Young Nun Escapes From St. Joe's Convent
Tipton County, Indiana

After a Week of Freedom is Apprehended and Returned to Convent by County Sheriff.

HABEAS CORPUS PROCEEDINGS FAIL



Menace, Feb., 1927

 Rome has won another victory, a victory which forever places a dark blot upon the history of one of the strongest Protestant counties in one of the strongest Protestant States in the Union Tipton County, Indiana.

 Little Nellie Fortune, a girl of twenty years, Convent Number 096, saw a chance to escape. Although the night was bitter cold she made her way across fields, through woodlands and over streams, finally reaching a farm house a distance of five miles away, before the coming of daylight forced her to seek shelter She crept into an out-building and was found by a kindly farmer and was taken in and given food and clothing. This man was preparing to move and Nellie was taken to the home of a neighbor, Mr. and Mrs. Charlie Fuller of the Rock Prairie community. Here she was welcomed and given a home by this good Protestant family.

 She related the many things which take place behind the convent walls of St. Joseph's Convent, and said she could stand the conditions there no longer and resolved to escape or die in the attempt. She had come to America from Northern Ireland, and stated that conditions in the convents here were far worse than they were in Ireland.

 She was happy in her new home, telling her benefactors that "it felt good to be a Protestant." Plans had been made for her to attend church and "be a real Protestant", as she expressed it.

 Life was beginning to take on a brighter aspect for poor little Nellie Fortune. She had a good home. she had freedom, and what was more, human love and companionship. But her joy was to be short lived. The unrelenting hounds of Rome were hot on the trail. At last she was located. Sheriff Claud Louks, of Tipton, (elected on a 100 per cent ticket and sworn to defend the American home, etc.) was called and without a warrant or any authority, save the request of the church of Rome, went straightway to the home of Mr. and Mrs. Fuller and seized the pleading, crying defenseless girl, who begged for her liberty and fought with her last ounce of strength to be permitted to remain with those who had befriended her. Mr. and Mrs. Fuller also pleaded and begged but to no avail.

 Nellie was dragged back to the convent of St. Joseph, to face God alone knows what.

 Where is Nellie Fortune tonight? What happened when she was dragged back to the convent ? What tortures did she have to suffer? Is she alive or has she told too much? God alone knows. She will never be permitted to see the light of day again. Probably if alive, she lies in a lonely, loathsome cell, hope all gone, longing for death to relieve her suffering.

 What if she were your daughter, your sister? What are you going to do? Tomorrow may be too late. Let's do it now ! Will the world ever hear of Nellie Fortune again or is her life a sealed book. Abe Lincoln freed the slaves and we need another John Brown.


EDITH O'GORMAN (EX-NUN)

 "As a bird out of the snare of the fowlers, the snare is broken and we escape: Our help is in the name of the Lord. (Not the priest or the Virgin Mary.") Psalm 12 4:7.

 We are thankful to God for the privilege of presenting to our readers the photograph of the beautiful and Godly Edith O'Gorman, the converted nun, and her late husband Professor Auffray, of London, England, also a convert from Rome and at one time was secretary to Pope Leo at the Vatican. Edith O'Gorman was one of the most noted women in the world. As an ex-nun an Opponent of the convent system. She was cultured and refined and talented. She was no doubt the most cruelly, bitterly, hated and persecuted speaker against the popish system on the platform in Europe and America. She was consecrated a nun in St. Elizabeth's convent, Madison, N. J., Oct. 1862. She was afterwards Superior in St. Joseph's convent, Hudson, N. J. She spent six years in these Romish prisons. Made her escape Jan. 31, 1868. She was converted to God and baptised in a Baptist church in New York City in 1869. She was called to preach against the nunnery system immediately after her conversion. She was the first ex-nun in America. She has traveled and lectured to the masses in many parts of Europe, America, South Africa and Canada. She lectured in Rome where her late husband was secretary to the Pope. She has been the instrument in God's hands of rescuing thousands of deceived Roman Catholics and many girls have been saved from that living tomb the convent.

 More than one hundred attempts were made on her life by the thugs of Rome. One time in London, England, a bullet was fired through the coach she was riding in and passed through her bonnet without harming her. God delivered her from the cruel hand of that would-be papal assassin.

My Last Sad Farewell

 The first of Oct., 1862, was my last day at home. The last day spent in the society of my dear parents, my little brothers and sisters, my beloved associates, the last day of happiness for weary, weary years of desolation. I cannot recall that day without the deepest emotion. Oh, why did I first break up the family circle? Why did I impose upon myself such a living death? Why did I not listen to the voice of my heart and of reason? But alas, it is too late now to repine, the fiat hath gone forth and can never be revoked. I must take the final farewell of the home circle. All are there. But in a few moments one will be absent, never again to take her accustomed place among them. I kneel at my father's knee to receive his blessing ere I leave him forever. Trembling and in broken accents he prays to God to bless his child while the hot tears dropping like rain upon my bowed head as I listened to his prayers, convulsed me with an unspeakable grief.

 Once again I lean upon my idolized mother's breast and listened to the throbbing of that loving and faithful heart bursting with sorrow as she clasped to her embrace for the last time, her first borne child. Dear heart where I had so often been pillowed and soothed in childhood and where girlhood's griefs had so often been assuaged. Shall I never rest there again? Farewell my darling mother! Were I being conveyed from you to be buried beneath the earth I could not be more literally dead than I must henceforth be to you and to the world. Farewell, my little brothers and sisters, I will no longer humor your childish fancies nor lull you to sleep with your accustomed lullabies. Farewell every dear and familiar object my eyes must rest upon you for the last time. Farewell my beloved associates and bosom friends we will no longer share each others joys and griefs. Farewell to all the loved ones, and oh, forgive me if I ever willfully occasioned you annoyance or pain Father, mother, brothers, sisters, forgive all my faults and pray for me. All are in sobs and tears.

 "I at last tore myself from my mother's embrace, and the last object my eyes rested upon that never-to-be-forgotten night was the beautiful loving eyes of my grief-stricken mother looking after me so full of sorrow and tenderness. Ah! Mother, Dear Mother. Better a thousand times for you and for me could you have seen me conveyed to the grave, than to the wrongs and sufferings that awaited me in the living tomb of the convent The tie is broken. The knot is severed. I am with you no longer.  Farewell home, happiness, mother, all of earth, farewell !"

 On the second of October, 1862, at 11 a.m., I beheld for the first time this establishment, this whited sepulchre so fair and beautiful without, but within full of corruption. I was unusually depressed in spirits as I approached that convent prison (the House of Death) in which I was thenceforth to be entombed, and shut out from the beautiful world. The outward aspect of nature seemed to pity me; the heavens were clouded and the wind sighed through the trees with the voice of a human mourner. Had death stripped me of every friend or relative on earth, I could not have felt more bereft, lonely, desolate and grief stricken than I did that gloomy autumn morning, when I stood in the solitude of the convent grounds. My heart and soul with a vague uncertainty concerning the unnatural discipline enforced within its walls. I knew ere when I entered that I must leave my own will, judgment, reason, and liberty outside of the convent doors, and subject myself blindly to the guidance of superiors. I was tempted to turn back from the slavery, hardships, deprivations and austerities of that unnatural life to the liberty, love, warmth and protection of my father's home; but I had gone too far, I put my hands to the plough, and if I should turn back, I would not be fit for the Kingdom of heaven. I approached the main entrance and rang the bell. A sad pensive-looking sister answered my summons at the door, and ushered me into a spacious and elegantly furnished parlour, where I was received by Mother Exavier, who in a most gracious and affectionate manner welcomed me to her "abode of peace." (The House of Death.) She expressed herself highly pleased with the refinement of my appearance and manners, telling me that her prayer had been answered in the Lord sending me to her, as she was very much in need of educated and accomplished Sisters- She portrayed in the most glowing manner the blessed advantages of my holy vocation which called me away from the noisy, sinful world to the safe and peaceful heaven of a religious life in a convent; assuring me I would receive a hundred fold of heavenly gifts if I would remain faithful to my vocation, and forget my country and my father's house. All those, said she, that enter our holy order must not only consider that they quit father, mother, kindred friends, and whatsoever they possess in the world, but must believe that Jesus Christ addresses them in these words. "He, that hates not father, mother, brothers, sisters, yea and himself, cannot be my disciple."

 Oh, blind votaries of a benighted faith! The only sacrifice our merciful Saviour requires is a contrite and humble heart, which His true disciples give Him without serving the golden links wrought by God himself, which cannot be broken with impunity nor cast aside, nor torn asunder, without becoming a chain of iron pressing upon the bleeding heart, stifling every pure and spontaneous desire, crushing every lawful and noble affection and leaving the heart and soul a dry, barren desolate waste, incapable of producing aught save a disease and noxious vegetation. Conventualism is a system calculated to destroy the brightest intellect and talent, and root out of the heart every beautiful tender feeling.

 One day I was commanded to scrub, with a brush and sand, on my knees the large study hall. Such work was new to me. Nevertheless I performed my task in the best manner I knew how. It took me a long time to complete it. When my task was nearly finished, the novice mistress appeared and in a furious manner chided me for my laziness, snatched the brush from me with such violence as to tear the skin from the palm of my hand, at the same time throwing a pail of water over the hall, thereby compelling me to re-scrub the hall in less time than I had scrubbed it before. The task was rendered next to unbearable by the pain of my hands, which were torn and bleeding. This is a small specimen of the trials which awaited me, it was but the beginning of sorrows. On another occasion I was obliged to wash all the pots and kettles, and scour all the knives and forks in the establishment- My hands, which were very soft and white, began to look soiled and dirty. Having remarked in my simplicity to Sister Margaret the housekeepers "Indeed Sister, I am now ashamed of my hands." She sharply returned, "Well then, I'll be after making ye more ashamed of 'em." she called me out into another room where a sister was whitewashing the walls, and commanded me to dip my hands into a pot of hot lime. I hesitated a moment, thinking certainly she could not mean it. "None of yer airs now, but do as I bid ye, or I'll tell the another on ye." I put my hands down in the hot lime and she held them there some minutes. For several weeks my hands were in a most pitiable condition. The skin would crack and bleed at every movement, causing me to suffer excruciating pain, and yet I was forced to wash and hang out clothes in the frost and cold of December, the skin from my bleeding hands often peeling off and adhering to the frozen garments.

 I was one day appointed to wait on the table in the young ladies refectory, and while there I conversed a few moments with a young lady from Providence ,who recognized me. Sister Cleophas the refectorian, overheard me, and the result was my subjection to a public humiliation before the community, being obliged to throw myself prostrate on the threshold of the community room, to be walked over as a door mat by the other sisters.

 Truly, convent life is a hell upon earth. The methods of penance and cruel tortures inflicted within those walls of hell can not be put in print. The law would not allow it.

 Mrs. O'Gorman told the writer at one time for breaking silence she was forced to dig worms in the back yard of the convent and eat them. At another time she was made to take a dead mouse from a trap and eat it. Another time she was made to wash the Mother Superior's dirty feet and then drink the water.  Priest Walch tried one time to force her to drink intoxicants and rob her of her virtue; she fought the beast off and at last made her escape from this "House of Death and Gate of Hell" to freedom. In 1947 Mrs. O'Gorman was in her 85th year.


EX-NUN EVA MOSS


 Speaks to five thousand in the auditorium at Washington D. C., March, 1928. Sixteen Senators and Congressman present at one of her meetings. Senator Hefflin is also present and makes an address in the interest of freedom for convent slaves.
 

OPEN ROMAN SLAVE PENS


 The ex-nun told her grippingly interesting story in straightforward manner. Truthfulness rang in every sentence. The groundwork of her message was a plea for the opening of Rome's Houses of the Good Shepherd, and the freeing of the countless thousands of girls now held as slaves. Behind the barred doors and windows of these papal penitentiaries and back of these forbidding stone walls these girls live out their dreary lives, working long hours, usually at hand laundry work, without any pay what ever, and more often than not, without decent food. Kind treatment is almost unknown. Torture is not at all uncommon. Solitary confinement, most awful of all prison discipline, is the recompense for even slight infraction of the strict rules, and frequently a girl has but to incur the displeasure of some nun or "mother superior," to be put into a dungeon-like cell, on bread and water. Fortunate indeed is the girl whose quivering flesh has not felt the sting of the lash wielded by some "sister," who was once young and innocent like her victim, but from whose heart, due to years of mistreatment the sentiment of compassion has long since vanished.

 The audience was not asked to believe the unsupported words of the ex-nun. For from the audience three women were brought, all residents of Washington, D. C., who had been through the mill themselves, and who freely gave support to what Mrs. Moss had stated . This was a startling feature of the meeting, which was highly sensational throughout. One of these women who testified to the truth of Mrs. Moss' words is the sister-in-law of two Romanist priests in Washington.


THE LATE MRS. MABEL McCLISH,

THE CONVERTED NUN

A Wonderful and Horrible Thing is Committed in the Land; For Among My People Are Found Wicked Men, They Lay Wait, as He That Setteth Snares; They Set a Trap, They Catch Men, (They Also Catch Girls)."Jeremiah 5:26.
 

MABEL GLADENSTEIN McCLISH


 Mabel Gladenstein McClish was born in Ironton, Ohio. Her father was a Roman Catholic and her mother a Protestant. This sad narrative is the outcome of this mixed marriage. When but a young girl her mother died, after which, through the influence of a devout Roman Catholic aunt, and the cunning trickery of a Jesuitical Catholic priest, the Convent trap was set and sprung, and poor little 13-year old Mabel found herself behind iron-barred windows, massive bolted doors in a great stone-wall institution called a Convent of the Good (?) Shepherd on Banks Street, Cincinnati, Ohio.

 As soon as the priest (trap setter) delivered his prey to the old keeper of this prison house, the Mother Superior, the girl was registered, and her name changed to Mary Alberta, as all the girls who enter these Convent Prisons get a new name; they are named after some special Saint to whom they are to pray and imitate the rest of their life. Next thing she was asked to remove her clothing and put on the prison garb which is made of coarse blue over-all goods, and her little fancy hair ribbon is exchanged for a cotton yarn string, until when the time comes for her to make her final vows when her hair will be cut off and sold to the hair dressers. The Mother Superior then cautions her never to tell any of the two hundred or more inmates what her former name was, who her father was nor where she came from, after which she was sent to the laundry, in charge of another keeper of that department. This Convent took in washing for the whole student body of Saint Francis' Xaviers College located near the Convent with four hundred young men studying for the priesthood, besides a number of old priests as teachers. Here in this so-called religious institution she spent six miserable years of her life, worse than wasted, a life of drudgery, early and late, hungry and cold, deprivation and sickness, cruel treatment, lonely and weary without a father or mother's love, no friends, alone in the hands of cruel, inhuman, black-hearted task masters, who are void of human love or principle, whose only object in life is to deceive and rob souls of their blood bought liberties, and eternal happiness hereafter, and to try to accumulate money and power to rule the world.

 Unable to stand the awful strain of the wash house department on account of her tender age and feeble constitution, she is sent to the knitting factory, then to the sewing room, from the sewing room to the kitchen, then to the paint shop, from the paint shop to the cow stable, doing a man's work and getting nothing for it, not even enough to eat. one day she was ordered to put in two ton and a half of coal in the basement of the Convent with a wheel barrow. The next morning her poor hands and feet were so swollen she was unable to rise from her bed, then the Superior forced her to drink a large bowl of salts which she says contained a certain amount of poison, which after she had taken she lay unconscious for nearly four days. They had meant to poison her and get her out of the way, but they either gave her too much or not enough. Another time while she was engaged at work in the kitchen helping to prepare dinner for a crowd of young priests who had wired on to the Mother Superior of their coming to visit the Convent. Bachelor men visiting the Convent. Think of it! While helping to get this dinner ready for these priests she accidentally let a pan of potatoes fall to the floor, for which the old she Pope struck her with a meat chopper, aiming the blow at her face. she threw up her arm to ward off the terrible blow and the cap of her elbow was entirely chopped off. Another time while in the laundry she happened to break silence and the Superior struck her in the mouth with her fist, knocking out a tooth and ordering her to get down and kiss the brick floor all covered with slop from the wash tubs. Kissing the floor as a penance is a common practice in Nunneries.

 Again when she had attempted to take her own part in a fight with old Mother Superior, she was sent upstairs and ordered to strip off her clothing to her waist, twelve girls were selected to whip her on the bare back with a cat-o-nine-tails until they were I all exhausted and could whip her no more. she fell over unconscious; they then took her and threw her upon a bed and left her lay there with her back all lacerated and bleeding, without food or drink of any kind for more than three days. Often she was made to eat her food off the floor like a dog. Often she was sent to bed with her feet and clothes soaking wet from the laundry. Once she was thrown into a dark dungeon in the basement underground, and kept there for two weeks, left there to die because she refused to surrender her virtue to a brute of a priest. Only through Divine Providence she got out of that place. She says, "I went into I the Convent a virtuous girl, and thank God, I came out virtuous, but I had to fight to protect my character more than once."

 On one occasion 36 priests came to spend a night at the convent. A midnight dinner was prepared. Drinking, smoking, card playing and dancing with the nuns. Many became beastly intoxicated, the sisters having to aid them to bed. one of these male virgin drunken beasts made an attack on her person. She had a hatchet hidden under her mattress. She grabbed it and struck him a fatal blow in the right place that put this inhuman brute (made so by his pagan system with its unnatural vow "forbidding to marry") out of business, she says. He died from the effects. Thank God one brute less out of the way

Truly, The House of Death and Gate of Hell rightly named.

 She tells of girls who on different occasions, seemingly well, and in the morning would be found dead in bed. one time they found a girl hanging dead at the end of a bed sheet rope, another poor girl jumped from a fourth story window, dashing her brains out against the wall. Many other things Sister McClish told us in her lectures we would like to make mention of but space forbids at this time. Through the mercy of God, after pleading with these inhuman devils to let her out, and being refused, she threatened to cut her throat unless they would let her out of that hell hole and the curse of God would fall upon the institution, and through some means of getting a letter to her father to come and take her out, the priest in charge ordered the Superior to let her go.

 After her deliverance from that awful living hell she met Mr. William McClish, a business man in the City of Indianapolis, and married. Then she fell in with some Holiness Mission people and was converted to God and sanctified wholly some seven years ago. she had a wonderful experience in grace, and a sad story to tell of the inhuman life she lived in the nunnery. She was the most convincing and spiritual Ex-Nun on the American platform. She was the means in the hands of God of getting a number of girls out of the nunnery and saving a large number from getting caught in this awful devil trap.

 On account of her feeble and broken constitution caused by the cruel and brutal treatment she received at the hands of these Papal slave-drivers in this Popish prison house, she did not stay with us very long, and after having delivered a course of lectures in the City of Saginaw, Michigan, she returned to her home at Indianapolis Indiana, and on Sunday, May 13th, 1917, after a few brief moments of illness, she left this world to be forever with the Lord. Dear soul, she had a short and stormy voyage, but a sudden and peaceful entrance into the Haven of Rest. "She being dead yet speaketh." Thank God the influence from her devoted and Godly life she lived before the world as she went in and out among the people will live till Jesus comes, when Sister Mabel MCClish will receive her reward in full accordance as her works have been.


KILLED IN HER ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE FROM THE 
HOUSE OF GOOD SHEPHERD, WASHINGTON, D. C


 Florence Cleland, in an attempt to escape from the House of Good Shepherd, Washington, D. C., in the early morning of August 8, 1913, was so badly injured that she died the same day in Georgetown Hospital – Roman institution.

 The girl made a rope of bed sheets, tied one end of the rope to her bed and went out of the upper window, trying to descend to freedom when the fatal accident occurred. She miscalculated the strength of her young arms or the gripping and fractured her skull She never regained consciousness before she died, therefore the world will never know her story, as she only could have told it, had she lived.

 And this horrible affair happened under the late President Wilson's nose and no investigation.

 No doubt a lustful priest and an inhuman slave driver Mother Superior is the cause of her death.


ANOTHER VICTIM OF CONVENT IMPRISONMENT


 From the Cincinnati Inquirer, Nov. 12, 1916. Miss Ruby Collins of Georgia, age 17, tried to make her escape from the House of the Good Shepherd at Warsaw and Hawthorne Avenues in that city, on Nov. 11. She tied a sheet and blanket together, lowered them from the window, and tried to descend. When the rope broke she fell fully three stories to the ground, then crawled half conscious to the gate where she was found by a policeman and sent to the hospital.

 If this poor girl recovers I suppose she will be taken back to the H.O.G.S. Convent Laundry Pen to toil and slave at the wash tub under the cruel lash of that black-hearted Mother Superior the rest of her days to enrich the coffers of the Pope's church.


MISS ELIZABETH SCHOFFEN

THE ESCAPED NUN

Seek and ye Shall Find, Ask and ye Shall Receive, Knock and
It Shall Be Opened Unto You.

How I Found Salvation


 Through the above text of Scripture so often quoted in her lectures, Miss Schoffen found the open door to Liberty through the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Praise God for the liberty wherewith He maketh free. Jesus said "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. ' Thousands of Convent prisoners locked in those Popish prison houses falsely called Convent of the Good Shepherd, are longing for light and freedom from such a terrible life of slavery, may God speed the day when the American people will become fully awakened to the true situation, and through a Protestant Government untrammeled by Papal influence and in justice to the decrees of God Almighty, the doors of these Popish harems will be thrown open, the inmates set at liberty and these hell holes be abolished forever from the earth. God grant it for Jesus' sake.

 Miss Shoffen was born in 1861, in Minnesota, of German parents who had come from Germany in quest of greater liberty and a home in a free land. Her mother was a very devout Roman Catholic, almost absolutely under the guidance and instructions of the parish priest. Her father was a Catholic also but not so strong in the faith; he often used to make fun of the superstitious practices and as he often made the remark, "priest foolishness."

 At the age of five, the family moved to the State of Washington and settled on a farm near Walla Walla. She was the eighth child of a large family, and the parents were unable to send all of the children to the Convent School, hence it was her lot through kind Providence to attend the Public School a few brief years as her father was a public school teacher, although this was done against the wishes of the mother and the priest, but we believe that the hand of God was ruling and shaping the destiny of this young life for His Glory and the salvation of the girlhood of America. In this Public School the seed of American principles and Freedom were born, and thank God old Rome has never been able to destroy, by her superstitious practices and Pagan Dogmas. Alarmed at the progress of the child was making in her studies at this school, the mother, influenced by the priest, took her away from public school and put her in a Convent School where she studied catechism, counting beads, prayers to the images, lessons on Purgatory, Hell, Limbo, the Mass, High and Low, and a lot of other Pagan Doctrines of the Church of Rome. After her two years' course as a novitiate she made her final vows and was consecrated a nun, a bride of Christ, the order of the Sisters of Charity of Providence in Vancouver, Washington, afterwards was removed to Portland, Oregon.

 A startling incident she tells about in her book entitled, "The Demands of Rome," Chapter thirty-one, page 23. "My last two confessions in preparation to entering the convent were made to Father' Cererri. When I had finished the last one, and he was expounding and explaining my admirable choice of sisterhood life, he raised his right hand while pronouncing the words, I absolve thee, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost,~ and then he put his arm around my neck and very 'fatherly' kissed me. In the midst of my sanctifying confusion I did not know whether it was the Holy Ghost, or if it was meant in brotherly love. But I quieted my mind with the happy thought that as the priest was Christ in the confessional, it must have been Him who kissed me, and so I believed myself highly favored by this mark of His love."

 Another startling thing happened.  "This same priest took me from my home to the Convent by stage which was two days' travel and a few hours on the railroad. At the end of the stage route we were in Dayton, Washington. It had been very warm and dusty [11 day. The clerk of the Hotel showed us to a large room prepared for two. 'Father Cererri, in a laughing, jolly, good-natured manner, remarked that the clerk took us for man and wife. The priest left the room while I was dusting and arranging myself. When he turned he had a couple of bottles of porter, he called it, and two big goblets. He opened the porter and filled the goblets, handed ne one and kept the other for himself I would not take it telling im that I never took liquor. He pleaded that I should drink it – it would do me good after the tiresome travel of the day. He could not prevail upon me to take it so he left the room again Upturning soon with some beer, saying that this was milder and insisted if I wanted to be a sister I had to learn to obey, as sisters made vows s obedience so I consented to taste it in obedience to him. He was then satisfied as I had obeyed."

 Miss Schoffen, known in religion as Sister Lucretia, spent thirty-one years as a Sister of Charity, working for the institution, nursing, teaching Missions and often going on begging expeditions as far East as Montreal, Canada, and up into the Gulf of Georgia, on the islands among the logging camps near Alaska. The hardships she suffered are, as she says in her book, indescribable.

 Crossing the stormy straits in small canoes, camping out at night in the wildest woods, our lives were endangered many times. Arriving at the camps at all hours of the night, tired, wet, cold and hungry; being lifted into bunks by men when we were so cold, in fact nearly frozen, that we could hardly move, being carried on the backs of men over muddy and wet places where the water was too shallow for the canoe, or boat to land. At one camp we visited the men refused to keep us over night, so the men who had roved us all day began to row us on to the next camp. About ten o'clock in the night a storm arose and we had to land, as it was too rough to go farther, the shore space was very limited as there were huge mountains on one side and the breakers on the other. Dry wood was very scarce so the fire we had was a little better than none at all. There were four of us -- two sisters and two men, and all the covering we had was one double blanket, with the rough rocky shore for a bed. About two o'clock in the morning the storm subsided and we embarked again and continued our journey, arriving at the next camp about four o'clock. Two of the workmen very kindly gave us their bunks, but because of cold there was very little sleep. When we arose the Chinese cook took us to the kitchen and had us warm our feet in the large oven. He was very good and kind, sympathetic friend for he looked so sorry for us and said, 'You have hard time'."

 This is only one incident of hundreds she experienced in her 32 years of slavery for the Pope of Rome. She collected thousands of dollars on these trips to build up the Convent System. She had full charge for many years of one whole floor of the Hospital in Portland, Oregon. She nursed priests and bishops, she saw the inside life of the institution, she acquired a vast store-house of knowledge about the workings of Rome. The life of drudgery and hardship, she endured for so many years became unbearable, the cruel deception and devilish treatment received at the hands of the sister nuns and of the superiors almost drove her to end her life, she several times appealed to her Superiors for redress and sympathy but was only turned down and reminded of the vows she had taken to be obedient to all things in the Community no matter what punishment might be imposed upon her, or hardship she might be called to pass through. She became disgusted, sick and tired of such a life and finally made up her mind to quit the institution and suffer the consequences. In July, 1911, she obeyed the voice of conscience, stepped down and out of the Convent never to return again. Without any money, and no friends, and no clothes but the prison garb she faced a cold and unfriendly world. Although out of the Convent she had no notion of ever leaving the faith, but she soon met up with true Protestant friends, and thank God there are a few true ones in the land yet. she began attending Gospel services and found Christ as her Saviour and united with the Christian Church at Portland, Oregon.

 Miss Schoffen is truly a marvel of the Grace of God, it is wonderful what God has done for her. The Holy Ghost is teaching her wisdom and knowledge in the things of the Kingdom of God. She is ever seeking and searching after the things contained in the Holy Scriptures. The editor had the honor of entertaining her in his home in Toledo several times. He also had her deliver a number of her lectures in his meetings through the West. He says she is one of the best informed converted nuns on the American platform today, both in exposing Popery politically and religiously. She had published her life story in book form, over 200 page book, well written, full of startling truths about the workings of the bishops and priests and those old crafty, slick Jesuitical Mothers, called Mother Superiors.



 

AN EXPOSURE OF CONVENT LIFE

Minnie Scott Morrison - Sister Teresa

 This girl was left alone at the age of three – a Protestant child – placed in a Protestant home in Indianapolis – was after wards stolen from there by a Mrs. Trook and hidden in the Good Shepherd Convent, Indianapolis – making her escape from that "House of Death" at the age of 24.

 The cruel tortures she suffered there all those long years is almost unbelievable. She was made to kiss the dirty floor again and again – kneel on the hard floor with her arms extended for days at a time – eat soup with bugs in it – put into a dark cold dungeon for three weeks with only bread and water – made to run a high-power machine, making eighty to one hundred dozen overalls a day for a firm in the city – was taken out of convent to be placed in a private home and while on train was kidnapped by a priest at a station where the train stopped. Put into an auto, chloroformed by a priest and taken to the "House of Death" again where she spent over ten years of slavery. Slapped in the face – head beat against the wall time and again – unconscious –  buckets of cold water poured on us to bring us to life again. "Mother Superior" one day gave me a bundle of men's underwear to mark size 46 on, after they were all marked she told me to mark them 36. I said, "Mother Alexander, I beg your pardon, you told me to mark them 46." For talking back to her she made me kneel in the middle of the floor for five days.

 One day while in the chapel dusting I saw my rings on the infant plaster paris baby Jesus' finger on the altar. I took them Off and put them on my finger and kept them hidden A sister told the mother on me – I was sent to go to her room. she wanted to see me. she took me to the engine room, strapped my right arm to a water pipe. I struggled and tried to get away, but all in vain. The engineer caught hold of me by the waist and held me so I could not get away. The mother took a red hot poker from the furnace, took hold of my left arm and said, "You will never wear rings on these fingers again." She put the red hot poker against my rings and melted them from my fingers, burning my fingers so badly I lost consciousness, and when I came to I was in the mangle room and Mother Irene said to Mother Priscilla, "What happened to her?" and I heard her say, "Nothing, only that she caught her hand in the mangle." I became unconscious again from the awful pain and Mother Irene threw a bucket of cold water on me again.

 I nearly lost my life from this terrible suffering. My fingers had to be amputated, as you will see by my photo.

 One day I saw Mother Priscilla take Sister Genevieve into the trunk room – a place equipped to flog and beat the girls She fastened both hands with straps, which hung from the ceiling, her feet clamped to the floor, and they beat her till she was unconscious, with sewing machine belts. They unfastened the buckles and let her fall to the floor, then poured a bucket of cold water on her to bring her to, and left her in that awful condition all day. I myself was punished in this way one time.

 Sister Rose had been tormented by the priests until her health was ruined. One day while sitting in her chair sewing the bell rang for church. Sister Rose did not move. I went to her to tell her to come. she was dead. The beds we slept on were of boards, with no mattress of any kind. The penances put on us were not fit to be printed.

 The day I left I had to sign the oath with my own blood taken from an incision on mv wrist, never to tell what went on in the convent. I had to make oath that my hand was caught in the mangle. The oath was placed on the main altar of the chapel The priest asked me questions in the confessional box I could not put on paper.

 One day I went to the priest of Saint Mary's church and asked him to marry us. He told me that if I would stay and be his housekeeper for a week, he would marry us in his parlor – not in the church because my husband was a Protestant – so we were married by a justice of the peace. I now have three boys, a good husband and a happy home. They have tried to steal my babies but God has defeated them.

Affidavit of H. E. Scott, 3534 E. 10th St., Indianapolis, Ind.

 I do hereby solemnly affirm that Mrs. Minnie Scott Morrison my sister, was at the House of the Good Shepherd at the time of the accident to her hand, and upon calling to see her at the above place was refused admittance. I was told it was against the rules to talk to anyone confined therein.

 Upon going to St. Vincent's Hospital to see her when she was taken there to have her hand amputated, the nurse told me that her hand was hurt in the mangle, but Mrs. Morrison was unconscious at the time, being unable to recognize me, or tell me anything.

(Signed) H. R. Scott.

Subscribed and sworn to before me, this 12th day of November, 1924.

James R. Stewart,
Notary Public