I am very sick, and want to make a general confession
before I die."

Speaking to her husband, she said with a fainting voice, "Please, my dear,
tell my friends to withdraw from the room, that I may not be distracted
when making what may be my last confession."

The husband respectfully requested the friends to leave the room with him,
and shut the door, that the holy confessor might be _alone_ with his
penitent during her general confession.

One of the most diabolical schemes under the cover of auricular confession
had perfectly succeeded. The mother of harlots, that great enchantress of
souls, whose seat is on the city of the "seven hills," had, there, her
priest to bring shame, disgrace, and damnation, under the mask of
Christianity.

The destroyer of souls, whose masterpiece is auricular confession, had
there, for the millionth time, a fresh opportunity of insulting the God of
purity, through one of the most criminal actions which the dark shades of
night can conceal.

But let us draw the veil over the abominations of that hour of iniquity,
and let us leave to hell its dark secrets.

After he had accomplished the ruin of his victim, and most cruelly and
sacrilegiously abused the confidence of his friend, the young priest opened
the door of the room and said, with a sanctimonious air, "You may enter to
pray with me, while I give the last sacrament to our dear sick sister."

They came in; "the good god" (_Le Bon Dieu_) was given to the woman; and
the husband, full of gratitude for the considerate attention of his priest,
took him back to his parsonage, and thanked him most sincerely for having
so kindly come to visit his wife in so chilly a night.

Ten years later, I was called to preach a retreat (a kind of revival) in
that same parish. That lady, then an absolute stranger to me, came to my
confessional-box and confessed to me those details as I now give them. She
seemed to be really penitent, and I gave her absolution and the entire
pardon of her sins, as my Church told me to do. On the last day of the
revival, the merchant invited me to a grand dinner. Then it was that I came
to know who my penitent had been. I must not forget to mention that she had
confessed to me that, of her four children, the last three belonged to her
confessor! He had lost his mother, and, his sister having married, his
parsonage had become more accessible to his fair penitents, many of whom
had availed themselves of that opportunit