CHAPTER IV.

A slave for life.

During this illness I was placed under the care of an Abbess whom they called St. Bridget.  There were many other Abbesses in the convent, but she was the principal one, and had the care of all the clothing.  If the others wished for clean clothes, they were obliged to go to her for them.  In that way I saw them all, but did not learn their names.  They approached me and looked at me, but seldom spoke.  This I thought very strange, but I now know they dared not speak.  One day an Abbess came to my bed, and after standing a few moments with the tears silently flowing down her cheeks, asked me if I had a mother.  I told her I had not, and I began to weep most bitterly.  I was very weak, and the question recalled to my mind the time when I shared a father’s love, and enjoyed my liberty.  Then, I could go and come as I chose, but now, a slave for life, I could have no will of my own, I must go at bidding, and come at command.  This, I am well aware, may seem to some extravagant language; but I use the right word.  I was, literally, a slave; and of all kinds of slavery, that which exists in a convent is the worst.  I say, the worst, because the story of wrong and outrage which occasionally finds its way to the public ear, is not generally believed.  You pity the poor black man who bends beneath the scourge of southern bondage, for the tale comes to you from those who have seen his tears and heard his groans.  But you have no tears, no prayers, no efforts for the poor helpless nun who toils and dies beneath the heartless cruelty of an equally oppressive task-master.  No; for her you have no sympathy, for you do not believe her word.  Within those precincts of cruelty, no visitor is ever admitted.  No curious eye may witness the secrets of their prison-house.  Consequently, there is no one to bear direct testimony to the truth of her statements.  Even now, methinks, I see your haughty brow contract, and your lip curl with scorn, as with supreme contempt you throw down these pages and exclaim, “’Tis all a fiction.  Just got up to make money.  No proof that it is true.”  No proof do you say?  O, that the strong arm of the law would interpose in our behalf!—­that some American Napoleon would come forth, and break open those prison doors, and drag forth to the light of day those hidden instruments of torture!  There would then be proof enough to satisfy the most incredulous, that, so far from being exaggerated, the half has not been told.  Sons of America!  Will you not arise in your might, and demand that these convent doors be opened, and “the oppressed” allowed to “go free”?  Or if this be denied, sweep from the fair earth, the black-hearted wretches who dare, in the very face of heaven, to commit such fearful outrages upon helpless, suffering humanity?  How long—­O how long will you suffer these dens of iniquity to remain unopened?  How long permit this system of priestly cruelty to continue?