Page:Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk (Truslove & Bray).djvu/35

33 nor mortify our feelings too far; this was to be done by opposing them, and acting contrary to them; and what she proposed was, therefore, pleasing in the sight of God. I now felt how foolish I had been to place myself in their power.

From what she said, I could draw no other conclusions but that I was required to act like the most abandoned of beings, and that my future associates were habitually guilty of the most heinous and detestable crimes, When I repeated my expressions of surprise and horror, she told me that such feelings were very common at first, and that many other nuns had expressed themselves as I did, who had long since changed their minds. She even said, on her entrance into the nunnery, she had felt like me.

Doubts, she declared, were among our greatest enemies. They would lead us to question every point of duty, and induce us to waver at every step. They arose only from remaining imperfection, and were always evidences of sin. Our only way was to dismiss them immediately, repent and confess them. They were deadly sins, and would condem us to hell, if we should die without confessing them. Priests, she insisted, could not sin. It was a thing impossible. Every thing that they did, and wished was right. She hoped I would see the reasonableness and duty of the oaths I was then about to take, and be faithful to them.

She gave me other information, which excited feelings in me, scarcely less dreadful. Infants were sometimes born in the Convent, but they were always baptised, and immediately strangled! This secured their everlasting happiness; for the baptism purifies them from all sinfulness, and being sent out of the world before they had time to do anything wrong, they were at once admitted into heaven. How happy she exclaimed, are those who secure immortal happiness to such little beings! Their