which forms the human family, is a divine work. Yes! those great social organizations which are called the city, the township, the country, the parish, and the household, where every one is called to work in the light of day, is a divine organization, and makes society as strong, pure and holy as it can be.

"I confess that there are also terrible temptations, and deplorable falls there, but the temptations are not so unconquerable, and the falls not so irreparable, as in these dark recesses and unhealthy prisons raised by Satan only for the birds of night called monasteries or nunneries.

"The priest and the woman who fall in the midst of a wellorganized Christian society, break the hearts of the beloved mother, cover with shame a venerable father, cause the tears of cherished sisters and brothers to flow, pierce, with a barbed arrow the hearts of thousands of friends; they forever lose thei honor and good name. These considerations are so many prov. idential, I dare say divine shields, to protect the sons and daughters of Eve against their own frailty. The secular priest and the woman shrink before throwing themselves into such a bottomless abyss of shame, misery and regret. But behind the thick and dark walls of the monastery, or the nunnery, what has the fallen monk or nun to fear? Nobody will hear of it, no bad consequences worth mentioning will follow, except a few days of retreat, some insignificant, childish, ridiculous penances, which the most devoted in the monastery are practicing almost every day.

"As you ask me, in earnest, what are the advantages of a monastic life over a secular, in a moral and social point of view, I will answer you: In the monastery, man as the image of God forgets his divine origin, loses his dignity; and as a Christian, he loses the most holy weapons Christ has given to his disciples to fight the battle of life. He, at once and forever, loses that law of self-respect, and respect for others, which is one of the most powerful and legitimate barriers against vice. Yes! That grea and divine law of self-respect, which God himself has implanted in the heart of every man and woman who live in a Christian society, is completely destroyed in the monastery and nunnery.

The foundation of perfection in the monk and the nun is that they must consider themselves as corpses. Do you not see that this principle strikes at the root of all that God has made good, grand and holy in man? Does it not sweep away every idea of holiness, purity, greatness! every principle of life which the Gospel of Christ had for its mission to reveal to the fallen children of Adam?

"What self-respect can we expect from a corpse? and what respect can a corpse feel for the other corpses which surround it? Thus it is that the very idea of monastic perfection carries with it the destruction of all that is good, pure, holy and spiritual in the religion of the gospel. It destroys the very idea of life, to put death into its place.

"It is for that reason that if you study the true history, not the lying history, of monachism, you will find the details of a corruption impossible, anywhere else, not even among the lowest houses of prostitution. Read the Memoirs of Scipio de Ricci, one of the most pious and intelligent bishops our Church has ever had, and you will see that the monks and the nuns of Italy lead the very life of the brutes in the fields. Yes! read the terrible revelations of what is going on among those unfortunate men and women, whom the iron hand of monachism keeps tied in their dark dungeons, you will hear from the very lips of the nuns that the monks are more free with them than the husbands are with their legitimate wives; you will see that every one of those monastic institutions is a new Sodom?

"The monastic axiom, that the highest point of perfection is attained only when you consider yourself a corpse in the hand of your superior, is anti-social and anti-Christian; it is simply diabolical. It transforms into a vile machine that man whom God had created in his likeness, and made forever free. It degrades below the brute that man whom Christ, by his death, has raised to the dignity of a child of God, and inheritor of an eternal kingdom in Heaven. Everything is mechanical, material, false, in the life of a monk and a nun. Even the best virtues are deceptions and lies. The monks and the nuns being perfect only when they have renounced their own free will and intelligence, to become corpses, can have neither virtues nor vices

Their acts of humility

feet of each other, or

Their best actions are mechanical. are to crawl under the table and kiss the to make a cross on a dirty floor with the tongue, or lie down in the dust to let the rest of the monks or the nuns pass over them. Have you not remarked how these so-called monks speak with the utmost contempt of the rest of the world? One must have opportunities as I have had of seeing the profound hatred which exists among all monastic orders against each other. How the Dominicans have always hated the Franciscans, and how they both hate the Jesuits, who pay them back in the same coin. What a strong and merciless hatred divides the oblates, to whom we belong, from the Jesuits! The Jesuits never lose an opportunity of showing us their supreme contempt! You are aware that, on account of those bad feelings, it is absolutely forbidden to an oblate to confess to a Jesuit, as we know it is forbidden to the Jesuits to confess to an oblate, or to any other priest.

"I need not tell you, for you know that their vow of poverty is a mask to help them to become rich with more rapidity than the rest of the world. Is it not under the mask of that vow that the monks of England, Scotland, France and Italy became the masters of the richest lands of those countries, which the nations were forced, by bloody revolutions, to wrench from their grasp?

"I have seen much more of the world than you. When a young priest, I was the chaplain, confessor and intimate friend of the Duchesse De Berry, the mother of Henry V., now the only legitimate King of France. When, in the midst of those great and rich princes and nobles of France, I never saw such a love of money, of honor, of vain glory, as I have seen among the monks since I have become one of them. When the Duchess De Berry finished her providential work in France, after making the false step which ruined her, I threw myself into the religious order of the Chartreux. I have lived several years in their palatial monastery of Rome; have cultivated and enjoyed their sweet fruits in their magnificent gardens; but I was not there long, without seeing the fatal error I had committed in becoming a monk. During the many years I resided in that spledid mansion, where laziness, stupidity, filthiness, gluttony, superstition,

tediousness, ignorance, pride and unmentionable immoralities, with very few exceptional cases, reigned supreme. I had every opportunity to know what was going on in their midst. Life soon became an unbearable burden, but for the hope I had of breaking my fetters. At last I found out that the best, if not the only way of doing this, was to declare to the Pope that I wanted to go and preach the gospel to the savages of America, which was and is still true.

"I made my declaration, and by the Pope's permission, the doors of my gaol were opened, with the condition that I should join the order of the Oblates Immaculate, in connection with which I should evangelize the savages of the Rocky Mountains.

"I have found among the monks of Canada, the very same things I have seen among those of France and Italy. With very few exceptions, they are all corpses, absolutely dead to every sentiment of true honesty and real Christianity; they are putrid carcasses, which have lost the dignity of manhood.

"My dear Father Chiniquy," he added, "I trust you as I trust myself, when I tell you for your own good, a secret which is known to God alone. When I am on the Rocky Mountains, I will raise myself up, as the eagles of those vast countries, and I shall go up to the regions of liberty, light and life; I will cease being a corpse, to become what my God has made me—a free and intelligent man. I will cease to be a corpse, in order to become one of the redeemed of Christ, who serve God in spirit and in truth.

"Christ is the light of the world; monachism is its night! Christ is the strength, the glory, the life of man; monachism is its decay, shame and death! Christ died to make us free; the monastery is built up to make slaves of us! Christ died that we might be raised to the dignity of children of God; monachism is established to bring us down much below the living brutes, for it transforms us into corpses! Christ is the highest conception of humanity; monachism is its lowest.

"Yes, yes, I hope my God will soon give me the favor I have asked so long. When I shall be on the top of the Rocky Mountains, I will, forever, break my fetters. I will rise from

my tomb; I will come out from among the dead, to sit at the table of the redeemed, and eat the bread of the living children of God."

I do regret that the remarkable monk, whose abridged views on monachism I have here given, should have requested me never to give his name, when he allows me to tell some of his adventures, which will make a most interestimg romance. Faithful to his promise, he went, as an oblate, to preach to the savages of the Rocky Mountains, and there, without noise, he slipped out of their hands; broke his chains, to live the life of a freedman of Christ, in the holy bonds of a Christian marriage with a respectable American lady.

Weak and timid soldier that I was once; frightened by the ruins spread everywhere on the battle-field, I looked around to find a shelter against the impending danger; I thought that the monastery of the oblates of Mary Immaculate was one of those strong towers, built by my God, where the arrows of the enemy could not reach me, and I threw myself into it.

But, hardly beginning to hope that I was out of danger, behind those dark and high walls, when I saw them shaking like a drunken man; and the voice of God passed like a hurricane

over me.

Suddenly, the high towers and ground, and were turned into dust. another.

walls around me fell to the Not one stone remained on

And I heard a voice saying to me: "Soldier! come out and get in the light of the sun; trust no more in the walls built by the hand of man; they are nothing but dust. Come and fight in the open day, under the eyes of God, protected only by the gospel banners of Christ! Come out from behind those walls, they are a diabolical doception, a snare, a fraud!"

I listened to the voice, and I bade adieu to the inmates of the monastery of the oblates of Mary Immaculate.

When, on the first of October, 1847, I pressed them on my heart for the last time, I felt the burning tears of many of them falling on my cheeks, and my tears moistened their faces: for they loved me, and I loved them. I had met there several