_Mr. Greenfield_, the father of the gentleman who owns the two
steamboats on the river St. Lawrence, called the Lady of the Lake, and
the Canadian Eagle, who is a citizen of New York, avows his unqualified
assent to all Maria Monk's statements, and most emphatically
adds--_"Maria Monk has not disclosed one tenth part of the truth
respecting the Roman Priests and Nuns in Canada."_
Fifty other persons from that province, now residing in New York,
likewise attest the truth of the "Disclosures."
At Sorel, Berthier, and Three Rivers, the usual stopping-places for the
steamboats on the River St. Lawrence, the Priests, if they have any
cause to be at the wharf, may be seen accompanied by one or more
children, their _"Nephews,"_ as the Priests _facetiously_ denominate
their offspring; and if any person on the steamboat should be heard
expatiating upon the piety, the temperance, the honesty, or the purity
of Roman Priests and Nuns, he would be laughed at outright, either as a
_natural_ or an ironical jester; while the priest himself would join in
the merriment, as being a "capital joke."
We are assured by the most indisputable authority in Montreal, that the
strictly religious people in that city do generally credit Maria Monk's
statements without hesitation; and the decisive impression of her
veracity can never be removed. If it were possible at once to reform
the nunneries, and to transform them from castles of ignorance,
uncleanness, and murder, where all their arts are concealed in
impervious secrecy, into abodes of wisdom, chastity, and benevolence to
every recess of which all persons, at every hour, might have
unrestricted admission--that would not change the past; it would leave
them indelibly branded with the emphatical title applied to the nunnery
at Charlestown, "FILTHY, MURDEROUS DENS."
3. _Who are those who deny the truth of the book? Case of Father
Conroy. Father Conroy's deception._
In addition to the objections from improbability, another series of
opposition consists of flat, broad denials of the truth of Maria Monk's
"Awful Disclosures." This mode of vanquishing direct charges is even
more invalid than the former futile cavilling. It is also remarkable,
when we remember who are the persons that deny the statements made by
Maria Monk. Are they the Roman Priests implicated? Not at all. They are
too crafty. The only persons who attempt to hint even a suspicion of
the truth of the secrets divulged in the "Awful Disclosures," are
editors of Newspapers: some of whom are ever found on the side of
infidelity and vice; men always reproaching religion; and directly
calumniating, or scornfully ridiculing the best Christians in the land;
and profoundly ignorant of Popery and Jesuitism, and the monastic
system.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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