Produced by MFR and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
[Illustration: “Sister Mary Agnes. O.S.B.”
NUNNERY LIFE IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND; OR, Seventeen Years with Father Ignatius.
EDITED, WITH PREFACE, BY THE REV. W. LANCELOT HOLLAND, M.A., _Vicar Of All Saints’, Hatcham_.
London: HODDER AND STOUGHTON, 27, PATERNOSTER ROW. MDCCCXCI.
BUTLER & TANNER, THE SELWOOD PRINTING WORKS, FROME, AND LONDON.
CONVENT LIFE AT SLAPTON, IN DEVONSHIRE 64
SOME OF THE LLANTHONY RULES, WITH ACCOMPANYING PENANCES 121
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.