The Myth of the Walled-up Nun

The Myth of the Walled-up Nun was written partly as a riposte to material contained in the novel Montezuma's Daughter (1893) by H. Rider Haggard, but generally as an attempt to dispel the belief that Roman Catholic nuns were ever immured while still alive. One of the passages that Herbert Thurston found objectionable in Haggard's book related to the intended mercy killing of a nun who had been condemned to immuration for breaking her vows. The hero of the story is approached by a nun who explains, "In our convent there dies to-night a woman young and fair, almost a girl indeed, who has broken the vows she took. She dies to-night with her babe-thus, oh God, thus! by being built alive into the foundations of the house she has disgraced. It is the judgement that has been passed upon her, judgement without forgiveness and without reprieve. I am the abbess of this convent-ask not its name or mine-and I love this sinner as though she were my daughter. I have obtained this much of mercy for her because of my faithful services to the Church and by secret influence, that, when I give her the cup of water before the work is done, I may mix poison with it and touch the lips of the babe with poison, so that their end is swift. I may do this and yet have no sin upon my soul. I have my pardon under seal. Help me, then, to be an innocent murderess, and to save this sinner from her last agonies on earth." Herbert Thurston, S.J., had previously written The Immuring of Nuns with the same aim of discrediting claims that immuration was practised as a punishment. That article has been appended to The Myth of the Walled-up Nun in this publication.