nor could the priest have understood her; she was not able to reveal the depth of her thought, nor could he have reached it if she had done so. Confession on one side, and sentence on the other, nothing more; there was neither dialogue, confidence, nor disclosing of the heart. If the priest has not enough imagination and wit to put the questions from the store of his own mind, he has had in his hands for the last two centuries, ready-made questions, which he may ask in due order, and by which he will force his fair penitent to dive into her own thoughts, sift her own secrets to deliver them over to him, open her heart's fibres, as one may say, thread by thread, and wind off before him the complete skein, which he henceforth holds in his hands. This terrible instrument of inquiry, which in unskilful hands may corrupt the soul by its injudicious probing, must necessarily be modified when morals change. Morality does not vary, but morals do, according to the lapse of time; yet this very simple truth never once entered their heads. They have adhered to the morals of the period, when the intellectual movement ceased, as far as they were concerned. The manuals they put into the hands of the young confessor, are grounded upon the authority of the casuist, whom Pascal annihilated long ago. Even if the immorality of their solutions had not been demonstrated, remember that Escobar and Sanchez made their questions for a horribly cor rupt period, from which, thank God, we are far removed. Their casuistry was from the first addressed to the corrupt and disordered state of society occasioned by long religious warfare. You will find among them crimes that were perhaps never perpetrated, except by the brutal soldiers of the Duke of Alva, or by the exiled, lawless, and godless band that Wallenstein drew after him, a wandering mass of iniquity which would have been abhorred by ancient Sodom. We know not how to qualify this culpable routine. These books, composed for a barbarous age, unparalleled in crimes, are the same that you give to your pupils in our own civilised age. And this young priest, who, according to your instructions, believes that the world is still that dreadful world, who enters the confessional* with all this villanous science, and his imagination full of monstrous cases, you, imprudent men! (what shall I call you?) you confront him with a child who has never left her mother's side, who knows nothing, has nothing to say, and whose greatest crime is that she has not learned her catechism properly, or has hurt a butterfly! I shudder at the interrogatory to which he will subject her, and at what he will teach her in his con * Read the fine passages in P. L. Courrier and Mr. Génin's works, so full of spirit and eloquence, and so glowing with the indignation of an honest man. The Jesuits and the University, part ii. ch. v. scientious brutality. But he questions her in vain. She knows nothing, and says nothing. He scolds her, and she weeps. Her tears will be soon dried, but it will be long before she ceases to reflect. She A volume might be composed on the first start of the young priest, and his imprudent steps, all fatal either to himself or others. The penitent is occasionally more circumspect than the confessor. is amused at his proceedings, and looks at him coldly when he becomes animated and goes too far.* Sometimes, forgetting himself in his impassioned dream, he is suddenly and roughly awakened by a lesson from an intelligent and satirical woman kneeling before him. This cruel lesson has given him an icy chill. Confessors do not suffer such a repulse, without remaining a long time bitter, sometimes spiteful for ever. The young priest knew well that he was the victim, the disinherited of this world, but it had not been forced home him. upon Gall drowns his heart. He prays to God (if he can still pray), that the world may perish! * And how would not this animation be caused by such contiguity? It is sufficient that persons of different sexes pray together in the same room for madness to seize them and turn their heads. This is what happens in the meetings of the exalted Protestants in the United States and elsewhere. Read Swift's sensible and judicious little work, Fragment on the mechanical Operations of the Spirit." (See especially towards the end.) 66 Then returning to his senses, and seeing himself irremediably limed in that black winding sheet, that death-robe that he will wear to the grave, he shrouds himself within it as he curses it, and muses how he may make the best of his torment. The only thing he can do, is to strengthen his position as a priest. He has two ways of succeeding, either by an understanding with the Jesuits, or by paying a servile court to Monseigneur the bishop. I recommend him especially to be violent against the philosophers, and to bark at pantheism. Let him also blacken his fellow-priests, and he will appear so much the purer himself. Let him prove himself a thorough hater, and they will forgive him his love. The brotherhood will henceforth protect, defend, and cover him. What would have ruined the solitary priest, becomes sanctity itself when he becomes one of a party. Before, he would have been suspended, and sent perhaps for six months to La Trappe-now he is made Vicar-general. Only let him be prudent in the delicate business which the fraternity wishes to conceal; let him learn the arts of priests-to feign, to wait, to know when and how to be satisfied; to advance but slowly, openly, and above ground sometimes, but more often secretly, underneath. CHAPTER III. CONFESSION. THE CONFESSOR AND THE HUSBAND.-HOW WHEN I reflect on all that is contained in the words confession and direction, those simple words, that immense power, the most complete in the world, and endeavour to analyse their whole meaning, I tremble with fear. I seem to be descending endless spiral stairs into the depths of a dark mine. Just now I felt contempt for the priest; now I fear him. But we must not be afraid; we must look him in the face. Let us candidly put down in set terms the language of the confessor. "God hears you, hears you through me; through me God will answer you." ." Such is the first word; such is the literal copy. The authority is accepted as infinite and absolute, without any bargaining as to measure. "But you tremble, you dare not tell this terrible God your weakness and childishness; well! tell them to your father; a father has a right to know the secrets of his child; he is an indulgent father, who wants to know them only to absolve them. He is |