Page:Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk (Truslove & Bray).djvu/195

191 he stood at a distance, and looked at me with curiosity and evident fear. I asked him to sit down, and tried to make him feel at his ease, by speaking in a mild and pleasant tone. He soon became so far master of himself, as to enter into conversation.

"I understood," said he, "that she has said very hard things against the priests. How can that be true?" "I can easily convince you," said I, "that they do what they ought not, and commit crimes of the kind I complain of. You are married, I suppose?" He assented. "You confessed, I presume, on the morning of your wedding-day?" He acknowledged that he did. "Then did not the priest tell you at confession, that he had had intercourse with your intended bride, but that it was for her sanctification, and that you must never reproach her with it?"

This question instantly excited him. but he did not hesitate a moment to answer it. "Yes," replied he, "and that looks black enough." I had put the question to him, because I knew the practice to which I alluded had prevailed at St. Denis while I was there, and believed it to be universal, or at least very common in all the Catholic parishes of Canada. I thought I had reason to presume that every Catholic, married in Canada, had had such experience, and that an allusion to the conduct of the priest, in this particular, must compel any of them to admit that my declarations were far from being incredible. This was the effect on the mind of the simple mechanic, and from that moment he made no more serious questions concerning my truth and sincerity during that interview.

Further conversation ensued, in the course of which I expressed the willingness which I have often declared, to go into the convent and point out things which would confirm, to any doubting person, the truth of my heaviest accusations against the priests and nuns. At length he withdrew, and afterwards entered, saying, that he had been to the convent to make inquiries