what God has written."

These questions and answers are not to be found in the common catechisms
in use in Montreal and other places where I have been, but all the
children in the Congregational Nunnery were taught them, and many more
not found in these books.




CHAPTER II.

CONGREGATIONAL NUNNERY.


Story told by a fellow Pupil against a Priest--Other Stories--Pretty
Mary--Confess to Father Richards--My subsequent Confessions--Left the
Congregational Nunnery.

There was a girl thirteen years old whom I knew in the School, who
resided in the neighborhood of my mother, and with whom I had been
familiar. She told me one day at school of the conduct of a priest with
her at confession, at which I was astonished. It was of so criminal and
shameful a nature, I could hardly believe it, and yet I had so much
confidence that she spoke the truth, that I could not discredit it.

She was partly persuaded by the priest to believe that he could not sin,
because he was a priest, and that anything he did to her would sanctify
her; and yet she seemed doubtful how she should act. A priest, she had
been told by him, is a holy man, and appointed to a holy office, and