The Education of Protestant Boys and Girls in the Colleges and Nunneries of Rome.

The subject of the rev. gentleman's lecture was, "The Education of Protestant boys and girls in the Colleges and Nunneries of Rome." He said—My friends, the subject on which I have been requested to speak this evening is one of vital importance, and one of those I wish Protestants could understand. Everywhere the Church of Rome builds beautiful houses of education, whose surroundings wear such a bright colouring that Protestants are bewitched and deceived. We read in the history of pagan nations that the parents used often to offer their children on the altars of the idols to appease the wrath of their god when he was angry. The fathers and the mothers brought the children decorated with garlands of flowors and laid them on the altars, and the priests of the idols cut the throat or pierced the bosom of the poor victim. This was a horrible crime, and it is hardly credible that parents could have consented to the slaughter of their children and rejoice at it. But there is a crime committed every day among Protestant nations which is more heinous in the sight of God than that of the old Pagans. It is when Protestant parents immolate their children on the altars of Rome, hand their dear children over to the care of the nuns and priests of the idols of Rome. Your children do not lose their temporal life but they lose their eternal life, and as the soul is more precious than the body, so the iniquity of modern Protestants is greater than the iniquity of the Pagans. Oh! if my God would grant me here what He has granted me in several places in the United States and in Canada, that the day after I had spoken on this subject, the children of Protestants were taken out of the nunneries. Protestants, you are terribly mistaken about education in the Church of Rome. The word education is understood in a very different sense among the Roman Catholics from that in which you understand it. When you send your child to be educated, you desire that he should be raised in the sphere of knowledge; that his mind and heart should be enlarged; that his intelli page 31 gence should be cultivated. The word "education" is a beautiful word. Educare, in the Latin, means "to take from low places to high regions." Elever, in the French, is also a beautiful word; it means that you take the child, and from the lowest degree I of intelligence, you raise it as much as possible. And when the little pupil in your Protestant schools begins to rise, he hears around him voices of encouragement, and he takes up his wings like a young eagle, and I rises again; and as they rise they hear their! pastors and parents saying to them, "Rise! rise again! rise in intelligence, in science, in all knowledge, till you lose yourself in that ocean of light, and love, and knowledge, which is called God." (Applause.) No: fetters are put on that young eagle who wishes to raise himself. Thus the Protestant nations march as giants at the head of civilisation they are the advanced guard in the ranks of Science. They go from one invention to another; the whole world is conquered by them; they rule the winds; they take possession of the elements. This is how Protestants understand education, and, this is how Christ understood education when He told his disciples to teach all nations the saving truth; but the word has a very different meaning in the Church of Rome. The poor little boy and girl in the colleges and nunneries of Rome are allowed to rise. Yes, but it is only till they reach the Pope's big toe, and then a shout comes to them from every side—Stop! do not rise any higher; kiss the Pope's toe, for the Pope is the fountain of all knowledge, science, and light. (Laughter.) It is forbidden to know a thing which the Pope does not know. It is forbidden to understand a thing in the way the Pope does not understand it. (Laughter.) How many times, when I was in the college of Rome, have I and my fellow-students tried to raise ourselves? But when we attempted to soar up as young eagles, our poor little wings were cut, and we fell down. Often hare my fellow-students and I bewailed our lot at not being permitted to raise ourselves, and at being forbidden to discuss such and such questions. We felt severely the heavy chains which galled our shoulders. One day one of my fellow-students, who was afterwards one of the first men in Canada, Mr. Joseph Turcot, said to me, "It is evident they want to make asses of us here."

If you want your children to believe that a man can make his God with a little wafer, send them to the nuanories. If you want your children to believe that it is by going to the feet of a mute idol, or statue of Mary, that they must be saved, send them to a nunnery. But if you want your children to learn that they are created in the image of God, that they are created with an intelligence and a soul, that it is their privilege to rise in all knowledge, do not send them to the nunneries. In the nunneries they will learn that man was not created to be free, to follow the dictates of his conscience, but simply to obey his superiors, to serve under masters who have the right to think for him. Christ denoted the corner-stone of your emancipation, the foundation of your power, when He said, "If your son ask bread will you give him a stone, or if he ask an egg will you give him a scorpion? If your earthly father will give you what you ask, much more will your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him." Jesus here promised that everyone of His followers would have the right to look up and see with his own eyes that light which is so bright, so magnificent, that light which comes from the Gospel. Christ said that light is for everyone, great and small, rich and poor, old and young. You have only to go to your Father in heaven and ask from Him the light in Christ's name, and it will be granted to you. In the schools of Protestants there is nobody put between God and man. No dark cloud obscures the light which comes from God. Man has the privilege to go and swim every day in the regions of light and truth and life which is called God, and the more he goes there the more he feels like his God. And that is the reason why you Protestants advance as giants in the ways of progress, while the Roman Catholics are just like a stone round your neck. Who has made the great inventions in the world? Who invented the railroad? Was it a man who was educated in the colleges of Rome? No. It was a man who read his Bible every day. And who invented that latest wonder, the electric telegraph, by which I can sit at a table here and speak to my friends in London, and three minutes after receive their answer? Who discovered that great secret which was hid in the bosom of God since the beginning? Who has gone high enough in the regions of light to take that spark of light from the Spirit of the Lord? It was a man who never set his foot in the college of the Jesuit, who read his Bible every day. Where are the great inventions of the Roman Catholics? I will be told that there are great men in the Church of Rome. I acknowledge that. There are giant men in her. She has had in her bosom men of an extraordinary intelligence. I have read their books, and every page indicated that these men were as much above the common people as the sun is above the earth. But these men have been great in spite of the Church of Rome. (Hear, hear.) Galileo was a great man in the I Church of Rome. He discovered the motion of the earth round the sun—a marvellous dis- page 32 covery. But what happened to him? Why, as he knew more than the Pope, as he found out the truth which the Pope knew nothing about, and proclaimed it to the world, the Pope took his scissors and clipped the wings of the eagle. (Laughter and applause.) He was put into a dark dungeon, fetters were put on his hands and feet, he was flogged till the blood flowed, and all because he said the earth went round the sun! And he had to swear that he would not say so any more. He made the required promise, and said to himself, "The earth moves though." I learn that the Jesuits are going to establish a school here. Well, here is a fact which may remove some of the dust which the Roman Catholics will throw in your eyes about these gentlemen. I know their schools pretty well, as I have been very near them. When I was in London, four years ago, I went to a public library, and I found there a book of which I had heard very much, but I had never been able to study it before. The name of the book was "Newton's Principia." Well, in the year 1742 two Jesuits, Le Seur and Jacquier, wrote this about the famous Newton. They were speaking about the moon, and the stars, and the sun, on which matters they were pretty well posted up. They wrote a book on Newton, who, you know, was a great astronomer, and calculated the motions of the heavenly bodies with marvellous precision. These two gentlemen say: "Newton assumes in his third book the hypothesis of the earth's motion. The propositions of that author could not be explained except through the same hypothesis. We have, therefore, been forced to act a character not our own. That we declare our submission to the decrees of the Roman Pontiffs against the motion of the earth." You see that these two celebrated Roman Catholic priests, having written on these questions, declared that they do not believe, and that they do not dare to proclaim, that the earth moves round the sun, because the Pope had forbidden that. (Laughter.) You will see by this that the Jesuits are the best persons to send your children to, if you wish them to become asses. Yes, there have been learned men in the Church of Rome, but nine-tenths of them have been excommunicated and punished for their learning. (Hear, hear.) Copernicus was a priest of Rome, and a great mathematician, philosopher, and astronomer. He discovered many great truths, but, because he proclaimed them without the consent of the Pope, he was excommunicated. The Church of Rome has had great orators. There was, for instance, Bossuet, who really was a man of great genius, a matchless man in eloquence; but what does the editor of the Universe Venillot, a great Roman Catholic organ, say about him after having studied his writings? He say, "Bossuet was a disguised Protestant." It would take three or four hours to go fully through the subject of my lecture and show you that the colleges of the nuns and Jusuits are the very places where the intelligence is killed. They are places of fine exterior and colouring, but nothing better. I know what I say, for I have been a teacher in their midst. Every step ahead I made was always in spite of my professors. It was always at the risk of my position that I made any advance. These were the principles which must constantly guide the young student in a Jesuit college, or a nunnery, settled not by Chiniquy, but by the infallible Pope Gregory XVI., in his celebrated encyclical of the 15th August, 1832. "If the holy church so requires, let us sacrifice our own opinions, our knowledge, our intelligence, the splendid dreams of our imagination, and the most sublime attainments of the human understanding." Is that not equal to requesting us to become brutes in order to be good Catholics: But if we turn to the moral aspect of nunneries, what do we find? We find that it is there that morality perishes. A friend tells me that the priests in Sydney said a nun had had a child to me. Of course the statement is a libel, and no one will dare to make it publicly, but I am rather pleased at this lie, because it shows to the world that the priests have not much confidence in the nuns. (Laughter.) It was not Chiniquy who said it was easy to conqner a nun, it is proclaimed by the priests of Sydney. If Chiniquy is so powerful, I do not doubt other priests in Australia are just as strong. (Laughter.)

When a Protestant parent takes his child to a nunnery to be educated, he finds every, thing about the place pleasant. The nun has a fine appearance, she has the face of an angel, she is excessively polite, everything seems to breath an atmosphere of purity and honesty. The flowers are so fragrant, the trees so beautiful, the garden so well laid out, the situation of the house so well chosen. You think you could have no better place for your child to be educated in and as you hand her over to the care of the nuns you stipulate that as you are a Protestant your child's religion shall not be interfered with. The nuns say, "Oh, certainly; we will not interfere with your child's religion." And you go away and have no fear. But you have not walked ten paces away before the nuns have a hearty fit of laughter at your expense; they say, "That poor fool has got a promise from us not to interfere with his religion, but he ignores what we know, that a Protestant has no religion at all." Among Roman Catholics Protestantism means negation, and it is very easy to promise not to interfere with a religion which page 33 does not exist. The very next day the nuns will begin to entice your child, and endeavour to win her over. She will be surrounded by such an atmosphere and by such influences that before long she will be taken in the traps of Popery. The priests boast that seven out of ten of the Protestant girls who go to a nunnery become Roman Catholics. And I think the priests are right in saying that the Protestant who sends his daughter to be educated in a nunnery has no religion. (Cheers.) Such a Protestant, at all events, has no self-respect, no respect for the Bible, no respect for Jesus Christ, nor for His nation, nor for his heroic Fathers. Oh, it he would only remember that these same priests shed the blood of his ancestors; that these same priests say to day, that it is the duty of the Church of Rome to kill every Protestant; he would surely think twice before he committed such an infamous action. But, it is said, the nuns have such fine manners, such a sweet smile; they are so modest that they will not raise their eyes before a man. Ah, my friends, you are too easily taken by these fine appearances. You do not know that the nun is a comedienne. She plays a comedy. The object of the nunnery is not to give education, but to entice your daughters into their traps. Certainly they teach there a little music, a little French, a little painting, and such little things which are taught in your own schools; but there is no education of the mind or heart; the real object of the institution is to entrap your daughters. Do not be deceived by beautiful appearances. I remember when I went to the broad prairies of Illinois, to found that great colony, in 1851-52, of which I told you the other evening. The vast magnificent prairies stretched away like the ocean, and I passed two or three weeks in roaming over them to select a suitable place to settle on. As the heat of the day was so unbearable, I used to travel at night; and I will never forget some beautiful lakes we came across, about the size of this hall. They were magnificent to look at; so cool, so bright and clear, and the moon and stars seemed to sleep in their depths. I used often to get down from my buggy to gaze with admiration on these lovely little lakes. Well, I went south pretty far, and on returning about two weeks after. I told the driver of my buggy to drive near the lakes, so that I might see them again; but as we approached the places where they had been. I saw that the terrible heat of the sun had dried them up, and, to my sorrow and disgust, I found in their places an incredible number of little vermin and crapeaux, frogs, black mud, that gave out a bad smell. So my friends, when you see the deceitful surface of the nun's face, remember that when the bright rays of the sun of truth penetrates the mask, you will find little crapeaux, vermin of every kind, and black bad-smelling mud. (Cheers.) To prove to you the immorality of nunneries I will read an extract from a book which I have here. It is published by the Church of Rome, and is in the hands of the nuns and the priests. It is written by Saint Liguori, and is called "The Glories of Mary," and is approved by the Pope. The title page bears this inscription, "This new and improved translation of the Glories of Mary is hereby approved by John, Archbishop of New York, January 21, 1852." The extract is: "Our advocate has shown how great is her kindness towards sinners by her mercies to Beatrice, a nun in the Monastery of Fontebraldo, as related by Cesarius and by Father Rho. This unhappy nun having contracted a passion for a certain youth, agreed to fly with him from the convent. And in fact she went one day before a statue of the Blessed Virgin, there deposited the keys of the monastery, for which she was porteress, and boldly departed. Arrived in another country, she led the miserable life of a prostitute for fifteen years. It happened that she met one day the agent of the monastery in the city where she was living, and asked of him, thinking he would recognise her again, if he knew Sister Beatrice. 'I know her well,' he said, 'she is a holy nun, and at present is mistress of novices.' At this intelligence, she was confounded and amazed, not knowing how to understand it. In order to ascertain the truth, she put on another dress and went to the monastery. She asked for Sister Beatrice, and, behold, the Most Holy Virgin appeared before her in the form of that same image to which, at parting, she had committed her keys and her dress, and the Divine Mother thus spoke to her: 'Beatrice, be it known to thee that in order to prevent thy disgrace, I assumed thy form, and have filled thy office for the fifteen years that thou hast lived far from the monastery and from God. My child, return and do penance, for my Son is still waiting for thee; and strive by thy holy life to preserve the good name I have gained thee.' She spoke thus and disappeared. Beatrice re-entered the monastery and resumed the habit of a religievse, and grateful for the mercy of Mary, led the life of a saint. At her death she made known the foregoing incident to the glory of this great queen." Now, Protestants of Australia, if you want your daughters to believe that, provided they say some prayers to Mary, they can live the life of prostitutes if they go to confession, send them to a nunnery. Mind, it is not Chiniquy who tells this story, it is their own books. This is the morality of the nuns. Perhaps you would like to hear a little more about the teachings of the page 34 nuns. In the same book, "The Glories of Mary," page 701, we read: "A servant of Mary went one day to visit the church of our Blessed Lady without the knowledge of her husband, and she was prevented by a severe storm from returning that night to her own house. She felt a great fear lest her husband should be very angry with her. But she recommended herself to Mary, and when she returned home her husband was very kind and gracious to her. Upon questioning him, she found that the evening before the Divine Mother had taken her form, and attended to all the little affairs of the household. She then related the occurrence to her husband, and they both afterwards practised great devotion to the Blessed Virgin." Now, this is the education which your children will receive in a nunnery, these are the moral principles which will be instilled into your daughters. I will now read you something from a French book which I bought from the Jesuits in Montreal a few days after it was issued, about half-a-year ago. It was first shown to me by one of my converts, and I could not believe my eyes when I read it, so I went to the College of the Jesuits myself, and not being known by the porter, he sold me a copy. The title is, "Almanac of the souls in Purgatory." [The rev. gentleman here invited anybody in the audience to read a portion of the book and translate it into English. As nobody came forward he read a passage in French, which was to the effect that, some years ago there was a castle in Spain which was so haunted with strange noises at night, that the inmates had to desert it. A poor lawyer who had no means to rent a house, went to the owner of the castle and asked permission to take a room in it. He was told about the dreadful noises, but expressed his unconcern at these things. Armed with a blessed candle with which to frighten the Devil, should he appear, he went to the castle, and during the night, as he sat at his table, poring over his papers (for he had a difficult case to plead the next day), he heard mysterious noises and chains rattling. But he was not frightened, for he had his holy candle with him. (Laughter.) Suddenly he heard a voice asking what he was doing. He explained to the voice that he was seeking an argument, in order t o gain his case. The voice told him he would not find the argument in the book he was reading, but he would get it in a certain book in the library; and he, she, or it very correctly indicated I the page, to save trouble, we suppose. He found the required argument in this book, and of course was much pleased and grateful to the nocturnal visitor. The noises increased for a moment or two, and then gradually died away. The next morning the lawyer told the priest what had occurred, and they went and looked down a cellar beneath the castle, and found, a few feet below the ground, a corpse. And it was evident that it was the soul of this dead body who had come during the night to ask the people to have masses said for the repose of his soul Thereupon the young lawyer paid a great deal of money to the priest to have the necessary masses said, and there were no more noises in the castle. (Laughter.)

The rev. gentleman then proceeded:—Now this story is not made by Chiniquy. It is written by the Jesuits in Montreal, the same kind of men as those who have just come into your midst, to educate your children. To what height, I ask, will they raise them? What kind of pupils can come from the hands of such men, who teach such trash, and whose religion is founded on such lying rubbish Friends, your foundation is Christ; if you want to be blessed by God, you have nothing to do but to keep your children in that atmosphere of truth, and light, and science, which Christ has brought from heaven. Your nation is so great, because the Bible is the corner-stone of Great Britain; and for this reason she has been chosen by God to march at the head of civilisation. Now, friends, remain where your ancestors have brought you; remain in the light and truth of God. Honour Jesus Christ by inducing your children to follow Him, and to love Him. Never trust your children into those houses of deceit and iniquity, where they will see nothing but what will bring them to the feet of the idols of Rome; nothing but what will weaken in them the virtues which make women vir tuous and great, and a people noble. When God laid the foundation of this Australia he evidently had in His mind to make it the leader of civilisation in the future. Now, if you want to be great; if you want to be happy and free, oh, take Jesus Christ and His Gospel for the only light, the only life, the only truth of your nation. (Applause.)

The evening's proceedings were concluded, as usual, by the pronouncing of the benediction, and the audience singing the doxology and the national anthem.