Priest and nun

Front matter

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT n

. . *

VV

Part First. Showing How Rome Nourished And Brought Up Children

CHAPTER PA8B

I. Consecration of the Children 11

II. Why they were Rome’s Children 34

III. Beautiful Institution for the Children 55

IV. Reverend Mothers of the Children 79

V. Secret Guardians of the Children 116

VI. Confirmation of the Children 138

Part Second. Showing The Manner Of Rome’s Children

I. Nun or Not 165

II. Agnes. — The Missouri Nun. — Estelle 192

III. The White Veil 230

IV. Veil and Wreath 255

V. Reaping the Whirlwind 285

VI. The Gates of Death 311

1 * 5

CONTENTS.

Part Third. Showing How Rome’s Children Rebelled Against Her

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Grace’s Kecovery and the Results of her Sickness 329

II. Richard’s Test 356

III. A Dying Actor 383

IV. Lilly’s Flight 407

V. Lilly’s Death. — The Two Prisoners 432

Vi. Plottings. — The Cholera. — Thb Broken Snare. 454

LIST OF ILLUSTRATION s. *

PA»1

1. — PROCESSION OF GIRLS ENTERING CHURCH OF ST. JOSEPH, TO

BE CONSECRATED TO THE VIRGIN [See Page 29] Frontispiece

2. — LILLY AND HER MOTHER 24

3. — ONE PERSON IN TWO CHARACTERS: “ ANNETTE “ SISTER

CLEMENT ” SI

4. — PRIEST MURPHY BURNING “ BUNYAN ” AND “ MILTON ” 140

5. — FLIGHT OF THE MISSOURI NUN 202

6. — SCENE ON GOAT ISLAND, NIAGARA 262

* 7.— PRIEST MURPHY— CARDS— WHISKY PUNCH, ETC 305

8. — DEATH OF PAUL LUOLLI 398

9. -“ THEM IS THREE LUNYTICS— LUCKY I GOT RID OF ’EM i" 172

NOTE TO PUBLISHERS.

The Board of the Western Tract and Book Society, impressed with the fact that by the increase of Romanism in our midst, there is danger not only to the moral and spiritual in terests of the people of the United States, but also to their civil and religious liberties, have therefore purchased the plates and copyright of “Priest and Nun,” and now send it out to warn und enlighten its readers, concerning the system of Romanism, which has done so much, whrever it has had the power, to keep in ignorance, oppress and degrade its subjects.

J

Part First Showing How Rome Nourished And Brought Up

CHILDREN.

Priest and Nun.

Chapter I. Consecration Of The Children

" The cloister — where, above all other places, the deceitful heart seems to learn the art of calling evil, good, and good, evil.” — R. J. Breckinridge, D.D.

«N a bright, warm Sabbath in April three girls are to be consecrated, with others, to the Virgin, j The families to which these girls belong are by no means common people. They have wealth, social position and what is called education. They pride themselves on their * reputable birth, high breeding and descent from “good families.” They do not trace their ancestral line back to Adam, for that any poor sinner may do, and by his very sinfulness prove his paternity. The roots of their family tree take hold on the Conquest; they had once a little “de” in the family, and they speak with infinite satisfaction of Norman blood. They belong to highly respectable society — in short, to the very cr$me de la creme of American city life — and are not to be set aside ad nobodies because they become perverts to Rome.

Rome says she tolerates and loves her dear Protestant children — she longs to take and cherish them in her maternal bosom — and the history of these two families may illustrate the sincerity of her professed loving regard. A majority of these households— once unhappy heretics in Rome’s estimation — have been artfully drawn within the fold of “the only true Church/’ and, with the love and zeal common to proselytes, the works of their spiritual Mother they do. Not content with dedicating their children to the Lord, like devout Papists they would also consecrate them to the Virgin Mary.

These two families reside in two fine brick houses that face each other on one of the “ best” streets of the city.

Let us enter one of these homes. It is a wellappointed house indeed, with marble steps and portico, square hall of entrance with marble and stained glass in plenty, broad inner hall and staircase furnished in the highest style of the upholsterer’s art, and through this we will pass up to a large front room. This can be done much more easily than you could find your way through the involved relationships of the family here abiding. This front room is occupied by the two daughters of the house — two of the

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three girls introduced to us at the opening of the chapter. It is a charming apartment — the bed high overarched with canopy of crimson silk, the mirror reaching from floor to ceiling, the toilette-table perfect in its various appliances. On the toilette-table lay a box from the milliner's, holding discord all unsuspected, and on the bed are carefully displayed the shining, undisturbed folds of two dresses of white alpaca with satin pipings.

In opposite corners of this room are the duplicate emblems of this family's creed. In each, suspended by a heavy gilt cord, hangs an oval frame of choice workmanship, this frame filled with black velvet, and the velvet serving as a rich relief to the pearl crucifix fastened upon it. Beneath this framed crucifix stands a rosewood table with a top of sandal-wood mosaic ; on the table a breviary bound in scarlet, an open dish of fragrant hot-house flowers, a rosary whose beads — strange fate ! — were cut from lava flung from the fiery heart of Vesuvius, and most precious of all, a vial of water dipped from the Tiber and blessed by the Pope. The furnishings of these two corners did not differ save in the embroidery upon two small chairs and footstools before the tables. As we shall learn from the satin paper-box which came from “Mrs. Deane, Fashionable Milliner," if the corners

had differed trouble would have sprung therefrom.

The apartment is provided with two dressingrooms. A tidy lady’s maid, in waiting, has placed a chair in front of the mirror and stands behind it brush and comb in hand, ready to begin her w'ork whenever a subject shall present herself. And now, almost simultaneously, from each dressing-room walks a girl of fourteen.

They are pretty creatures, with their faces fresh from the bath, their damp hair falling over plump white necks, their slippered feet peeping from the lace, tucks and cambric of their skirts. The girl with curly, auburn hair steps the quicker and seats herself in the chair before the mirror. The brown-haired damsel shrugs her shoulders and looks about for a book. The maid hands her a dressingsacque and a small red volume, whereupon she establishes herself on a hassock and begins to study as if she had no other object in life.

“Give me my Catechism too, Lucy,” says miss in the chair ; “ I’m sure I’ve forgotten every solitary word of it. Do you know yours, Grace?”

“ Don’t bother me, Adelaide,” replies Grace, with indifference, though it would have been shorter to say “ yes” or “ no.”

Adelaide now addressed her maid: “Lucy, how many times do you suppose you have said the ‘ Hail Mary?’”

I

“Oh my, miss, a million at least; it's just tacked on to everything. As, of course, is proper.”

“ Grace, I wonder what Lilly means to wear !”

“ Oh, clothes,” said Grace, rattling over question and answer. “ This tiresome Catechism slips out oi my mind so fast.”

“ I’m sure I’ve learned it fifty times perfectly. Lucy, put on my shoes before you do Grace’s hair. Mind, Lucy, that you put our white shoes in the bag; it would be dreadful to get there without them.”

“ Not half so dreadful as not to know what we. are to do or say,” said Grace.

“Yes it would,” persisted Adelaide ; “the idea of getting up there before all the folks in the cathedral with black shoes on ! Why I wouldn’t for a kingdom ; I had rather not be consecrated. I’ll tell you what I would do. Father Murphy ’d just have to wait until Lucy ran after the shoes !”

Grace opened her eyes and the maid was horrified at this astounding assertion. Adelaide was delighted with the effect of her remarks. She tossed her wellcurled head and reiterated, “ 1 certainly would , and if he didn’t wait I’d turn heretic and join the Methodists.”

“You’ll have to confess that, Adelaide Grant.”

H Bah !” said Adelaide, ungenteelly, resigning hei

PRIEST AND NUN.

chair in favor of Grace. “I’ll confess just what i please.”

“ But you know what* the Catechism says *. If wt conceal a thing at confession we ‘ commit great sin by telling a lie to the Holy Ghost, and make 0111 confession nothing worth/”

“ Pooh, pooh, pooh !” cried Adelaide, gayly spinning about on one toe until her skirts stood out like those of a “ fate lady.” “ Why, Gracie, do you suppose the Catechism means all it says ?”

“ Of course it does,” replied Grace, sedately, submitting to have her hair curiously braided by the skillful Lucy.

Meanwhile, we are sorry to say that although it was Sabbath, and she on the eve of taking part in a religious act, our Adelaide pirouetted about the room, practicing the last new airs and graces learned from her dancing-master, and, in her present ballet costume, much to her own satisfaction.

“ For shame, Adelaide !” said the serious Grace ; * you had better be saying your prayers.”

“ Oh, they1 re all done !” cried the flippant child. “ I did them all up before I got out of bed this morning.”

“ Miss Grace always says hers devoutly at her prie - Dieu ,” said Lucy.

“ Ah, yes ; but Pm afraid Pll wear out my pri&

Dim . I would not spend another three months working one for a fortune. I made so many mistakes that Sister Cecelia was as cross as two sticks.”

“ A Sister cross !” cried Lucy.

“ To be sure ; they’re folks like the rest of us/ and why not let them have the satisfaction of getting cross ?” and Adelaide danced into the dress her maid was holding out to her, while Grace quietly put on her own. “Do you think,” cried Adelaide, with the air of one asking information of deep interest, “ that these dresses are as handsome as the ones we wore at confirmation last year?”

“ Why, yes,” replied Lucy, weighing the mattei carefully.

“ Grace, what do you suppose there will be for us ;o do — in church I mean — next year? Last year was confirmation ; this year is consecration ; what next?”

“ You might take the veil,” suggested the unwary T aicy

Adelaide threw up her hands and uttered a queer little exclamation ; then, preserving the tragic attitude, flew to the mirror : “ Grace, as sure as you’re alive, this is just the way Madame Virginie acted in Atha- !ie the other night. I believe I was born for an actress. If there’s nothing to do in the church next vear, I think I’ll go on the stage.”

“ Oh, Miss Adelaide, you’ll never be dressed if you will not keep still ; do let me put on your sash and Lucy opened the luckless box on the table and took out two rolls of rich ribbon.

The quick-eyed girls uttered an exclamation, and each laid hold of the satin sash. “ I’ll have this,” said Grace, in her incisive way.

“No, Grace Kemp, I must have it. The satin is mine.”

“Your mother thought them alike. Miss Adelaide ; this watered ribbon is handsomer,” cried Lucy.

“ Not with satin shoes and pipings. I’ll have the satin. Do give it up, Grace.”

“ You always want me to give it up !” exclaimed Grace, “but this time I shall not. I’m a month older than you, and I have as much right to the satin sash as you have.”

“ Miss Adelaide, you will be late to the cathedra],” interposed Lucy. “ Wouldn’t you let me put on this watered ribbon? — I’m sure it’s a beauty.”

“ No, not if I never go there ; 1 tell you I won’t wear that thing !” cried Adelaide, stamping her foot.

“ Not dressed yet, girls? why, what is the matter?” said a lady who now entered the room. She was like Adelaide in features and complexion, a little faded by her forty years ; a very precise and finished woman of the world, whose eyes were mild and of a light hazel, and whose chin retreated just a very little.

“Why didn’t you buy our sashes alike?” cried Adelaide, rudely.

“The sashes, ma’am — they both want the satin one,” explained Lucy.

“ How very careless of Madame Barry !” said Mrs. Kemp, taking a sash in either white, jeweled hand, and looking uncertainly at the two girls.

“ I think, ma’am, that you’ll have to send for another,” said Grace, coolly, “ for neither of us will wear that one.”

“ But this is Sunday morning, my child, and madame’s store is shut. Adelaide,, my dear, let Grace have the sash she wants.”

“ I’ll stay home from church first,” said Adelaide.

“ Grace, I’m sure you will not mind ; let Adelaide have this satin ribbon to oblige me, my love.”

“ I’m for ever asked to give up to Adelaide. I have as good a right to my own way as she.”

“ That is true. Adelaide, what will Sister Cecelia say if you are late, for a silly quarrel ? I wish she were here to manage you.”

“ I don’t care what she says, and I sha’n’t be managed by anybody,” retorted Adelaide.

PRIEST AND NUN.

Mrs. Kemp looked from one girl to the other m despair, and then at the clock. But now Lucy turned to Grace :

“ Fm sure, miss, when you are so well prepared, and know all your questions, and you such a favorite of Father Murphy, and you to be consecrated to out Blessed Lady, you will not quarrel with your sister about a bit of sash, who knows not nearly so much religion as you do, nor can say her prayers and her questions to equal you. You might set her a good example, miss, as a child of our Blessed Lady should.”

This was but a disjointed exhortation to be sure, but Grace had had time to change her mind. Site held out her hand for the despised sash.

“ Thank you, Grace !” says Mrs. Kemp, quite relieved. “ Now, daughter Adelaide, I hope you're satisfied.”

“ I always am satisfied when I have my own way,” replied Adelaide, unabashed.

“ Indeed, Miss Grace,” said Lucy, “ you're a true child of our Lady, and I don’t misdoubt you’ll be like your holy aunt, — our — mother of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.”

4 Yes, yes,” cried Adelaide, her sash now properly >cwed, “do let us see how you would look, Grace;” and catching up a cambric kerchief she pulled it

PRIEST AND NUN.

about her sister’s face, and wrapped a black veii above it, after the fashion of a nun’s headgear “ Gracious, child, you look like the c Mother’ to the life!”

“ Oh, Miss Adelaide, your sister’s hair ! — you will have it mussed so I must do it over !” cried Lucy.

“ Let me alone, Adelaide ; how silly you are !” said Grace.

“ Adelaide, pray act like a lady,” remonstrated the mother.

After all this folly and bustle consuming the morning of the day claimed by the Creator as his own, Mrs. Kemp, Grace and Adelaide were ready to set out for the cathedral, Lucy following with the satchel containing white wreaths for the girls’ heads and white shoes for their feet.

Much did Lucy think of the rite in which hei young ladies were to participate. To her simple mind it was something that should lift them out of their common life and make them sacred, as were the treasures of old laid up in the ark of God.

As for the girls, they were troubled with no such serious reflections. Adelaide, being dressed to her taste, was in exuberant spirits, while Grace walked with more than her usual dignity and self-consciousness, for to herself she seemed the centre of the little ceremony — we had almost written comedy — which was to be performed before the admiring throng in the cathedral.

But now that we have Grace and Adelaide safely started toward the cathedral, we must go back a little in point of time and see what has been going on in the “ fine brick house” opposite Mr. Kemp’s This house was the home of Judge Schuyler.

Lilly Schuyler was being dressed in a white costume, even more rich and elaborate than that of her youthful neighbors. She was a delicate-looking girl with hair of the palest flaxen hue, shining and soft, and curling about her neck. She had the large/ dreamy eyes, the transparent complexion and the mobile mouth of an enthusiast, looking more like the ideal of angel or fairy on a painter’s canvas than a veritable being of flesh and blood. Yet there were two or three lines and touches of expression on her face that showed she might be resolute as impressionable. Her room looked almost as much like a little chapel or oratory as a young girl’s apartment. Besides the crucifix, holy water, flowers and prie-Dieu9 where she might properly say her prayers, there was a shrine sacred to the Virgin Mary, whereon stood a large doll dressed in white silk, with a spangled blonde cloak, a small silver diadem on its head, Lilly’s best chain and locket about its neck, and her one jewel, a small diamond pin, shining on its un-

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2?

stirring bosom. This image was our Blessed Lady patroness, not only of Lilly Schuyler, but of the Hoi) Church, and chosen by our Father of Rome as the patroness of America — said America being yet but a sprawling heretical infant, yet expected by our aforesaid Father to grow up as a good many other infants have done, to zealous and obedient popish manhood.

About Lilly’s room hung twelve small paintings, the twelve stations which hang in churches and are preached about in Lent. There was also hung opposite her bed a fine oil-painting of Our Lady of Seven Sorrows.

There was another lady in Lilly’s room, who seemed more truly sorrowful than the Lady who held the heart with seven arrows in it in the picture. The living lady sat by a window looking into the 6treet, one hand lying listlessly in her lap, the other holding a handkerchief, wherewith she now and then wiped the tears that rolled silently down her cheeks. This lady was Lilly’s mother, and Lilly and her maid frequently glanced toward her — the maid, Hannah, with eyes of respectful commiseration, Lilly with mingled anxiety and obstinacy.

Lilly passively submitted to be dressed, giving no heed to the matter at all; unlike Grace and Adelaide, she was occupied entirely with the religious part of the morning exercises ; her little hands told over

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her rosary, while her lips moved rapidly, and one moment she looked at the crucifix and the next at the shrine of the Virgin. Glancing often at her mother, various emotions contended in her face as she saw that mother’s grief.

“ How bad your ma do feel, Miss Lilly I” said Hannah under her breath.

Lilly sighed and looked at her Virgin.

“ She’s breaking her heart, Miss Lilly, and you all the child she has. Don’t you do it, miss.”

“ Hush, Hannah. Am I dressed? Well, then, you may go and wait for me in the hall.”

Thus Lilly was left alone with her mother. She stole up to her and touched her arm : “ T am all dressed, mother.”

There was no response.

“Won’t you look at me?" asked Lilly, tremulously.

The lady turned and gazed with tearful eyes at the little white-robed figure by her side.

“ Lilly,” she said, “ you will break my heart.”

“ What, mother ! just by being consecrated to the Virgin ?”

“ No, but this is only one step among the many that shall take you from me for ever.”

“ No, mother !” cried Lilly, clasping her hands and her eyes growing radiant in her enthusiasm ; “ you

Page 24^

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shall come with me; you shall come into the true Church, where father and I are. This makes me more ready to go, so that you will come too, mother/'

“ No,” said Mrs. Schuyler, “ I shall never turn in my trouble to that Church which has separated me from my child — that Church which has taken from me my dearest treasure. Child as you are, Lilly, do you belong to me any more? Have not priests and nuns come between you and your mother ? After all these years, when you have been my one thought, do you not go to those whom you oall your Mother and your Sisters, and trust them instead of me, and follow their counsel to disobey me, and leave me lonely that you may spend your time with them ? And so it will be until I am a lonely old woman, without a daughter or a comfort in all the world.”

Lilly was weeping too. “ I do love you mother ; 1 do trust you. I will not leave you alone in the world,” she sobbed.

“ Yes, Lilly, and this very moment there is one of your nuns waiting for you in the parlor, to take you to a ceremony which I think both idle and wicked, and from which I have besought you to turn.”

“ But father allows me, mother,” said Lilly.

“ Yes, Father Murphy is setting against me both husband and child. He tells you, Lilly — for whom I have lived and hoped these fourteen years — that I am

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i heretic and unfit to guide you, and he counsels your father to take you from my influence ;” and the excited and unhappy woman bowed her face to her lap and wept bitterly.

“ Miss Lilly/’ said Hannah at the door, “ Saint Cecelia says you must come or you will be late.”

“ Good-bye, mother,” said Lilly, and getting no reply, kissed the back of her mother’s bowed neck, and then with a humble reverence to Our Lady’s shrine, as if passing a royal presence, Lilly left the room.

Saint Cecelia was a small, shriveled, cl ear- voiced woman, in coarse black dress, broad black apron reaching to the hem of her gown, a rosary at hei waist, a kerchief about her colorless face and a black tiood on her head, her whole garb being unsuggestive of the saintly, except to prejudiced minds.

“ What is my dear child crying about?” asked the nun.

“ Mother feels so dreadfully,” gasped Lilly.

“ You must not mind that” said the Sister as they left the house; “ this may help to your mother’s conversion.”

“She mourns so that you are all taking me away from her,” said Lilly, sadly.

“ If she were a good Catholic, and not a heretic, die would rejoice over that ; we must mortify the desires and affections of the flesh,” said the sympathetic Sister.

“ She said I am breaking her heart,” cried Lilly ; “ and oh, Saint Cecelia, suppose I am — suppose my dear mother should die?

“ Then I dare say that our prayers would cause her to die in the Holy Catholic faith ; and of course you know, dear child, that it is better to die a Catholic than to live a heretic.”

On went the child in white and delicate array, beside the Sister in rough black garb, thus symbolizing the course of Rome’s proselyte, from the first fair allurements to the days of living death. Saint Cecelia, with her crucifix held between her clasped hands, tranquilly pursued her way; but Lilly constantly wiped her flowing tears with her small morsel of pocket handkerchief.

" My dear child,” said the calm monotone of Saint Cecelia, “ it would be well to cease crying ; some one meeting us may suppose this gracious privilege of consecration an unwilling sacrifice, or judge that our gracious Mother the Church is unable to comfort her children.”

Lilly obediently gave her distressed face a hna) wipe with her wet handkerchief, yet pressed her small hand to her fluttering heart, and caught a sobbing breath every now and then.

“ My clear child,” said Saint Cecelia, regarding the sad, sensitive, flower-like face as calmly as one would regard some wet pebble in the bed of any little brook, “ this all comes of your not being confirmed. If you had done right and come to the arms of the Church, she would have supplied to you the place of any mother whatsoever, and, safe in her embrace, you could not have so rebelliously wept over the grief of any heretic.”

“ But she is my mother ,” gasped Lilly, piteously.

“ Do you know what our Holy Church says ?” replied the nun : “ He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.”

But they were nearing the lofty front of St. Joseph the Just, and Saint Cecelia saw that her little charge must be soothed; so she said: “It is not unlikely that your prayers, vows, offerings, penances and other acts of religion will be blessed to the conversion of your mother. Think, dear child, of your joy at saving your mother’s soul ! You are now to be given to our Blessed Lady, and you must beset her with prayers night and day for your mother’s good. You cannot serve our Lady too well. For myself, I set apart the first day of every month as a day of prayer and praise to Mary.”

Herein our zealous nun exceeded and anticipated our Father the Pope, who had not then ordered the

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eighth day of December as a Festival of Obligation in honor of the Virgin.

And now they entered the vestry, and there were Grace and Adelaide duly wreathed and in the requisite white gaiters, and there were about twenty other girls of equal age ; and now they were placed in order by the Sisters, and with slow steps and bent heads, a white-clad procession, upon whose footsteps hung the nuns, as clouds hang sometimes where bars of white moonlight have broken through, they stole to the sound of soft organ music through the grand enhance door of St. Joseph the Just.

(I suppose you have all read the story of the Minotaur and the Labyrinth of Crete.)

The ceremony of consecration was but a small affair in itself, the preparations and dressing being the greater part. There were some questions, music and prayers, and then these girls were supposed to have been placed under the especial patronage of the Virgin, sure of her protection and intercession, and forming perhaps some sort of juvenile sodality vowed to Mariolatry — a polite and modern form of paganism.

The service over, Saint Cecelia took Lilly home. The girl was a charge too precious to have less than the most watchful care. “ Saint Cecelia, what shall I do to-day ?” asked the girl, meekly.

“ Fast, my child, until evening. Spend two hours in adoration of our Blessed Virgin and be punctual at vespers.”

Oh, crafty Sister! Fast until evening? There would be then no dinner with her mother. Two hours of adoration at our Lady’s shrine? The young heart would then be strengthened against that mother’s sad reproachful face. Early at vespers, and lost the evening hour when mother and child might sit together in the gathering twilight.

Sister Cecelia had one crowning merit — she wrote a most beautiful hand. She formed English, French and German script like the fairest specimens of copper-plate. Before her humble girlhood two paths of life had opened — to be a writing-mistress in schools and private families, or to bring herself and her talent into the convent. Deciding to take vows and the veil, she at once became a saint. Oh, short and broad and easy road to heaven — a garb, a promise, a fixed routine of living; and lo! a portal, said of salvation, opened wide. If we might but be sur'e it is one of the pearl portals opening on the golden street of God’s city, and not that back door on the under side of a hill which Bunyan saw in vision !

As in duty bound, when at so little sacrifice of her loneliness and poverty Sister Cecelia had from the Church at once her daily living and her saintship,

->7ie served that Church with ardor. We can give no better definition of this nun than that we find in “ The Constitutions and Declarations of the Jesuits/’ published in France in 17.62. “One ought to permit himself to be conducted and . directed as if a corpse, which is moved as any one wills; or as the cane in an old man’s hand, which serves any end for which the owner employs it, and upon whatever side he chooses to turn it.”

Sister Cecelia lived, moved, wrote (copies), spoke, thought, for tne Church. Her even, gliding step, her cold, steady eye, her monotone running in set form, “My dear child, thus and so,” as clear, as even and as unexpressive as endless repetitions of E flat in the treble, with never another note struck between, were all the outward tokens of her passive, unreasoning, unstirred inner life.