CHAPTER XVII.

_LIBERTY._

I cannot but add a chapter in which I shall especially endeavour to give a word of counsel and warning to all who may in any degree be looking upon convent life, whether in the Church of England or in the Church of Rome, with a favourable eye. I may say sincerely this book has been written with this object. And if, in doing what seemed to me so bounden a duty, I have hurt the feelings of any who are mentioned in its pages, it was not with the object of doing so that I was led to speak out the truth. My prayer for them is that they may be brought out into the same liberty that I, through God’s infinite mercy, am now in the enjoyment of. I can truthfully say that in doing this I have fully counted the cost, and it _has_ already cost me no small amount of pain. I have spoken the truth, and I have endeavoured to do so in no vindictive manner, but in love. Distinctly this book has been written to warn all against making the terrible mistake in life that I made. Had I but listened to and obeyed my mother, her advice would have saved me from wasting (I can use no other word, though God will doubtless overrule this mistake for my own good, and for the good of others) the best and youngest years of my life, and have prevented me from enduring years of mental suffering and misery. But when I went astray on the path that seemed so attractive and pleasant, I was very young; I was but fifteen years of age, and like, I fear, so many young and inexperienced people, I was foolish, self-willed, and fancied that I was better able to judge for myself than others were to judge for me. And so I was led to deliver myself over to the tender mercies of High Church Fathers and Mothers. I was simply bewitched by their “fair speeches,” high professions of sanctity, and solemn assurances of the happiness belonging to the cloistered life.

When I think of such “false prophets,” I am forcibly reminded of the words we read in 2 Timothy iii. 6:

Of these are they that _creep into houses_, and take captive silly women, laden with sins, led away by divers lusts, _ever learning_ and _never_ able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

I was led by Ignatius to believe that by my action I was doing God’s will, and that by leaving my home and relations I was but obeying the command of Christ to “leave all and follow Him.” Was there ever such an absurdity as this? I was not called to go on a mission to the teeming millions living in heathen darkness, and take to them the Gospel of God’s grace; nor yet to work amongst the heathen in our own large towns; but positively to make myself a prisoner in one particular house, to be shut up where I could engage in no Christian or even philanthropic labour, and in _such_ an isolated position I was told over and over again that I could live the highest, the holiest, and the happiest life on earth, and withal, bring down to the world around me blessings and health through the merits of “holy obedience.” I was taught that I could bless, and be made a blessing to others, by “telling the beads,” “invoking the saints,” “confessing sins to man,” by “hearing mass,” and by “reciting various offices.” What incredible folly!

On looking back, I find how great was my delusion, and I do heartily trust that my experience of this folly may be the means of saving girls and boys, men and women, from wasting so much precious and God-given time, which it was my sad lot to lose. I sowed the seed of blind enthusiasm, and reaped the harvest of untold misery, and blighted hopes. All the high-flown promises (which I so greedily swallowed) of the joy, the glory, the peace, the happiness of the nun’s life, are _false_ promises and vain delusions. Certainly at one of the three convents in which I resided it was (as some of the sisters have said) “like living in a bear-garden.”

I do from the depths of my heart thank God for delivering me out of the “bear-garden,” and I pray that He will deliver others, and give them courage to “come out.”

It needs some courage to enter, but a hundred times as much to leave. I fear in many convents, humanly speaking, it is, after full profession, almost an impossibility to do so, for, as I have said, the moral bolts and bars are even more difficult to break through than the material ones; and these latter are, especially in Roman Catholic convents, not few or easily to be broken through. During all the years spent by me in nunneries I cannot look back to _one_ sister, and say I know she is happy, that she has found _true_ peace and satisfaction; but I can recollect the many who were disappointed at finding the life so utterly different from what they had been led to expect.

Alas! alas! When once we have taken up the “golden plough,” there is virtually no “looking back.” When once we have made our choice, we must abide by it. Many I know bitterly regret that they ever put their hands to this golden or, rather, this _gilded_ plough.

If nuns were only free, and not conscience-bound, they would tell the self-same, true story which I do. But alas! they dare not speak, they even scarcely dare to think for themselves. Their reason has been given up to their Superiors (do remember this), and they have no right to think anything but what their Superiors think.

It is not your place to think, but to obey.

These words were often spoken to us. And again:

A nun is always sure of doing God’s will, because her Superior’s voice is God’s voice to her, and even should I, your Superior, tell you to tell a lie (which of course I should not), you would be committing the sin of disobedience if you did not do as you were told.

I recollect well that a certain dear young sister was told to tell what she believed to be a lie. She was in great distress about it, and went to the Mother Superior we then had, telling her that she did not know what to do, as she must either commit the sin of lying or of disobedience.

When a monk or nun is under vows, such a man or a woman is but a _tool_ to be used as the owner of that tool sees fit. Individuality is sunk in the order in which such vows have been made. Practically, men and women under vows (and it matters not whether these vows are made in the established Church of England or in the alien Church of Rome) are _dead_—dead to the world, dead to father, mother, sisters, brothers and friends; above all, dead to the “still small voice” of an enlightened conscience which once had power to speak. Yes, they are _dead_ in another sense of the word, for have they not, knowingly or unknowingly, committed an act of moral suicide? They are no longer responsible beings. They have given up their souls, their bodies, their wills, their consciences and reason itself into the hands of their Superiors, who from the moment those terrible vows are taken are to them in the place of God; and whatever command the Superior gives, _that_ must they obey without question and blindly. And should one Superior give a sister over into the hands of another (as was the case with me), then that one must be obeyed with the same blind obedience. We were taught by the Superior:

If the order given is sinful, that is _my_ sin, and you are not responsible; but you would be guilty of greater sin in not obeying, because it would be the sin of disobedience, and God hates that sin more than any other, because it was the sin that brought death into the world, and it will bring death to your soul.

Such being the case, we may define a nunnery as a place where slaves drag on a weary existence day and night. Whilst the slave-owners do their own sweet wills, we, their slaves, must idolatrously bow down to them, kiss the hems of their holy garments, and obey without a murmur. Murmuring at our condition is most strictly forbidden.

Indeed, should the relatives or friends of a poor nun go to the convent and there hold converse with her, that conversation must be held only through a grating, and (in our case, at any rate) the nun must have her face closely veiled. And even then it would not be possible to lodge a complaint with one’s relative or friend, or even with one’s own mother, since another nun is usually sent to listen. Thus it is that we were often forced to appear perfectly happy, when, in truth, we were just the opposite.

I have had thus to appear when speaking to my own sister; my heart at that time was well nigh breaking. But should a nun complain, the training she has gone through would cause her to be very distressed in mind at having been unfaithful enough to bring scandal upon the so-called “religious life,” and she would feel bound to confess it at once to her Mother Superior.

I should have written this account of my experiences of convent life some two years ago, had I not then feared that by doing so I should be doing more harm than good, by exposing to the outside world what a farce and sham some who make so much profession are, to say nothing of what a farce the whole system is.

But, little by little, I have become more free from the chains which held me, and I now trust that this book will do more good than harm by saving others from being led away by the power of Satan, for I believe it to be through Satanic influence that this system exists. I sincerely hope that this book will be read in the spirit in which it is written, and that thus it will be the means of saving many parents from heart-breaking separations from their beloved children.

I would ask those who are not believers in Christianity not to use it in order to bolster themselves up in their atheistical views, or to see in it a proof of the fallacy of true religion. Although I have given up convent religion, yet I am a firm believer in God. I believe that the Lord Jesus Christ died and rose again to atone for and save His people from their sins, that the Holy Spirit can and does give to all who believe in Christ a new and a clean heart, and grace to walk in the footsteps of the Saviour.

However misguided I was when I entered in my convent life, yet I was induced to do so because I had a deep love to my Saviour, and thought I could not in a better way prove my love and increase it.

But who can be surprised at a young girl being deluded and led astray when “false prophets” arise, who _profess_ so much holiness and so great and exact a knowledge of God’s will?

Many there are, like myself, who have been misdirected and deceived by ritual, candles, flowers, incense, gorgeous vestments, genuflexions, sentimental music and sermons, and I know not what other nonsense. I was seeking Jesus. I asked for bread, but I was given a stone. For a time the excitement arising from convent life made me think I had found what I sought, but it was a vain delusion, as I found to my cost.

There are in English convents to-day many unhappy souls, groping in the dark. Are we to let them share my fate, and that of others, which may be worse? Nay, rather let us use our pens and voices to awaken and enlighten the men and women of England as to the truth.

Others have exposed conventual life as it exists in the Roman Catholic Church; but still the people of England can scarcely be alive to the fearfully rapid increase in the number of such convents,[24] or of the degrading and un-English and un-Christian nature of the life of a nun therein. It is not my lot to expose Roman Catholic convents; the discoveries I have made have been made in connection with the Church of England, which, alas, through the fearful growth of Ritualism, is becoming a recruiting ground for Rome.

My opinion may not be worth much, but I hold the strong conviction that unless Protestants make a great stir, and unless the bishops of the Church set the example, England, at no very distant period, will be Romanized.

I can point to more than two or three convents in connection with the Established Church where not only Roman Catholic books are in constant use, but where the Roman Catholic Ordinary of the Mass is used, instead of our own Protestant Communion Service; and, worse than all perhaps, I know the Mass was on several occasions celebrated by a Roman Catholic priest in a Church of England convent!!

When I came out of convent life and mixed with Christian people, I discovered that the most earnest workers were those who were in the enjoyment of peace. They were living in the sunlight of God’s love; they were, so to speak, good without knowing it, they had no time to be always thinking of themselves, but they were ever looking to God. Now, in the convent it had been far otherwise; we had been taught by man to try with all our might to be good according to set rules, and ceremonies, and methods handed down to us by Roman Catholic saints, or so-called Fathers of the Church, and to be continually examining and fingering our spiritual muscles to see how we were getting on in the spiritual life. In consequence of such a method, there was constant failure, as there ever will be under such a system.

I feel I have much to be thankful for that God should have led me to see my mistake in life. It was _His_ work, for, in spite of the treatment I received, _I_ still clung to the convent life. My motive for leaving it was mainly to get away from being misunderstood and misrepresented, and from the endurance of cruel penances. But since then my eyes have been further opened, so that I now totally disagree with the whole system, and I thank God for having so providentially taken me by the hand. He and He alone has delivered me from so many Satanic delusions, and He and He alone has made known to me the “truth as it is in Jesus,” and not in Romish rites and ceremonies. I can and do indeed rejoice in the liberty wherewith Christ has made me free; I am free to serve Him “without fear,” and I am free to let my light shine that others may learn thereby to glorify my heavenly Father.

I thank Him especially for not letting me remain in the convent any longer, wasting time and precious opportunities of doing good and helping others. And I do pray that He will ever keep me in a listening and waiting attitude of mind upon Himself, so that I may “hear what the Lord will speak: for He will speak peace unto His people, and to His saints.” And may He so speak to me that I may _never_ “turn again to folly.”

That God may use these poor efforts of mine to open the eyes of many, is the prayer of her who, with the man whose eyes the Lord once opened, can say, “Once I was blind, now I see.”

DEVOTIONAL BOOKS USED BY SISTER MARY AGNES, O.S.B.

_APPENDIX A._

“MANUAL OF DEVOTIONS TO OUR HOLY FATHER, ST. BENEDICT, ABBOT AND PATRIARCH OF THE WESTERN MONKS; TO HIS SISTER, ST. SCHOLASTICA, VIRGIN AND ABBESS; AND TO ALL SAINTS OF HIS ORDER.” (London: Catholic Publishing and Bookselling Co. Limited.)

Father Ignatius calls himself a Benedictine monk, and his nuns belong to the same order. One would have supposed that though he imitated Rome in the worship of the wafer and of the Virgin, he would still have hesitated to go the full length of Romish superstition by obliging his nuns to put their trust in such questionable characters as Gregory VII., Thomas à Becket, etc. Yet on page 185 of the above book they are required to ask Gregory VII. to pray for them, and on the following page Thomas à Becket is invoked in the same manner. Who and what these two Romish saints were, truthful English history abundantly proves.

As the title of the book shows, it is intended to foster devotion to St. Benedict, to his sister Scholastica, and to all the other canonized saints of the Benedictine Order. Now, who canonized these supposed saints? Was it not Rome?

The first part is entirely devoted to the honouring and invoking of St. Benedict. Throughout this part we frequently meet with the verse, “Pray for us, O holy Father St. Benedict.” There are also a number of litanies, in which he is called upon as being now “placed over the choirs of monks,” as “the star of the world,” as “the equal of the prophets,” as “protector of his order,” as “the scourge of devils,” as the “Abraham of the New Testament,” and is entreated with the cry, “We beseech thee to hear us.” On page 47 the following invocation occurs: “Beseeching thee (holy Father St. Benedict) to be so faithfully present to me at the hour of my death, as to oppose thyself on every side where thou shalt see the assaults of the enemy most violently raging against me, that, being defended by thy presence, I may securely escape the snares of the enemy, and arrive at the joys of heaven.”

Similar impieties occur throughout this and the other parts. Thus, in the part devoted to St. Scholastica, on page 131, we find the following collect: “Mercifully look down upon Thy family, we beseech Thee, O Lord, through the merits of Thy blessed Virgin, St. Scholastica; and as by her prayers Thou didst cause the rain to descend from heaven deign, through her supplications,” etc. A number of litanies also occur, in which she is addressed in the most gushing way, and asked to pray for those who thus address her.

Moreover, this book introduces prayers for the dead. Thus, on page 165, the versicle, “May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.”

There are many other superstitious practices contained in the book, notably the medal of St. Benedict, the wearing of which is declared on page 223 to be “a constant silent prayer to God, … that He would have regard to the merits of our holy Father, and for his sake would extend His own protection,” etc.

Sister Mary Agnes says that the whole of this book, with the exception of the part on Indulgences, was in constant use by the nuns under Father Ignatius.

Must not then monasticism be a fostering garden of superstition, since even those who claim to reject Rome resort to the same subterfuges as Rome does to fill the void that must necessarily exist in the aching hearts of all the deluded followers of monasticism?

The next book, under Appendix B, will appear, if possible, even more grossly superstitious than the former.—(EDITOR.)

_APPENDIX B._

“THE EXERCISES OF SAINT GERTRUDE, VIRGIN AND ABBESS OF THE ORDER OF ST. BENEDICT.” (London: Burns & Oates.)

In the preface a short account is given of the life of St. Gertrude, which is chiefly a legendary history, and made up of some of the most absurd and ridiculous tales.

“Once, when she was pouring out her whole heart in love to its Divine Spouse, it received the impression of the five wounds of the Divine Redeemer, and Gertrude felt them continually to the moment of her death with an ever-increasing anguish and love.”

Again, “On another occasion, on the Feast of Annunciation, the Mother of God fastened on her breast a heavenly jewel, wherein were seven precious stones.”

Again, we have another still more extraordinary miracle vouchsafed to her; for “once she received in her heart the Divine Infant, who sprang from his crib to attach himself to her.”

Must not such teaching as this be in the highest degree degrading? And must not those who can swallow such stuff be spiritually demented?

It is almost needless to point out that Saint Gertrude is said to have been devoted to the worship of the Virgin Mary. We find the following most blasphemous words on the subject: “The love of Gertrude towards Mary was in proportion to the tenderness with which the Mother of God regarded the dearest of the Spouses of her Son. Gertrude has bequeathed to us the expression of her devotion to the glorious Queen of heaven in that exquisite prayer which so expressively reveals the deep and touching character of her piety: ‘Hail, fair lily of the effulgent and ever-glorious Trinity! Hail, radiant rose of heavenly fragrance, of whom the King of heaven willed to be born, and with thy milk to be fed, feed our soul with thy Divine insinuations!’” I will only give the last prayer in the book to show how the invocation of supposed saints is inculcated, as in the other book so commonly used in monastic and conventual institutions.

“O God, who hast prepared for Thyself a dwelling-place of delights in the most pure heart of the blessed Virgin Gertrude, deign, we beseech Thee, through her merits and intercession, to wipe away all stains from our hearts, that they may become meet abodes of Thy Divine Majesty, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen!”—(EDITOR.)

_APPENDIX C._

REVIEW OF “VISITS TO THE MOST HOLY SACRAMENT AND THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY. BY ST. ALPHONSUS LIGUORI.” (Published by Burns & Oates.)

This book was sent to me by Sister Agnes, who wrote as follows when forwarding it:

“I send the book which we used daily. It was my constant friend for years; my troubles and sorrows I confided to it. The hymns with the word ‘Ignatius’ at the end are his, but not the others; the writing in the first part of the book, written in MS. on foreign note paper, is taken from St. Alphonsus Liguori, and _was approved of by Ignatius_, except the