going to take, and the warm language in which he spoke to her father on that subject, had made her look upon him as a warm and sincere friend. The unhappy girl, on the eve of the day when she was to take the veil, repaired to church, and sent him a message, without mentioning her name, that a female penitent requested his attendance at the confessional. With painful surprise he found the future novice at his feet, in a state bordering on distraction. When a flood of tears had allowed her utterance, she told him that, for want of another friend in the whole world to whom she could disclose her feelings, she came to him, not, however, for the purpose of confession, but because she' trusted he would listen with pity to her sorrows. With a warmth and eloquence above her years, she protested that the distant terrors of eternal punishment, which, she feared, might be the consequence of her determination, could not deter her from the step by which she was going to escape the incessant persecution of her mother. In vain did my friend volunteer his assistance to extricate her from the appalling difficulties which surrounded her: in vain did he offer to wait upon the archbishop, and implore his interference: no offers, no persuasions could move her. She parted as if ready to be conveyed to the scaffold, and the next day she took the veil. The real kindness of her aunt, and the treacherous smiles of the other nuns, supported the pining novice through the year of probation. The scene I beheld when she was bound with the perpetual vows of monastic life, is one which I cannot recollect without an actual sense of suffocation. A solemn mass, performed with all the splendour which that ceremony admits, preceded the awful oaths of the novice. At the conclusion of the service, she approached the superior of the order. A pen, gaily ornamented with artificial flowers, was put into her trembling hand, to sign the engagement for life, on which she was about to enter. Then, standing before the iron-grate of the choir, she began to chaunt, in a weak and fainting voice, the act of consecration of herself to God; but, having uttered a few words, she fainted into the arms of the surrounding nuns. This was attributed to mere fatigue and emotion. No sooner had the means employed restored to the victim the powers of speech, than, with a vehemence which those who knew not her circumstances attributed to a fresh impulse of holy zeal, and in which the few that were in the painful secret saw nothing but the madness of despair, she hurried over the remaining sentences, and sealed her doom for ever. The real feelings of the new votaress were, however, too much suspected by her more bigoted or more resigned fellow-prisoners; and time and despair making her less cautious, she was soon looked upon as one likely to bring disgrace on the whole order, by divulging the secret that it is possible for a nun to feel impatient under her vows. The storm of conventual persecution, (the fiercest and most pitiless of all that breed in the human heart,) had been lowering over the unhappy young woman during the short time which her aunt, the prioress, survived. But when death had left her friendless, and exposed to the tormenting ingenuity of a crowd of female zealots, whom she could not escape for an instant, unable to endure her misery, she resolutely attempted to drown herself. The attempt, however, was ineffectual. And now the merciless character of Catholic super stition appeared in its full glare. The mother, without impeaching whose character no judicial steps could be taken to prove the invalidity of the profession, was dead; and some relations and friends of the poor prisoner were moved by her sufferings to apply to the church for relief. A suit was instituted for this purpose before the ecclesiastical court, and the clearest evidence adduced of the indirect compulsion which had been used in the case. But the whole order of Saint Francis, considering their honour at stake, rose against their rebellious subject, and the judges sanctioned her vows as voluntary and valid. She lives still in a state approaching to madness, and death alone can break her chains. Such an instance of misery is, I hope, one of those extreme cases which seldom take place, and more seldom transpire. The common source of suffering among the Catholic recluses proceeds from a certain degree of religious melancholy, which, combined with such complaints as originate in perpetual confinement, affect more or less the greater number. The mental disease to which I allude is commonly known by the name of Escrúpulos, and might be called religious anxiety. It is the natural state of a mind perpetually dwelling on hopes connected with an invisible world, and anxiously practising means to avoid an unhappy lot in it, which keep the apprehended danger for ever present to the imagination. Consecration for life at the altar promises, it is true, increased happiness in the world to come; but the numerous and difficult duties attached to the religious profession, multiply the hazards of eternal misery with the chances of failure in their performance; and while the plain Christian's offences against the moral law are often considered as mere frailties, those of the professed votary seldom escape the aggravation of sacrilege. The odious diligence of the Catholic moralists has raked together an endless catalogue of sins, by thought, word, and deed, to every one of which the punishment of eternal flames has been assigned. This list, alike horrible and disgusting, haunts the imagination of the unfortunate devotee, till, reduced to a state of perpetual anxiety, she can neither think, speak, nor act, without discovering in every vital motion a sin which invalidates all her past sacrifices, and dooms her painful efforts after Christian perfection to end in everlasting misery. Absolution, which adds boldness to the resolute and profligate, becomes a fresh source of disquietude to a timid and sickly mind. Doubts innumerable disturb the unhappy sufferer, not, however, as to the power of the priest in granting pardon, but respecting her own fulfilment of the conditions, without which to receive absolution is a sacrilege. These agonizing fears, cherished and fed by the small circle of objects to which a nun is confined, are generally incurable, and usually terminate in an untimely death, or insanity. There are, however, constitutions and tempers to which the atmosphere of a nunnery seems natural and congenial. Women of uncommon cleverness and judgment, whose strength of mind preserves them in a state of rational happiness, are sometimes found in the cloisters. But the true, the genuine nun-such, I mean, as, unincumbered by a barbarous rule, and blessed with that Liliputian activity of mind which can convert a parlour or a kitchen into an universe--presents a most curious modification of that amusing character, the old maid. Like their virgin sisters all over the world, they too have, more or less, a flirting period, of which the confessor is always the happy and exclusive object. The heart and soul of almost every nun not passed fifty are centred in the priest that directs her conscience. The convent messengers are seen about the town with lots of spiritual billetsdoux, in search of a soothing line from the ghostly fathers. The nuns not only address them by that endearing name, but will not endure from them the common form of speech in the third person:-they must be tutoyé, as children are by their parents. Jealousy is a frequent symptom of this nameless attachment; and though it is impossible for every nun to have exclusive possession of her confessor, few will allow the presence of a rival within their own convent. I do not intend, however, to cast an imputation of levity on the class of Spanish females which I am describing. Instances of gross misconduct are extremely rare among the nuns. Indeed, the physical barriers which protect their virtue are fully adequate to guard them against the dangers of a most unbounded mental intimacy with their confessors. Neither would I suggest the idea that nothing but obstacles of this kind keeps them, in all cases, within the bounds of modesty. My only object is to expose the absurdity and unfeelingness of a system which, while it surrounds the young recluses with strong walls, massive gates, and spiked windows, grants them the most intimate communication with a man-often a young man-that can be carried on in words and writing. The struggle between the heart thus barbarously tried, and the unnatural duties of the religious state, though sometimes a mystery to the modest sufferer, is plainly visible in most of the young captives. About the age of fifty, (for spiritual flirtation seldom exhausts itself before that age,) the genuine nun has settled every feeling and affection upon that shifting centre of the universe, which, like some circles in astronomy, changes with every step of the individual—I mean self. It has been observed that no European language possesses a true equivalent for your English word comfort; and, considering the state of this country, Spanish would have little chance of producing a similar substantive, were it not for some of our nuns, who, as they make a constant practical study of the subject, may, at length, enrich our dictionary with a name for what they know so well without it. Their comforts, however, poor souls! are still of an inferior kind, and arise chiefly from the indulgence of that temper, which, in the language of your ladies' maids, makes their mistresses very particular; and which, by a strange application of the word, confers among us the name of impertinente. The squeamishness, fastidiousness, and morbid sensibility of nuns, make that name a proverbial reproach against every sort of affected delicacy. As great and wealthy nunneries possess considerable influence, and none can obtain the patronage of the Holy Sisters (Mothers, as they are called by the Spaniards,) without accomodating themselves to the tone and manners of the society, every person, male or female, connected with it, acquires a peculiar mincing air, which cannot be mistaken by an experienced observer. But in none does it appear more ludicrously than in the old-fashioned nundoctors. Their patience in listening to long, minute, and often-told reports of cases; the mock authority with which they enforce their prescriptions, and the peculiar wit they employ to raise the spirits of their patients, would, in a more free country, furnish comedy with a most amusing character. Some years ago, a very stupid practitioner bethought himself of taking orders, thus to unite the spiritual and bodily leech for the convenience of nuns. The Pope granted him a dispensation of the ecclesiastical law, which forbids priests practising physic, and he found himself unrivalled in powers among the faculty. The scheme succeeded so well that our doctor sent home for a lad, his nephew, whom he has brought up in this two-fold trade, which, for want of direct heirs, of which priests in this country cannot boast, is likely to be perpetuated in the collateral branches of that family. With regard to their curative system, as it applies to the soul, I am a very incompetent judge: the body, I know-at least the half-spiritualized bodies of the nuns-they treat exclusively with syrups. This is a fact of which I have a melancholy proof in a near relation, a most amiable young woman, who was allowed to drop into an early grave, while her growing disease was opposed with nothing but syrup of violets! I must add, however, that the wary doctor, not forgetting the ghostly concerns of his patient, never omitted to add a certain dose of Agnus Castus to every ounce of the syrup; a practice to which, he once told a friend of mine, both he and his uncle most religiously adhered when attending young nuns, with the benevolent purpose of making their religious duties more easy. L. D. ON HEARING AN ALMOST-FORGOTTEN SONG. OH! cease, and never sing again (Or not to me) that mournful strain ; Waked the thought of prospects blighted, Fond affections unrequited, Faults and follies unretrieved: Waked regret and shame in me, With passionate prodigality, Cast a heart so warm as mine. Time cannot cure, nor absence chill. To hear those touching sounds no more : Did my heart own their sweetness less. V. E. S. STATE OF RELIGION IN THE HIGHLANDS. THE two principal distinctions in the religion of the Highlanders are the Presbyterian and the Roman Catholic. The latter, with few exceptions, is confined to the county of Inverness, particularly to the districts of Lochaber, Moydart, Arasaik, Morrer, Knoydart, and Strath Glass, and to the islands of Cannay, Eig, South Ouist, and Barra, where the adherents to the religion of their ancestors are equal, if not superior in number, to the disciples of the Reformation. There are likewise a few Episcopalians, chiefly among the gentry; and I heard of some Methodists and Anabaptists. To these may be added some seceders from the Scotch church, whose consciences rebel against ecclesiastical patronage, but whose points of faith know no dissimilarity, and who wander about the country praying and preaching at their own discretion. The religion of a Highlander is peaceable and unobtrusive. He never arms himself with quotations from Scripture to carry on offensive operations. There is no inducement for him to strut about in the garb of piety, in order to attract respect, as his own conduct insures it. Not being perplexed by doubt, he wants no one to corroborate his faith. Upon such a subject, therefore, he is silent, unless invited to the conversation, and then he entertains it with solemnity and reverence. The relationship between him and his Creator is more in his heart than on his tongue. I believe his religious feelings to be as sincere as they are simple and unassuming; and that moral precepts are more congenial to his disposition than mysteries. That this should be the character of Papists as well as Protestants, may possibly create astonishment. I could not discover any difference; and my own opinion has been confirmed by the clergymen with whom I have conversed. They have invariably stated, in answer to my questions on this point, that the Roman Catholics were equally good members of society, and equally quiet in the enjoyment of their tenets, with their own Presbyterian parishioners; and moreover they paid the same compliment to the priests. Another circumstance, still more astonishing, is, that Protestants and Papists, so often pronounced to be eternally inimical, live here in charity and brotherhood. On neither side is humanity forgotten in their doctrine of divinity. The world, it is hoped, will soon understand that distinctions in worship do not necessarily imply distinctions in our nature; and that our fellow-beings of opposite religions are as capable of love and friendship, of benevolence and sympathy, as those who kneel on the same hassock, or chaunt the same psalm. In Fort William there is the Scotch church, and the Episcopal and the Roman Catholic chapels. The inhabitants of the town, and of the neighbourhood, know no division, except at the doors of their respective places of worship. On a Sunday morning they may be seen in the street, Pennant, speaking of the island of Cannay, says, "The minister and the Popish priest reside in Eig; but, by reason of the turbulent seas that divide these isles, are very seldom able to attend their flocks. I admire the moderation of their congregations, who attend the preaching of either indifferently as they happen to arrive. As the Scotch are œconomists in religion, I would recommend the practice |