This is an excellent look at the religious system of the Catholic Church from the inside. Charles Chiniquy was born at Kamouraska, Quebec, Canada of Roman Catholic parents. He studied at the college of Nicolet in Canada, professor of belles-lettres, after graduation he entered the priesthood (at an early age) and continued therein until he was an old man. At the age of 49 he left the Roman church taking his congregation with him and became a Presbyterian minister. His encounters with the inner workings of the of the Roman church are so enlightening that it could only come from someone who was embedded in such a system for so many years. He later published a number of books and tracts on temperance and about his life and experiences in the Catholic church, of which some became very popular and were translated into several languages. In this book he covers such subjects as:

· The Bible and the Priest of Rome,

· Preparation for the First Communion-Initiation to Idolatry,

· Intellectual Education in the Roman Catholic College

· Moral and Religious Instruction in the Roman Catholic Colleges

· Protestant Children in the Convents and Nunneries of Rome

· Rome and Education- Why the Church of Rome hate the Common Schools of the United States, and want to destroy them?

· Theology of the Church of Rome: its Anti-Christian Character

· The Vow of Celibacy

· The Impurities of the Theology of Rome

· The Priests of Rome and the Holy Fathers.

· How I Swore to give up the Word of God to follow the Word of Men

· The Roman Catholic Priesthood, or Ancient and Modern Idolatry

· Nine Consequences of the Dogma of Transubstantiation.

· The Old Paganism under a Christian Name

· Simony

· Strange and Sacrilegious Traffic in the so-called Body and Blood of Christ

· Enormous Sums of Money made by the Sale of Masses

· Conversions of Protestants to the Church of Rome

· How the priest spy on the Protestants through the Confessional

And much more. If you want an inside look at the Catholic church then this book is a must read.