“THROUGH the confessional an unfathomable abyss has been dug by the Church of Rome between the heart of the wife and the husband. The confessor is the master, the ruler, the king of the soul: the husband, as the graveyard-keeper, must be satisfied with the corpse.”

"In the Church of Rome it is utterly impossible that the husband should be one with the wife, and that the wife should be one with the husband A monstrous being has been put between them both, called the confessor. Born in the darkest ages of the world, that being has received from hell his mission to destroy and contaminate the purest joys of the married life, --to enslave the wife, to outrage the husband, and to cheat the world. The more auricular confession is practised,. the more the laws of public and private morality are trampled underfoot. , , I It is recorded that the anaconda takes its victim to its place of retreat, covers it with slime, and then swallows it, " I now declare, most solemnly and sincerely, that after living twenty-five years in full communion with the Roman-Catholic Church, and officiating as a Romish priest, hearing confessions and confessing myself, I know not another reptile in all animal nature so much to be shunned and loathed and dreaded by females, both married and single, as a RomanCatholic priest or bishop who practises the degrading and demoralizing office of auricular confession. Auricular confession is nothing but a systematic preparation for the ruin of the soul of the guileless and guiltless scholar." So said William Hogan. "Let me," said this converted priest, "give American, Protestant mothers just a twilight glance at the questions which a Romish priest asks those females who go to confession to him, and they will become convinced that there is no poetry in what 1 say.

"First let the reader bring, before the mind a picture of a young lady between the age of from twelve to twenty, on her knees, with, her lips nearly close pressed to the cheeks of the priest, who, in all probability, is not over twentyfive or thirty, years of age. Let it be remembered that the young priests are, as a rule, extremely zealous in the discharge of their sacerdotal duties, especially in hearing confessions, which all Roman Catholics are bound to make under pain of eternal damnation. When priest and penitent are placed in the above attitude, let us suppose the following conversation taking place between them

"CONFESSOR. What sins have you committed?
"PENITENT. I don't know any, sir.
"CON. Are you sure you did nothing wrong I Examine yourself well.
"PEN. Yes; I do recollect that I did wrong; I made faces at school at Lucy A.
"CON. Nothing else?
" PEN. Yes; I told mother that I hated Lucy W., and that she was an ugly thing.
"CON. (scarcely able to suppress a smile in finding the girl so innocent). Have you had any immodest thoughts?

"PEN. What is that, sir I
"CON. Have you been thinking about men?
"PEN. Why, yes, sir.
"CON. Are you fond of any of them?
" PEN. Why, yes I like cousin A. or R. greatly,
"CON. Did you ever like
"PEN. Oh, no!
"CON. How long did these thoughts about him continue?
"PEN. Not very long.
"CON. Had you thew thoughts by day or by night?
"PEN. By ———–

"In this strain does this reptile confessor proceed, till his halfgained prey is, filled with ideas and thoughts to which she has been hitherto a stranger. He tells her that she must come tomorrow, She accordingly comes, and he gives another twist to the screw which he has now firmly fixed upon the soul and body of his penitent. Day after day, week after week and month aftermonth does this hapless girl come to confession, until this wretch has worked up her passions to a tension almost snapping, and then becomes his easy prey. I can not detail the whole process by which a Romish confessor debauches his victims in the confessional; but if curiosity, or any other motive, creates in the public mind a desire to know all the particulars, I refer them to Dens' treatise, 'De Peccatis,' which is taught in Maynooth College and elsewhere. In this, and in Antoine's 'Moral Theology,' they will find the obscene questions which are put by priests and bishops of the Romish Church to all women, young and old, married or single: and if any married man, father, or brother will, after the perusal of these questions, allow his wife or daughter or sister ever again to go to confession, I will only say that his ideas of morality, are more vague and loose than those of the heathen or the Turk."

Protestants think that confession is a dread to Romanists. Far from it. It is with many, a time for love-making, for prurient scandal, for plotting against the peace of the community. The very idea of it is made a delight, rather than a dread.

which occurs about the middle of Lent, illustrates very truthfully the way in which Rome sweetens the pill that is to poison the soul.

"Notice is given to the congregation the shibboleth before, that every father of a family may send his children, both boys and girls, to church, on the day appointed, in the afternoon. The mothers dress their children the best they can that day, and give them the offering-money for the expiation of their sins. That afternoon is a holy day in the parish, not by precept, but by custom; for no parishioner, either young or old, man or woman, mime to go and hear the children's confessions. For it is reckoned among them a greater diversion than a comedy, as you may judge by the following account."

"The day appointed, the children repair to church at three o'clock, where the priest is waiting for them with a long reed in his hand; and when all are together (sometimes one hundred and fifty in number, and sometimes less) the reverend Father placeth them in a circle round himself, and then kneeling down (the children also doing the same) makes the sign of the cross, and says a short prayer. This done, he exhorteth the children to hide no sin from him, but to tell him all they have committed. Then he strikes with his reed the child whom he designs to confess the first, and asks him the following questions:" —

CONFESSOR. "How long is it since you last confessed?"
BOY. “Father, a whole year, or the last Lent.”
CON. "And how many sins have You committed from that time till now?
Boy. I ' Two dozen.”

Now the confessor asks round about: —

CON. "And you?”
BOY. "A thousand and ten.”

"Another will say, ‘A bag full Of small lies, and ten big sins;’ and so one after another answers, and tells many childish things.”
CON. "But pray, you say that you have committed ten big sins; tell me how big?”
BOY. “As big as a tree."
CON. “But tell me the sins."
BOY. "There is one sin I committed, which I dare not tell your reverence before all the people; for somebody here present will kill me if he heareth me.”
CON. "Well, come out of the circle, and tell it me.”

"They both go out and with a loud voice he tells him that such a day he stole a nestfull of sparrows from a tree, of another boy's, and that if he knew it he would kill him. Then both come again into the circle, and the Father asks other boys and girls so many ridiculous questions, and the children answer him so many pleasant, innocent things, that the congregation laughs all the while. One will say that his sins are red  another, that one of his sins is white, one black, and one green; and in these trifling questions they spend two hours' time. When the congregation is weary of laughing, the confessor gives the children a correction, and bids them not to sin any more, for a black boy takes along with him the wicked children. Then he asks the offering, and after he has got all from them, gives them the penance for their sins. To one he says, ‘I give you for penance to eat a sweet cake;’ to another, not to go to school the day following; to another, to desire his mother to buy him a new hat; and such things as these; and pronouncing the words of absolution, he dismisseth the congregation with Amen, so be it, every year."

These are the first foundations of the Romish religion for youth. From seven to fifteen there is no extraordinary thing, unless some girl begins at twelve years a lewd life, and then the confessor finds business and pleasure enough when she comes to confess.

is described by Father Chiniquy. "On the sabbath previous the priest had said, "Make your children understand that this act of confession is one of the most important in their lives, that for every one of them it will decide their eternal happiness or misery. Fathers or mothers, if through your fault or his own your child is guilty of a bad confession, -if he conceals his sins, and commences lying to the priest, who holds the place of God himself, -this sin is often irreparable. The Devil will take possession of his heart; he will become accustomed to lie to his father confessor, or rather to Jesus Christ of whom he is a representative. His life will be a series of sacrileges; his death and eternity, those of the reprobate. Teach him, therefore, to examine thoroughly his actions, words, and thoughts, in order to confess without disguise."

"At last the moment came. Young Chiniquy knelt at the side of his confessor, and repeated the prayer, 'I do confess to Almighty God, to the blessed Mary, always a Virgin, to the blessed Archangel Michael, to the blessed John the Baptist, to the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, all the saints, and to thee, O Father, that I have too much sinned by thought, word and deed, by my fault, by my greatest fault. Therefore I beseech the blessed Mary, always a Virgin, the blessed Archangel Michael, the blessed John the Baptist, the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, all the saints, and thee, O Father, to pray to God our Lord for me. Amen." This done, the penitent raises him from his prostration to his knees, and touching with his lip either the ear or cheek of the spiritual father, begins to discover his sine by the Tea Commandments. And here we give a translation of the Ten Commandments, word for word:

"The commandments of the law of God are ten; the three first do pertain to the honor of God, and the other seven to the benefit of our neighbor.

i. Thou shalt love God above all things.

ii. Thou shalt not swear.

iii. Thou shalt sanctify the holy days.

iv. Thou shalt honor thy father and mother.

v. Thou shalt not kill.

vi. Thou shalt not commit fornication.

vii. Thou shalt not steal.

viii. Thou shalt not bear false witness, nor lie.

ix. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife.

x. Thou shalt not covet the things which are another's"

"The lost commandment is divided into two to make out the number. The sixth with Rome is the seventh in the Bible, The second is dropped out.

"The commandments of the Holy Mother Church are seven. . 1. To hear mass on Sundays and Holy days, 2. To confess at least once in a year, and oftener if there be danger of death, 3. To receive the eucharist. 4. To fait. 5. To pay tithes, besides the tenth, onethirtieth part of the fruits of the earth, towards the repair of the church and the vestments."

"1. Baptism. 2. Confirmation. 3. Penance. 4. The Lord's Supper. 5. Extreme Unction. 6. Holy Orders, 7. Matrimony. Amen."

Then came the confession of sins. Young Chiniquy had laughed at the priest. He confessed it, He says, "When I had confessed all the sins I could remember, the priest began to ask me the strangest questions on matters about which my pen must be silent. I replied, 'Father, I do not understand what you ask me.'

“I question you on the sixth commandment [seventh in the Bible]. Confess all. You will go to hell, if through your fault you omit any thing.' Thereupon he dragged my thoughts to regions which, thank God, had hitherto been unknown to me.

"I answered him, 'I do not understand you,' or 'I have never done these things.'

"Then skilfully shifting to some secondary matter, he would soon slyly and cunningly come back to his favorite subject, namely, sins of licentiousness. His questions were so unclean that I blushed, and felt sick with disgust and shame." Remember, young Chiniquy had doubtless been converted when a child. He had read the Bible, despite the priest, through again and again, and had committed to memory vast portions of it, which he was accustomed to repeat in the hearing. of his neighbors. Ile was trained by a noble Christian mother. He said, "More than once I had been, to my regret, in the company of bad boys; but not one of them had offended my moral nature so much as this priest had done. Not one of them had ever approached the shadow of the things from which that man tore the veil, and which he placed before the eye of my soul. In vain did 1 tell him that I was not guilty of such things; that I did not even understand what he asked me: he would not let me off. Like the vulture bent upon tearing the poor bird that falls into his claws, that cruel priest seemed determined to defile and ruin my heart.

"At last he asked me a question in a form of expression so bad that I was really pained. I felt as if I had received a shock from an electric battery; a feeling of horror made me shudder. I was so filled with indignation that, speaking loud enough to be heard by many, I told him, 'Sir, I am very wicked; I have seen, heard, done many things which I regret; but I never was guilty of what you mention to me. My ears have never heard any thing so wicked as what they have heard from your lips. Please do not ask me any more of these questions; do not teach me more evil than I already know.' He gave me a short penance, and dismissed me." I

Chiniquy left the confessional humbled, disgraced in his own eyes, and outraged. He went to his uncle's house, who had the name of being a Roman Catholic, yet who did not believe a word of the doctrines of the Roman Church. He laughed at the priests, their masses, their purgatory, and especially their confession. He did not conceal that when young he had been scandalized by the words and actions of a priest at the confessional. "He spoke to me jestingly: 'You will now be a good boy. But if you have heard as many things as I did the first time I went to confess, you are a very learned boy,' and he burst into laughter.

"I blushed, and remained silent. My aunt, who was a devoted Roman Catholic, said to me, 'Your heart is relieved, is it not, since you confessed all your sins?" I gave her an evasive answer, but I could not conceal that sadness overcame me. I thought I was the only one from whom the priest had asked these polluting questions. But great as my surprise, on the following day, when going to school, I learned that my fellowpupils had not been more fortunate than I had been. The only difference was that instead of being grieved, they laughed at it 'Did the priest ask you such and such questions?' they would demand, laughing boisterously. I refused to reply, and asked: 'Are you not ashamed to speak of such things?' “ ‘Ah! Ah! how very scrupulous you are,' continued they. 'If it is not a sin for the priest to speak to us on these matters, how can it be a sin for us?' I soon perceived that even the young schoolgirls had not been less polluted and scandalized by the questions of the priest than the boys. I should be misunderstood were it supposed that I mean to convey the idea that this priest was more to blame than others, or that he did more to fulfil the duties of the ministry in asking these questions. He was obeying the Pope and his theologians. He was, as I have been myself, bound hand and foot at the feet of the greatest enemy that the holiness and truth of God have ever had on earth: the Pope. The priest of Rome is an automaton, —a machine which acts, thinks, and speaks in matters of morals and of faith, only according to the order and the will of the Pope and his theologians. He had read Liguori, Dens, Debreyne, authors approved by the Pope, and he was obliged to take darkness for light."

Can Americans realize that the children of Romanists are exposed to this demoralizing influence, and not feel that something ought to be done to let in the light upon this terrible night of darkness and of death?

because there are two classes of people to be confessed, —the learned and the unlearned. The learned confess by these three general heads, thought, word, and deed, reducing them into all sorts of sins. The unlearned confess by the Ten Commandments, discovering by them all the mortal sins which they have committed since their last confession. Venal sins, or sins of small matter, are washed away by the sign of the cross or by sprinkling the face with the holy water. To the discovery of the mortal sins, the father confessor doth very much help the penitent; for he sometimes, out of zeal, but most commonly out of curiosity, asks them many questions to know whether they do remember all their sins or not. "By these and the like questions, the confessors do more mischief than good, especially to the ignorant people and young women; for perhaps they do not know what simple fornication is; what voluntary or involuntary pollution; what impure desire; what simple motion of our hearts; what relapse, re-incidence, or reiteration of sins; and the like; and then by the confessor's indiscreet questions, the penitents learn things of which they never had dreamed before, and they go home with light, knowledge, and an idea of sins unknown to them before. "I

Take this as an illustration of the method and the mischief.

A Young Woman Enters the Confessional.

CONFESSOR, after asking Mary to give the commandments of the holy Church, and the sacraments, then taking up the commandments, asks, "How long is it since you last confessed?"

MARY. "It is two years and two months."
CONFESSOR "You see in the second commandment of the Church and in the third among the sacraments, that you are obliged to confess every year. Why, then, have you neglected so much longer time to fulfil the precepts of the holy mother I" She gives a reason, a shameful act with a man now dead, and she now determines to retire to a monastery.

The confessor urges her to make a clean breast of her sins, which she does.

Cox. "Have you constantly frequented the assemblies of the faithful, and heard mass on Sundays and holy days?"
MARY. "No, father. Sometimes I have been four months without going to church."

CON. "You have done a great injury to your soul, and you have given a great scandal to your neighbor" Her sin in living in adulterous intercourse with Don Francisco is not even referred to.
CON. "Did it come into your mind that God would punish you for your sins?"
MARY. "Yea, father, but the Virgin Mary is my advocate. I kept her image by my bedside, and used to address my prayer to her every night, before I went to bed, and I always had a great hope in her. "
CON. "If your devotion to the Virgin Mary is so fervent, you must believe that your heart is moved to repentance by her influence and mediation, and I charge you to continue the same devotion while you live, and fear nothing afterwards.
MARY. "That is my design.
CON. "Go on." The confessions of the several commandments are trivial.

The sixth commandment (the seventh in the Bible) was broken. Speaking of her friend, she said, "For two years we loved in innocence; but at last he discovered to me one day, when our parents were abroad, the great inclination he had for me; and that having grown to a passion, and this to an inexpressible love, he could no longer hide it from me; that his design was to marry me as soon as his father died, and that he was willing to give me all the proofs of sincerity and unfeigned love I could desire from him. To this I answered that if it was so, I was ready to promise never to marry another during his life. To this he took a sign of the crucifix in his hands, and, bowing down before an image of the Virgin Mary, called the four elements to be witnesses of the sincerity of his vows, nay, all the saints of the heavenly court to appear against him in the day of judgment, if he was not true in heart and words, and said, that by the crucifix in his hands, and by the image of the Virgin Mary, then present, he promised and swore never to marry another during ray life. I answered him in the same manner; and ever since we have lived with the familiarities of husband and wife. The effect of this reciprocal promise Was the ruin of my soul, and the beginning of my sinful life I for ever since I minded nothing else but to please him, and myself when I had an opportunity."
CON. "How Often did he visit You?"
MARY. "The first year he
CON. "Did any effect of these visits come to light?”
MARY. "No, father. It would, had I not been so barbarous and inhuman as to prevent it, by a remedy I took which answered my purpose.”
CON. “And how could you get the remedy, there being a rigorous law against it!"

The answer introduces the reader to a friar, a cousin by relation, who gave her the medicine, and because of her obligation to him she was compelled to

CON. "Do you design to continue the same life with your cousin for fear of being discovered?"
MARY. "No, father, for he is sent to another convent to be professor of divinity for three years; and if he comes back again, he shall find me in a monastery, and then I will be free and safe from his wicked attempts.”
CON. “Have you transgressed the fourth commandment of the Church?”
MARY. “Yea, father."
CON. “Have you taken the bull of indulgences?”
MARY. “Yea, father."
CON. “Have you visited five altars, the days appointed for his Holiness to take a soul out of purgatory?”
MARY. “I did not for several days.”
CON. “Now, to show your obedience to God and our mother the Church, you must perform the following penance. You must feast every second day, to mortify your lusts and passions, and for the space of two months; you must visit five altars every second day said one privileged altar, and say in each of them five times Pater Noster, etc., and five times Ave Mary, etc. you must say, too, every day for two months time, three and thirty times, the Creed, in honor and memory of the three and thirty years that our Saviour did live upon the earth; and you must confess once a week; and by the continuance of theme spiritual exercises, your soul may be preserved from several temptations, and may be happy forever.”
MARY. "I will do all that with the help of God.”
COX. " Say the act of contrition by which I absolve you.”
MARY. "O God my God! I have sinned against thee, I am heartily sorry.”
CON. "Our Lord Jesus Christ absolve thee; and by the authority given me, I absolve thee.”

Here we see forms and words take the place of reflectance, and acts of the individual do away with faith in the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ; and this is Romanism at its best.

Take now this story as told by a Jesuit priest. It is the private confession of Father Garca, a Jesuit; "A woman of thirtythree years of age came to confess to me, and told me that from sixteen years of age until twentyfour, she had committed all sorts of lewdness only with ecclesiastical persons, having in every convent a friar, who, under the name of cousin, did use to visit her. At last she dreamed that the Devil was free with her, and she was delivered of a boy, and that she knew no man for fourteen months. This so distressed her that the threatened to lay hands on herself. The inquisitors sent for the woman and her maid, and discovered the story. It was this. Father Canchillos, Victorian friar, was in love with the woman, but she could not bear the sight of him. That he gained the maid, putting some opium into her mistress's supper; she fell fast asleep, and the said father did So the child is not the son of the, Devil, but of Father Canchillos. The friar was put into the Inquisition for having persuaded the maid to tell the mistress that it was the Devil; for she had been under the same fear, and really she was in the same condition."

This private confession of a priest is an eyeopener for those who believe in the immaculate character of the priesthood.

Don Paulo says, " Since God Almighty is pleased to visit me with this sickness, I ought to make good use of the time I have to live, and I desire of you to help me with your prayers, and to take the trouble to write some substantial points of my confession, that you may perform, after my death, whatever may enable me to discharge my duty towards God and men. When I was ordained priest, I made a general confession of all my sins. I have served my parish sixteen years, and all my care has been to discover the tempers and inclinations of my parishioners; there are in my parish sixteen hundred families, and more or less I have defrauded them all some way or other.

"My thoughts have been impure ever since I began to hear confessions; my words have been grave and severe with them all, and all my parishioners have respected and feared me. I have had so great an empire over them, that some of them, knowing of my misdoings, have taken my defense in public. I have omitted nothing to please them in outward appearance, but my actions have been the most criminal of mankind; for, as to my ecclesiastical duty, what I have done has been for custom's sake.

"As to the confessions and wills I have received from my parishioners at the point of death, I do confess I have made myself master of as much as I could, and by that means I have gathered together all my riches. As to my duty towards God, I am guilty to the highest degree, for I have not loved him; I have neglected to say the private divine service every day. I have procured by remedies sixty abortions, making the fathers of the children their murderers, besides many others intended, though not executed, by some unexpected accident. I confess that I have frequented the parish club twelve years. We were only six parish priests in it and then we did consult and contrive all the ways to satisfy our passions. Each had a list of the handsomest women in the Parish; and when one had a fancy to see any woman remarkable for her beauty in another's parish, the priest of the parish sent for her to his Own house; and having prepared the way for wickedness the other had nothing to do but to and so we have served one another these twelve years. Our method has been, to persuade the husbands and fathers not to hinder them any spiritual comfort and to the ladies to persuade them to be subject to our advice and will; and that in so doing they should have liberty at any time to go out on a pretence of Communicating some spiritual business to the priest. And if they refused to do it, then we should speak to their husbands and fathers not to let them go out at all, or, which would be worse for them, we should inform against them to the holy tribunal of the Inquisition. And by these diabolical persuasions they were at Our command, without fear of revealing the secret. I have spared no woman of my parish, whom I had a fancy for, and many other of my brethren's parishes; but I cannot tell the number. I have sixty nepotes alive of several women; but my principal care ought to be of those that I have by two young women I keep at home since their parents died. Both are sisters, and I had by the eldest two boys, and by the youngest one. The one I had by my own sister is dead. Therefore I leave to my sister five thousand pistoles, on condition that she enter St. Bernard's Monastery, and upon the same condition I leave two thousand to the two young women, and the rest to the three boys." This is the confession of a priest in 1710, who died the same day, and went to the judgmentbar of God in that condition.

baffle description. "There are two women who ought to be constant subjects of the compassion of the disciples of Christ: the Brahmin, who, deceived by her priests, burns herself on the corpse of her husband; and the RomanCatholic woman, who, not less deceived by her priests, suffers a torture far more cruel and ignominious in the confessionalbox, to appease the wrath of her wafergod. For I do not exaggerate when I say, that for many noblehearted, welleducated, highminded women, to be forced to unveil their hearts before the eyes of a man, to open to him all the most secret recesses of their souls, all the most sacred mysteries of their single or married life, to allow him to put to them questions which the most depraved woman would never consent to hear from the vilest seducer, is often more intolerable than to be tied on burning coals.

"More than once I have seen women fainting in the confessionalbox, who told me afterwards that the necessity of speaking to an unmarried man on certain things, on which the most common laws of decency ought to have forever sealed their lips, had almost killed them. Not hundreds, but thou. sands of times, I have heard from the lips of dying girls, as well as married women, the awful words: 'I am forever lost I All my past confessions and communions have been so many sacrileges. I have never loved to answer correctly the questions of my confessors. Shame sealed my lips, and damned my soul!’

“How many times God has spoken to me, as he speaks to all the priests of Rome, and said with a thundering voice, 'What would that young man do, could he hear the questions you put to his wife? Would he not blow out your brains? And that father, would he not pass his dagger through your breast, if he could know what you ask from his poor trembling daughter? Would not the brother of that young girl put an end to your miserable life, if he could hear the unmentionable subjects on which you speak with her in the confessional?" With one more story, told by Father Chiniquy, we dismiss the subject: —

"In the beginning of my priesthood, I was not a little surprised and embarrassed to see a very accomplished and beautiful young lady, whom I used to meet almost every week, entering the box of my confessional. She had been used to confess to another young priest of my acquaintance; and she was always looked upon as one of the most pious girls of the city. She disguised herself, and began by saying, —

" 'Dear father, I hope you do not know me, and that you will never try to know me. I am a desperately great sinner. Before I begin my confession, allow me to ask you not to pollute my ears by questions which our confessors are in the habit of putting to their female penitents: I have already been destroyed by these questions. Before I was seventeen years old, the chaplain of the nunnery, where my parents had sent me for my education, though approaching old age, put to me, in confessional, a question which, when understood, plunged my thoughts into a sea of iniquity till then absolutely unknown to me.' As a result, she was ruined. She became the counterpart of the priest. She fell so low that she declared, 'I had a real pleasure in conversing with my priest on these matters, and enjoyed his asking me more of his strange questions.

The hour in the confessional was but a criminal tete-a-tete. I perceived that he was as depraved as myself. With some halfcovered words he made a which I accepted with covered words also; and during more than a year we have lived together in the most sinful intimacy. When the course of my convent instruction was finished, my parents called me back to their home. I was really glad of the change of residence, for I was beginning to be tired of my criminal life. My hope was that, under the directions of a better confessor, I should reconcile myself to God and begin a Christian life. Unfortunately for me, my new confessor, who was. very young, began also his interrogation. He soon fell in love with me, and I loved him in a most criminal way. I have done with him things which I hope you will never request me to reveal to you; for they are too monstrous to be repeated even in the confessional, by a woman to a man. It was my fault. I believe he was a good priest before he knew me; but the questions he put to me, and the answers I had to give him, melted his heart, —I know it, —just as boiling lead would melt the ice on which it flows.

" 'You understand, I have given up my last confessor. I have two favors to ask. One, that you will never seek to ascertain my name; second, that you will never put to me any of those questions by which so many penitents are lost, and so many priests forever destroyed. Twice I have been lost by those questions. We come to our confessors that they may throw upon our guilty souls the pure waters which flow from heaven to purify us; but, instead of that, with their unmentionable questions, they pour oil on the burning fires which are already raging in our poor simple hearts, Oh, dear father, lot me become your penitent, that you may help me to go with Magdalene, and weep at the Saviour's feet! Do respect me, as he respected that true model of all the sinful but repenting women! Did he extort from her the history of things which a sinful woman cannot say without forgetting the respect she owes to herself and to God? No! You told us, not long ago, that the only thing our Saviour did was to look at her tears and her love. Well, please do that, and you will save me:' " Cannot Romanists see this? Christ, without a priest, as the Saviour. Father Chiniquy encouraged her as best he could, and went to his confessor, afterwards Archbishop of Canada, and asked if he might forego the questions. His reply was in the negative. " Such cases of the destruction of female virtue by the questions of the confessors is an unavoidable evil. Such questions are necessary. . . .

"You must not be discouraged when, through the confessional or any other way, you learn the fall of priests, into the common frailties of human nature with their penitents. Our Saviour knew very well that the occasions and the temptations we have to encounter in the confessions of girls and women, are so numerous and irresistible that many would fall. But He has given them the holy Virgin Mary, who constantly asks and demands their pardon; he has given them the sacrament of penance, when they can receive their pardon as often as they ask for it. The vow of perfect chastity is a great honor and privilege; but we cannot conceal from ourselves that it puts on our shoulders a burden which many cannot carry forever. St. Liguori says that we must not rebuke the penitent priest who falls once a month; and some other trustworthy theologians are still more charitable.”

As a result, the young woman sought to make confession without hearing or answering the questions. As a priest, Father Chiniquy was compelled to say that it could not be done. With a piercing cry, she exclaimed, "Then, O my God! I am lost, forever lost," and fainted away. She was carried home. On her deathbed Christ came to her in answer to prayer, and gave her a peace that passeth knowledge. Without the help of the priest she fought the battle, saying, "I shall not be lost." "On one occasion she calmly, but with an air of dignity, asked, 'Is it true, that, after the sins of Adam and Eve, God himself made coats and skins and clothed them, that they might not see each other's nakedness?’ —'Yes,' I said. 'This is what the Holy Scripture tells us.'

" 'Well, then, how is it possible that our confessors dare to take away from us that holy divine coat of modesty and selfrespect? Has not Almighty God himself made, with his own hands, that coat of womanly modesty and selfrespect, that we might be to you and to ourselves a cause of shame and sin? ' "

Her words demolished the traditions of the Church, and pulverized the doctrines of her theologians.

"After a time she continued, 'Twice I have been destroyed by priests at the confessional. They took away from me that divine coat of modesty and self-respect which God gives to every human being who comes into this world, and twice I have become for those very priests a pit of deep perdition into which they have fallen, and where I fear they are forever lost. My merciful Father has given me back that coat of skins, that nuptial robe of modesty, self-respect, and holiness, which had been taken away from me. He cannot allow you or any other man to tear again and spoil that vestment which is the work of his hands.'

"The revelation of the unmentionable corruptions directly and unavoidably engendered by auricular confession, had come to me from the lips of that young lady, as the first rays of the sun which were to hurl back the dark clouds of night by which Rome had wrapped my intelligence on that subject.

"Had this young person been the only one to tell me that, I might still have held some doubt about the diabolical origin of that institution. But thousands and thousands before and after her have shown me that auricular confession, with very few exceptions,, drags both confessor and his female penitents into a common and irreparable ruin." Hence a law ought to be passed making auricular confession a crime, and then woman in the RomanCatholic Church would be emancipated.

Chapter 5