Page:Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk (Truslove & Bray).djvu/9



Y parents were both from Scotland, but had been resident in Lower Canada some time before their marriage, which took place in Montreal, and in that city I spent most of my life. I was born at St. John's, where they lived for a short time. My father was an officer under the British Government, and my mother has enjoyed a pension on that account ever since his death.

According to my earliest recollections, he was attentive to his family, and often repeated to us a passage from the Bible which often occurred to me in after life. I may probably have been taught by him; but after his death I do not recollect to have received any instruction at home, and was not even brought up to read the Scriptures; my mother although nominally a Protestant, did not pay attention to her children. She was inclined to think well of the Catholics, and often attended their churches. To my want of religious instruction at home, and my ignorance of God and my duty, I can trace my introduction to convents, and the scenes I now describe.

When about six or seven years of age, I went to school to a Mr. Workman, a Protestant, who