This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1848 Excerpt: ...and indignation of the two novices, when they had fully investigated this shameful deception. "This, then," exclaimed Isabel, "accounts for all the miracles and false wonders which we have so often heard related, and a repetition of which all this mockery of a novena was instituted to invoke! The day after to-morrow, no doubt, the cheat will again be practised, on the poor deceived votaries of a senseless superstition. Come to my cell as soon as you can, Rosa, and I will show you several passages in the holy book of God, in which such proceedings as these are described as 'lying wonders, ' and declared to be the work of some 'evil one, ' whose character is most awfully pourtrayed, and who is denounced as the object of fearfully appalling judgments. I should not dare to venture on too rash an interpretation of mysterious truths; but there are descriptions in that blessed word, which cannot apply more closely or exactly to anything, than they do to the whole system of our church, her doctrines, her practices, and her pretensions. And, oh! Rosa, there is a terrible warning to God's people, to come out of her, that they be not partakers of her sins, nor receive of her plagues." Poor Rosa, pale and dejected, was leaning against the coffin, scarcely able to support herself, while her fast-dropping tears fell profusely on her clasped hands. "Isabel," she said at length, "I would to heaven I were stretched on this bier, beside her whose bodily sufferings and mental woes are all ended! Oh! what will become of us, my friend? How shall we, how can we, endure the long, long life of consuming misery that awaits us? How spend year after year, in the dull, monotonous, wearisome round of useless observances, in which we can no longer place ...