I suppose Mother Church is fully cognizant of the true state of affairs, and thinks men already sufficiently Satyric, but woman must be ground down as much as possible, or the world will not be fended off. And ground down they are in body and soul. O Mother Church! as I look upon these nuns, I do not love you. You have done many wise and right deeds. You have been the ark of the testimony, the refuge of the weary, the dispenser of alms, the consoler of the sorrowful, the hope of the dying, the blessing of the dead. You are convenient now, wieldy in an election, effective when a gold ring is missing from the toilette cushion, admirable in your machinery, and astonishing in your persistency and power. But what have you done with these women? In what secret place, in what dungeon of darkness and despair, in what chains of torpidity and oblivion, have you hidden away their souls? They are twenty-five and thirty years old, but they are not women. They are nothing in the world but grown-up children. Their expression, their observation, their interests, are infantile. There is no character in their faces. There are marks of pettishness, but not of passion. Nothing deep, tender, beneficent, maternal, is there. Time has done his part, but life has left no marks. Their smiles and laughter are the merriment of children, beautiful in children, but painful here. Mother Church, you have dwarfed these women, helplessly, hopelessly. You accomplish results, but you deteriorate humanity. Down the St. Lawrence, the great, melancholy river, grand only in its grandeur, solitary, unapproachable, cut off from the companionship, the activities, and the interests of life by its rocks and rapids; yet calm and conscious, working its work in silent state.