Nashville daily patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1855-1857, 1856-02-02
Miss fkunkIcY,s BOOK,

The Testimony of an Escaped Novice from the
Sisterhood of st. Joseph. Emmettsburg Ma
rvland. BY Josephine NJ. Bunkley. New
New York: Harper & Brothers, 1866. For
sale by @. W. Smith, Nashville.
The readers of the public prints will not
have forgotten the announcement about two
years since, of the escape from the Convent
of St. Joseph situated at a village in Ma
ryland, of young girl, a novice in that In
stitution. The work before us is a narra-
tive of that young lady's experience of Con-
vent life, embodying the authoress's opinion
of that system, and its connection with the
profoundly cunning policy Of the Church of
Rome and setting forth, as a warning to
her young countrywomen, its injurious con-
sequences to the physical health its labo-
rious and nonSenSical acts of miscalled de-
votion and above all, of the gross immo.
ralitics of which the inmates are often for
ced to be the witnesses, and far too often,
beneath the abject obedience enioined by
their VOWS, the unwilling but powerless par
ticipators. Narratives Of a similar nature
have preceded this n the form of the "Aw-
full Disclosures of Maria Monk, and other
expoSitions of the barbaritieS of Convent
life and they have found vast numbers Of
readers and believers, although intersper
sed with much of marvellous untruth, for
the sake of arousing prejudice and pander-
ing to the vitiated appetite of the public
nav, always greedy for the horrible and
incredible, all of which candid and intelli-
gent readers would discard yet, notwith-
standing these most reprehensible depar-
lures from truth and good taste on the part
Of the authors of such works, the public
mind has long since been assured that there
was fundamental substratum Of truth for
the foundation of these narratives, if the
untiring vigilance of the Romish priesthood
could be eluded, and their practices and
inner life be placed in juxtaposition with
their outer parade aud profession of peni
tence and humility.
In this work the reader has the truth
Had we, as liberty-loying, American Prot
estants, not single prejudice against Rome
and her institutions, we would rise from its
perusal with the perfect conviction of its
entire reliability. 1t is a simple, unadorncd
story Of the suiTerings and mental and bodi-
ly sorrows of feryid, impressible, conf
ding girl, with no artificial straining after
effect, and no unnecessary lengthening ont.
Plain facts are stated in an easy, natural
style, readily appreciable by every reader.
There is no highly eolored pieturing from
the easel of riotous Imagination, and
though forced TO comment on circumstan-
ces strongly suggestive Of total want Of
virtue, there is not line which would tingc
nodesty's cheek. or a single passage which
would Ok the attention Of the purely SEN
sual. The morbid hungerer after the horri-
bic or Iustful, viii find nothing IN Miss
Bunklcy's book to please him. The enlight.
ened Christian world has long needed such
an expose as this lady has given of the mis-
cries, the slavish tyranny, aud unnatural
and soul-revolting penances and self-abase-
ments, with which crafty priesthood, un.
der the name Of religion, deludes its mis-
guided followers, and immures them within
these goai-hoases Of the soul as well as the
body.