Awful Disclosures | Page 6

much time to efforts necessary to guard
against the numerous and insidious attempts made by friends of the priests, who by
various arts endeavored to produce dissention and delay, as well as to pervert public
opinion.
The book was published, and had an almost unprecedented sale, impressing deep
convictions, wherever it went, by its simple and consistent statements. In Canada,
especially, it was extensively received as true; but as the American newspapers were soon
enlisted against it, the country was filled with misrepresentations, which it was
impossible through those channels to follow with refutations. Her noble sacrifices for the

good of others were misunderstood, she withdrew from her few remaining friends, and at
length died in poverty and prison, a victim of the priests of Rome. Various evidences in
favor of its truth afterwards appeared, with which the public have never been generally
made acquainted. Some of these were afforded during an interview held in New York,
August 17th, 1836, with Messrs. Jones and Le Clerc, who had came from Montreal with
a work in reply to "Awful Disclosures," which was afterwards published. They had
offered to confront Maria Monk, and prove her an impostor, and make her confess it in
the presence of her friends. She promptly appeared; and the first exclamation of Mr.
Jones proved that she was not the person he had supposed her to be: _"This is not Fawny
Johnson!"_ said he; and he afterwards said, "There must be two Maria Monks!" Indeed,
several persons were at different times represented to bear that name; and much
confusion was caused in the testimony by that artifice. The interview continued about two
hours, during which the Canadians made a very sorry figure, entirely failing to gain any
advantage, and exposing their own weakness. At the close, an Episcopal clergyman from
Canada, one of the company, said: "Miss Monk, if I had had any doubts of your truth
before this interview, they would now have been entirely removed."
The book of Mr. Jones was published, and consisted of affidavits, &c., obtained in
Canada, including those which had previously been published, and which are contained
in the Appendix to this volume. Many of them were signed by names unknown, or those
of low persons of no credit, or devoted to the service of the priests. Evidence was
afterwards obtained that Mr. Jones was paid by the Canadian ecclesiastics, of which there
had been strong indications. What rendered his defeat highly important was, that he was
the editor of _L'Ami du Peuple_, the priests' newspaper, in Montreal, and he was "the
author of everything which had been written there against Maria Monk," and had
collected all "the affidavits and testimony." These were his own declarations. An accurate
report of the interview was published, and had its proper effect, especially his
exclamation--"This is not Fanny Johnson!"
The exciting controversy has long passed, but the authentic records of it are imperishable,
and will ever be regarded as an instructive study. The corruptions and crimes of
nunneries, and the hypocrisy and chicanery of those who control them, with the varied
and powerful means at their command, are there displayed to an attentive reader, in
colors as dark and appalling as other features of the popish system are among us, by the
recent exposures of the impudent arrogance of the murderer Bedini, and the ambitious
and miserly spirit of his particular friend, the Romish Archbishop of New York.
Among the recent corroborates of the "Awful Disclosures," may be particularly
mentioned the two narratives entitled "Coralla," and "Confessions of a Sister of Charity,"
contained in the work issued this season by the publishers of the present volume, viz.:
"_The Escaped Nun_; or, Disclosures of Convent Life," &c. Of the authenticity of those
two narratives we can give the public the strongest assurance.
After the city of Rome had been taken by siege by the French army, in 1849, the priests
claimed possession of a female orphan-asylum, which had something of the nature of a
nunnery. The republican government had given liberty to all recluses, and opened all
secret institutions. (When will Americans do the same?)
Subsequently, when the papists attempted to reinstate the old system, the females
remonstrated, barred the doors, and armed themselves with knives and spits from the
kitchen, but the French soldiers succeeded in reducing them by force. During the contest

the cry of the women was, "We will not be the wives of the priests!"
In one of the convents in that city, opened by the republicans, were found evidences of
some of the worst crimes mentioned by Maria Monk; and in another were multitudes of
bones, including those of children.
A strong effort will probably be made again, by the parties exposed by this book, to avoid
the condemnation which it throws upon