I believed Popery to be the Babylon of the
Apocalypse, and I longed for resolution to proclaim to the deluded
victims, "Come out of her, my people," This I had never done, but on the
contrary fell cheerfully in with the then cautious policy of my friends,
and so framed my little books and tracts as to leave it doubtful whether
they were written by a Protestant or not. Paul to the Jews became as a
Jew, that he might gain the Jews: I, by a false process of reason,
thought it allowable to become as an idolater to the idolaters, that I
might gain the idolaters. An awful, presumptuous sin! The Jew possesses
the fair blossom of gospel truth, which by kindly fostering is to be
expanded and ripened into the rich fruit: the Papist holds in his hand
an apple of Sodom, beneath the painted rind of which is a mass of ashes
and corruption. He must be induced to fling it away, and to pluck from
the tree of life a wholly different thing.
My Protestant principles, such as they were, withheld me from visiting
the convent which formed a principal attraction to the military and
other strangers in Kilkenny. Many sought to draw me thither, adducing
the examples of Christian ministers and other spiritual people, who did
not scruple to go; but in vain. At length a lady came to me with an
earnest request from "the most interesting nun in the establishment," to
give her some information on the best mode of conveying instruction to a
poor little girl in their school, deaf and dumb.
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