It is not difficult to account for such sacrifices as this. A young person enters a convent as a novice at fifteen or sixteen: this requires little persuasion,--the scene is new, and therefore not without its attraction. Mothers, sisters, and friends are occasionally seen; and no vow prevents a return to the world. During the noviciate, she forms attachments among the nuns, who exert themselves to the uttermost to please her. The attractions of the world are not presented to her, and they are, therefore, not felt to be attractions; and all the while, the priests and confessors have been labouring to impress her with a notion of the excellence of a religious life,--its pure enjoyment in this world, and its certain and great reward in another; and these arguments are enforced by strictures upon the vexations and evils of the world without, and the lack of enjoyment to be found in it. Such reasoning cannot fail to produce its effect upon the mind of a young person who has never known the world, and who is daily assured by the sisters in the convent that they are happy: add to this, a certain eclât in taking the veil,--extremely captivating to a youthful mind,--and it will scarcely seem surprising, that when the noviciate expires, there should be nothing terrible, or even very affecting in the ceremonial that fixes the destiny of the novice. She feels that she is vowing a continuance of the same life that she has already led, and for which habit may even have taught her an inclination; and her days are to be spent with those whom she probably loves more than any others without the convent walls. And what are the vows, to a child who has entered a convent at fifteen? She vows obedience to one whom she feels pleasure in obeying. She renounces property she never enjoyed, and whose uses are not understood; and in vowing chastity, she knows only that she is dedicating herself to heaven. The profession of a girl of sixteen or seventeen, is an abomination; and admitted so to be, even by the priests. A canon at Seville--nay, more, a Dominican friar near Alicante, agreed with me in opinion, that no woman ought to be permitted to take the veil at an earlier age than twenty-four. If a woman who has tried the world, and knows its enjoyments and its dangers, chooses to renounce it, and retire into a convent, she can only accuse herself of folly, or bigotry; but it is altogether a piece of villany when a child leaves the nursery to begin her noviciate.