The buildings that have been erected for Nuns, which are under the charge of the archbishops and bishops, are curiously and carefully constructed, so as to put an inseparable barrier between those within and those without. And the rules of the convent following out this construction, cut off all possible hope of escape on the part of the inmates through complaint or otherwise to those outside. The fixtures connected with the building, its walls, its grated windows, its double doors, its secret passes, its iron grates and chains and bolts, indicate nothing to the credit of the bishops or priests who have had charge, and proclaim in a voice that the violence and clamour of Papists will not silence, that they are private prisons, to retain the miserable victims who have been cajoled until they entered then deceived-seduced-ruined-are compelled to stay within their enclosures. Is any one at a loss when he looks at the preceding picture, the greater part of which is not only from Papal writers of celebrity, but most of it the very words in which they have described the history of priests and nuns, to answer the question, why do they use force to keep them in, subject them to punishment if they are desirous of escaping, and compel them to return if they should be so fortunate as to escape from their prison? There is an incident in the history of a civil war in Spain, in the early part of the last century, that throws much light upon this subject. In this war the French troops were called to take part on one side, and in their victorious march they came into possession of the city of Saragossa, in Arragon, in which were a number of convents, particularly one of the Dominicans. M. Legal, the French commander, found it necessary to lay a contribution on the inhabitants and on the convents. The Dominicans, all whose friars were familiars of the Inquisition, excused themselves, saying they had no money, and if he insisted upon what he had laid on them, they would have to send to him the silver bodies of the saints. They did not think he would dare receive them. But his regard was not very great to their saintly character. He received and sent them to the mint. On this the friars excommunicated him, and he in return gave them to know that he would like to have the Inquisition for the quartering of two regiments of his soldiers. On the commander's putting into execution his plan, "The doors of this prison were opened; and then the wickedness of the inquisitors was exposed to the world. Four hundred prisoners got liberty that day; and among them sixty well dressed young women, who were found to be the private property of the three inquisitors, and of which they had robbed the families of the city and the neighborhood."

*

*In the continuation of the account of one who escaped at this time, there is an exhibition of the means used by these holy fathers to gratify their lusts. To those that submit to their wishes they are kind, but to those resisting, they are as unmerciful as Nero. To the one whose history is related by Gavin, on her entry within the inquisition, the following exhibition was given of the inside, &c., as follows, by one of those who had been there confined for a number of years, Early in the morning she brought me into a large room with a thick iron door, and within it was an oven burning, and a large brass pan upon it, with a cover of the same and a lock to it. This dry pan (said she) is for hereticks and those who oppose the holy father's will and pleasure. They are put naked, alive into the pan, and the

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In protestant countries, if such establishments exist, they must use more enticing modes than that of the midnight carriage of the Fathers of the Inquisition.*-The institution which Bishop England defended in the Baltimore cathedral, and which Priest, now Bishop, Hughes says was a good institution."

We have performed, from a sense of duty, a very unpleasant task, and no doubt as to our Papal friends a thankless one. Some may think we have said things, or have quoted statements which should not have seen the light. But with such we differ. When the Holy Ghost speaks concerning that system, which calls herself the Mother and Mistress of all churches, (see Creed of Papist,) the language is as descriptive of the character of the children of that holy mother and of their doings, as if it had been written after a review of the historical records of her priesthood. "Come hither: I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore”—“ with whom

cover of it being locked up, the executioner begins to put a small fire in the oven and by degrees he increases it till the body is reduced to ashes."

Says the same person, giving an account of herself, "I have been in this house six years, and was not fourteen when the officers took me from my father's house. I have had one child here. We have at present forty-two young ladies; and we lose every year six or eight; but where they are sent we do not know. We always get new ones in their places; and I have seen here seventy-three ladies at once. Our continual torment is to think that when the holy fathers are tired of us they will put us to death; for they never will run the hazard of being discovered in their villany."

*The Holy Inquisition. "I went one day to visit the Countess of Attarass, and I met Don Francisco Torrejon, her confessor and second inquisitor. After we had drank chocolate, he asks me my age, my confessor's name, and so many intricate questions about religion, that I could not answer him. His serious countenance frightened me; and perceiving my fear, he desired the Countess to tell me that he was not so severe as I supposed, after which he caressed me very kindly. He gave me his hand which I kissed with great respect and modesty; and when he went away, he told me, my dear child, I shall remember you till the next time.' I did not know what he meant, being quite unexperienced, and only fifteen years old. Indeed he did remember me; for that very night, when in bed, hearing a hard knocking at the door, the maid who lay in the room with me, went to the window, and asked who was there? I heard the reply, "The Holy Inquisition." I could not forbear crying out, father, father, I am ruined forever. My dear father got up, and inquiring what the matter was, I answered him with tears, the Inquisition; he, for fear that the maid would not open the door so quickly as such a case required, went himself to open the door, and like another Abraham to offer his child to the fire; and as I did not cease to cry out, my father, all in tears, stopped my mouth, to shew his obedience to the holy office, for he supposed I had committed some crime against religion.'

دو

"About once a month, upon an average, a family in Saragossa was robbed of a daughter to recruit the seraglio of the Holy Fathers of the Inquisition."

"We are strictly commanded to make all demonstrations of joy, and to be very merry for three days, when a lady comes first here, as we did with you, and you must do with others; but afterwards we live like prisoners, without seeing a living soul, but the six maids, and Mary who is the housekeeper.- -When any of the holy fathers has a mind for any one of his slaves, Mary comes at nine o'clock, and conducts her to his apartment. Some nights Mary leaves the door of our rooms open, and that is a sign that one of the fathers has a mind to visit us that night.' -See Gavin's Narrative of the Inquisition, a short account of which is just published in this city. As the priests cannot yet venture on the Inquisition publicly, it appears that they will not be sparing of nunneries, as any one will conclude, on seeing the New Nunnery, near the Washington Monument.

the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been drunk with the wine of her fornication.”—“I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast* full of names of blasphemy, having SEVEN HEADS and ten horns.", "And the woman was arrayed in purple and SCARLET colour and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication."-"And upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, Babylon the great THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. "" "And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her I wondered with great admiration.”—Rev. xvii. 1-6. "THE SEVEN HEADS are seven MOUNTAINS ON WHICH THE WOMAN SITTETH."*. "AND THE WOMAN is that GREAT CITY which reigneth over the kings of the earth."-9, 18 vs.

And again says the same Spirit, "Babylon is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a CAGE OF - Chapter xviii. 2.

EVERY UNCLEAN AND HATEFUL BIRD.

The application of the above to the Papal priests and institutions in this country, we do not pretend to make any further than facts enforce them; we neither have time nor inclination to turn out of our way to find evidence of such things; but now and then when such occurrences come to light as the escape from time to time from these papal prisons, and as the affair of father Magary and the young Magary, at Frederick city, we are reminded of the history of by-gone days, of the vow of chastity, (which means not to marry,) and of the decree of the council of Trent, Against the sons of the Priests and Bishops." But while we do not seek out such things, and do not say with reference to every priest and bishop, that he is guilty of the crimes laid upon his system, we do say with respect to many of them, circumstances have come to our knowledge of such a character as to lead us to doubt very much the propriety of a community of unmarried females, under the control, and accessible to a body of unmarried men, who are in very many respects and occasionally give incontestable proof of being of the same passions with other men. And we do further say that the zeal exhibited by papal priests to keep under their control and from escaping from the walls of their Convents disaffected nuns, is at least indirect proof that all things are not right between them, and these of such character that they will not bear public investigation.

Now, if both priests on forsaking the papacy, and nuns on escaping from Convents do bear testimony to such horrid abomination in the professed religious orders,-if both testify in different

* There are, of course, priests in Rome, who are sufficiently humble in dress and manner, but nothing can exceed the sumptuousness and style in which the cardinals live, as well as all who, from birth or fortune, have a certain personal consequence. Their carriage and horses are the most splendid in the world, their large palaces swarm with servants, and their dress has all the richness of that of princess when they are abroad. One can scarce see their SCARLET caps, SCARLET carriages and trappings, SCARLET robes und stockings, without remembering a certain "lady of Babylon."—First Impressions of Europe

No. 58.

places under different circumstances, and without any knowledge of each other, to a state of things provided for in the teaching of papal theologians, and declared by papal writers in times past-and if priests and people declare that the Holy Mother Church, is one in principle, one in practice in every age, not needing reformation or purgation, we are ready to say then with the Apostle John in his Apocalyptic vision-Is not this "Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth?" Is not this "the great whore that sitteth on many waters?"

In view of this whole subject, we ask most seriously; does not this subject demand of every citizen of this great and free country, a deliberate and calm consideration of the question, whether foreign priests, subjects of a foreign power, servants of a corrupt Hierarcy, shall be permitted, under the pretext of places of singular virtue and remarkable piety, or of schools devoted to the teaching of our youth, to erect institutions that have been in all past ages, since their first establishment, prisons in which a corrupt priesthood vowing celibacy, have carried out unrestrained, all manner of crime and pollution; shall our sisters and daughters, the youthful females of our land, be cajoled under this pretext into buildings, from which when their eyes have been opened to the abomination, they cannot escape; but in which they shall be compelled under bolts, bars, grates, prisons, &c. to remain, controlled by priestly turn-keys?

So notoriously corrupt, outrageous and abominable has been the licentiousness of Convent system in past ages, and during the past century, that in most Papal countries the people have risen up and abolished it. What a spectacle is it to the world that one of the most free, enlightened and exalted nations of the earth should be one of those only nations in which this system should be permitted to establish and promote itself -Will not our lawmakers consider this? Or do we live where females are protected from insult-excepting from priest?

We deliberately call upon our public men, our office bearers, the members of our legislative assemblies, through the length and breadth of this land, to consider and determine; whether unmarried priests, that they may thereby advance their order, shall be permitted to erect private prisons for women, who shall be entirely and only subject to them.

We do not say that there is established "the Inquisition" under the name in this country, but that it, in its embryo state is here, we cannot for one moment question. We have the officers. We have the beginnings of their capacious buildings. What more is needed? We say, shall these buildings in this country remain as in papal countries, in opposition to the state; so far above the laws of the states, that they shall not be regularly and freely open at any time, to the examination of its proper officers? Shall bars, bolts, walls &c. be allowed in which to keep their victims ?

We say, what we have said, with a consciousness of its propriety and necessity. The time has come when it is no longer proper to be silent, and when responsible for its consequences we submit it tothe consideration of the people of this free land.

OUR COURSE FOR FIVE YEARS-SUIT OF MR. MAGUIRE.

Five years of our labour as editors have now closed; during which period we have had to contend against as much opposition as almost any periodical that has ever been published in this country. Our purpose in the beginning was to expose the anti-christian, anti-social, anti-republican doctrines-and the corrupt and abominable practices of the papacy. All this time we have published under the careful inspection and watchful jealousy of the papal priests and laity, at the very seat of the beast. The very first number of our work contained an article with reference to the conduct of a German priest in this city, which led two popish lawyers, John Scott and Wm. G. Read, we think, when the same statement was published in a paper of this city, to go to its editor and give him the caution that they would use the law in reply to it if he did not make some amends. Thus early were we admonished that the first incautious step-the first unguarded statement, would draw down upon our devoted heads the accumulated wrath of the immense priestly fraternity and leading papal laymen in this city, by a suit at law, in which they would answer all our charges.

We can truly say that during these five years, with the fear of God before our eyes, and thoroughly convinced of the corruption of thats ystem, we have not refrained from our purpose to speak out concerning it. That we have escaped uninjured in body and undisturbed by any of that personal violence that has been so often threatened—that our hands have not waxed faint in this contest, we would return most grateful thanks to that God whose cause we have plead, who maketh the wrath of man to praise him and who restraineth the remainder of wrath, who has so far led us, and in whom we trust as we pursue unmoved our course. We have gone through these five years, without giving our subtle and watchful enemies, even the appearance of cause in but one case to find legal accusation against us. And in that case it is only by dint of construction, and not by the meaning of the writer or publishers. That our readers may more readily understand this matter, we here reprint the article as it appeared in the Nov. No. of 1839.

STATE OF MARYLAND MASS HOUSES. We should like to know whether the Mass Houses erected at the public expense, in the Maryland Hospital, and in the Baltimore City and County Alms House, and in the City Infirmary; are open for the general benefit of society, or only for the persons immediately interested? If for all, the public worship set up at public expense, and in accommodations provided by the public, ought to be such as the public can attend, without being guilty of idolatry. If for papists only -then we should like to know by what rule papists only, are provided for, in a protestant community? Are all our rulers, and public men Papists, or are they infidels? Or do the people know what is done with their money, by their servants? Or are the Christians of Maryland content to establish papacy, and pay for its support?