In the summer of last year (1889), I first heard of the authoress of this autobiography: not accidentally, as some might put it, but rather by the good providence of Jehovah, who “worketh all things after the counsel of His own will.”

Ex-sister Mary Agnes, or Miss J. M. Povey, had been attending one of Mrs. Edith O’Gorman Auffray’s (better known as “The Escaped Nun”) lectures at the Town Hall, Kensington, and after the lecture she obtained an interview with the lecturess, during which she gave her a short account of her own experiences in convents nominally connected with the Church of England. The following day I happened to meet Mrs. Auffray, who passed on to me what Miss Povey had told her. I at once made up my mind to request this lady, if possible, to publish her experiences, and I wrote a letter to her offering any assistance in my power, if she entertained the idea of making her experiences more widely known.

I should have mentioned that Mrs. Auffray had recommended Miss Povey to communicate with me, and had urged upon her the importance of bearing witness to the merciful deliverance God had vouchsafed to her.

I feel bound, therefore, to express to Mrs. Auffray my thanks for the good advice she gave Miss Povey; and let me say here that though perhaps no woman has been more vilified, and persecuted, by the Roman Catholics, and I fear too by many Ritualists and weak, half-hearted Protestants, than has Mrs. Auffray, yet no woman has been more blessed by God in exposing the errors of Romanism. To my mind, it is as easy to prove the perfect veracity of Mrs. Auffray’s story, told with such power, as it is to prove that once Queen Elizabeth reigned in England, or that the Duke of Wellington led his soldiers to victory when the battle of Waterloo was fought. I had not long to wait before receiving from Miss Povey a small portion of her manuscript; and, being struck with the unaffected style, and genuine appearance of the story thus commenced, I consented at her request to correct and revise, or, in one word, to edit, the whole of the material she might feel disposed to place in my hands.

I need hardly say, considering the many other engagements devolving upon the vicar of a parish of 20,000 people, that I have been obliged to make a somewhat slow progress with the work, short though it may appear, and when I had come to the close of it, I could not but feel that the book was worthy of an editor who could have devoted more time, attention and talent to it, than it was within my reach to do.

I would acknowledge here, with a feeling of deep gratitude, the assistance given me towards the close of my editorial duties, in connection with the book, by a gentleman whose name I am not at liberty to divulge. This gentleman introduced the manuscript to the publishers, and he has most kindly cast his eye carefully over the whole work, correcting or rescinding where he thought it advisable. Perhaps there are few men in England who know more than he does on the subject of English sisterhoods. He has lectured with ability on the subject, and is likely to become ere long a well-known writer. Since I made him acquainted with the work I was editing, and had had some conversation with him upon these matters, I only wished he had taken my place as editor.

I think that those who read through this book will readily acknowledge that Miss Povey has done her work well, and I feel sure she will receive the hearty congratulations of a great number of persons. She has been obliged to write under some considerable disadvantages, arising from the nature of her employment, which does not allow a very wide margin of time for writing; consequently, as she reminded me, she has had no time to look over and correct what force of circumstances compelled her to write somewhat hurriedly.

“I shall be much obliged,” she has written to me, “for any improvement you think fit to make, in correcting, revising, rescinding, in all the manuscript.” Any excellence that may be found in the book must be wholly due to the authoress; none could have written in the forcible and graphic way she has done, who had not herself passed through so strange and painful an experience.

I have only had one interview with Miss Povey, and that when the book was well nigh finished. But before then I took great pains to find out the thorough trustworthiness of her antecedents and statements. God forbid that I should ever venture to send before the public a work of such deep import, were I not perfectly convinced that ex-sister Mary Agnes was in a position to write, and actually was writing, the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

I have by me a letter written by the Mother Abbess of the Feltham convent, to the lady in whose employment Miss Povey is now living, giving her, as will be acknowledged by all, a very high character for truthfulness and uprightness.

Miss Povey has also received the two following letters from the same lady:—

I have ample testimony to the truth of her statement, “Seventeen Years with Father Ignatius,” since I am able to give the following extract from a letter written by “Ignatius” himself to Sister Mary Agnes, soon after she had left the convent:—

Most of the readers of this book will probably know the meaning of the letters “O.S.B.” They mean the “Order of St. Benedict.” Now, although Sister Mary Agnes never became what is called in conventual phraseology a “professed” nun in that Order, that is to say, she never “took the black veil,” yet for all these years she was a novice nun, and was always looked upon and called a nun.

In a letter Father Ignatius wrote to her in the year 1879, whilst she was in the convent, this sentence occurs: “You are really a little nun”; and again: “If I find you really grown in a nun-like spirit, I really hope we may fix (D.V.) your profession, say, this year.”

I might very easily add more to prove that this simple story of seventeen years of convent life is not a fabricated one, but the evidence I have produced, out of a mass which I have at my disposal, will surely be enough.

Miss Povey has decided to make known her life as a nun, in order that others may take warning, and profit by her experiences. No young lady who may become acquainted with this book can ever say, should she be deluded into taking the veil, that she took that terrible leap, as I fear many do take it, in the dark.

Convents, or sisterhoods, in connection with the Church of England, are by no means few and far between, and it is to be hoped that this book will bring conviction to many of the transparent fact, that the teaching and practices within their walls are not so widely different from the same within the walls of Roman Catholic convents.

I hope that Miss Povey’s work may do good in making known the danger of being misled by the apparently pure evangelical teaching which Father Ignatius is said to give. Now, it seems to me, that here in this book we have the means of subjecting this specious-looking metal to a severe test. His so-called Gospel sermons and orations contain some good metal with which the counterfeit coin is covered and made to pass as genuine.

It is an incumbent duty to let her revelations be known far and wide, so that souls be not led astray.

Is there not a cause? Consider it, I beg of you, who may read this book. Remember that with scarcely an exception (I don’t think the infallibility of the Pope is acknowledged in these convents) every Roman Catholic tenet is unblushingly held and taught in the three convents which this book refers to. Roman Catholic literature of the most advanced type is constantly used in them.

Another advantage that I hope and feel sure will arise from studying this little book, will be found in the remarkably clear definition Miss Povey has been enabled to give of the three celebrated and essentially Romish vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. These self-same vows are just now being spoken of a good deal, and many are telling us that they are to be an essential element in the new brotherhoods which the Bishop of Rochester has so lately, in the Upper House of Convocation and in his Triennial Charge, advocated. I cannot but hope that God has raised up, at a most opportune moment, a witness against the imposition of such vows, whether on men or women. I hope it may lead those who are favourable to the scheme to favour it no more. Is it not palpable to all that just as sisterhoods are made the secret repositories of extreme Romish education, practices, and literature, so likewise will brotherhoods be made to serve a similar purpose?

We are certainly living in “perilous times,” and it is amazing to behold the spirit of indifference in quarters where we might least expect it, not only with regard to the great strides Ritualism is making, so that Protestant Evangelicalism is well nigh eclipsed, but this indifference is as great with regard to the advance of Romanism and Jesuitism,[1] and (saddest result of all) to the building of so many hundreds of Roman Catholic convents and monasteries in the United Kingdom.

There are in existence societies for the prevention of cruelty to children, and for the prevention of cruelty to animals; but although the cruelties and tortures, called penances, which are inflicted on many a poor helpless nun are greater than those inflicted on animals, the man who raises up his voice against this worst form of inhumanity is counted unloving and bigoted. Believe me, the unloving ones are those who lend any countenance whatever to, or who do not make a righteous protest against, the conventual and monastic system, according to which disciplines, hair-shirts, scourgings, and various other forms of cruelty and degradation are employed.

Do we not see that, if this system is allowed to advance in the Church of England, these very penances (many of which do exist, all of which may exist, in the Church of England convents), which, without any doubt, exist in Romish convents, will be inflicted with equal severity in English Church convents.

Sister Mary Agnes does not speak of prison-like underground cells in Father Ignatius’s convents, and we believe, therefore, that anyhow at present they do not exist in them. But she does speak of penances, and she has felt them.

In bringing my Preface to a close, I will give a statement with regard to the Church of England convent in Woodstock Road, in the City of Oxford, founded by the late Dr. Pusey. This statement has been made by a clergyman of the Established Church, who is perfectly prepared, if need be, to give his name.

Finally, let us hope that God’s people throughout England will make it a matter of daily intercession to the throne of Grace that convents, whether Anglican or Roman Catholic, may be utterly abolished. I sincerely trust that this book will be read as a witness of what God’s good providence and sovereign grace have done for the writer of this interesting narrative, and therefore can do for others. May the Spirit of the living God that opened the eyes of Sister Mary Agnes, be poured out abundantly to open the eyes of many in this land, who are sitting in darkness and the shadow of death. And may they be led, by the same Spirit, through the one only Mediator between God and man, even Jesus Christ, to obtain fellowship with the Father, together with all other spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus, “according as God hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world.” And, finally, may He also enable them to “stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made them free.”

W. LANCELOT HOLLAND.

All Saints’ Vicarage, Hatcham Park, S.E.,
February, 1890.