She gave me another piece of information which excited other feelings in
me, scarcely less dreadful. Infants were sometimes born in the convent;
but they were always baptized and immediately strangled! This secured
their everlasting happiness; for the baptism purified them from all
sinfulness, and being sent out of the world before they had time to do
anything wrong, they were at once admitted into heaven. How happy, she
exclaimed, are those who secure immortal happiness to such little
beings! Their little souls would thank those who kill their bodies, if
they had it in their power!

Into what a place, and among what society, had I been admitted! How
differently did a Convent now appear from what I had supposed it to be!
The holy women I had always fancied the nuns to be, the venerable Lady
Superior, what were they? And the priests of the seminary adjoining,
some of whom indeed I had had reason to think were base and profligate
men, what were they all? I now learnt they were often admitted into the
nunnery, and allowed to indulge in the greatest crimes, which they and
others called virtues.

After having listened for some time to the Superior alone, a number of
the nuns were admitted, and took a free part in the conversation. They
concurred in everything which she had told me, and repeated, without any
signs of shame or compunction, things which criminated themselves. I
must acknowledge the truth, and declare that all this had an effect upon
my mind. I questioned whether I might not be in the wrong, and felt as
if their reasoning might have some just foundation. I had been several
years under the tuition of Catholics, and was ignorant of the
Scriptures, and unaccustomed to the society, example, and conversation
of Protestants; had not heard any appeal to the Bible as authority, but