Auriculae Confession Addressed to Men Only.

My Christian friends, the mere mention of the subject of my lecture brings up a dark cloud in the mind. The simple fact of a bachelor priest being allowed to pry to the very bottom of a young girl's heart is revolting in the greatest degree. Unfortunately I was a confessor for 25 years, and have heard the confessions of, I suppose, about 50,000 men and women. I have heard the confessions of bishops, priests, and nuns, of rich and poor, of old and young, and I can truly say, in the presence of God, that auricular confession is one of the greatest impostures and abominations the world has ever seen. How many times I have gone into the confessional-box with a heavy heart, and wept bitter tears because I was forced by the Church of Rome to ask such questions as no gentleman would ask. Words cannot tell you of the horror which seized me every time I entered that detestable place. I heard two voices speaking to me. One of these was saying "Are you not ashamed to hear such polluting things? Why do you not blush when you put such questions to a timid girl or a respectable lady? If the husband could know what you ask his wife, or if the father could know what you ask his daughter, or if the brother could know what you ask his sister, your brains would have been blown out long ago. Shame on you! Come out from that pit of iniquity." I had to believe that this was the voice of Satan, and I shut my ears to it and struggled against it.

And there is not a single Roman Catholic priest, if he is honest, who will not tell you he has passed through the same experience, but he has to believe that that voice which is coming from heaven comes from hell. The other voice I heard was the voice of the Pope saying, "Remain in that box, you do well to hear the confessions of those men and women. Remain there from morning till night. Let your heart be corrupted, let your soul be polluted, it is your duty to be there." One day I went to my father confessor, the Bishop of Quebec, and told him that after I had heard the confession of many priests, it was my earnest belief that a priest could not hear confessions and not be corrupted. He said, "I know well that priests cannot hear these things without being polluted." "But," said I, "If they fall, they are lost." "Oh, when they commit sin in that way, they have only to go to their father confessor and be forgiven," he said. A bishop who was first cousin to the King of France, Charles X., and also his Secretary, came to Canada. His name was Forbin Jansan; he had been Bishop of De Nancy, Loraine, France. After confessing to me one day, he told me that there was a book I should have which would guide me in putting questions to priests in the confesional; it related to the sins of priests. He gave me a copy which I have to-day, and which anyone is at liberty to read at my house. This book confirms what PÈre Hyacinthe says, that ninety-nine priests out of a hundred fall and are polluted. And bear in mind that Hyacinthe's statement was publicly made in France and has never been denied, I said one day to the Bishop of Montreal that I feared that auricular confession did not come from Christ, nor from the apostles, but that it was an addition. He said, "You are mistaken. You read the Bible too much, and if you do to you will become a Protestant. You interpret the Bible according to your own little intelligence instead of seeking the unanimous consent of the fathers." I said, "Neither Matthew, Mark, Luke, nor John mentions auricular confession. Paul wrote fourteen epistles, Peter wrote two, and John wrote three, and there is not a word in any of them about it." He said, "I acknowledge there is no direct mention in Scripture about it, but it is in the Holy Fathers." "And where can I get them?" I asked. He laughed at me and told me it was a work of 200 volumes, and that he had it not I then went to a bookseller, the father of the present Bishop of Montreal, and asked him for the work. He said he had not got it, as it was a work of such magnitude that nobody would buy it. I told him to get it for me, and he sent to France for it. It cost me three hundred dollars. Well, I read several of the Holy Fathers right through. I read the life of Paul the Hermit of the third century. In his life there is not a single mention of auriclar confession. It is evident then that he lived without confessing his sin to man. I read the life of Saint Mary of Egypt, who was a woman of great beauty and a great criminal. She was converted, and her name is in the Saints' Calendar, and every year the priests of Rome have to make a memorial of her. Her history, written by one of the first of the Holy Fathers, goes into every detail of her life, but there is not a single word about auricular confession in it. I then read the life of Saint Cyprian, written by Pontius in the third century. This is the Saint who had the great fight with Pope Stephen. The Pope excommunicated him and he excommunicated the Pope, and, though he died excommunicated by the Pope, without repenting of it, the Church of Rome has put him in her Calendar. In his life there is not a single word about auricular confession. So it is with Gregory, Ambrose, Chrysostom. I page 24 have all the letters of Jerome; I think there are about five hundred. They are addressed to every kind of people, many of them to ladies who had written to him about the best means of salvation. In all his answers there is not a single mention of auricular confession: if it had been in vogue in the fifth century. Jerome, who spoke on every particular of Chriatian life, would have alluded to it. Then there are the "confessions of St. Augustine," a book, with which, after the Bible, I do not know any to be compared. It is a most precious book and gives the whole of his life. He tells us even his sins and everything he had; clone. But he does not say a word about auricular confession. It is evident he never confessed to any man, although he had been a Bishop of Rome. "When I read the fathers, I wept, and passed many a sleepless night. I said, "My God, is it possible that our Church preaches what is contrary to the truth ?" I had preached that the holy fathers were favourable to confession, because I had read so in books. I took the holy father to the Bishop, and asked him, for the sake of my immortal soul, to show me a single one who had advised people to make confession of their sins to a man. But he could nor, and he only insulted me, when I showed him that when it is spoken of, confession to a priest or a bishop in the Holy Fathers, it always refers to public confessions of public sins. The idea of auricular confession was invented by the Pagans long before Christ. They had festivities in honor of their gods to prepare the young people to know what they called the mysteries. Some of these mysteries were communicated in auricular confession to the young men and women who wanted to be initiated. I speak to you of the evils of the confessional that you may thank God for His mercies towards you, for having taught you that it is not at the feet of any man that poor sinners can find pardon, but that God alone can forgive sins. In the Church of Rome they bring two texts to prove that auricular confession is Scriptural. The first is Matthew xviii. 18. There Jesus says, "Verily I say unto you that whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaved, and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." The priest tells the people that Christ has here given the priest power to forgive their sins, and that they can only do so after they have heard the confession of their sins. Now they conceal the truth when they speak thus. When the priests say that these words of our Saviour were spoken to the Apostles in particular, they speak falsely: they do not know the Gospel. Our Saviour had been speaking to the people around him, and telling them that if any of them had a brother who had offended him, he was to go to him and try to make friends with him. If the brother would not consent to live in peace with him, he was to take two witnesses with him and renew his efforts at reconciliation; but if he still persisted in not making friends, he was to be reported to the church; and if he even refused to hear the Church, he was to be considered as a pagan. And then our Saviour added these words, "What you will bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and what you will loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." For instance, if Peter offended John, and they agreed to make friends, Jesus says to them. "I give you power to forgive each other the sins you have committed against each other, and as it is on earth it shall be in heaven." Our Saviour speaks of sins committed by people against each other; and if Roman Catholics read their Bible they would see the imposture of the Church. Read a few verses on in the same chapter, and you will see that Peter understood our Saviour to mean the sins committed by people against each other, for he asked Christ how many times he should forgive an offending brother, and Christ told him "as many times as he offends against you." The other text by which the Roman Catholic people are deceived is—" What sins ye retain on earth shall be retained in heaven, and what sins ye remit on earth shall be remitted in heaven." The Church of Rome tells her people that these words were spoken to the Apostles. This is another imposture; for if you will read Luke. ch. xxiv., on the same subject, you will see that there were women and children present when Christ spoke these words. He meant that the sins committed against each other if they forgave would be forgiven. In the Lord's prayer we pray that our sins may be forgiven as we forgive those sins committed against us. The doctrine of the Gospel on that subject is clear—it means only that when a man forgives the brother who has sinned against him, he can go boldly to Jesus Christ and ask for his own sins to be pardoned.

After a few similar remarks, the rev. gentleman said, I have great confidence in the character of Irishmen. I have been twice to Ireland, and I know all that is good and noble in the character of the Irish. I khow their bravery on the battle-field. Yes, Englishmen, your greatest victories have not been won without the blood of the Irish. The Irishman is intelligent, and it is for that reason that the priest forbids him to hear with his own ears. If the priests had been honest they would have said to their people. "Chiniquy the apostate is coming to preach against our Church, and the more you will hear him the more you will see he is in the wrong; go and hear him." But they know well page 25 if the Irish came to me, not one of them would remain in the Church of Rome. On Saturday I proved that the hands of the Church of Rome are red with the blood of forty millions of martyrs. There was an Irishman, a Roman Catholic, present, and he listened with intelligence. He saw that his Church of Rome which he had loved so much was the great enemy of God and man, the greatest enemy of liberty of conscience. And when he returned home he told his wife that he had heard a speech which convinced him that the Church of Rome was not the Church of Christ, and he forbade her to go to it any more. And yesterday that Irishman and his wife were blessing God in one of your Protestant churches. (Applause.) On one occasion the bishops and priests thought to convince my congregation who had left the Church of Rome that I was an impostor and there was no salvation out of the Church of Rome. I told my people to go and hear the priest. I told them to take the sick in their beds, and let them hear and judge if the name of Mary should be invoked, and if we should read the Bible or not. But my friends, the bishop failed miserably. Why do not the priests do that with me? Because they know if the Irish came they would see I speak the truth. Auricular confession was accepted as a dogma in the Church of Rome about the year 1450, at the fourth Council of Lateran. It was invented in order to destroy liberty of conscience and all the rights of man. When a man has his wife and children going to confess, he is not the husband and father of his house. It is the priest who rules the house through the Confessional. When the Church of Rome wants to kill a man who is in her way, she chooses the murderer in the confessional-box. I have no doubt that the man who shot the Queen's son here in your midst was told in the confessional-box to do so. When the murderer of Henry IV., Ravaillac, pierced the bosom of the best king of France, the poor guilty man acknowledged he had been induced in the confessional-box to perpetrate the deed, because the King had given liberty of conscience to the Protestants. It is in the confessional that all the plots made against you are prepared. When you have an election, immediately there is a secret order from the bishop to elect such a man, to elect a Roman Catholic, or, what is better, a Protestant Judas. There are some exceptions, but this is the rule. I can prove to anyone of you that a Roman Catholic has not the right to vote for whom he pleases, and that if he disobeys the bishop in the matter, he commits a mortal sin. If legislators were honest they would inquire into the confessional and its workings. (Cheers.) Five years ago a gentleman in England published in English the questions which priests put in the confessional. These questions are of the most infamous character. Only a blackguard and a priest of Rome could put them. Well, this gentleman was prosecuted and sent to prison for publishing the very words which are put to women in the confessional every day by the priests of Rome. In the world to-day there are 100,000 priests paid by different Governments to put to women those infamous questions for publishing which a man was condemned to gaol. When I was in England, four years ago, several ministers came to me and asked me to publish a book about the confessional. They said, "There is a party in our Church, headed by Pusey, which is bringing our noble Episcopalian Church over to Rome, and we want you to give us a book to show what the confessional is." I said, 'It is impossible. If I published what I know about the confessional, no lady or gentleman would read it." They said I was mistaken, and that they must have the book. They told me there was a way of speaking about the most delicate matters in a chaste way. As they pressed me exceedingly. I said, "Let us pray for guidance in the matter," and they offered up a beautiful prayer. At eight o'clock that evening I went on my knees, and began to write; and at six in the morning I had written the first chapter of the book. The ministers came during the morning. I showed them the first chapter. They were pleased with it, and I finished the book. I sent a copy of it to a gentleman in England who had been a great friend to me; but he returned it with the message that I was a most infamous man to write such a book. I wrote back, "Sir, if I had known you were such an ass I would not have troubled you with the book." To show you there is nothing in the book to which the most delicateminded lady can object, I might mention that I gave the proofs to some ladies of distinction in England to correct, and requested them to strike anything they might consider unfit for a lady to see. They returned the proofs with the remark that there was nothing whatever that any lady might not read. Well, on the first of January of this year I received a letter from the same gentleman, enclosing me £25, and saying that he had read the book again, and he thought it was the best book to put in the hands of anyone on the subject. The scaffold on which your liberties and rights will perish is the confessional-box; and where is the dagger which will pierce the bosom of liberty of conscience? We call it auricular confession. What can you do against the plots hatched in the confessional? Nothing. The Church of Rome is a vast secret society, well united, which plots day and night to destroy all the rights of man, and all the laws of God. Her great object is to take possession of the world, page 26 and to put the Pope again on his throne, reddened with the blood of nations. But, my friends, I hope you will, with the help of God, go to the Roman Catholics, and speak to them earnestly and kindly; and if you do so they will listen to you. You ought to be well posted in all that relates to your religion. Study your Bible and your books of discussion as Christian soldiers of the great captain of salvation. You are enrolled under His banner—not to fight bloody battles with the weapons of the flesh, but with the weapons which Christ has given His soldiers, the Word of God. Fight the Church of Rome with your prayers and with good example work. What makes the Church of Rome so confident of beating you is your indifference, your vices. If every Protestant would take Jesus Christ as the gift of God, and show to the world what real Christians are, the Roman Catholics would say: "Let us go into the midst of these men. Let us rally with them around the banners of liberty and they would come with you to the feet of Jesus and help you to bless him; instead of going to the feet of a sinful man to be purified, they would go with you to the Lamb who was slain for them, and the Lamb would make them pure with His blood, and free with His word. (Applause.)

The singing of a hymn, the pronouncing of the benediction, and the singing of the National Anthem brought the meeting to a close.