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Str N7 NOVEMBER 21, 1845.

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DR. CULVER WEL L ON MARRIAGE,
Its HINDRANCES and OBLIGATIONS.

Te be or not to be, tkat is the qnestion."—Shakspeare.
Contents :—On Matrimonial Eligibility and Unfaness—Laws
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' apostatize, Semiasko came with a detachment of soldiers to
turn the sisters out of the convent. Such was_the violence
employed, and the terror inspired by the account of uni-
versal persecution, that a sick nun of their number fell and
expired upon the pavement of the chapel.
"The remainder were heavily ironed, hand and foot, and
marched to Vitepsk, where they were placed in a Russian
convent of 'black sisters.'

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this abode, where for two years they were kept at hard la-
bour, chained in couples, and exposed to all the malignity of
the depraved associates with whom these women of gentle
birth were thus forcibly mingled.
" In 1839, all other efforts having failed to shake their
resolution, they were transferred to another Russian convent
of black sisters, in the city of Polock. Here they met with
ten more nonconformist nuns of the same order. The whole
number of these women, 57, were now brought up twice a
week, on Wednesdays and Fridays, before a commission of
the Russian authorities and clergy, and flogged before them,
receiving 50 strokes a-piece.
" This was continued for months together, till the wounds
upon their backs was an open sore, and that pieces of the
scabs, and then of the raw flesh, adhered to the instruments
of torture. Three of their number died beneath this in-
fliction.
"They were then fed on salt herrings, and refused drink
(a favourite Russian mode of torture), except on the condi-
tion of apostacy. This punishment, which it appears they
found the most difficult to bear, was superseded by a system
of starvation. They were only fed once every other day,
and driven to eat nettles and the fodder of the convent
cattle.
" They were employed to dig out clay, and not under-
standing how to conduct an excavation, the earth fell in, and
buried five of their number. With incredible barbarity the
Russian authorities not only refused to dig them out, but pre-
vented the nuns from attempting to extricate their com-
panions. They perished in this self-dug grave.
"The next labour in which the survivors were employed,
was to aid the masons in constructing a palace for the rene-
gade bishop.
" Some of the Polish gentry, whose spirit no terrors will
quell, coming to look on, olio of Lek number addressed
some words of consolation to these poor women. Within
twenty-four hours not only this imprudent individual, but
all those around him, had disappeared.
"The falling of a wall in the midst of the nuns injured
many, and killed eight of them outright. Aninth and tenth
soon after perished.
" These ten bodies were carried off by the people, and
hidden, where all the efforts of the Russian authorities failed
to discover them.

" About this period, several monks of St. Bazilius were
brought to the same convent. Their treatment is described
as having been more barbarous than even that of the nuns.
Four of these men, Zawecki, Komar, Zfiewice, and Buck-
zynski by name, all upwards of seventy years of age, were
at last, in the full severity of winter, stripped and placed
under a pump, where as the water was poured over them it
gradually congealed into a mass of ice, and froze them to
death ; another, named Abbe Laudanski, aged and infirm,
whilst staggering beneath a load of firewood, was struck upon
the head with such violence by a drunken deacon that his
skull was fractured, and he died upon the spot.
" It must here be explained that all the lower, or white
clergy in the Russian Church are very ignorant anddepraved,
and that the deacons are the lowest among them.
" In the present instance, however, the refusal of the great
bulk of the Bazilian clergy to pass over to the Russian Church
had obliged it, in these forcibly-converted provinces, to fill
up those gaps in the lower ranks of its hierarchy with boors
of the most illiterate and dissolute character.
"It happened that one of these surviving monks of St.
Bazilius succeeded in making his escape ; and Samiasko,
irritated at this incident, resolved to conquer the obstinacy
of the nuns, and publishing that they were about to read
their recantation, caused them to be forcibly led by the sol-
diery to the portals of the Russian church. The curiosity
which this announcement caused, led the whole population'of
the city of Mock to assemble • notwithstanding the ex-
amples which had been- made Of those who had expressed
their sympathy with the sufferers. •
"The apostate bishop, in his episcopal garments, advanced
towards the mins, and bidding the soldiers leave his dear
sisters at liberty, spoke to them with paternal kindness, and
offering his hand to their superior, prepared to lead her into
the church. Irene Mieceslas then seizing one of the hatchets
used by the carpenters who had been working at the repara-
tion of the church, called out to all her nuns to kneel, and
addressing Semiasko, told him, After having been their
shepherd, to become the executioner of those whom he had
not already done to death, and to strike off their heads before
the threshold of that temple, which their footsteps would
never voluntarily cross.'
"So galling was the provocation of this rebuke to the
Russian bishop, that unable to contain himself, he struck the
superior on the face, and then flung the axe indignantly from
him. It chanced in falling to wound one of the nuns in the
foot ; and a moment after the superior having put her hand
to her mouth, which was filled with blood, drew out one of
her shattered teeth, and holding it up to him said, ' Take it,
it will earn you some fresh order from the Emperor.'
" Such was the effect of this scene, that nothing could re-
strain the enthusiasm of the people ; and as the nuns were
led back by the soldiery, the crowd followed them, singing
with one accord Hallelujahs and Ts Deums.
" Such, notwithstanding all the repressive terrors of the
Russian authorities, became the feeling of the population of
the city of Polock, that it was found unsafe to continue
the persecution of the nuns within its walls, and they were
ordered to be removed to the borough of Medzioly, in the
province of Minsk.
" This public defeat of the Russian bishop and authorities
was, however, revenged on these poor women by an act of
such diabolical malignity as only the most undeniable evi-
dence can render credible.
" When the Russian soldiern, and the newly-made deacons
had been rendered drunk with brandy, all these helpless nuns
wore turned out amongst them as incurably obstinate, to
treat as they thought fit. Then commenced a scene worthy
of pandemonium—the shrieks and prayers of the victims
mingling with the oaths, blasphemies, and ribaldry of the
crowd, to whose brutal lust they were abandoned.
" When the fury of these demons in human form had been
exhausted, it was discovered that two of these unfortunate
females were quite dead. The skull of one had been crushed
by the stamping on the temples of an iron-plated heel. The
other was trampled into such a mass of mud and gore, that
even its human character was scarcely recognizable. Eight
6tliers ,had one or several bones or limbs broken, or their
eVs torn or trodden out. Of the whole number, the supe-
rior, a'vromaii of iron frame as well as indoinitable
fired the beet ; but She woe not allowed to attend or console
her mutilated sisters except on the condition of apostacy.
" They were afterwards marched out of Polock by night on
foot, and chained two by two,—even those whose eyes had
been torn out, and whose hideous wounds were festering.
Those whose legs were broken, or who were lamed, were
sent forward in carts under the care of Cossacks.
" A gentleman of Polock, M. Walenkiowitch, having or-
dered a funeral service to be read for these victims, was
seized in the middle of the night and sent to Siberia, his
property being confiscated. A monastery of Dominican
monks, in another part of the country, having ventured to
pray for them, was immediately dispersed.
" On reaching Medzioly, the nuns were again immured in
a convent of the black sisterhood, and divided into four
parties. Here they were put into sacks, and towed after boats
in the water, which was allowed to rise to their mouth and
nose. Three more of their number perished in this manner,
either of cold, or fear, or drowned by incessant immersion.
The inhabitants of Medzioly carried off their bodies is the
night, as the earthly coil of holy martyrs which men would
some day venerate and hold precious.
" After two more years' captivity of the 58 nuns (34 from
Minsk, 14 from Vitepsk, and 10 from Polock) only 14 sur-
vived, and of these eight were either lame or blinded.
"The superior, Irene Miesceslas, who had fared the beat,
had an open wound, from which she was obliged to extract
with her fingers the carious bones, and which afterwards be-
coming filled with worms, from want of dressing, caused her
intense agony.
" At length some relaxation of vigilance having opened
a prospect of escape, this courageous woman persuaded
three of her companions to attempt it with her. In this
enterprise these four women all succeeded, enfeebled by
disease as they were, and without money or passports, at a
distance of between 200 and 300 miles from the Austrian and
Prussian frontiers.
" At the commencement of the present year, profiting by
the scene of riot and drunkenness to which the saint's-day
of the protepope of the convent had given occasion, they
effected their escape. Leaping down a high wall into the
snow they alighted in safety, and immediately fell on their
knees in thanksgiving. They then separated, to facilitate
their flight. The superior, in the midst of all the severity
of the season, was driven to hide for days together in the
woods, without other food than berries, or anything to
quench her thirst but the snow. Once, driven to extremity,
she knocked at the door of a wealthy-looking house, and
being received with veneration by its owner, was provided
with money, provisions, and a correct map of her route.
She crossed the frontier disguised as a shepherd; but even
then was not in security, as the cowardly Government of
Prussia gives up even its own subjects to the Czar.
"It was not until she had reached Posen, in the midst
of a Polish population' that she felt in security; and here she
had unobtrusively withdrawn to a convent of the Sisters of
Charity, but she was considered too precious, as a living tes-
timony of the horrors daily perpetrated in that Golgotha
which the frontier of Russia encircles, to be left in her retire-
ment. With her scars, wounds, and personal evidence, she
has been wisely forwarded to Paris, where a deputation re-
cently waited on her, to express their sympathy with her
cruel treatment. In Posen she was joined by the sister
Wawrzecka, and shortly afterwards learned that the other
two had, in like manner, escaped the pursuit of the Russian
authorities, and been safely forwarded by the zeal of the in-
' habitants to the Austrian frontier."