A strong effort will probably be made again, by the parties exposed by this book, to avoid the condemnation which it throws upon convents--the strongholds of superstition, corruption, and _foreign influence_, in the United States. The Romish publications, although greatly reduced in number within a few years, will probably pour out much of their unexhausted virulence, as it is their vocation to misrepresent, deny, and vilify. They will be ready to pronounce a general anathema on all who dare to reprint, or even to read or believe, such strong accusations against the "holy retreats" of those whom they pretend are "devoted to lives of piety." But we will challenge them to do it again, by placing some of their iron bishops and even popes in the forefront. In the year 1489, in the reign of Henry VII, Pope Innocent VIII published a bull for the Reformation of Monasteries, entitled, in Latin, "_De Reformatione Monasceriorum_," in which he says that, "members of monasteries and other religious places, both Clemian, Cistercian, and Praemonstratensian, and various other orders in the Kingdom of England"--"lead a lascivious and truly dissolute life." And that the papist reader may receive this declaration with due reverence, we copy the preceding words in Latin, as written by an infallible pope, the man whose worshippers address him as "Vicegerent of God on earth." Of course his words must convince them, if ours do not: "Vitam lascivam ducunt, et nimium dissolutam." "Swine Priory," in 1303, had a Prioress named Josiana, whose conduct made the name of her house quite appropriate. In France, in the Council of Troyes, A. D. 999, the Archbishop said, "In convents of monks, canons, and nuns, we have lay abbots residing with their wives, sons, daughters, soldiers and dogs;" and he charges the whole clergy with being in a deprived and sinful state. But the particulars now before us, of such shameful things in Germany, Italy, &c., for ages, would fill a larger volume than this. Now, let the defenders of nunneries repeat, if they dare, their hackneyed denunciations of those who deny their sanctity. Here stand some of their own bishops and popes before us; and the anathemas must fall first upon mitres and tiaras! Americans will know how much confidence to place in the pretended purity of institutions, whose iniquity and shame have been thus proclaimed, age after age, in a far more extensive manner than by this book. But we can at any time shut their mouths by the mere mention of "_Den's Theology_," which they must not provoke us to refer to. AWFUL DISCLOSURES. CHAPTER I. EARLY RECOLLECTIONS. Early Life--Religious Education neglected--First Schools--Entrance into the School of the Congregational Nunnery--Brief Account of the Nunneries in Montreal--The Congregational Nunnery--The Black Nunnery--The Grey Nunnery--Public Respect for these Institutions--Instruction Received--The Catechism--The Bible.