CHAPTER XVII.
FEAR OF THE PRIESTS.
I WAS kept in great fear of the priests, by pretences they made to various kinds of power. I was once confessing to Father Bedar, who I have power to strike you dead this minute, but I will not. I will spare you. Go and examine your conscience, and see if you cannot come back and tell me what it is that you now conceal."
I was much frightened; for I believed what he said, and supposed he could have taken away my life on the spot by only wishing it. I therefore immediately went to the examination of my conscience with fear and trembling.
I have remarked in my first volume, more than once, that we were told it was a duty to submit to the licentious wishes of the priests. This we were urged to on various considerations. We were told, for instance, that being consecrated to God, we were not our own, and even our persons were not to be regarded as at our disposal. Out of considerations of gratitude, too, we were told, it was our duty to suppress the doubts and misgivings which would sometimes arise in our minds, when we allowed our consciences to present the nature of our life in its own proper light. If there were no priests, we were reminded we could never get to heaven; and it would be ungrateful in the extreme, after being insured of eternal life by their kind offices, if we should deny them any wish whatever.
