that confessors will stand up on their feet amidst the storms which
prostrate in the dust those giants of the armies of the Lord? To suppose
that, in the generality of cases the confessor can resist the temptations
by which he is daily surrounded in the confessional, that he will
constantly refuse the golden opportunities which offer themselves to him,
to satisfy the almost irresistible propensities of his fallen human nature,
is neither wisdom nor charity; it is simply folly.

I do not say that all the confessors and their female penitents fall into
the same degree of abject degradation; thanks be to God, I have known
several who nobly fought their battles and conquered on that field of so
many shameful defeats. But these are the exceptions. It is just as when the
fire has ravaged one of our grand forests of America--how sad it is to see
the numberless noble trees fallen under the devouring element! But, here
and there the traveller is not a little amazed and pleased to find some
which have proudly stood the fiery trial without being consumed.

Has not the world at large been struck with terror when they heard of the
fire which a few years ago had reduced the great city of Chicago to ashes?
But those who have visited that doomed city, and seen the desolating ruins
of her 16,000 houses, had to stand in silent admiration before a few which,
in the very midst of an ocean of fire, had escaped untouched by the
destructive element.

It is so that, owing to a most marvellous protection of God, some
privileged souls do escape, here and there, the fatal destruction which
overtakes so many others in the confessional.

The confessional is just as the spider's web. How many too unsuspecting
flies find death when seeking rest on the beautiful framework of their
deceitful enemy! How few escape! and this only after a most desperate
struggle. See how the perfidious spider looks harmless in his retired, dark
corner; how motionless he is; how patiently he waits for his opportunity!
But look how quickly he surrounds his victim with his silky, delicate, and
imperceptible links! how mercilessly he sucks its blood and destroys its
life!

What does remain of the imprudent fly, after she has been entrapped into
the nets of her foe? Nothing but a skeleton. So it is with your fair wife,
your precious daughter; nine times in ten nothing but a moral skeleton
returns to you, after the Pope's black spider has been allowed to suck the
very bloo