In the Times of Saturday last is published a most
remarkable letter from the Abbess of the English Benedictine convent in Rome. It appears that the religious community in question purchased a building known as the College of St. Patrick from the Irish Augustinian monks. The nuns were to pay interest on the purchase money for six years, and then a sum of £24,000. This was on the face of it rather a rash contract, but the Benedictine nuns relied upon the assurances of a member of their community who would be entitled to a large sum of money in six years, and who promised to endow them with her wealth. But before she had fulfilled her engagement the nun in question, according to the statement of the Abbess, fled from the convent at the instigation of a Roman priest. Thus the convent lost the source of wealth upon which they depended to fulfil their contract. It might have been sup- posed that under circumstances so extraordinary the eccle- siastical authorities and the creditor community would have done everything to help the unfortunate• nuns out of their diffieulty. But, according to the Abbess, they not only refrained from any help, but would not even take steps egainst the guilty parties for fear of a scandal. The Abbess tells us she appealed to the Inquisition, but that" the result of this secret tribunal was exactly what it would have been in the Middle Ages, the innocent were sacrificed to the guilty in order that the honour of the Church might not be impugned." Whether this was so we, of course, cannot say at present, as we have only heard one side, but such is the Abbess's allegation.
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