of the Pope! Does
he believe in his holiness or in his supreme and infallible power of governing
the intelligence? Then why does he not go and throw himself at his feet and
increase the number of his disciples? The Protestants who are guilty of this
great wrong are wont to say, as an excuse, that the superiors of colleges and
convents have assured them that their religious convictions would be respected,
and that nothing should be said or done to take away or even shake the religion
of their children.
Our first parents were not more cruelly deceived by the seductive words of the
serpent than the Protestants are this day by the deceitful promises of the
priests and nuns of Rome.
I had been myself the witness of the promise given by our superior to a judge
of the State of New York, when, a few days later that same superior, the Rev.
Mr. Leprohon, said to me: "You know some English, and this young man knows
French enough to enable you to understand each other. Try to become his friend
and to bring him over to our holy religion. His father is a most influential
man in the United States, and that, his only son, is the heir of an immense
fortune. Great results for the future of the Church in the neighbouring
republic might follow his conversion."
I replied: "Have you forgotten the promise you have made to his father,
never to say or do anything to shake or take away the religion of that young
man?"
My superior smiled at my simplicity, and said: "When you shall have
studied theology you will know that Protestantism is not a religion, but that
it is the negation of religion. Protesting cannot be the basis of any doctrine.
Thus, when I promised Judge Pike that the religious convictions of his child
should be respected, and that I would not do anything to change his faith, I
promised the easiest thing in the world, since I promised not to meddle with a
thing which has no existence."
Convinced, or rather blinded by the reasoning of my superior, which is the
reasoning of every superior of a college or nunnery, I set myself to work from
that moment to make a good Roman Catholic of that young friend; and I would
probably have succeeded had not a serious illness forced him, a few months
after, to go home, where he died.
Protestants who may read these lines will, perhaps, be indignant against the
deceit and knavery of the superior of the college of Nicolet. But I will say to
those Protestants, It is not on that man, but on yourselves, that you must pour
your contempt. The Rev. Mr. Leprohon was honest. He acted conformably to
principles which he thought good and legitimate, and for which he would have
cheerfully given the last drop of his blood. He sincerely believed that your
Protestantism is a mere negation of all religion, worthy of the contempt of
every true Christian. It was not the priest of Rome who was contemptible,
dishonest and a traitor to his principles, but it was the Protestant who was
false to his Gospel and to his own conscience by having his child educated by
the servants of the Pope. Moreover, can we not truthfully say that the
Protestant who wishes to have his children bred and educated by a Jesuit or a
nun is a man of no religion? and that nothing is more ridiculous than to hear
such a man begging respect for his religious principles! A man's ardent desire
to have his religious convictions respected is best known by his respecting
them himself.
The Protestant who drags his children to the feet of the priests of Rome is
either a disguised infidel or a hypocrite. It is simply ridiculous for such a
man to speak of his religious convictions or beg respect for them. His very
humble position a the feet of a Jesuit or a nun, begging respect for his faith,
is a sure testimony that he has none to lose. If he had any he would not be
there, an humble and abject suppliant. He would take care to be where there
could be no danger to his dear child's immortal soul.
When I was in the Church of Rome, we often spoke of the necessity of making
superhuman efforts to attract young Protestants into our colleges and
nunneries, as the shortest and only means of ruling the world before long. And
as the mother has in her hands, still more than the father, the destinies of
the family and of the world, we were determined to sacrifice everything in
order to build nunneries all over the land, where the young girls, the future
mothers of our country, would be moulded in our hands and educated according to
our views.
Nobody can deny that this is supreme wisdom. Who will not admire the enormous
sacrifices made by Romanists in order to surround the nunneries with so many
attractions that it is difficult to refuse them preference above all other
female scholastic establishments? One feels so well in the shade of these
magnificent trees during the hot days of summer! It is so pleasant to live near
this beautiful sheet of water, or the rapid current of that charming river, or
to have constantly before one's eye the sublime spectacle of the sea! What a
sweet perfume the flowers of that parterre diffuse around that pretty and
peaceful convent! And, besides, who can withstand the almost angelic charms of
the Lady Superior! How it does one good to be in the midst of those holy nuns,
whose modesty, affable appearance and lovely smile present such a beautiful
spectacle, that one would think of being at heaven's gate rather than in a
world of desolation and sin!
O foolish man! Thou art always the same ever ready to be seduced by glittering
appearances ever ready to suppress the voice of thy conscience at the first
view of a deductive object!
One day I had embarked in the boat of a fisherman on the coast of one of those
beautiful islands which the hand of God has placed at the mouth of the Gulf of
St. Lawrence. In a few minutes the white sail, full-blown by the morning
breeze, had carried us nearly a mile from the shore. There we dropped our
anchor, and soon our lines, carried by the current, offered the deceitful bait
to the fishes. But not one would come. One would have thought that the
sprightly inhabitants of these limpid waters had acted in concert to despise
us. In vain did we move our lines to and fro to attract the attention of the
fishes; not one would come! We were tired. We lamented the prospect of losing
our time, and of being laughed at by our friends on the shore who were waiting
the result of our fishing to dine. Nearly one hour was spent in his manner,
when the captain said, "Indeed, I will make the fishes come."
Opening a box, he took out handfuls of little pieces of finely-cut fishes and
threw them broadcast on the water.
I was looking at him with curiosity, and I received with a feeling of unbelief
the promise of seeing, in a few moments, more mackerel than I could pick up.
These particles of fish, falling upon the water, scattered themselves in a
thousand different ways. The rays of the sun, sporting among these numberless
fragments, and thousands of scales, gave them a singular whiteness and
brilliancy. They appeared like a thousand diamonds, full of movement and life,
that sported and rolled themselves, running at each other, while rocking upon
the waves.
As these innumerable little objects withdrew from us they looked like the milky
way in the firmament. The rays of the sun continued to be reflected upon the
scales of the fishes in the water, and to transform them into as many pearls,
whose whiteness and splendor made an agreeable contrast with the deep green
colour of the sea.
While looking at that spectacle, which was so new to me, I felt my line jerked
out of my hands, and soon had the pleasure of seeing a magnificent mackerel
lying at my feet. My companions were as fortunate as I was. The bait so
generously thrown away had perfectly succeeded in bringing us not only
hundreds, but thousands of fishes, and we caught as many of them as the boat
could carry.
The Jesuits and the nuns are the Pope's cleverest fishermen, and the
Protestants are the mackerel caught upon their baited hooks. Never fisherman
knew better to prepare the perfidious bait than the nuns and Jesuits, and never
were stupid fishes more easily caught than Protestants in general.
The priests of Rome themselves boast that more than half of the pupils of the
nuns are the children of Protestants, and that seven-tenths of those Protestant
children, sooner or later, become the firmest disciples and the true pillars of
Popery in the United States. It is with that public and undeniable fact before
them that the Jesuits have prophesied that before twenty-five years the Pope
will rule that great republic; and if there is not a prompt change their
prophecy will probably be accomplished.
"But," say many Protestants, "where can we get safer securities
that the morals of our girls will be sheltered than in those convents? The
faces of those good nuns, their angelic smiles, even their lips, from which
seems to flow a perfume from heaven are not these the unfailing signs that
nothing will taint the hearts of our dear children when they are under the care
of those holy nuns?" Angelic smiles! Lips from which flow a perfume from
heaven! Expressions of peace and holiness of the good nuns! Delusive
allurements! Cruel deceptions! Mockery of comedy! Yes, all these angelic
smiles, all these expressions of joy and happiness, are but allurements to
deceive honest but too trusting men!
I believed myself for a long time that there was something true in all the
display of peace and happiness which I saw reflected in the faces of a good
number of nuns. But how soon my delusions passed away when I read with my own
eyes, in a book of the secret rules of the convent, that one of their rules is
always, especially in the presence of strangers, to have an appearance of joy
and happiness, even when the soul is overwhelmed with grief and sorrow! The
motives given to the nuns, for thus wearing a continual mask, is to secure the
esteem and respect of the people, and to win more securely the young ladies to
the convent!
All know the sad end of life of one of the most celebrated female comedians of
the American Theatre. She had acted her part in the evening with a perfect
success. She appeared so handsome, and so happy on the stage! Her voice was
such a perfect harmony; her singing was so merry and lively with mirth! Two
hours later she was a corpse! She had poisoned herself on leaving the theatre!
For some time her heart was broken with grief which she could not bear.
Thus it is with the nun in her cell! forced to play a sacrilegious comedy to
deceive the world and to bring new recruits to the monastery. And the
Protestants, the disciples of the Gospel, the children of light, suffer
themselves to be deceived by this impious comedy.
The poor nun's heart is often full of sorrow, and her soul is drowned in a sea
of desolation; but she is obliged, under oath, always to appear gay!
Unfortunate victim of the most cruel deception that has ever been invented,
that poor daughter of Eve, deprived of all the happiness that heaven has given,
tortured night and day by honest aspirations which she is told are unpardonable
sins, she has not only to suppress in herself the few buds of happiness which
God has left in her soul; but, what is more cruel, she is forced to appear
happy in anguish of shame and of deception.
Ah! if the Protestants could know, as I do, how much the hearts of those nuns
bleed, how much those poor victims of the Pope feel themselves wounded to
death, how almost every one of them die at an early age, broken-hearted,
instead of speaking of their happiness and holiness, they would weep at their
profound misery. Instead of helping Satan to build up and maintain those sad
dungeons by giving both their gold and their children, they would let them
crumble into dust, and thus check the torrents of silent though bitter tears
which those cells hide from our view.
I was traveling in 1851 over the vast prairies of Illinois in search of a spot
which would suit us the best for the colony which I was about to found. One day
my companions and myself found ourselves so wearied by the heat that we
resolved to wait for the cool night in the shade of a few trees around a brook.
The night was calm; there were no clouds in the sky, and the moon was
beautiful. Like the sailor upon the sea, we had nothing but our compass to
regulate our course on those beautiful and vast prairies. But the pen cannot
express the emotions I felt while looking at that beautiful sky and those
magnificent deserts opened to our view. We often came to sloughs which we
thought deeper than they really were, and of which we would keep the side for
fear of drowning our horses. Many a time did I get down from the carriage and
stop to contemplate the wonders which those ponds presented to our view.
All the splendours of the sky seemed brought down in those pure and limpid
waters. The moon and the stars seemed to have left their places in the
firmament to bathe themselves in those delightful lakelets. All the purest, the
most beautiful things of the heavens seemed to come down to hide themselves in
those tranquil waters as if in search of more peace and purity.
A few days later I was retracing my steps. It was day-time; and, following the
same route, I was longing to get to my charming little lakes. But during the
interval the heat had been great, the sun very hot, and my beautiful sheets of
water had been dried up. My dear little lakes were nowhere to be seen.
And what did I find instead? Innumerable reptiles, with the most hideous forms
and filthy colours! No brilliant start, no clear moon were there any more to
charm my eyes. There was nothing left but thousands of little toads and snakes,
at the sight of which I was filled with disgust and horror!
Protestants! when upon life's way you are tempted to admire the smiling lips
and unstained faces of the Pope's nuns, please think of those charming lakes
which I saw in the prairies of Illinois, and remember the innumerable reptiles
and toads that swarm at the bottom of those deceitful waters.
When, by the light of Divine truth, Protestants see behind these perfect
mockeries by which the nun conceals with so much care the hideous misery which
devours her heart, they will understand the folly of having permitted
themselves to be so easily deceived by appearances. Then they will bitterly
weep for having sacrificed to that modern Paganism the future welfare of their
children, of their families, and of their country!
"But," says one, "the education is so cheap in the
nunnery." I answer, "The education in convents, were it twice cheaper
than it is now, would still cost twice more than it is worth. It is in this
circumstance that we can repeat and apply the old proverb, `Cheap things are
always too highly paid for.'"
In the first place, the intellectual education in the nunnery is completely
null. The great object of the Pope and the nuns is to captivate and destroy the
intelligence.
The moral education is also of no account; for what kind of morality can a
young girl receive from a nun who believes that she can live as she pleases as
long as she likes it that nothing evil can come to her, neither in this life
nor in the next, provided only she is devout to the Virgin Mary?
Let Protestants read the "Glories of Mary," by St. Liguori, a book
which is in the hands of every nun and every priest, and they will understand
what kind of morality is practiced and taught inside the walls of the Church of
Rome. Yes; let them read the history of that lady who was so well represented
at home by the Holy Virgin, that her husband did not perceive that she had been
absent, and they will have some idea of what their children may learn in a
convent.
.
CHAPTER 12
The
word education is a beautiful word. It comes from the Latin educare, which
means to raise up, to take from the lowest degrees to the highest spheres of
knowledge. The object of education is, then, to feed, expand, raise, enlighten,
and strengthen the intelligence.
We hear the Roman Catholic priests making use of that beautiful word education
as often, in not oftener, than the Protestant. But that word
"education" has a very different meaning among the followers of the
Pope than among the disciples of the Gospel. And that difference, which the
Protestants ignore, is the cause of the strange blunders they make every time
they try to legislate on that question here, as well as in England or in
Canada.
The meaning of the word education among Protestants is as far from the meaning
of that same word among Roman Catholics as the southern pole is from the
northern pole. When a Protestant speaks of education, that word is used and
understood in its true sense. When he sends his little boy to a Protestant
school, he honestly desires that he should be reared up in the spheres of
knowledge as much as his intelligence will allow. When that little boy is going
to school, he soon feels that he has been raised up to some extent, and he
experiences a sincere joy, a noble pride, for this new, though at first very
modest raising; but he naturally understands that this new and modest upheaval
is only a stone to step on and raise himself to a higher degree of knowledge,
and he quickly makes that second step with an unspeakable pleasure. When the
son of a Protestant has acquired a little knowledge, he wants to acquire more.
When he has learned what this means, he wants to know what that means also.
Like the young eagle, he trims his wings for a higher flight, and turns his
head upward to go farther up in the atmosphere of knowledge. A noble and
mysterious ambition has suddenly seized his young soul. Then he begins to feel
something of that unquenchable thirst for knowledge which God Himself has put
in the breast of every child of Adam, a thirst of knowledge, however, which
will never be perfectly realized except in heaven.
The object of education, then, is to enable man to fulfill that kingly mission
of ruling, subduing the world, under the eyes of his Creator.
Let us remember that it is not from himself, nor from any angel, but it is from
God Himself that man has received that sublime mission. Yes, it is God Himself
who has implanted in the bosom of humanity the knowledge and aspirations of
those splendid destinies which can be attained only by "Education."
What a glorious impulse is this that seizes hold of the newly-awakened mind,
and leads the young intelligence to rise higher and pierce the clouds that hide
from his gaze the splendours of knowledge that lay concealed beyond the gloom
of this nether sphere! That impulse is a noble ambition; it is that part of
humanity that assimilates itself to the likeness of the great Creator; that
impulse which education has for its mission to direct in its onward and upward
march, is one of the most precious gifts of God to man. Once more, the glorious
mission of education is to foster these thirstings after knowledge and lead man
to accomplish his high destiny.
It ought to be a duty with both Roman Catholics and Protestants to assist the
pupil in his flight toward the regions of science and learning. But is it so?
No. When you, Protestants, send you children to school, you put no fetters to
their intelligence; they rise with fluttering wings day after day. Though their
flight at first is slow and timid, how happy they feel at every new aspect of their
intellectual horizon! How their hearts beat with an unspeakable joy when they
begin to hear voices of applause and encouragement from every side saying to
them, "Higher, higher, higher!" When they shake their young wings to
take a still higher flight, who can express their joy when they distinctly hear
again the voices of a beloved mother, of a dear father, of a venerable pastor,
cheering them and saying, "Well done! Higher yet, my child, higher!"
Raising themselves with more confidence on their wings, they then soar still
higher, in the midst of the unanimous concert of the voices of their whole
country encouraging them to the highest flight. It is then that the young man
feels his intellectual strength tenfold multiplied. He lifts himself on his eagle
wings, with a renewed confidence and power, and soars up still higher, with his
heart beating with a noble and holy joy. For from the south and north, from the
east and west, the echoes bring to his ears the voices of the admiring
multitudes "Rise higher, higher yet!"
He has now reached what he thought, at first, to be the highest regions of
thought and knowledge: but he hears again the same stimulating cries from
below, encouraging him to a still higher flight toward the loftiest dominion of
knowledge and philosophy, till he enters the regions where lies the source of
all truth, and light, and life. For he had also heard the voice of his God
speaking through His Son Jesus Christ, crying, "Come unto Me! Fear Not!
Come unto Me! I am the light, the way! Come to this higher region where the
Father, with the Son and the Spirit, reign in endless light!"
Thus does the Protestant scholar, making use of his intelligence as the eagle
of his wing, go on from weakness unto strength, from the timid flutter to the
bold confident flight, from one degree to another still higher, from one region
of knowledge to another still higher, till he loses himself in that ocean of
light and truth and life which is God.
In the Protestant schools no fetters are put on the young eagle's wings; there
is nothing to stop him in his progress, or paralyze his movements and upward
flights. It is the contrary: he receives every kind of encouragement in his
flight.
Thus it is that the only truly great nations in the world are Protestants! Thus
it is the truly powerful nations in the world are Protestants! Thus it is that
the only free nations in the world are Protestants! The Protestant nations are
the only ones that acquit themselves like men in the arena of this world;
Protestant nations only march as giants at the head of the civilized world.
Everywhere they are the advanced guard in the ranks of progress, science and
liberty, leaving far behind the unfortunate nations whose hands are tied by the
ignominious iron chains of Popery.
After we have seen the Protestant scholar raising himself, on his eagle wings,
to the highest spheres of intelligence, happiness, and light, and marching
unimpeded toward his splendid destinies, let us turn our eyes toward the Roman
Catholic student, and let us consider and pity him in the supreme degradation
to which he is subjected.
That young Roman Catholic scholar is born with the same bright intelligence as
the Protestant one; he is endowed by his Creator with the same powers of mind
as his Protestant meighbour; he has the same impulses, the same noble
aspirations implanted by the hand of God in his breast. He is sent to school
apparently, like the Protestant boy, to receive what is called
"Education." He at first understands that word in its true sense; he
goes to school in the hope of being raised, elevated as high as his
intelligence and his person efforts will allow. His heart beats with joy, when
at once the first rays of light and knowledge come to him; he feels a holy, a
noble pride at every new step he makes in his upward progress; he longs to
learn more, he wants to rise higher; he also takes up his wings, like the young
eagle, and soars up higher.
But here begin the disappointments and tribulations of the Roman Catholic
student; for he is allowed to raise himself yes, but when he has raised himself
high enough to be on a level with the big toes of the Pope he hears piercing,
angry, threatening cries coming from every side "Stop! stop! Do not rise
yourself higher than the toes of the Holy Pope!....Kiss those holy toes,....and
stop your upward flight! Remember that the Pope is the only source of science,
knowledge, and truth!....The knowledge of the Pope is the ultimate limit of
learning and light to which humanity can attain....You are not allowed to know
and believe what his Holiness does not know and believe. Stop! stop! Do not go
an inch higher than the intellectual horizon of the Supreme Pontiff of Rome, in
whom only is the plenitude of the true science which will save the world."
Some will perhaps answer me here: "Has not Rome produced great men in
every department of science?" I answer, Yes; as I have once done before.
Rome can show us a long list of names which shine among the brightest lights of
the firmament of science and philosophy. She can show us her Copernicus, her
Galileos, her Pascals, her Bossuets, her Lamenais, ect., ect. But it is at
their risk and peril that those giants of intelligence have raised themselves
into the highest regions of philosophy and science. It is in spite of Rome that
those eagles have soared up above the damp and obscure horizon where the Pope
offers his big toes to be kissed and worshipped as the ne plus ultra of human
intelligence; and they have invariably been punished for their boldness.
On the 22 of June, 1663, Galileo was obliged to fall on his knees in order to
escape the cruel death to which he was to be condemned by the order of the
Pope; and he signed with his own hand the following retraction: "I abjure,
curse, and detest the error and heresy of the motion of the earth," ect.,
ect.
That learned man had to degrade himself by swearing a most egregious lie,
namely, that the earth does not move around the sun. Thus it is that the wings
of that giant eagle of Rome were clipped by the scissors of the Pope. That mighty
intelligence was bruised, fettered, and, as much as it was possible to the
Church of Rome, degraded, silenced, and killed. But God would not allow that
such a giant intellect should be entirely strangled by the bloody hands of that
implacable enemy of light and truth the Pope. Sufficient strength and life had
remained in Galileo to enable him to say, when rising up, "This will not
prevent the earth from moving!"
The infallible decree of the infallible Pope, Urban VIII, against the motion of
the earth is signed by the Cardinals Felia, Guido, Desiderio, Antonio,
Bellingero, and Fabriccioi. It says: "In the name and by the authority of
Jesus Christ, the plenitude of which resides in His Vicar, the Pope, that the
proposition that the earth is not the centre of the world, and that it moves
with a diurnal motion is absurd, philosophically false, and erroneous in
faith."
What a glorious thing for the Pope of Rome to be infallible! He infallibly
knows that the earth does not move around the sun! And what a blessed thing for
the Roman Catholics to be governed and taught by such an infallible being. In
consequence of that infallible decree, you will admire the following act of
human submission of two celebrated Jesuit astronomers, Lesueur and Jacquier:
"Newton assumes in his third book the hypothesis of the earth moving
around the sun. The proposition of that author could not be explained, except
through the same hypothesis: we have, therefore, been forced to act a character
not our own. But we declare our entire submission to the decrees of the Supreme
Pontiffs of Rome against the motion of the earth." (Newton's
"Principia," vol. iii., p.450.)
Here you see two learned Jesuits, who have written a very able work to prove
that the earth moves around the sun; but, trembling at the thunders of the
Vatican, which are roaring on their heads and threaten to kill them, they
submit to the decrees of the Popes of Rome against the motion of the earth.
These two learned Jesuits tell a most contemptible and ridiculous lie to save
themselves from the implacable wrath of that great light-extinguisher whose
throne is in the city of the seven hills.
Had the Newtons, the Franklins, the Fultons, the Morses been Romanists, their
names would have been lost in the obscurity which is the natural heritage of
the abject slaves of the Popes. Being told from their infancy that no one had
any right to make use of his "private judgment," intelligence and
conscience in the research of truth, they would have remained mute and motionless
at the feet of the modern and terrible god of Rome, the Pope. But they were
Protestants! In that great and glorious word "Protestant" is the
secret of the marvelous discoveries with which they had read a book which told
them that they were created in the image of God, and that that great God had
sent His eternal Son Jesus to make them free from the bondage of man. They had
read in that Protestant book (for the Bible is the most Protestant book in the
world) that man had not only a conscience, but an intelligence to guide him;
they had learned that that intelligence and conscience had no other master but
God, no other guide but God, no other light but God. On the walls of their
Protestant schools the Son of God had written the marvelous words: "Come
unto Me; I am the Light, the Way, the Life."
But when the Protestant nations are marching with such giant strides to the
conquest of the world, why is it that the Roman Catholic nations not only
remain stationary, but give evidence of a decadence which is, day after day,
more and more appalling and remediless? Go to their schools and give a moment
of attention to the principles which are sown in the young intelligences of
their unfortunate slaves, and you will have the key to tat sad mystery.
What is not only the first, but the daily school lesson taught to the Roman
Catholic? Is it not that one of the greatest crimes which a man can commit is
to follow his "private judgment?" which means that he has eyes, but
cannot see; ears, but he cannot hear; and intelligence, but he cannot make use
of it in the research of truth and light and knowledge, without danger of being
eternally damned. His superiors which mean the priest and the Pope must see for
him, hear for him, and think for him. Yes, the Roman Catholic is constantly told
in his school that the most unpardonable and damnable crime is to make use of
his own intelligence and follow his own private judgment in the research of
truth. He is constantly reminded that man's own private judgment is his
greatest enemy. Hence all his intellectual and conscientious efforts must be
brought to fight down, silence, kill his "private judgment." It is by
the judgment of his superiors the priest, the bishop and the pope that he must
be guided in everything.
Now, what is a man who cannot make use of his "private personal
judgment?" Is he not a slave, an idiot, an ass? And what is a nation
composed of men who do not make use of their private personal judgment in the
research of truth and happiness, if not a nation of brutes, slaves and contemptible
idiots?
But as this will look like an exaggeration on my part, allow me to force the
Church of Rome to come here and speak for herself. Please pay attention to what
she has to say about the intellectual faculties of men. Here are the very words
of the so-called Saint Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit Society:-
"As for holy obedience, this virtue must be perfect in every point in
execution, in will, in intellect; doing which is enjoined with all celerity,
spiritual joy and perseverance; persuading ourselves that everything is just,
suppressing every repugnant thought and judgment of one's own in a certain
obedience; and let every one persuade himself, that he who lives under
obedience should be moved and directed, under Divine Providence, by his
superior, just as if he were a corpse (perinde asi cadaver esset) which allows
itself to be moved and led in every direction."
Some one will, perhaps, ask me what can be the object of the popes and the
priests of Rome in degrading the Roman Catholics in such a strange way that
they turn them into moral corpses? Why not let them live? The answer is a very
easy one. The great, the only object of the thoughts and workings of the Pope
and the priests is to raise themselves above the rest of the world. They want
to be high! high above the heads not only of the common people, but of the
kings and emperors of the world. They want to be not only as high, but higher
than God. It is when speaking of the Pope that the Holy Ghost says: "He
opposeth and exalted himself above all that is called God, shewing himself that
he is God." (2 Thess. ii.4). To attain their object, the priests have
persuaded their millions and millions of slaves that they were mere corpses;
that they must have no will, no conscience, no intelligence of their own, just
"as corpses which allow themselves to be moved and led in any way, without
any resistance." When this has been once gained, they have made a pyramid
of all those motionless, inert corpses which is so high, that though its feet
are on the earth, its top goes to the skies, in the very abode of the old
divinities of the Pagan world, and putting themselves and their popes at the
top of that marvelous pyramid, the priests say to the rest of the world:
"Who among you are as high as we are? Who has ever been raised by God as a
priest and a pope? Where are the kings and the emperors whose thrones are as
elevated as ours? Are we not at the very top of humanity?" Yes! yes! I
answer to the priests of Rome, you are high, very high indeed! No throne on
earth has ever been so sublime, so exalted as yours. Since the days of the
tower of Babel, the world has not seen such a huge fabric. Your throne is
higher than anything we know. But it is a throne of corpses!!!
And if you want to know what other use is made of those millions and millions
of corpses, I will tell it to you. There is no manure so rich as dead
carcasses. Those millions of corpses serve to manure the gardens of the
priests, the bishops and the popes, and make their cabbages grow. And what fine
cabbages grow in the Pope's garden!
But that you may better understand the degrading tendencies of the principles
which are as the fundamental stone of the moral and intellectual education of
Rome, let me put before your eyes another extract of the Jesuit teachings,
which I take again from the "Spiritual Exercises," as laid down by
their founder, Ignatius Loyola: "That we may in all things attain the
truth, that we may not err in anything, we ought ever to hold as a fixed
principle that what I see white I believe to be black, if the superior
authorities of the Church define it to be so."
You all know that it is the avowed desire of Rome to have public education in
the hands of the Jesuits. She says everywhere that they are the best, the model
teachers. Why so?
Because they more boldly and more successfully than any other of her teachers
aim at the destruction of the intelligence and conscience of their pupils. Rome
proclaims everywhere that the Jesuits are the most devoted, the most reliable
of her teachers; and she is right, for when a man has been trained a sufficient
time by them, the most perfectly becomes a moral corpse. His superiors can do
what they please with him. When he knows that a thing is white as snow, he is
ready to swear that it is black as ink if his superior tells him so. But some
may be tempted to think of these degrading principles are exclusively taught by
the Jesuits; that they are not the teachings of the Church, and that I do an
injustice to the Roman Catholics when I give, as a general iniquity, what is
the guilt of the Jesuits only. Listen to the words of that infallible Pope
Gregory XVI., in his celebrated Encyclical of the 15th of August, 1832:"If
the holy Church so requires, let us sacrifice our own opinions, our knowledge,
our intelligence, the splendid dreams of our imagination, and the most sublime
attainments of the human understanding."
It is when considering those anti-social principles of Rome that Mr. Gladstone
wrote, not long ago: "No more cunning plot was ever devised against the
freedom, the happiness and the virtue of mankind than Romanism."
("Letter to Earl Aberdeen.") Now, Protestants, do you begin to see
the difference of the object of education between a Protestant and a Roman
Catholic school? Do you begin to understand that there is as great a distance
between the word "Education" among you, and the meaning of the same
word in the Church of Rome, than between the southern and the northern poles!
By education you mean to raise man to the highest sphere of manhood. Rome means
to lower him below the most stupid brutes. By education you mean to teach man
that he is a free agent, that liberty within the limits of the laws of God and
of his country is a gift secured to every one; you want to impress every man with
the noble thought that it is better to die a free man than to live a slave.
Rome wants to teach that there is only one man who is free, the Pope, and that
all the rest are born to be his abject slaves in thought, will and action.
Now, that you may still more understand to what a bottomless abyss of human
degradation and moral depravity these anti-Christian and antisocial principles
of Rome lead her poor blind slaves, read what Liguori says in his book
"The Nun Sanctified": "The principal and most efficacious means
of practicing obedience due to superiors, and of rendering it meritorious
before God, is to consider that in obeying them we obey God Himself, and that
by despising their commands we despise the authority of our Divine Master.
When, thus, a religious receives a precept from her prelate, superior or
confessor, she should immediately execute it, not only to please them but
principally to please God, whose will is made known to her by their command. In
obeying their command, in obeying their directions, she is more certainly
obeying the will of God than if an angel came down from heaven to manifest His
will to her. Bear this always in your mind, that the obedience which you
practice to your superior is paid to God. If, then, you receive a command from
one who holds the place of God, you should observe it with the same diligence
as if it came from God Himself. Blessed Egidus used to say that it is more
meritorious to obey man for the love of God than God Himself. It may be added
that there is more certainty of doing the will of God by obedience to our
superior than by obedience to Jesus Christ, should He appear in person and give
His commands. St. Phillip de Neri used to say that religious shall be most
certain of not having to render an account of the actions performed through
obedience; for these the superiors only who commanded them shall be held
accountable." The Lord said once to St. Catherine of Sienne,
"Religious will not be obliged to render an account to me of what they do
through obedience; for that I will demand an account from the superior. This
doctrine is conformable to Sacred Scripture: `Behold, says the Lord, as clay is
in the potter's hand, so are you in My hands, O Israel!' (Jeremiah xviii. 6.) A
religious man must be in the hands of the superiors to be moulded as they will.
Shall the clay say to Him that fashioneth it, What art Thou making? The Potter
ought to answer `Be silent; it is not your business to inquire what I do, but
to obey and to receive whatever form I please to give you.'"
I ask you, American Protestants, what would become of your fair country if you
were blind enough to allow the Church of Rome to teach the children of the
United States? What kind of men and women can come out of such schools? What
future of shame, degradation, and slavery you prepare for your country if Rome
does succeed in forcing you to support such schools? What kind of women would
come out from the schools of nuns who would teach them that the highest pitch
of perfection in a woman is when she obeys her superior, the priest, in
everything he commands her! that your daughter will never be called to give an
account to God for the actions she will have done to please and obey her
superior, the priest, the bishop, or the Pope? That the affairs of her conscience
will be arranged between God and that superior, and that she will never be
asked why she had done this or that, when it will be to gratify the pleasures
of the superior and obey his command that she has done it. Again, what kind of
men and citizens will come out from the schools of those Jesuits who believe
and teach that a man has attained the perfection of manhood only when he is a
perfect spiritual corpse before his superior; when he obeys the priest with the
perfection of a cadaver, that has neither life nor will in itself.
.
CHAPTER 13
Talleyrand,
one of the most celebrated Roman Catholic bishops of France, once said,
"Language is the art of concealing one's thoughts." Never was there a
truer expression, if it had reference to the awful deceptions practiced by the
Church of Rome under the pompous name of "Theological studies."
Theology is the study of the knowledge of the laws of God. Nothing, then, is
more noble than the study of theology. How solemn were my thoughts and elevated
my aspirations when, in 1829, under the guidance of the Rev. Messrs. Rimbault
and Leprohon, I commenced my theological coarse of study at Nicolet, which I
was to end in 1833!
I supposed that my books of theology were to bring me nearer to my God by the
more perfect knowledge I would acquire, in their study, of His holy will and
His sacred laws. My hope was that they would be to my heart what the burning
coal, brought by the angel of the Lord, was to the lips of the prophet of old.
The principal theologians which we had in our hands were "Les Conferences
d'Anger," Bailly, Dens, St. Thomas, but above all Liguori, who has since
been canonized. Never did I open one without offering up a fervent prayer to
God and to the Virgin Mary for the light and grace of which I would be in need
for myself and for the people whose pastor I was to become.
But how shall I relate my surprise when I discovered that, in order to accept
the principles of the theologians which my Church gave me for guides I had to
put away all principles of truth, of justice, of honour and holiness! What long
and painful efforts it cost me to extinguish, one by one, the lights of truth
and of reason kindled by the hand of my merciful God in my intelligence. For to
study theology in the Church of Rome signifies to learn to speak falsely, to
deceive, to commit robbery, to perjure one's self! It means how to commit sins
without shame, it means to plunge the soul into every kind of iniquity and
turpitude without remorse!
I know that Roman Catholics will bravely and squarely deny what I now say. I am
aware also that a great many Protestants, too easily deceived by the fine
whitewashing of the exterior walls of Rome, will refuse to believe me.
Nevertheless they may rest assured it is true, and my proof will be
irrefutable. The truth may be denied by many, but my witnesses cannot be
contradicted by any one. My witnesses are even infallible. They are none other
than the Roman Catholic theologians themselves, approved by infallible Popes!
These very men who corrupted my heart, perverted my intelligence and poisoned
my soul, as they have done with each and every priest of their Church, will be
my witnesses, my only witnesses. I will just now forcibly bring them before the
world to testify against themselves!
Liguori, in his treatise on oaths, Question 4, asks if it is allowable to use
ambiguity, or equivocal words, to deceive the judge when under oath, and at no.
151 he answers: "These things being established, it is a certain and
common opinion amongst all divines that for a just cause it is lawful to use
equivocation in the propounded modes, and to confirm it (equivocation) with an
oath.... Now a just cause is any honest end in order to preserve good things
for the spirit, or useful things for the body."*
"The accused, or a witness not properly interrogated, can sear that he
does not know a crime, which in reality he does know, by understanding that he
does not know the crime, concerning which he can be legitimately enquired of,
or that he does not know it so as to give evidence concerning it."**
When the crime is very secret and unknown to all, Liguori says the culprit or
the witness must deny it under oath. "The same is true, if a witness on
another ground is not bound to depose; for instance, if the crime appear to
himself to be free from blame. Or if he knew a crime which he is bound to keep
secret, when no scandal may have gone abroad." ***
"Make an exception in a trial where the crime is altogether concealed. For
then he can, yea, the witness is bound to say that the accused did not commit
the crime. And the same course the accused can adopt, if the proof be not
complete, ect., because then the judge does not legitimately
interrogate."****
Liguori asks himself, "Whether the accused legitimately interrogated, can
deny a crime, even with an oath, if the confession of the crime would be
attended with great disadvantage." The saint replies:"Elbel, ect.,
denies that he can, and indeed more probably because the accused is then bound
for the general good to undergo the loss. But sufficiently probable Lugo, ect.,
with many others, say, that the accused, if in danger of death, or of prison,
or of perpetual exile, the loss of property, the danger of the galleys, and such
like, can deny the crime even with an oath (at least without great sin) by
understanding that he did not commit it so that he is bound to confess it, only
let there be a hope of avoiding the punishment." *
"He who hath sworn that he would keep a secret, does not sin against the
oath by revealing that secret when he cannot conceal it without great loss to
himself, or to another, because the promise of secrecy does not appear to bind,
unless under this condition, if it does not injure me."
"He who hath sworn to a judge that he would speak what he knew, is not
bound to reveal concealed things. The reason is manifest." **
Liguori says whether a woman, accused of the crime of adultery, which she has
really committed, may deny it under oath? He answers: "She is able to
assert equivocally that she did not break the bond of matrimony, which truly
remains. And if sacramentally she confessed adultery, she can answer, `I am
innocent of this crime,' because by confession it was taken away. So Card, who,
however, here remarks that she cannot affirm it with an oath, because in
asserting anything the probability of a deed suffices, but in swearing
certainty is required. To this it is replied that in swearing moral certainty
suffices, as we said above. Which moral certainty of the remission of sin can
indeed be had, when any, morally well disposed, receives the sacrament of
penance."***
Liguori maintains that one may commit a minor crime in order to avoid a greater
crime. He says, "Hence Sanchez teaches, ect., that it is lawful to
persuade a man, determined to slay some one, that he should commit theft or
fornication." *
"Whether is it lawful for a servant to open the door for a harlot? Croix
denies it, but more commonly Bus. ect., with others answer that it is
lawful."
"Whether from fear of death, or of great loss, it may be lawful for a
servant to stoop his shoulders, or to bring a ladder for his master ascending
to commit fornication, to force open the door, and such like? Viva, ect., deny
it, and others, because, as they say, such actions are never lawful, inasmuch
as they are intrinsically evil. But Busemb, ect., speak the contrary, whose
opinion, approved of by reason, appears to me the more probable."**
"But the salmanticenses say that a servant can, according to his own
judgment, compensate himself for his labour, if he without doubt judge that he
was deserving of a larger stipend. Which indeed appears sufficiently probable
to me, and to other more modern learned men, if the servant, or any other hired
person, be prudent, and capable of forming a correct judgment, and be certain
concerning the justice of the compensation, all danger of mistake being
removed." ***
"A poor man, absconding with goods for his support, can answer the judge
that he has nothing. In like manner an heir who has concealed his goods without
an inventory, if he is not bound to settle with his creditors from them, can
say to a judge that he has not concealed anything in his own mind meaning those
goods with which he is bound to satisfy his creditors." *
Liguori, in Dubium II., considers what may be the quantity of stolen property
necessary to constitute mortal sin. He says:-
"There are various opinions concerning this matter. Navar too scrupulously
has fixed the half of regalem, others with too great laxity have fixed ten
aureos. Tol., ect., moderately have fixed two regales, although less might
suffice, if it would be a serious loss."**
"Whether it be mortal sin to steal a small piece of a relic? There is no
doubt but that in the district of Rome it is a mortal sin, since Clement VIII.
and Paul V. have issued an excommunication against those who, the rectors of
the churches being unwilling, steal some small relic: otherwise Croix probably
says, ect., if any one should steal any small thing out of the district [of
Rome], not deforming the relic itself nor diminishing its estimation; unless it
may be some rare or remarkable relic, as for example, the holy cross, the hair
of the Blessed Virgin, ect." ***
"If any one on an occasion should steal only a moderate sum either from
one or more, not intending to acquire any notable sum, neither to injure his
neighbour to a great extent by several thefts, he does not sin grievously, nor
do these, taken together, constitute a mortal sin; however, after it may have
amounted to a notable sum, by detaining it, he can commit mortal sin. But even
this mortal sin may be avoided, if either then he be unable to restore, or have
the intention of making restitution immediately, of those things which he then
received."****
"This opinion of Bus. is most probable, viz., if many persons steal small
quantities, that none of them commit grievous sin, although they may be
mutually aware of their conduct, unless they do it by concert: also Habert,
ect., hold this view; and this, although each should steal at the same time.
The reason is, because then no one person is the cause of injury, which, per
accidens, happens by the others to the master." *
Liguori, speaking of children who steal from their parents, says:"Salas,
ect., say that a son does not commit grievous sin, who steals 20 or 30 aurei
from a father possessing yearly 1500 aureos, and Lugo does not disprove of it.
If the father be not tenacious, and the son have grown up and receive it for
honest purposes. Less, ect., say that a son stealing two or three aureos from a
rich father does not sin grievously; Bannez says that fifty aureos are required
to constitute a grievous sin who steals from a rich father; but this opinion,
Lug, ect., reject, unless perchance he is the son of a prince; in which case
Holzm. consents."**
The theologians of Rome assure us that we may, and even that we must, conceal
and disguise our faith.
"Notwithstanding, indeed although it is not lawful to lie, or to feign
what is not, nevertheless it is lawful to dissemble what is, or to cover the
truth with words, or other ambiguous and doubtful signs for a just cause, and
when there is not a necessity of confessing. It is the common opinion."***
"Whence, if thus he may be able to deliver himself from a troublesome
investigation, it is lawful (as Kon has it), for generally it is not true that
he who is interrogated by public authority is publicly bound to profess the
faith, unless when that is necessary, lest he may appear to those present to
deny the faith."****
"When you are not asked concerning the faith, not only is it lawful, but
often more conducive to the glory of God and the utility of your neighbour to
cover the faith than to confess it; for example, if concealed among heretics
you may accomplish a greater amount of good; or if, from the confession of the
faith more of evil would follow for example, great trouble, death, the
hostility of a tyrant, the peril of defection, if you should be tortured.
Whence it is often rash to offer one's self willingly." * The Pope has the
right to release from all oaths.
"As for an oath made for a good and legitimate object, it seems that there
should be no power capable of annulling it. However, when it is for the good of
the public, a matter which comes under the immediate jurisdiction of the Pope,
who has the supreme power over the Church, the Pope has full power to release
from that oath." (St. Thomas, Quest. 89, art. 9, vol. iv.)
The Roman Catholics have not only the right, but it is their duty to kill
heretics.
"Excommunicatus privatur omni civili communicatione fidelium, ita ut ipsi
non possit cum aliis, et si non sit toleratus, etiam aliis cum ipso non possint
communicare; idque in casibus hoc versu comprehensis, Os, orare, communio,
mensa negatur."
Translated: "Any man excommunicated is deprived of all civil communication
with the faithful, in such a way that if he is not tolerated they can have no
communication with him, as it is in the following verse, `It is forbidden to
kiss him, pray with him, salute him, to eat or to do any business with
him.'" (St. Liguori, vol. ix., page 62.)
"Quanquam heretici tolerandi non sunt ipso illorum demerito, usque tamen
ad secundam correptionem expectandi sunt, ut ad sanam redeant ecclesiae fidem;
qui vero post secundam correptionem in suo errore obstinati permanent, non modo
excommunicationis sententia, sed etiam saecularibus principibus exterminandi
tradendi sunt."
Translated: "Though heretics must not be tolerated because they deserve
it, we must bear with them till, by a second admonition, they may be brought
back to the faith of the Church. But those who, after a second admonition,
remain obstinate in their errors must not only be excommunicated, but they must
be delivered to the secular powers to be exterminated."
"Quanquam heretici revertentes, semper recipiendi sint ad poenitentiam
quoties cujque relapsi furint; non tamen semper sunt recipiendi et restituendi
ad bonorum hujus vitae participation nem...recipiuntur ad poenitentiam...non
tamen ut liberentur a sententia mortis."
Translated: "Though the heretics who repent must always be accepted to
penance, as often as they have fallen, they must not in consequence of that
always be permitted to enjoy the benefits of this life. When they fall again
they are admitted to repent. But the sentence of death must not be
removed." (St. Thomas, vol. iv., page 91.)
"Quum quis per sententiam denuntiatur propter apostasiam excommunicatus,
ipso facto, ejus subditi a dominio et juramento fidelitatis ejus liberati
sunt."
"When a man is excommunicated for his apostasy, it follows from that very
fact that all those who are his subjects are released from the oath of
allegiance by which they were bound to obey him." (St. Thomas, vol. iv.,
page 91.)
Every heretic and Protestant is condemned to death, and every oath of
allegiance to a government which is Protestant or heretic is abrogated by the
Council of Lateran, held in A.d. 1215. Here is the solemn decree and sentence
of death, which has never been repealed, and which is still in force:
"We excommunicate and anathematize every heresy that exalts itself against
the holy, orthodox and Catholic faith, condemning all heretics, by whatever
name they may be known; for though their faces differ, they are tied together
by their tails. Such as are condemned are to be delivered over to the existing
secular powers, to receive due punishment. If laymen, their goods must be
confiscated. If priests, they shall be first degraded from their respective
orders, and their property applied to the use of the church in which they have
officiated. Secular powers of all ranks and degrees are to be warned, induced,
and, if necessary, compelled by ecclesiastical censure, to swear that they will
exert themselves to the utmost in the defense of the faith, and extirpate all
heretics denounced by the Church who shall be found in their territories. And
whenever any person shall assume government, whether it be spiritual or
temporal, he shall be bound to abide by this decree.
"If any temporal lord, after being admonished and required by the Church,
shall neglect to clear his territory of heretical depravity, the metropolitan
and the bishops of the province shall unite in excommunicating him. Should he
remain contumacious for a whole year, the fact shall be signified to the
Supreme Pontiff, who will declare his vassals released from their allegiance
from that time, and will bestow the territory on Catholics to be occupied by
them, on the condition of exterminating the heretics and preserving the said
territory in the faith.
"Catholics who shall assume the cross for the extermination of heretics
shall enjoy the same indulgences and be protected by the same privileges as are
granted to those who go to the help of the Holy Land. We decree, further, that
all who may have dealings with heretics, and especially such as receive,
defend, or encourage them, shall be excommunicated. He shall not be eligible to
any public office. He shall not be admitted as a witness. He shall neither have
the power to bequeath his property by will, nor to succeed to any inheritance.
He shall not bring any action against any person, but anyone can bring an
action against him. Should he be a judge, his decision shall have no force, nor
shall any cause be brought before him. Should he be an advocate, he shall not
be allowed to plead. Should he be a lawyer, no instruments made by him shall be
held valid, but shall be condemned with their author."
But why let my memory and my thoughts linger any longer in these frightful
paths, where murderers, liars, perjurers and thieves are assured by the
theologians of the Church of Rome that they can lie, steal, murder and perjure
themselves as much as they like, without offending God, provided they commit
those crimes according to certain rules approved by the Pope for the good of
the Church!
I should have to write several large volumes were I to quote all the Roman
Catholic doctors and theologians who approve of lying, of perjury, of adultery,
theft and murder, for the greatest glory of God and the good of the Roman
Church! But I have quoted enough for those who have eyes to see and ears to
hear.
With such principles, is it a wonder that all the Roman Catholic nations,
without a single exception, have declined so rapidly?
The great Legislator of the World, the only Saviour of nations, has said:
"Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out
of the mouth of God."
A nation can be great and strong only according to the truths which form the
basis of her faith and life. "Truth" is the only bread which God
gives to the nations that they may prosper and live. Deceitfulness, duplicity,
perjury, adultery, theft, murder, are the deadly poisons which kill the
nations.
Then, the more the priests of Rome, with their theology, are venerated and believed
by the people, the sooner that people will decay and fall. "The more
priests the more crimes," a profound thinker has said; for then the more
hands will be at work to pull down the only sure foundations of society.
How can any man be sure of the honesty of his wife as long as a hundred
thousand priests tell her that she may commit any sin with her neighbour in
order to prevent him from doing something worse? or when she is assured that,
though guilty of adultery, she can swear that she is pure as an angel!
What will it avail to teach the best principles of honour, decency and holiness
to a young girl, when she is bound to go many times a year to a bachelor
priest, who is bound in conscience to give her the most infamous lessons of
depravity under the pretext of helping her to confess all her sins?
How will the rights of justice be secured, and how can the judges and the
juries protect the innocent and punish the guilty, so long as the witnesses are
told by one hundred thousand priests that they can conceal the truth, give
equivocal answers, and even perjure themselves under a thousand pretexts?
What government, either monarchical or republican, can be sure of a lease of
existence? how can they make their people walk with a firm step in the ways of
light, progress, and liberty, as long as there is a dark power over them which
has the right, at every hour of the day or night, to break and dissolve all the
most sacred oaths of allegiance?
Armed with his theology, the priest of Rome has become the most dangerous and
determined enemy of truth, justice, and liberty. He is the most formidable
obstacle to every good Government, as he is, without being aware of it, the
greatest enemy of God and man.
.
CHAPTER 14
Were
I to write all the ingenious tricks, pious lies, shameful stories called
miracles, and sacrilegious perversions of the Word of God made use of by
superiors of seminaries and nunneries to entice poor victims into the trap of
perpetual celibacy, I should have to write ten large volumes, instead of a short
chapter.
Sometimes the trials and obligations of married life are so exaggerated that
they may frighten the strongest heart. At other times the joys, peace and
privileges of celibacy are depicted with such brilliant colours that they fill
the coldest mind with enthusiasm.
The Pope takes his victim to the top of a high mountain, and there shows him
all the honours, praise, wealth, peace and joys of this world, united to the
most glorious throne of heaven, and then tells him: "I will give you all
those things if you fall at my feet, promise me an absolute submission, and
swear never to marry in order to serve me better."
Who can refuse such glorious things? But before entirely shutting their eyes,
so that they may not see the bottomless abyss into which they are to fall, the
unfortunate victims sometimes have forebodings and presentiments of the
terrible miseries which are in store for them. The voice of their conscience,
intelligence and common sense has not always been so fully silenced as the superior
desired.
At the very time when the tempter is whispering his lying promises into their
ears, their Heavenly Father is speaking to them of the ceaseless trials, the
shameful falls, the tedious days, the dreary nights, and the cruel and
insufferable burdens which are concealed behind the walls where the sweet yoke
of the good Master is exchanged for the burdens of heartless men and women.
As formerly, the human victims crowned with flowers, when dragged to the foot
of the altar of their false gods, often cried out with alarm and struggled to
escape from the bloody knife of the heathen priest, so at the approach of the
fatal hour at which the impious vow is to be made, the young victims often feel
their hearts fainting and filled with terror. With pale cheeks, trembling lips
and cold-dropping sweat they ask their superiors, "Is it possible that our
merciful God requires of us such a sacrifice?"
Oh! how the merciless priest of Rome then becomes eloquent in depicting
celibacy as the only way to heaven, or in showing the eternal fires of hell
ready to receive cowards and traitors who, after having put their hand to the
plough of celibacy, look back! He speaks of the disappointment and sadness of
so many dear friends, who expected better things of them. He points out to them
their own shame when they will again be in a world which will have nothing for
them but sneers for their want of perseverance and courage. He overwhelms them
with a thousand pious lies about the miracles wrought by Christ in favour of
his virgins and priests. He bewitches them by numerous texts of Scripture,
which he brings as evident proof of the will of God in favour of their taking
the vows of celibacy, though they have not the slightest reference to such
vows.
The text of which the strangest abuses are made by the superiors to persuade
the young people of both sexes to bind themselves by those shameful vows is
Matthew xix. 12, 13, "For there are eunuchs which were born from their
mother's womb; and there are some eunuchs which were made eunuchs of men; and
there are eunuchs which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of
heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it."
Upon one occasion our superior made a very pressing appeal to our religious
feelings from this text, to induce us to make the vow of celibacy and become
priests. But the address, though delivered with a great deal of zeal, seemed to
us deficient in logic.
The next day was a day of rest (conge). The students in theology who were
preparing themselves for the priesthood, with me, talked seriously of the
singular arguments of the last address. It seemed to them that the conclusions
could not in any way be drawn from the selected text, and therefore determined
to respectfully present their objections and their views, which were also mine,
to the superior; and I was chosen to speak for them all.
At the next conference, after respectfully asking and obtaining permission to
express our objections with our own frank and plain sentiments, I spoke about
as follows:
"Dear and venerable sir: You told us that the following words of Christ,
`There be eunuchs which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of
heaven's sake,' show us evidently that we must make the vow of celibacy and
make ourselves eunuchs if we want to become priests. Allow us to tell you
respectfully, that it seems to us that the mind of our Saviour was very
different from yours when He pronounced these words. In our humble opinion, the
only object of the Son of God was to warn His disciples against one of the most
damnable errors which were to endanger the very existence of nations. He was
foretelling that there would be men so wicked and blind as to preach that the
best way for men to go to heaven would be to make eunuchs of themselves. Allow us
to draw your attention to the fact that in that speech Jesus Christ neither
approves or disapproves of the idea of gaining a throne in heaven by becoming
eunuchs. He leaves us to our common sense and to some clearer parts of
Scripture to see whether or not He approves of those who would make eunuchs of
themselves to gain a crown in heaven. Must we not interpret this text as we
interpret what Jesus said to His apostles, `The time cometh that whosoever
killeth you will think that he doeth God service' (John xvi. 1,2).
Allow us to put these two texts fact to face:
"'There are eunuchs which have "'The time cometh that whosoever made
themselves eunuchs for the killeth you will think that he kingdom of heaven's
sake' doeth God service' (Matt. xix. 12,13.) (John xvi. l,2).
"Because our Saviour has said that there would be men who would think that
they would please God (and of course gain a place in heaven) by killing His
disciples, are we, therefore, allowed to conclude that it would be our duty to
kill those who believe and follow Christ? Surely not!
"Well, it seems to us that we are not to believe that the best way to go
to heaven is to make ourselves eunuchs, because our Saviour said that some men
had got that criminal and foolish notion into their mind!
"Christian nations have always looked with horror upon those who have
voluntarily become eunuchs. Common sense, as well as the Word of God, condemns
those who thus destroy in their own bodies that which God in His wisdom gave
them for the wisest and holiest purposes. Would it not, therefore, be a crime
which every civilized and Christian nation would punish, to preach publicly and
with success to the people that one of the surest ways for man to go to heaven
would be to make himself a eunuch. How can we believe that our Saviour could
ever sanction and such a practice?
"Moreover, if being eunuchs would make the way to heaven surer and more
easy, would not God be unjust for depriving us of the privilege of being born
eunuchs, and thus being made ripe fruits for heaven?
"It seems to us that that text does not in any way require us to believe
that an eunuch is nearer the kingdom of God than He who lives just according to
the laws which God gave to man in the earthly paradise. If it was not good for
man to be without his wife when he was so holy and strong as he was in the
Garden of Eden, how can it be good now that he is so weak and sinful? "Our
Saviour clearly shows that He finds no sanctifying power in the state of an
eunuch, in His answer to the young man who asked Him, `Good Master, what must I
do that I may have eternal life?" (Matt. xix. 16). Did the good Master
answer him in the language we heard from you two days ago, namely, that the
best way to have eternal life is to make yourself an eunuch make a solemn vow
never to marry? No; but He said, `Keep the commandments!' But where is the
commandment of God, in the Old or New Testament, to induce us to make such a
vow as that of celibacy? The promise of a place in heaven is not attached in
any way to the vow of celibacy. Christ has not a word about that doctrine.
"Allow us to respectfully ask, if the views concerning the vows of
celibacy entertained by Christ had been like yours, is it possible that He
would have forgotten to mention them when He answered the solemn question of
that young man? Is it possible that He would not have said a single word about
a thing which you have represented to us as being of such vital importance to
those who sincerely desire to know what to do to be saved? Is it not strange
that the Church should attach such an importance to that vow of celibacy, when
we look in vain for such an ordinance in both the Old and New Testaments? How
can we understand the reasons or the importance of such a strict and, we dare
say, unnatural obligation in our day, when we know very well that the holy
apostles themselves were living with their wives, and that the Saviour had not
a word of rebuke for them on that account?"
This free expression of our common views on the vows of celibacy evidently took
our superior by surprise. He answered me, with an accent of indignation which
he could not suppress: "Is that all you have to say?"
"It is not quite all we have to say," I answered; "but before we
go further we would be much gratified to receive from you the light we want on
the difficulties which I have just stated."
"You have spoken as a true heretic," replied Mr. Leprohon, with an
unusual vivacity; "and were it not for the hope which I entertain that you
have said these things to receive the light you want than to present and
support the heretical side of such an important question, I would at once
denounce you to the bishop. You speak of the Holy Scriptures just as a
Protestant would do. You appeal to them as the only source of Christian truth
and knowledge. Have you forgotten that we have the holy traditions to guide us,
the authority of which is equal to that of the Scriptures?
"You are correct when you say that we do not find any direct proof in the
Bible to enforce the vows of celibacy upon those who desire to consecrate
themselves to the service of the Church. But if we do not find the obligation
of that vow in the Bible, we find it in the holy traditions of the Church.
"It is an article of faith that the vow of celibacy is ordered by Jesus
Christ, through His Church. The ordinances of the Church, which are nothing but
the ordinances of the Son of God, are clear on that subject, and bind our
consciences just as the commandments of God upon Mount Sinai; for Christ has
said, those who do not hear the Church must be looked upon as heathen and
publicans. There is no salvation to those who do not submit their reason to the
teachings of the Church.
"You are not required to understand all the reasons for the vow of
celibacy; but you are bound to believe in its necessity and holiness, as the
Church has pronounced her verdict upon that question. It is not your business
to argue about those matters; but your duty is to obey the Church, as dutiful
children obey a kind mother.
"But who can have any doubt about the necessity of the vows of celibacy,
when we remember that Christ had ordered His apostles to separate themselves
from their wives? a fact on which no doubt can remain after hearing St. Peter
say to our Saviour, `Behold, we have forsaken all and follow Thee; what shall
we have, therefore?' (Matt. xix. 27). Is not the priest the true representative
of Christ on earth? In his ordination, is not the priest made the equal and in
a sense the superior of Christ? for when he celebrates Mass he commands Christ,
and that very Son of God is bound to obey! It is not in the power of Christ to
resist the orders of the priest. He must come down from heaven every time the
priest orders Him. The priest shuts Him up in the holy tabernacles or takes Him
out of them, according to his own will.
"By becoming priests of the New Testament you will be raised to a dignity
which is much above that of angels. From these sublime privileges flows the
obligation to the priest to raise himself to a degree of holiness much above
the level of the common people a holiness equal to that of the angels. Has not
our Saviour, when speaking of the angels, said, `Neque nubent neque nubentur?'
They marry not, nor are given in marriage. Surely, since the priests are the
messengers and angels of God, on earth they must be clad with angelic holiness
and purity.
"Does not Paul say that the state of virginity is superior to that of
marriage? Does not that saying of the apostle show that the priest, whose hands
every day touch the divine body and blood of Christ, must be chaste and pure,
and must not be defiled by the duties of married life? That vow of celibacy is
like a holy chain, which keeps us above the filth of this earth and ties us to
heaven. Jesus Christ, through His Holy Church, commands that vow to His priests
as the most efficacious remedy against the inclinations of our corrupt nature.
"According to the holy Fathers, the vow of celibacy is like a strong high
tower, from the top of which we can fight our enemies, and be perfectly safe
from their darts and weapons.
"I will be happy to answer you other objections, if you have any
more," said Mr. Leprohon.
"We are much obliged to you for your answers," I replied, "and
we will avail ourselves of your kindness to present you with some other
observations.
"And, firstly, we thank you for having told us that we find nothing in the
Word of God to support the vows of celibacy, and that it is only by the
traditions of the Church that we can prove their necessity and holiness. It was
our impression that you desired us to believe that the necessity of that vow
was founded on the Holy Scriptures. If you allow it, we will discuss the
traditions another time, and will confine ourselves today to the different
texts to which you referred in favour of celibacy.
"When Peter says, `We have given up everything,' it seems to us that he
had no intention of saying that he had for ever given up his wife by a vow. For
St. Paul positively says, many years after, that Peter had his wife; that he
was not only living with her in his own house, but was traveling with her when
preaching the gospel. The words of Scripture are of such evidence on that
subject that they can neither be obscured by any shrewd explanation nor by any
tradition, however respectable it may appear.
"Though you know the words of Paul on that subject, you will allow us to
read them: `Have we not power to eat and drink? have we not power to lead about
a sister, a wife, as well as other apostles and as the brethren of the Lord,
and Cephas?' (I Cor. ix. 4, 5). St. Peter saying `We have forsaken everything'
could not then mean that he had made a vow of celibacy, and that he would never
live with his wife as a married man. Evidently the words of Peter mean only
that Jesus had the first place in his heart that everything else, even the
dearest objects of his love, as father, mother, wife, were only secondary in
his affections and thoughts.
"Your other text about the angels who do not marry, from which you infer
the obligation and law on the vow of celibacy, does not seem to us to bear on
that subject as much as you have told us. For, be kind enough to again read the
text: `Jesus answered and said to them, Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures,
nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given
in marriage; but are as the angels of God in heaven' (Matt. xxii. 29, 30). You
see that when our Saviour speaks of men who are like angels, and who do not
marry, He takes care to observe that He speaks of the state of men after the
resurrection. If the Church had the same rule for us that Christ mentioned for
the angelic men to whom He refers, and would allow us to make a vow never to
marry after the resurrection, we would not have the slightest objection to such
a vow.
"You see that our Saviour speaks of a state of celibacy; but He does not
intimate that that state is to begin on this side of the grave. Why does not
our Church imitate and follow the teachings of our Saviour? Why does she
enforce a state of celibacy before the resurrection, while Christ postpones the
promulgation of this law till after that great day?
"Christ speaks of a perpetual celibacy only in heaven! On what authority,
then, does our Church enforce that celibacy on this side of the grave, when we
still carry our souls in earthly vessels?
"You tell us that the vow of celibacy is the best remedy against the
inclinations of our corrupt nature; but do you not fear that your remedy makes
war against the great one which God prepared in His wisdom? Do we not read in
our own vulgate: `Propter fornicationem autem unus quisque uxorem snam habeat,
et unaquaque virum suum'? "To avoid fornication let every man have his own
wife, and let every woman have her own husband' (2 Cor. vii. 2).
"Is it not too strange, indeed, that God does tell us that the best remedy
He had prepared against the inclinations of our corrupt nature is in the
blessings of a holy marriage. `Let every man have his own wife, and every woman
her own husband.' But now our Church has found another remedy, which is more
accordant to the dignity of man and the holiness of God, and that remedy is the
vow of celibacy!"
The sound of my last words were still on my lips when our venerable superior,
unable any longer to conceal his indignation, abruptly interrupted me, saying:
"I do exceedingly regret to have allowed you to go so far. This is not a
Christian and humble discussion between young Levites and their superior, to
receive from him the light they want. It is the exposition and defense of the
most heretical doctrines I have ever heard. Are you ashamed, when you try to
make us prefer your interpretation of the Holy Scriptures to that of the
Church? Is it to you, or to His holy Church, that Christ promised the light of
the Holy Ghost? It is you who have to teach the Church, or the Church who must
teach you? Is it you who will govern and guide the Church, or the Church who
will govern and guide you?
"My dear Chiniquy, if there is not a great and prompt change in you and in
those whom you pretend to represent, I fear much for you all. You show a spirit
of infidelity and revolt which frightens me. Just like Lucifer, you rebel
against the Lord! Do you not fear to share the eternal pains of his rebellion?
"Whence have you taken the false and heretical notions you have, for
instance, about the wives of the apostles? Do you not know that you are
supporting a Protestant error, when you say that the apostles were living with
their wives in the usual way of married people? It is true that Paul says that
the apostles had women with them, and that they were even traveling with them.
But the holy traditions of the Church tell us that those women were holy
virgins, who were traveling with the apostles to serve and help them in
different ways. They were ministering to their different wants washing their
underclothes, preparing their meals, just like the housekeeper whom the priests
have today. It is a Protestant impiety to think and speak otherwise.
"But only a word more, and I am done. If you accept the teaching of the
Church, and submit yourselves as dutiful children to that most holy Mother, she
will raise you to the dignity of the priesthood, a dignity much above kings and
emperors in this world. If you serve her with fidelity, she will secure to you
the respect and veneration of the whole world while you live, and procure your
a crown of glory in heaven.
"But if you reject her doctrines, and persist in your rebellious views
against one of the most holy dogmas; if you continue to listen to the voice of
your own deceitful reason rather than to the voice of the Church, in the
interpretation of the Holy Scriptures, you become heretics, apostates and
Protestants; you will lead a dishonoured life in this world, and you will be
lost for all eternity."
Our superior left us immediately after these fulminating words. Some of the
theological students, after this exit, laughed heartily, and thanked me for
having so bravely fought and gained so glorious a victory. Two of them,
disgusted by the sophisms and logical absurdities of our superior, left the seminary
a few days after. The rest, with me had not the moral courage to follow their
example, but remained, stunned by the last words of our superior.
I went to my room and fell on my knees, with a torrent of tears falling from my
eyes. I was really sorry for having wounded his feelings, but still more so for
having dared for a moment to oppose my own feeble and fallible reason to the
mighty and infallible intelligence of my Church!
At first it appeared to me that I was only combating, in a respectful way, against
my old friend, Rev. Mr. Leprohon; but I had received it from his own lips that
I had really fought against the Lord!
After spending a long and dark night of anguish and remorse, my first action,
the next day, was to go to confession, and ask my confessor, with tears of
regret, pardon for the sin I had committed and the scandal I had given.
Had I listened to the voices of my conscience, I certainly would have left the
seminary that day; for they told me that I had confounded my superior and
pulverized all his arguments. Reason and conscience told me that the vow of
celibacy was a sin against logic, morality and God; that that vow could not be
sustained by any argument from the Holy Scriptures, logic or common sense. But
I was a most sincere Roman Catholic. I had therefore to fight a new battle
against my conscience and intelligence, so as to subdue and silence them for
ever! Many a time it was my hope, before this, to have succeeded in
slaughtering them at the foot of the altar of my Church; but that day, far from
being for ever silenced and buried, they had come out again with renewed force,
to waken me from the terrible illusions in which I was living. Nevertheless,
after a long and frightful battle, my hope was that they were perfectly subdued
and buried under the feet of the holy Fathers, the learned theologians and the
venerable popes, whose voice I was determined now to follow. I felt a real calm
after that struggle. It was evidently the silence of death, although my
confessor told me it was the peace of God. More than ever I determined to have
no knowledge, no thought, no will, no light, no desires, no science but that
which my Church would give me through my superior. I was fallible, she was
infallible! I was a sinner, she was the immaculate spouse of Jesus Christ! I
was weak, she had more power than the great waters of the ocean! I was but an
atom, she was covering the world with her glory! What, therefore, could I have
to fear in humbling myself at her feet, to live of her life, to be strong of
her strength, wise of her wisdom, holy with her holiness? Had not my superior
repeatedly told me that no error, no sin would be imputed to me as long as I
obeyed my Church and walked in her ways?
With these sentiments of a most profound and perfect respect for my Church, I
irrevocably consecrated myself to her services on the 4th of May, 1832, by
making the vow of celibacy and accepting the office of sub-deacon.
.
CHAPTER 15
"The mother of harlots and abominations." Rev. xvii. 5.
Constrained
by the voice of my conscience to reveal the impurities of the theology of the
Church of Rome, I feel, in doing so, a sentiment of inexpressible shame. They
are of such a loathsome nature, that often they cannot be expressed in any
living language.
However great may have been the corruptions in the theologies and priests of
paganism, there is nothing in their records which can be compared with the
depravity of those of the Church of Rome. Before the day on which the theology
of Rome was inspired by Satan, the world had certainly witnessed many dark
deeds; but vice had never been clothed with the mantle of theology: the most
shameful forms of iniquity had never been publicly taught in the schools of the
old pagan priest, under the pretext of saving the world. No! neither had the
priests nor the idols been forced to attend meetings where the most degrading
forms of iniquity were objects of the most minute study, and that under the
pretext of glorifying God.
Let those who understand Latin read "The Priest, the Women, and the
Confessional," and decide as to whether or not the sentiments therein
contained are not enough to shock the feelings of the most depraved. And let it
be remembered that all those abominations have to be studied, learned by heart
and thoroughly understood by men who have to make a vow never to marry! For it
is not till after his vow of celibacy that the student in theology is initiated
into those mysteries of iniquity.
Has the world ever witnessed such a sacrilegious comedy? A young man about
twenty years of age has been enticed to make a vow of perpetual celibacy, and
the very next day the Church of Rome put under the eye of his soul the most
infamous spectacle! She fills his memory with the most disgusting images! She
tickles all his senses and pollutes his ears, not by imaginary representations,
but by realities which would shock the most abandoned in vice!
For, let it be well understood, that it is absolutely impossible for one to
study those questions of Roman Theology, and fathom those forms of iniquity
without having his body as well as his mind plunged into a state the most
degrading. Moreover, Rome does not even try to conceal the overwhelming power
of this kind of teaching; she does not even attempt to make it a secret from
the victims of her incomparable depravity, but bravely tells them that the
study of those questions will act with an irresistible power upon their organs,
and without a blush says, "that pollution must follow!!!"
But in order that the Church of Rome may more certainly destroy her victims,
and that they may not escape from the abyss which she has dug under their feet,
she tells them, "There is no sin for you in those pollutions!" (Dens,
vol. i. p. 315.)
But Rome must bewitch so as the better to secure their destruction. She puts to
their lips the cup of her enchantments, the more certainly to kill their souls,
dethrones God from their consciences, and abrogates His eternal laws of
holiness. What answer does Rome give to those who reproach her with the awful
impurity of theology. "My theological works," she answers, "are
all written in Latin; the people cannot read them. No evil, no scandal,
therefore, can come from them!" But this answer is a miserable subterfuge.
Is this not the public acknowledgment that her theology would be exceedingly
injurious to the people if it were read and understood by them?
By saying, "My theological works are written in Latin, therefore the
people cannot be defiled, as they do not understand them," Rome does
acknowledge that these works would only act as a pestilence among the people,
were they read and understood by them. But are not the one hundred thousand
priests of Rome bound to explain in every known tongue, and present to the mind
of every nation, the theology contained in those books? Are they not bound to
make every polluting sentence in them flow into the ears, imaginations, hearts
and minds of all the married and unmarried women whom Rome holds in her grasp?
I exaggerate nothing when I say that not fewer than half a million women every
day are compelled to hear in their own language, almost every polluting
sentence and impure notion of the diabolical sciences.
And here I challenge, most fearlessly, the Church of Rome to deny what I say,
when I state that the daily average of women who go to confession to each
priest, is ten. But let us reduce the number to five. Then the one hundred
thousand priest who are scattered over the whole world, hear the confession of
five hundred thousand women every day! Well, now, out of one hundred women who
confess, there are at least ninety-nine whom the priest is bound in conscience
to pollute, by questioning them on the matters mentioned in the Latin pages at
the end of this chapter. How can one be surprised at the rapid downfall of the
nations who are under the yoke of the Pope.
The public statistics of the European, as well of American nations, show that
there is among Roman Catholics nearly double the amount of prostitution,
bastardy, theft, perjury, and murder than is found among Protestant nations.
Where must we, then, look for the cause of those stupendous facts, if not in
the corrupt teachings of the theology of Rome. How can the Roman Catholic
nations hope to raise themselves in the scale of Christian dignity and morality
as long as there remain one hundred thousand priests in their midst, bound in
conscience every day to pollute the minds and the hearts of their mothers,
their wives and their daughters!
And here let me say, once for all, that I am not induced to speak as I do from
any motive of contempt or unchristian feeling against the theological
professors who have initiated me into those mysteries of iniquity. The Rev.
Messrs. Raimbault and Leprohon were, and in my mind they still are, as
respectable as men can be in the Church of Rome. As I have been myself, and as
all the priests of Rome are, they were plunged without understanding it, into
the abyss of the most stolid ignorance. They were crushed, as I was myself,
under a yoke which bound their understanding to the dust, and polluted their hearts
without measure. We were embarked together on a ship, the first appearance of
which was really magnificent, but the bottom of which was irremediably rotten.
Without the true Pilot on board we were left to perish on unknown shoals. Out
of this sinking ship the hand of God alone, in His providence rescued me. I
pity those friends of my youth, but despise them? hate them? No! Never! Never!
Every time out theological teachers gave us our lessons, it was evident that
they blushed in the inmost part of their souls. Their consciences as honest men
were evidently forbidding them, on the one hand, to open their mouths on such
matters, while, on the other hand, as slaves and priests of the Pope, they were
compelled to speak without reserve.
After our lessons in theology, we students used to be filled with such a
sentiment of shame that sometimes we hardly dared to look at each other: and,
when alone in our rooms, those horrible pictures were affecting our hearts, in
spite of ourselves, as the rust affects and corrodes the hardest and purest
steel. More than one of my fellow-students told me, with tears of shame and
rage, that they regretted to have bound themselves by perpetual oaths to
minister at the altars of the Church.
One day one of the students, called Desaulnier, who was sick in the same room
with me, asked me: "Chiniquy, what do you think of the matters which are
the objects of our present theological studies? Is it not a burning shame that
we must allow our minds to be so polluted?"
"I cannot sufficiently tell you my feelings of disgust," I answered.
"Had I known sooner that we were to be dragged over such a ground, I
certainly never would have nailed my future to the banners under which we are
irrevocably bound to live." "Do you know," said Desaulnier, "that
I am determined never to consent to be ordained a priest; for when I think of
the fact that the priest is bound to confer with women on all of these
polluting matters, I feel an insurmountable disgust and shame."
"I am not less troubled," I replied. "My head aches and my heart
sinks within me when I hear our theologians telling us that we will be in
conscience bound to speak to females on these impure subjects. But sometimes
this looks to me as if it were a bad dream, the impure phantoms of which will
disappear at the first awakening. Our Church, which is so pure and holy that
she can only be served by the spotless virgins, surely cannot compel us to
pollute our lips, thoughts, souls, and even our bodies, by speaking to strange
women on matters so defiling!"
"But we are near the hour at which the good Mr. Leprohon is in the habit
of visiting us. Will you," I said, "promise to stand by me in what I
will ask him on this subject? I hope to get from him a pledge that we will not
be compelled to be polluted in the confessional by the women who will confess
to us. The purity and holiness of our superior is of such a high character,
that I am sure he has never said a word to females on those degrading matters.
In spite of all the theologians, Mr. Leprohon will allow us to keep our tongues
and our hearts, as well as our bodies, pure in the confessional."
"I have had the desire to speak to him upon this subject for some
time," rejoined Desaulnier, "but my courage failed me every time I
attempted to do so. I am glad, therefore, that you are to break the ice, and I
will certainly support you, as I have a longing desire to know something more
in regard to the mysteries of the confessional. If we are at liberty never to
speak to women on these horrors, I will consent to serve the Church as a
priest; but if not, I will never be a priest."
A few minutes after this our superior entered to kindly enquire how we had
rested the night before. Having thanked him for his kindness, I opened the
volumes of Dens and Liguori which were on our table, and, with a blush, putting
my fingers on one of the infamous chapters referred to, I said to him:
"After God, you have the first place in my heart since my mother's death,
and you know it. I take you, not only as my benefactor, but also, as it were,
as my father and mother. You will therefore tell me all I want to know in these
my hours of anxiety, through which God is pleased to make me pass. To follow
your advice, not to say your commands, I have lately consented to receive the
order of sub-deacon, and I have in consequence taken the vow of perpetual
celibacy. But I will not conceal the fact from you, I had not a clear
understanding of what I was doing; and Desaulnier has just stated to me, that
until recently he had no more idea of the nature of that promise, nor of the
difficulties which we now see ahead of us in our priestly life than I had.
"But Dens, Liguori and St. Thomas have given us notions quite new in
regard to many things. They have directed our minds to the knowledge of the
laws which are in us, as well as in every other child of Adam. They have, in a
word, directed our minds into regions which were quite new and unexplored by
us; and I dare say that every one of those whom we have known, whether in this
house or elsewhere, who have made the same vow, could tell you the same tale.
"However, I do not speak for them; I speak only for myself and Desaulnier.
For God's sake, please tell us if we will be bound in conscience to speak in
the confessional, to the married and unmarried females, on such impure and
defiling questions as are contained in the theologians before us?"
"Most undoubtedly," replied Rev. Mr. Leprohon; "because the
learned and holy theologians whose writings are in your hands are positive on
that question. It is absolutely necessary that you should question your female
penitents on such matters; for, as a general thing, girls and married women are
too timid to confess those sins, of which they are even more frequently guilty
than men, therefore they must be helped by questioning them."
"But have you not," I rejoined, "induced us to make an oath that
we should always remain pure and undefiled? How is it then, that today you put
us in such a position that it is almost impossibility for us to be true to our
sacred promise? For the theologians are unanimous that those questions put by
us to our female penitents, together with the recital of their secret sins,
will act with such an irresistible power upon us that we will be polluted.
"Would it not be better for us to experience those things in the holy
bonds of marriage, with our wives, and according to the laws of God, than in
company and conversation with strange women? Because, if we are to believe the
theologians which are in our hands, no priest not even you, my dear Mr.
Leprohon can hear the confessions of women without being defiled."
Here Desaulnier interrupted me, and said: "My dear Mr. Leprohon, I concur
in everything Chiniquy has just been telling you. Would we not be more chaste
and pure by living with our lawful wives, than by daily exposing ourselves in
the confessional in company of women whose presence will irresistibly drag us
into the most shameful pit of impurity? I ask you, my dear sir, what will
become of my vow of perfect and perpetual chastity, when the seducing presence
of my neighbour's wife, or the enchanting words of his daughter, will have
defiled me through the confessional. After all, I may be looked upon by the
people as a chaste man; but what will I be in the eyes of God? The people may
entertain the thought that I am a strong and honest man; but will I not be a
broken reed? Will God not be the witness that the irresistible temptations
which will have assailed me when hearing the secret sins of some sweet and
tempting woman, will have deprived me of that glorious crown of chastity for
which I have so dearly paid? Men will think that I am an angel of purity; but
my own conscience will tell me that I am nothing but a skillful hypocrite. For
according to all the theologians, the confessional is the tomb of the chastity
of priests!! If I hear the confession of women, I will be like all other
priests, in a tomb, well painted and gilded on the outside, but within full or
corruption."
Francis Desaulnier, just as he had foretold me, refused to be a priest. He
remained all his life in the orders of sub-deaconate, in the College of
Nicolet, as a Professor of Philosophy. He was a man who seldom spoke in
conversation, but thought very much. It seems to me that I still see him there,
under that tall centenary tree, alone, during the long hours of intermission,
and many long days during our holidays, while the rest of the students passed
hither and thither, singing and playing, on the enchanting banks of the river
of Nicolet.
He was a good logician and a profound mathematician; and although affable to
everyone, he was not communicative. I was probably the only one to whom he
opened his mind concerning the great questions of Christianity faith, history,
the Church and her discipline. He repeatedly said to me: "I wish I had
never opened a book of theology. Our theologians are without heart, soul or
logic. Many of them approve of theft, lies and perjury; others drag us without
a blush, into the most filthy pits of iniquity. Every one of them would like to
make an assassin of every Catholic. According to their doctrine, Christ is
nothing but a Corsican brigand, whose blood-thirsty disciples are bound to
destroy all the heretics with fire and sword. Were we acting according to the
principles of those theologians, we would slaughter all Protestants with the
same coolness of blood as we would shoot down the wolf which crosses our path.
With their hand still reddened with the blood of St. Bartholomew, they speak to
us of charity, religion and God, as if there were neither of them in the
world."
Desaulnier was looked upon as "un homme singulier" at Nicolet. He was
really an exception to all the men in the seminary. For example: Though it was
the usage and the law that ecclesiastics should receive the communion every
month, and upon every great feast day of the Church, yet he would scarcely take
the communion once a year. But let me return to the interview with our
superior.
Desaulnier's fearless and energetic words had evidently made a very painful
impression upon our superior. It was not a usual thing for His disciples in
theology thus to take upon themselves to speak with such freedom as we both did
on this occasion. He did not conceal his pain at what he called our unbecoming
and unchristian attack upon some of the most holy ordinances of the Church; and
after he had refuted Desaulnier in the best way he could, he turned to me and
said: "My dear Chiniquy, I have repeatedly warned you against the habit
you have of listening to your own frail reasoning, when you should only obey as
a dutiful child. Were we to believe you, we would immediately set ourselves to
work to reform the Church and abolish the confession of women to priests; we
would throw all our theological books into the fire and have new one written,
better adapted to your fancy. What does all this prove? Only one thing, and
that is, that the devil of pride is tempting you as he has tempted all the
so-called Reformers, and destroyed them as he would you. If you do not take
care, you will become another Luther!
"The Theological books of St. Thomas, Liguori and Dens have been approved
by the Church. How, therefore, do you not see the ridicule and danger of your
position. On one side, then, I see all our holy popes, the two thousand
Catholic bishops, all our learned theologians and priests, backed up by over
two hundred millions of Roman Catholics drawn up as an innumerable army to
fight the battles of the Lord; and on the other side what do I see? Nothing by
my small, though very dear Chiniquy!
"How, then, is it that you do not fear, when with your weak reasoning you
oppose the mighty reasoning and light of so many holy popes, and venerable
bishops and learned theologians? Is it not just as absurd for you to try to
reform the Church by your small reason, as it is for the grain of sand which is
found at the foot of the great mountain to try to turn that mighty mountain out
of its place? or for the small drop of water to attempt to throw the boundless
ocean out of its bed, or try to oppose the running tides of the Polar seas?
"Believe me, and take my friendly advice," continued our superior,
"before it is too late. Let the small grain of sand remain still at the
foot of the majestic mountain; and let the humble drop of water consent to
follow the irresistible currents of the boundless seas, and everything will be
in order.
"All the good priests who have heard the confessions of women before us
have been satisfied and have had their souls saved, even when their bodies were
polluted; for those carnal pollutions are nothing but human miseries, which
cannot defile a soul which desires to remain united to God. Are the rays of the
sun defiled by coming down into the mud? No! The rays remain pure, and return
spotless to the shining orb whence they came. So the heart of a good priest as
I hope my dear Chiniquy will be will remain pure and holy in spite of the
accidental and unavoidable defilement of the flesh.
"Apart from these things, in your ordination you will receive a special
grace which will change you into another man; and the Virgin Mary, to whom you
will constantly address yourself, will obtain for you a perfect purity from her
Son.
"The defilement of the flesh spoken of by the theologians, and which, I
confess, is unavoidable when hearing the confessions of women, must not trouble
you; for they are not sinful, as Dens and Liguori assure us. (Dens. vol. i.,
pages 299, 300.)
"But enough on that subject. I forbid you to speak to me any more on those
idle questions, and, as much as my authority is anything to you both, I forbid
you to say a word more to each other on that matter!!"
It was my fond hope that my dear and so much venerated Mr. Leprohon would
answer me with some good and reasonable arguments; but he, to my surprise,
silenced the voice of our conscience by un coup d'etat.
Nevertheless, the idea of that miserable grain of sand which so ridiculously
attempted to remove the stately mountain, and also of that all but
imperceptible drop of water which attempted to oppose itself to the onward
motion of the vast ocean, singularly struck and humbled me. I remained silent
and confused, though not convinced.
This was not all. Those rays of the sun, which could not be defiled even when
going down into the mud, after bewildering one by their glittering appearance,
left my soul more in the dark than ever. I could not resist the presentiment
that I was in the presence of an imposition, and of a glittering sophism. But I
had neither sufficient learning, moral courage, nor grace from God clearly to
see through that misty cloud and to expel it from my mind.
Almost every month of the ten years which I had passed in the seminary of
Nicolet, priests of the district of Three Rivers and elsewhere were sent by the
bishops to spend two or three weeks in doing penances for having bastards by
their nieces, their housekeepers, or their fair penitents. Even not long before
this conversation with our director, the curate of St. Francois, the Rev. Mr.
Amiot, had in the very same week two children by two of his fair penitents,
both of whom were sisters. One of those girls gave birth to her child at the
parsonage the very night on which the bishop was on his episcopal visit to that
parish. These public and undeniable facts were not much in harmony with those
beautiful theories of our venerable director concerning the rays of the sun,
which "remained pure and undefiled even when warming and vivifying the mud
of our planet." The facts had frequently occurred to my mind while Mr.
Leprohon was speaking, and I was tempted more than once to ask him respectfully
if he really thought these "shining rays," the priests, had thus come
into the mire, and would then return, like the rays of the sun, without taking
back with them something of the mire in which they had been so strangely
wallowing. But my respect for Mr. Leprohon sealed my lips.
When I returned to my room I fell on my knees to ask God to pardon me for
having, for the moment, thought otherwise than the popes and theologians of
Rome. I again felt angry with myself for having dared, for a single moment, to
have arrayed my poor little and imperceptible grain of sand drop of water and
personal and contemptible understanding against that sublime mountain of
strength, that vast ocean of learning, and that immensely divine wisdom of the
popes!
But, alas! I was not yet aware that when Jesus in His mercy sends into a
perishing soul a single ray of His grace, that there is more light and wisdom
in that soul than in all the popes and their theologians!
I was then taught what the real foundation of the Church of Rome is, and
sincerely believed that to think for myself was a damnable impiety that to look
and see with my own eyes, and understand with my own mind, was an unpardonable
sin. To be saved I had to believe, not what I considered to be the truth, but
what the popes told me to be the truth. I had to look and see every object of
faith, just as every true Roman Catholic of today has to look and see the same,
through the Pope's eyes or those of his theologians.
However absurd and impious this belief may be, yet it was mine, and it is also
the belief of every true member of the Church of Rome today. The glorious light
and grace of God could not possibly flow directly from Him to me; they had to
pass through the Pope and his Church, which were my only mountain of strength
and only ocean of light. It was, then, my firm belief that there was an
impassable abyss between myself and God, and that the Pope and his Church were
the only bridge by which I could have communication with Him. That stupendously
high and most sublime mountain, the Pope, was between myself and God: and all
that was allowed my poor soul was to raise itself and travel with great
difficulty till it attained the foot of that holy mountain, the Pope, and,
prostrating itself there in the dust, ask him to let me know what my yet
distant God would have me to do. The promises of mercy, truth, light, and life
were all vested in this great mountain, the Pope, from whom alone they could
descend upon my poor soul!
Darkness, ignorance, uncertainty, and eternal loss were my lot, the very moment
I ceased worshiping at the feet of the Pope! The God of Heaven was not my God;
He was only the God of the Pope! The Saviour of the world was not my Saviour;
He was only the Pope's. Therefore it was through the Pope only that I could
receive Christ as my Saviour, and to the Pope alone had I to go to know the
way, the truth, and the life of my soul!
God alone knows what a dark and terrible night I passed after this meeting! I
had again to smother my conscience, dismantle my reason, and bring them all
under the turpitudes of the theologies of Rome, which are so well calculated to
keep the world fettered in ignorance and superstition.
But God saw the tears with which I bedewed my pillow that night. He heard the
cry of my agonizing soul, and in His infinite love and mercy determined to come
to my rescue, and save me. If He saw fit to leave me many years more in the
slavery of Egypt, it was that I might better know the plagues of that land of
darkness, and the iron chains which are there prepared for poor lost souls.
When the hour of my deliverance came, the Lord took me by the hand and helped
me to cross the Red Sea. He brought me to the Land of Promise a land of peace,
life, and joy which passeth all understanding.