anseth us from
sin;

"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not
in us.

"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to
CLEANSE us from all unrighteousness." (i. John i, 6-9.)

This is the language of the prophets and apostles. This is the language of
the Old and the New Testament. It is to God and Him alone that the sinner
is requested to confess his sins. It is from God and Him alone that he can
expect his pardon.

The apostle Paul writes fifteen epistles, in which he speaks of all the
duties imposed upon human conscience by the laws of God and the
prescriptions of the Gospel of Christ. A thousand times he speaks to
sinners and tells them how they may be reconciled to God. But does he say a
word about auricular confession? No, not one!

The apostles Peter, John, Jude address six letters to the different
churches--in which they state with the greatest detail what the different
classes of Christians have to do. But again, not a single word comes from
them about auricular confession.

St. James says, "confess your faults one to another." But this is so
evidently the repetition of what the Saviour had said about the way of
reconciliation between those who had offended one another, and it is so far
from the dogma of a secret confession to the priest, that the most zealous
supporters of auricular confession have not dared to mention that text in
favour of their modern invention.

But if we look in vain in the Old and New Testament for a word in favour of
auricular confession as a dogma, will it be possible to find that dogma in
the records of the first thousand years of Christianity? No! for the more
one studies the records of the Christian church during the first ten
centuries, the more he will be convinced that auricular confession is a
miserable imposture, of the darkest days of the world and the church.

We have the life of Paul, the hermit, of the third century, by one of the
early fathers of the church. But not a word is said in it of his confessing
his sins to any one, though a thousand things are said of him which are of
a far less interesting character.

So it is with the life of St. Mary, the Egyptian. The minute history of her
life, her public scandals, her conversion, long prayers and fastings in
solitude, the detailed history of her last days and of her death, all these
we have; but not a single word is said of her confessing to any one. It is