University of Virginia Library

Chapter XLII.

NOVICIATE IN THE MONASTERY OF THE OBLATES OF MARY IMMACULATE
OF LONGUEUIL—SOME OF THE THOUSAND ACTS
OF FOLLY AND IDOLATRY WHICH FORM THE LIFE OF A MONK
—THE DEPLORABLE FALL OF ONE OF THE FATHERS—FALL OF
THE GRAND VICAR QUIBLIER—SICK IN THE HOTEL DIEU OF
MONTREAL—SISTER URTUBISE, WHAT SHE SAYS OF MARIA
MONK—THE TWO MISSIONARIES TO THE LUMBER MEN—FALL
AND PUNISHMENT OF A FATHER OBLATE—WHAT ONE OF
THE BEST FATHER OBLATES THINKS OF THE MONKS AND
THE MONASTERY:

ON the first Sabbath of November, 1846, after a retreat of
eight days, I fell on my knees, and asked as a favor, to be
received as a novice of the religious order of the Oblates of
Mary Immaculate of Longueuil, whose object is to preach retreats
(revivals) among the people. No child of the Church
of Rome ever enrolled himself with more earnestness and sincerity
under the mysterious banners of her monastic armies, than
I did, that day. It is impossible to entertain more exalted views
of the beauty and holiness of the monastic life, than I had. To
live among the holy men who had made the solemn vows of
poverty, obedience and charity, seemed to me the greatest and
the most blessed privilege which my God could grant on
earth.

Within the walls of the peaceful monastery of Longueuil,
among those holy men who had, long since, put an impassable
barrier between themselves and that corrupted world, from the
snares of which I was just escaping, my conviction was that I
should see nothing but actions of the most exalted piety; and
that the deadly weapons of the enemy could not pierce those
walls protected by the Immaculate Mother of God!

The frightful storms which had covered with wrecks the

roaring sea, where I had so often nearly perished, could not
trouble the calm waters of the port where my bark had just
entered. Every one of the members of the community was to
be like an angel of charity, humility, modesty, whose example
was to guide my steps in the ways of God. My superior appeared
to be less a superior than a father, whose protecting care,
by day and night, would be a shield over me. Noah, in the ark,
safe from the raging waves which were destroying the world,
did not feel more grateful to God, than I was, when once in this
holy solitude. The vow of perfect poverty was to save me, for
ever, from the cares of the world. Having, hereafter, no right
to possess a cent, the world would become to me a paradise,
where food, clothing, and lodging would come without anxiety
or care. My father superior would supply all these things,
without any other condition on my part, than to love, and obey
a man of God whose whole life was to be spent in guiding my
steps in the ways of the most exalted evangelical virtues. Had
not that father himself made a solemn vow to renounce not only
all the honors and dignities of the church, that his whole mind
and heart might be devoted to my holiness on earth, and my salvation
in Heaven?

How easy to secure that salvation now! I had only to look
to that father on earth, and obey him as my Father in Heaven.
Yes! The will of that father, was to be, for me, the will of my
God. Though I might err in obeying him, my errors would
not be laid to my charge. To save my soul, I should have only
to be like a corpse, or a stick in the hands of my father superior.
Without any anxiety or any responsibility whatever of my own,
I was to be led to heaven as a new-born child in the arms of
his loving mother without any fear, thoughts or anxiety of his
own.

With the Christian poet I could have sung:

But how short were to be these fine dreams of my poor deluded
mind! When on my knees, father Guigues handed me,

with great solemnity, the Latin books of the rules of that monastic
order, which is their real gospel, warning me that it was a
secret book, that there were things in it that I ought not to reveal
to any one; and he made me solemnly promise that I would never
show it to any one outside of the order.

When alone, the next morning, in my cell, I thanked God
and the Virgin Mary for the favors of the last day, and the
thought came involuntarily to my mind:

"Have you not, a thousand times, heard and said that the
Holy Church of Rome absolutely condemns and anathematizes
secret societies. And, do you not, to-day, belong to a secret
society? How can you reconcile the solemn promise of secrecy
you made last night, with the anathemas hurled by all your
popes against secret societies?" After having, in vain, tried, in
my mind, to reconcile those two things, I happily remembered
that I was a corpse, that I had forever given up my private
judgment—that my only business, now, was to obey. "Does a
corpse argue against those who turn it from side to side? Is it
not in perfect peace, whatever may be the usage to which it is
exposed, or to whatever place it is dragged? Shall I lose the
rich crown which is before me, at my first step in the way of
perfection?"

I bade my rebellious intelligence to be still, my private judgment
to be mute, and, to distract my mind from this first temptation,
I read that book of rules with the utmost attention. I had
not gone through it all, before I understood why it was kept
from the eyes of the curates and other secular priests. To my
unspeakable amazement, I found that, from the beginning to the
end, it speaks with the most profound contempt for them all. I
said to myself: "What would be the indignation of the curates,
if they should suspect that these strangers from France have
such a bad opinion of them all! Would the good Canadian
curates receive them as angels from heaven, and raise them so
high in the esteem of the people, if they knew that the first
thing an oblate has to learn, is that the secular priest is, to-day,
steeped in immorality, ignorance, worldliness, laziness, gluttony,
etc.; that he is the disgrace of the church, which would speedily

be destroyed, was she not providentially sustained, and kept in
the ways of God, by the holy monastic men whom she nurses as
her only hope? Clear as the light of the sun on a bright day,
the whole fabric of the order of the oblates presented itself to
my mind, as the most perfect system of Pharisaism the world
had ever seen.

The oblate who studies his book of rules, his only gospel,
must have his mind filled with the idea of his superior holiness,
not only over the poor sinful, secular priest, but over everyone
else. The oblate alone is Christian, holy and saved; the rest of
the world is lost! The oblate alone is the salt of the earth, the
light of the world!

I said to myself: "Is it to attain this pharisaical perfection,
that I have left my beautiful and dear parish of Kamouraska,
and given up the honorable position which my God had given me
im my country!"

However, after some time spent in these sad and despondent
reflections, I again felt angry with myself; I quickly directed
my mind to the frightful, unsuspected and numberless scandals
I had known in almost every parish I had visited. I remembered
the drunkenness of that curate, the impurities of this, the
ignorance of another, the worldliness and absolute want of faith
of others, and concluded that, after all, the oblates were not far
from the truth in their bad opinions of the secular clergy. I
ended my sad reflections by saying to myself: "After all, if the
oblates live a life of holiness, as I expect to find here, is it a crime
that they should see, feel and express among themselves, the
difference which exists between a regular and a secular clergy?
Am I come here to judge and condemn these holy men? No!
I came here to save myself by the practice of the most heroic
Christian virtues, the first of which, is that I should absolutely
and forever give up my private judgment—consider myself as a
corpse in the hand of my superior."

With all the fervor of my soul, I prayed to God and to the
Virgin Mary, day and night, that week, that I might attain that
supreme state of perfection, when I would have no will, no
judgment of my own. The days of that first week passed very

quickly, spent in prayer, reading and meditation of the Scriptures,
studies of ecclesiastical history and ascetical books, from
half-past five in the morning till half-past nine at night. The
meals were taken at the regular hours of seven, twelve and six
o'clock, during which, with rare exceptions, silence was kept, and
pious books were read. The quality of the food was good; but,
at first, before they got a female cook to preside over the kitchen,
everything was so unclean, that I had to shut my eyes at meals,
not to see what I was eating. I should have complained, had
not my lips been sealed by that strange monastic vow of perfection
that every religious man is a corpse! What does a corpse
care about the cleanliness or uncleanliness of what is put into its
mouth? The third day, having drank at breakfast a glass of
milk which was literally mixed with the dung of the cow, my
stomach rebelled; a circumstance which I regretted exceedingly,
attributing it to my want of monastic perfection. I envied the
high state of holiness of the other fathers, who had so perfectly
attained to the sublime perfection of submission that they could
drink that impure milk, just as if it had been clean.

Everything went on well the first week, with the exception
of a dreadful scare I had, at the dinner of the first Friday. Just
after eating soup, when listening with the greatest attention to
the reading of the life of a saint, I suddenly felt as if the devil
had taken hold of my feet; I threw down my knife and fork,
and I cried, at the top of my voice, "My God! My God! what
is there?" and as quick as lightning, I jumped on my chair to
save myself from Satan's grasp. My cries were soon followed
by an inexpressible burst of convulsive laughter from everyone.

"But what does that mean? Who has taken hold of my
feet?" I asked.

Father Guigues tried to explain the matter to me, but it took
him a considerable time. When he began to speak, an irrepressible
burst of laughter prevented his saying a word. The fits
of laughter became still more uncontrollable, on account of the
seriousness with which I was repeatedly asking them who could
have taken hold of my feet! At last, some one said, "It is Father
Lagier who wanted to kiss your feet!" At the same time.

Father Lagier, walking on his hands and knees, his face covered
with sweat, dust and dirt, was crawling out from under the table,
literally rolling on the floor, in such an uncontrollable fit of
laughter, that he was unable to stand on his feet.

Of course, when I understood that no devil had tried to drag
me by the feet, but that it was simply one of the father oblates,
who, to go through one of the common practices of humility in
that monastery, had crawled under the table, to take hold of the
feet of everyone and kiss them, I joined with the rest of the community,
and laughed to my heart's content.

Not many days after this, we were going, after tea, from the
dining-room to the chapel, to pass five or ten minutes in adoration
of the wafer-god; we had two doors to cross, and it was
pretty dark. Being the last who had entered the monastery, I
had to walk first, the other monks following me; we were reciting,
with a loud voice, the Latin Psalm: "Misere mihi
Deus." We were all marching pretty fast, when, suddenly, my
feet met a large, though unseen object, and down I fell, and
rolled on the floor; my next companion did the same, and rolled
over me, and so did five or six others, who, in the dark had also
struck their feet on that object. In a moment, we were five or
six "Holy Fathers" rolling on each other on the floor, unable to
rise up, splitting our sides with convulsive laughter. Father
Brunette, in one of his fits of humility, had left the table a little
before the rest, with the permission of the Superior, to lay himself
flat on the floor, across the door. Not suspecting it, and
unable to see anything, from the want of sufficient light, I had
entangled my feet on that living corpse, as also the rest of those
who were walking too close behind me to stop, before tumbling
over one another.

No words can describe my feelings of shame when I saw,
almost every day, some performance of this kind going on, under
the name of Christian humility. In vain, I tried to silence the
voice of my intelligence, which was crying to me, day and night,
that this was a mere diabolical caricature of the humility of
Christ. Striving to silence my untamed reason by telling it
that it had no right to speak and argue and criticise, within the

FALL OF THE "HOLY FATHERS."

p. 458

holy walls of the monastery. It, nevertheless, spoke louder, day
after day, telling me that such acts of humility were a mockery.
In vain, I said to myself, "Chiniquy, thou art not come here to
philosophize on this and that, but to sanctify thyself by becoming
like a corpse, which has no preconceived ideas, no acquired store
of knowledge, no rule of common sense to guide you! Poor,
wretched, sinful Chiniquy, thou art here to save thyself by admiring
every idea of the holy rules of your superiors, and to
obey every word of their lips!"

I felt angry against myself, and unspeakably sad, when, after
whole weeks and months of efforts, not only to silence the voice
of my reason, but to kill it, it had more life than ever, and was
more and more loudly protesting against the unmanly, unchristian
and ridiculous daily usages and rules of the monastery. I
envied the humble piety of the other good Fathers, who were
apparently so happy, having conquered themselves so completely
as to destroy that haughty reason which was constantly rebelling
in me.

Twice, every week, I went to reveal to my guide and confessor,
Father Allard, the master of novices, my interior struggles;
my constant, though vain efforts to subdue my rebellious
reason. He always gladdened me with the promise that, sooner
or later, I should have that interior perfect peace which is promised
to the humble monk, when he has attained the supreme
monastic perfection of considering himself as a corpse, as regards
the rules and will of his superiors. My sincere and constant
efforts to reconcile myself to the rules of the monastery were, however,
soon to receive a new and rude check. I had read in the
book of rules, that a true monk must closely watch those who
live with him, and secretly report to his superior the defects and
sins which he detects in them. The first time I read that strange
rule, my mind was so taken up by other things, that I did not pay
much attention to it. But the second time, I studied that clause,
the blush came to my face, and in spite of myself, I said: "Is
it possible that we are a band of spies?" I was not long in seeing
the disastrous effects of this most degrading and immoral rule.
One of the fathers, for whom I had a particular affection, for his

many good qualities, and who had, many times, given me the
sincere proof of his friendship, said to me one day: "For God's
sake, my dear Father Chiniquy, tell me if it is you who denounced
me to the Superior, for having said that the conduct of
Father Guigues toward me was uncharitable?" "No! my dear
friend," I answered, "I never said such a thing against you, for
two reasons: The first is, that you have never said a word in my
presence which could give me the idea that you had such an
opinion of our good Father Superior; the second reason is, that,
though you might have told me anything of that kind, I would
prefer to have my tongue cut and eaten by dogs, than to be a
spy, and denounce you!"

"I am glad to know that," he rejoined, "for I was told by
some of the fathers that you were the one who had reported me
to the superior as guilty, though I am innocent of that offense,
but I could not believe it." He added, with tears: "I regret
having left my parish to be an oblate, on account of that abominable
law which we are sworn to fulfill. That law makes a real
hell of this monastery, and, I suppose, of all the monastic orders,
for I think it is a general law with all the religious houses.
When you have passed more time here, you will see that the law
of detection puts an insurmountable wall between us all; it destroys
every spring of Christian and social happiness."

"I understand perfectly well what you say," I answered
him; "the last time I was alone with father superior, he asked
me why I had said that the present Pope was an old fool; he
persisted in telling me that I must have said it, `for,' he added,
`one of our most reliable fathers has assured me you said it.'
`Well, my dear father superior,' I answered him, `that reliable
father has told you a big lie; I never said such a thing, for the
good reason that I sincerely think that our present Pope is one
of the wisest that ever ruled the church.' " I added: "Now I
understand why there is somuch unpleasantness in our mutual intercourse,
during the hours we are allowed to talk. I see that
nobody dares to speak his mind on any grave subject. The conversations
are colorless and without life."

"That is just the reason," answered my friend. "When some

of the fathers, like you and me, would prefer to be hung rather
than become spies, the great majority of them, particularly
among the French priests recently imported from France, will
not hear ten words from your lips on any subject, without finding
an opportunity of reporting eight of them as unbecoming
and unchristian, to the superiors. I do not say that it is always
through malice that they give such false reports: it is more
through want of judgment. They are very narrow-minded;
they do not understand the half of what they hear in its true
sense: and they give their false impressions to the superiors, who,
unfortunately, encourage that system of spying, as the best way
of transforming every one of us into corpses. As we are never
confronted with our false accusers, we can never know them,
and we lose confidence in each other; thus it is that the sweetest
and holiest springs of true Christian love are forever dried up.
It is on this spying system, which is the curse and the hell of our
monastic houses, that a celebrated French wtiter, who had been
a monk himself, wrote of all the monks:

"Ils rentrent dans leurs monasteres sans se connaitre; ils y
vivent sains s'aimer et ils se separent sans se regretter" (monks
enter the monastery without knowing each other. They live
there, without loving each other, and they depart from each
other without any regret).

However, though I sincerely deplored that there was such a
law of espoinage among us, I tried to persuade myself that it
was like the dark spots of the sun which do not diminish its
beauty, its grandeur and its innumerable blessings. The society
of the oblates was still to me the blessed ark where I should find
a sure shelter against the storms which were desolating the rest
of the world.

Not long after my reception as a novice, the providence of
God put before my eyes one of those terrible wrecks which
would make the strongest of us tremble. Suddenly, at the hour
of breakfast, the superior of the Seminary of St. Sulpice, and
grand vicar of the Diocese of Montreal, the Rev. Mr. Quibiler,
knocked at our door, to rest an hour and breakfast with us, when
on his way to France.

This unfortunate priest, who was among the best orators and
the best looking men, Montreal had ever seen, had lived such a
profligate life with his penitent nuns and ladies of Montreal, that
a cry of indignation from the whole people had forced Bishop
Bourget to send him back to France. Our father superior took
the opportunity of the fall of that talented priest, to make us
bless God for having gathered us behind the walls of our monastery,
where the efforts of the enemy were powerless. But alas!
we were soon to know, at our own expense, that the heart of
man is weak and deceitful everywhere.

It was not long after the public fall of the grand vicar of
Montreal, when a fine-looking widow was engaged to preside
over our kitchen. She was more than forty years old, and had
very good manners. Unfortunately, she had not been four
months in the monastery, when she fell in love with her father
confessor, one of the most pious of the French father oblates.
The modern Adam was not stronger than the old one against
the charms of the new Eve. Both were found, in an evil hour,
forgetting one of the holy laws of God. The guilty priest was
punished and the weak woman dismissed. But an unspeakable
shame remained upon us all! I would have preferred to have
my sentence of death, than the news of such a fall inside the
walls of that house where I had so foolishly believed that Satan
could not lay his snares. From that day, it was the will of God
that the strange and beautiful illusions which had brought me
to that monastery, should fade away one after the other, like the
white mist which conceals the bright rays of the morning sun.
The oblates began to appear to me pretty much like other men.
Till then, I had looked at them with my eyes shut, and I had
seen nothing but the glittering colors with which my imagination
was painting them. From that day, I studied them with my
eyes opened, and I saw them just as they were.

In the spring of 1847, having a severe indisposition, the doctor
ordered me to go to the Hotel Dieu of Montreal, which was,
then, near the splendid St. Mary's Church. I made there, for
the first time, the acquaintance of a venerable old nun, who was
very talkative. She was one of the superiors of the house; her

family name was Urtubise. Her mind was still full of indignation
at the bad conduct of two father oblates, who, under the
pretext of sickness, had lately come to her monastery to seduce
the young nuns who were serving them. She told me how she
had turned them out ignominously, forbidding them ever to
come again, under any pretext, into the hospital. She was young,
when Bishop Lartigue, being driven away from the Sulpician
Seminary of Montreal, in 1824, had taken refuge, with his
secretary, the Rev. Ignace Bourget, into the modest walls of
that nunnery. She told me how the nuns had soon to repent
having received that bishop with his secretary and other
priests.

"It was nearly the ruin of our community. The intercourse
of the priests with a certain number of the nuns," she said:
"was the cause of so much disorder and scandal, that I was deputed
with some other nuns, to the bishop to respectfully request
him not to prolong his stay in our nunnery. I told him, in my
name, and in the name of many others, that if he would not comply
with our legitimate request, we should instantly leave the
house, go back to our families and get married, that it was better
to be honestly married than to continue to live as the priests,
even our father confessors, wanted us to do."

After she had given me several other spicy stories of those
interesting distant days, I asked her if she had known Maria
Monk, when she was in their house, and what she thought of
her book "Awful Disclosures?" "I have known her well,"
she said. "She spent six months with us. I have read her
book, which was given me, that I might refute it. But after
reading it, I refused to have anything to do with that deplorable
exposure. There are surely some inventions and suppositions in
that book. But there is a sufficient amount of truth to cause all
our nunneries to be pulled down by the people, if only the half
of them were known to the public?"

She then said to me: "For God's sake, do not reveal these
things to the world, till the last one of us is dead, if God spares
you." She then covered her face with her hands, burst into
tears, and left the room.

I remained horrified. Her words fell upon me as a thunderbolt.
I regretted having heard them, though I was determined
to respect her request not to reveal the terrible secret she had
entrusted to me. My God knows that I never repeated a word
of it till now. But I think it is my duty to reveal to my country
and the whole world the truth, on that grave subject, as it was
given me by a most respectable and unimpeachable eyewitness.

The terrible secrets which sister Urtubise had revealed to me
rendered my stay in the Hotel Dieu as unpleasant as it had been
agreeable at first. Though not quite recovered, I left, the same
day, for Longueuil, where I entered the monastery with a heavy
heart. The day before, two of the fathers had come back from
a two or three months' evangelical excursion among the lumber
men, who were cutting wood in the forests, along the Ottawa
River and its tributaries, from one to three hundred miles northwest
of Montreal. I was glad to hear of their arrival. I hoped
that the interesting history of their evangelical excursions, narrow
escapes from the bears and the wolves of the forests; their hearty
receptions by the honest and sturdy lumber men, which the superior
had requested me, some weeks before, to write, would
cause a happy diversion from the deplorable things I had recently
learned. But only one of those fathers could be seen, and
his conversation was anything but interesting and pleasant.
There was evidently a dark cloud around him. And the other
oblate, his companion, where was he? The very day of his arrival,
he had been ordered to keep his room, and make a retreat
of ten days, during which time he was forbidden to speak to any
one.

I inquired from a devoted friend among the old oblates the
reason of such a strange thing. After promising never to reveal
to the superiors the sad secret he trusted me with, he said:
"Poor father D— has seduced one of his fair penitents, on
the way. She was a married woman, the lady of the house
where our missionaries used to receive the most cordial hospitality.
The husband having discovered the infidelity of his wife,
came very near killing her; he ignominously turned out the two

fathers, and wrote a terrible letter to the superior. The companion
of the guilty father, denounced him and confessed everything
to the superior, who has seen that the letter of the enraged
husband was only giving too true and correct version of the
whole unfortunate and shameful occurrence. Now, the poor
weak father, for his penance, is condemned to ten days of seclusion
from the rest of the community. He must pass that whole
time in prayer, fasting, and acts of humiliation, dictated by the
superior."

"Do these deplorable facts occur very often among the father
oblates?" I asked.

My friend raised his eyes, filled with tears, to Heaven, and
with a deep sigh, he answered: "Dear Father Chiniquy, would
to God that I might be able to tell you that it is the first crime
of that nature committed by an oblate. But alas! you know, by
what has occurred with our female cook, not long ago, that it is
not the first time that some of our fathers have brought disgrace
upon us all. And you know also the abominable life of Father
Telmont with the two nuns at Ottawa!"

"If it be so," I replied, "where is the spiritual advantage of
the regular clergy over the secular?"

"The only advantage I see," answered my friend, "is that
the regular clergy gives himself with more impunity to every
kind of debauch and licentiousness than the secular. The monks
being concealed from the eyes of the public, inside the walls of
their monastery, where nobody, or at least very few people have
any access, are more easily conquered by the devil, and more
firmly kept in his chains, than the secular priests. The sharp
eyes of the public, and the daily intercourse the secular priests
have with their relations and parishioners, form a powerful and
salutary restraint upon the bad inclinations of our depraved nature.
In the monastery, there is no restraint except the childish
and ridiculous punishment of retreats, kissing of the floor, or of
the feet, the prostration of the ground as father Brunet did, a
few days after your coming among us.

"There is surely more hypocrisy and selfishness among the
regular than the secular clergy. That great social organization

which forms the human family, is a divine work. Yes! those
great social organizations which are called the city, the township,
the country, the parish, and the household, where every
one is called to work in the light of day, is a divine organization,
and makes society as strong, pure and holy as it can be.

"I confess that there are also terrible temptations, and deplorable
falls there, but the temptations are not so unconquerable, and
the falls not so irreparable, as in these dark recesses and unhealthy
prisons raised by Satan only for the birds of night
called monasteries or nunneries.

"The priest and the woman who fall in the midst of a well-organized
Christian society, break the hearts of the beloved
mother, cover with shame a venerable father, cause the tears of
cherished sisters and brothers to flow, pierce, with a barbed arrow
the hearts of thousands of friends; they forever lose their
honor and good name. These considerations are so many providential,
I dare say divine shields, to protect the sons and daughters
of Eve against their own frailty. The secular priest and the
woman shrink before throwing themselves into such a bottomless
abyss of shame, misery and regret. But behind the thick
and dark walls of the monastery, or the nunnery, what has the
fallen monk or nun to fear? Nobody will hear-of it, no bad
consequences worth mentioning will follow, except a few days
of retreat, some insignificant, childish, ridiculous penances, which
the most devoted in the monastery are practicing almost every
day.

"As you ask me, in earnest, what are the advantages of a
monastic life over a secular, in a moral and social point of view,
I will answer you: In the monastery, man as the image of God
forgets his divine origin, loses his dignity; and as a Christian, he
loses the most holy weapons Christ has given to his disciples to
fight the battle of life. He, at once and forever, loses that law
of self-respect, and respect for others, which is one of the most
powerful and legitimate barriers against vice. Yes! That great
and divine law of self-respect, which God himself has implanted
in the heart of every man and woman who live in a Christian
society, is completely destroyed in the monastery and nunnery.

The foundation of perfection in the monk and the nun is that they
must consider themselves as corpses. Do you not see that this
principle strikes at the root of all that God has made good, grand
and holy in man? Does it not sweep away every idea of holiness,
purity, greatness! every principle of life which the Gospel of
Christ had for its mission to reveal to the fallen children of Adam?

"What self-respect can we expect from a corpse? and what
respect can a corpse feel for the other corpses which surround
it? Thus it is that the very idea of monastic perfection carries
with it the destruction of all that is good, pure, holy and spiritual
in the religion of the gospel. It destroys the very idea of life,
to put death into its place.

"It is for that reason that if you study the true history, not
the lying history, of monachism, you will find the details of a
corruption impossible, anywhere else, not even among the lowest
houses of prostitution. Read the Memoirs of Scipio de Ricci,
one of the most pious and intelligent bishops our Church has
ever had, and you will see that the monks and the nuns of Italy
lead the very life of the brutes in the fields. Yes! read the terrible
revelations of what is going on among those unfortunate
men and women, whom the iron hand of monachism keeps tied
in their dark dungeons, you will hear from the very lips of the
nuns that the monks are more free with them than the husbands
are with their legitimate wives; you will see that every one of
those monastic institutions is a new Sodom?

"The monastic axiom, that the highest point of perfection is
attained only when you consider yourself a corpse in the hand
of your superior, is anti-social and anti-Christian; it is simply
diabolical. It transforms into a vile machine that man whom
God had created in his likeness, and made forever free. It degrades
below the brute that man whom Christ, by his death,
has raised to the dignity of a child of God, and inheritor of an
eternal kingdom in Heaven. Everything is mechanical, material,
false, in the life of a monk and a nun. Even the best virtues are
deceptions and lies. The monks and the nuns being perfect
only when they have renounced their own free will and intelligence,
to become corpses, can have neither virtues nor vices.

Their best actions are mechanical. Their acts of humility
are to crawl under the table and kiss the feet of each other, or
to make a cross on a dirty floor with the tongue, or lie down in
the dust to let the rest of the monks or the nuns pass over them.
Have you not remarked how these so-called monks speak with
the utmost contempt of the rest of the world? One must have
opportunities as I have had of seeing the profound hatred which
exists among all monastic orders against each other. How the
Dominicans have always hated the Franciscans, and how they
both hate the Jesuits, who pay them back in the same coin.
What a strong and merciless hatred divides the oblates, to whom
we belong, from the Jesuits! The Jesuits never lose an opportunity
of showing us their supreme contempt! You are aware
that, on account of those bad feelings, it is absolutely forbidden
to an oblate to confess to a Jesuit, as we know it is forbidden to
the Jesuits to confess to an oblate, or to any other priest.

"I need not tell you, for you know that their vow of poverty
is a mask to help them to become rich with more rapidity than
the rest of the world. Is it not under the mask of that vow that
the monks of England, Scotland, France and Italy became the
masters of the richest lands of those countries, which the nations
were forced, by bloody revolutions, to wrench from their grasp?

"I have seen much more of the world than you. When a
young priest, I was the chaplain, confessor and intimate friend of
the Duchesse De Berry, the mother of Henry V., now the only
legitimate King of France. When, in the midst of those great
and rich princes and nobles of France, I never saw such a love
of money, of honor, of vain glory, as I have seen among the
monks since I have become one of them. When the Duchess
De Berry finished her providential work in France, after making
the false step which ruined her, I threw myself into the religious
order of the Chartreux. I have lived several years in their
palatial monastery of Rome; have cultivated and enjoyed their
sweet fruits in their magnificent gardens; but I was not there
long, without seeing the fatal error I had committed in becoming
a monk. During the many years I resided in that spledid mansion,
where laziness, stupidity, filthiness, gluttony, superstition,

tediousness, ignorance, pride and unmentionable immoralities,
with very few exceptional cases, reigned supreme. I had every
opportunity to know what was going on in their midst. Life
soon became an unbearable burden, but for the hope I had of
breaking my fetters. At last I found out that the best, if not the
only way of doing this, was to declare to the Pope that I wanted
to go and preach the gospel to the savages of America, which
was and is still true.

"I made my declaration, and by the Pope's permission, the
doors of my gaol were opened, with the condition that I should
join the order of the Oblates Immaculate, in connection with
which I should evangelize the savages of the Rocky Mountains.

"I have found among the monks of Canada, the very same
things I have seen among those of France and Italy. With very
few exceptions, they are all corpses, absolutely dead to every
sentiment of true honesty and real Christianity; they are putrid
carcasses, which have lost the dignity of manhood.

"My dear Father Chiniquy," he added, "I trust you as I
trust myself, when I tell you for your own good, a secret which
is known to God alone. When I am on the Rocky Mountains,
I will raise myself up, as the eagles of those vast countries, and
I shall go up to the regions of liberty, light and life; I will cease
being a corpse, to become what my God has made me—a free
and intelligent man. I will cease to be a corpse, in order to become
one of the redeemed of Christ, who serve God in spirit
and in truth.

"Christ is the light of the world; monachism is its night!
Christ is the strength, the glory, the life of man; monachism is
its decay, shame and death! Christ died to make us free; the
monastery is built up to make slaves of us! Christ died that we
might be raised to the dignity of children of God; monachism is
established to bring us down much below the living brutes, for
it transforms us into corpses! Christ is the highest conception
of humanity; monachism is its lowest.

"Yes, yes, I hope my God will soon give me the favor I have
asked so long. When I shall be on the top of the Rocky
Mountains, I will, forever, break my fetters. I will rise from

my tomb, I will come out from among the dead, to sit at the
table of the redeemed, and eat the bread of the living children
of God."

I do regret that the remarkable monk, whose abridged views
on monachism I have here given, should have requested me
never to give his name, when he allows me to tell some of his
adventures, which will make a most interesting romance. Faithful
to his promise, he went, as an oblate, to preach to the savages
of the Rocky Mountains, and there, without noise, he slipped
out of their hands; broke his chains, to live the life of a freedman
of Christ, in the holy bonds of a Christian marriage with a
respectable American lady.

Weak and timid soldier that I was once; frightened by the
ruins spread everywhere on the battle-field, I looked around to
find a shelter against the impending danger; I thought that the
monastery of the oblates of Mary Immaculate was one of those
strong towers, built by my God, where the arrows of the enemy
could not reach me, and I threw myself into it.

But, hardly beginning to hope that I was out of danger, behind
those dark and high walls, when I saw them shaking like
a drunken man; and the voice of God passed like a hurricane
over me.

Suddenly, the high towers and walls around me fell to the
ground, and were turned into dust. Not one stone remained on
another.

And I heard a voice saying to me: "Soldier! come out and
get in the light of the sun; trust no more in the walls built by
the hand of man; they are nothing but dust. Come and fight
in the open day, under the eyes of God, protected only by the
gospel banners of Christ! Come out from behind those walls,
they are a diabolical doception, a snare, a fraud!"

I listened to the voice, and I bade adicu to the inmates of the
monastery of the oblates of Mary Immaculate.

When, on the first of October, 1847, I pressed them on
my heart for the last time, I felt the burning tears of many of
them falling on my cheeks, and my tears moistened their faces:
for they loved me, and I loved them. I had met there several

noble hearts and precious souls, worthy of a better fate. Oh! if
I could have, at the price of my life, given them the light and
liberty which my merciful God had given me! But they were
in the dark; and there was no power in me to change their
darkness into light.

The hand of God brought me back to my dear Canada, that
I might again offer it the sweat and labors, the love and life of
the least of its sons.