Page:Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk (Truslove & Bray).djvu/54

Rh It may seem irreverent in me to give the account, but I do it to show how things of a solemn nature were sometimes treated by women bearing the title of saints. A Canadian novice, who spoke very broken English, one day remarked that she was performing some duty "for the God." This peculiar expression had something ridiculous to our ears: and it was soon repeated again and again, in application to various ceremonies which we had to perform. Mad Jane Ray seized upon it with avidity, and with her aid it soon took the place of a by-word in conversation, so that we were constantly reminding each other that we were doing this thing and that thing "for the God." Nor did we stop here; when the Superior called upon us to bear witness to one of her religious lies, or to fabricate the most spurious one the time would admit; we were sure to be reminded, on our way to the stranger's room, that we were doing it "for the God." And so it was when other things were mentioned — everything which belonged to our condition was spoken of in similar terms.

I have hardly detained the reader long enough to give him a just impression of the stress laid on confession. It is one of the great points to which our attention was constantly directed. We were directed to keep a strict and constant watch over our thoughts; to have continually before our minds the rules of the Convent, to remember every devotion, and tell all, even the smallest, at confession, either to the Superior or to the priest. My mind was thus kept in a continual state of activity which proved very wearisome; and it required the constant exertion of our teachers to keep us up to the practice they inculcated.

Another tale recurs to me, of those which were frequently told us, to make us feel the importance of unreserved confession.

A nun of our Convent, who had hidden some sin from her confessor, died suddenly, and without any one to confess her. Her sisters assembled to pray for the peace of her soul, when she appeared and said, that it