Let us try the case: let us call the witnesses and hear their evidence. If the other side wants to be heard, the court is open. I will give them as much space for the defense as I take for the prosecution. It shall be a perfectly fair investigation. Remember, however, that the unmarried men and the unmarried women have been hiding within the walls of monasteries and convents, ever since Pope Gregory abolished God's ordinance of marriage, and declared, virtually, that the Pope's will, and not that of God Almighty, should govern priests and nuns. Remember that there has been every effort made at concealment: that the dungeons could not tell their awful secrets; that the light of day was jealously shut out. Remember that the nun who willingly submitted to the priest did not wish to expose their mutual guilt. Remember that the nun who was _forced_, could seldom escape and give the alarm. Remember that the babes born in the cloistered convents were seldom seen of men, and that they could easily be thrown into the hidden vault, where the quick-lime was ready to eat their bones. Remember that it was to the interest of popery to screen the priests, and that the rulers of States were in deadly fear of the wrath of Popes--wrath which sent death to Henry III. of France, William of Orange, and Henry of Navarre. Remember further, that when Popes kept acknowledged paramours and bastards in the Vatican, the priests had nothing to fear on account of their turning the nunneries into brothels. Those nuns whose vows were not broken, were the ugly ones, the old and the ailing. The monks had such complete power over wives through the Confessional, that many women inside the cloister owed their immunity to the women outside. There was a time, under popery, when no Italian husband was certain that his wife's children were _his_: hence, for a time paternal affection in Italy almost became extinct. There was a time, under popery, when every Italian wife had an acknowledged lover--her _cicisbeo_--the priests having paved the way. The husband kept a mistress; the wife, a lover; and the priest enjoyed both wife and mistress, without bearing the expense of either. (See Sismondi's Hist. des Repub. d'Ital.) There was a time, under popery, when it was assumed that every Spanish woman had yielded to a priest. And of course a woman who takes one lover will take another; and thus Spain went to moral perdition, with the priests and the nuns in the lead. The same thing was true of Portugal, and of all Southern Europe. Of Mexico, Central and South America and Cuba, it would be a waste of words to speak. * * * * * * *