Page:Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk (Truslove & Bray).djvu/12

Rh unfortunate inmates secluded there.

In these three Convents there are certain apartments into which strangers can gain admittance, but others from which they are always excluded. In all, large quantities of ornaments are made by the nuns, which are exposed for sale in the Ornamental Rooms, and afford large pecuniary receipts every year, which contribute much to their income. The nuns of these Convents are devoted to the charitable object appropriated to each, the labor of making different articles known to be manufactured by them, and the religious observances, which occupy much of their time. They are regarded with much respect by the people at large; and when a novice takes the veil, she is supposed to retire from the temptations and troubles of this world into a state of holy seclusion, where, by prayer, self-mortification and good deeds, she prepares herself for heaven. Sometimes the Superior of a Convent obtains the character of working miracles: and when she dies crowds throng the Convent, who think indulgences are to be derived from bits of her clothes and other things she has possessed; and many have sent articles to be touched by her bed or chair, in which virtue is thought to remain. I used to participate in such ideas, and looked upon a nun as the happiest of women, and a Convent as the most holy, and delightful abode. Pains were taken to impress such views upon me. Some of the priests of the Seminary often visited the congregational Nunnery, and catechised and talked on religion. The Superior of the Black Nunnery also came into the school, and enlarged on the advantage we enjoyed in having such teachers, and dropped something now and then relating to her own convent, calculated to make us entertain the highest ideas of it, and make us sometimes think of the possibility of getting into it.

Among the instructions given us by the priests, some of the most pointed were directed against the Protestant Bible. They often enlarged upon the evil