arity, family affection, and reciprocal duties of
parents, children, brothers, and sisters. The act of liberating a
Christian soul from the dreadful torments which purgatory is supposed to
inflict, however opposed to reason may be the idea of operating by
material fire upon the incorporeal essence of the soul, is considered
superior, in the estimation of every sensible and Christian heart, to any
succour which can be given to hunger, misery, nakedness, or other
numerous corporal afflictions. In this way the money which might be
spent in wiping the tears from the cheek of the widow and the orphan, and
be applied to the erection of useful human institutions, is prodigally
spent in a mysterious and incomprehensible operation, which, after all,
is a purely human invention, and which, by its practical results, and the
great amount of wealth it draws to the Roman Catholic Church, bears a
greater affinity to a financial operation than to any religious duty.

It would be almost impossible to calculate the advantages which would
have resulted to the Spanish nation from those great resources, if the
product had been applied in the construction of roads, canals, or other
useful labours. But this immense capital being thus spread about in
small fractions, the inevitable consequence has been a continual draining
of the public wealth, the perpetuating of a theological error
(contradicted by Holy Scripture, and by the true doctrine of the church
of Christ), and that pomp and splendour which the clergy are enabled to
assume by such abundant means, in addition to the funds received by them
from other sources.

CHAPTER VIII.

Auricular Confession, a sacrament inseparable from that of
communion--Obligatory on all once a-year--Plan of discovering
defaulters--How punished--Evils of confession--Power of the priest--Four
evils pointed out--Discoveries in the Inquisition in 1820--Facility of
obtaining absolution--Louis XIV.--Robbers and assassins--The
confessional--Practice, how conducted--Expiatory acts--Refusal of
absolution--A husband disguised as his wife's confessor--The injunction
of secrecy on part of confessor--Advantages of the knowledge he
gains--Jesuits advocate the confessional--No fees for confession, but
gratuities are generally given.

Confession is one of the sacraments of the Church of Rome. Roman
Catholicism, at least in Spain, requires that all believers shall
celebrate that sacrament, as well as the sacramen