will never reveal to her own
mother, much less to a man!

I have known only too many of these noble-hearted women, who, when alone
with God, in a real agony of desolation and with burning tears, had asked
Him to grant them what they considered the greatest favour, which was to
lose so much of their self-respect as to be enabled to speak of those
unmentionable things just as their confessors wanted them to speak; and,
hoping that their petition had been granted, they went again to the
confessional-box, determined to unveil their shame before the eyes of that
inexorable man. But, when the moment had come for the self-immolation,
their courage failed, their knees trembled, their lips became pale as
death. Cold sweat flowed from all their pores! The voice of modesty and
womanly self-respect was speaking louder than the voice of their false
religion. They had to go out of the confessional-box unpardoned--nay, with
the burden of a new sacrilege on their conscience.

Oh, how heavy is the yoke of Rome--how bitter is human life--how cheerless
is the mystery of the cross to those deluded and perishing souls! How
gladly they would rush into the blazing piles with the Brahmin women, if
they could hope to see the end of their unspeakable miseries through the
momentary tortures which would open to them the gates of a better life!

I do here publicly challenge the whole Roman Catholic priesthood to deny
that the greater part of their female penitents remain a certain period of
time--some longer, some shorter--under that most distressing state of mind.

Yes, by far the greater majority of women, at first, find it next to
impossible to pull down the sacred barriers of self-respect which God
Himself has built around their hearts, intelligences, and souls, as the
best safeguard against the snares of this polluted world. Those laws of
self-respect, by which they cannot consent to speak an impure word into the
ears of a man, and which shut all the avenues of their hearts against his
unchaste questions, even, when speaking in the name of God--those laws of
self-respect are so clearly written in their conscience, and they are so
well understood by them to be a most Divine gift, that, as I have already
said, many prefer to run the risk of being for ever lost by remaining
silent.

It takes many years of the most ingenious (I do not hesitate to call it
diabolical) efforts on the part of the priests to persuade the majority of
their female p