cide that it should be in cases of human high treason, this treason may be made to include any direct offence against majesty, even the smuggling of salt or muslins. Much more should high treasons against the Divine Majesty be disclosed; and these may be extended to the smallest faults, as having missed evening service. It would, then, be very important to come to a per fect understanding about what confessions should be disclosed, and what should be kept secret. Yet would such a decision be very dangerous: for how many things are there which must not be investigated! Pontas, who, in three folio volumes, decides on all the possible cases of conscience in France, and is unknown to the rest of the world, says, that on no occasion should confession be disclosed. The parliaments have decided the contrary. Which are we to believe? Pontas, or the guardians of the laws of the realm, who watch over the lives of princes and the safety of the state?* Whether Laymen and Women have been Confessors? As, in the old law, the laity confessed to one another; so, in the new law, they long had the same privilege by custom. In proof of this, let it suffice to cite the celebrated Joinville, who expressly says, that "the constable of Cyprus confessed himself to him, and he gave him absolution, according to the right which he had so to do." St. Thomas, in his dream, expresses himself thus: "Confessio ex defectu sacerdotis laico facta, sacramentalis est quodam modo"-" Confession made to a It is not quite certain that Voltaire has proved Pontas to be wrong; but he has clearly proved the monstrous iniquity and priestcraft in confession altogether. Even the mutual confession and detailed experiences of the methodists and others, ought to inspire the most confirmed disgust. Both as prostrating the flock before the pastor, and as burning equivocal impressions and impurities into susceptible minds, it is the most mischievous of practices. Females more particularly should reason like the Spartan.-T. layman, in default of a priest, is in some sort sacramental."* We find in the life of St, Burgundosarius,† and in the rule of an unknown saint, that the nuns confessed their very grossest sins to their abbess. The rule of St. Donatus ordains that the nuns shall discover their faults to their superior three times a day. The capitulars of our kings say,§ that abbesses must be forbidden the exercise of the right which they have arrogated, against the custom of the holy church, of giving benedictions, and imposing hands, which seems to signify the pronouncing of absolution, and supposes the confession of sins. Marcus, patriarch of Alexandria, asks Balzamon, a celebrated canonist of his time, whether permission should be granted to abbesses to hear confessions, to which Balzamon answers in the negative. We have, in the canon law, a decree of pope Innocent III., enjoining the bishops of Valentia and Burgos, in Spain, to prevent certain abbesses from blessing their nuns, from confessing, and from public preaching:"Although," says he," the blessed Virgin Mary was superior to all the apostles in dignity and in merit, yet it is not to her, but to the apostles, that the Lord has confided the keys of the kingdom of heaven."|| So ancient was this right, that we find it established in the rules of St. Basil. He permits abbesses to confess their nuns, conjointly with a priest. Father Martène, in his Rites of the Church,** allows that, for a long time, abbesses confessed their nuns; but, adds he, they were so curious,†† that it was found necessary to deprive them of this privilege. * Part iii. p. 255. Lyons edition, 1738. +Mabillon, chap. viii., xiii. Chap. xxiii. § Book i. chap. lxxvi. C. Nova X.-Extra de pœnit. et remiss. **Tom. iii. p. 39. ++ The multifarious questions of a prying lady abbess must have been as alarming to the poor nuns, as the eighty-three queries of bishop Marsh to a candidate for orders in the diocese of Peterborough.-T. The ex-jesuit Nonotte ought to confess himself and do penance; not for having been of the most ignorant of the daubers on paper, for that is no crime; not for having given the name of errors to truths which he did not understand; but for having, with the most insolent stupidity, calumniated the author of this article, and called his brother raca (a fool), while he denied these facts and many others, about which he knew not one word. He has put himself in danger of hell fire: let us hope that he will ask pardon of God for his enormous folly. We desire not the death of the sinner, but that he turn from his wickedness and live. It has long been debated why men, very famous in this part of the world where confession is in use, have died without that sacrament. Such are Leo X., Pélisson, and cardinal Dubois. The cardinal had his perineum opened by La Peyronie's bistoury; but he might have confessed and communicated before the operation. Pélisson, who was a protestant until he was forty years old, became a convert that he might be made master of requests and have benefices. As for pope Leo X., when surprised by death, he was so much occupied with temporal concerns, that he had no time to think of spiritual ones. Confession Tickets. In protestant countries, confession is made to God; in catholic ones, to man. The protestants say, you can hide nothing from God, whereas man knows only what you chuse to tell him. As we shall never meddle with controversy, we shall not enter here into this old dispute. Our literary society is composed of catholics and protestants, united by the love of letters : we must not suffer ecclesiastical quarrels to sow dissention amongst us. We will content ourselves with once more repeating the fine answer of the Greek already mentioned, to the priest who would have had him confess in the mys teries of Ceres: "Is it to God, or to thee, that I am to address myself?"-" To God."-" Depart then, O man." In Italy, and in all the countries of obedience, every one, without distinction, must confess and communicate. If you have a stock of enormous sins on hand, you have also grand penitentiaries to absolve you. If your confession is worth nothing, so much the worse for you. At a very reasonable rate, you get a printed receipt, which admits you to communion; and all the receipts are thrown into a pix: such is the rule. These bearers' tickets were unknown at Paris until about the year 1750, when an archbishop of Paris bethought himself of introducing a sort of spiritual bank, to extirpate Jansenism and ensure the triumph of the bull Unigenitus. It was his pleasure that extreme unction and the viaticum should be refused to every sick person who did not produce a ticket of confession, signed by a constitutionary priest. This was refusing the sacrament to nine-tenths of Paris. In vain was he told: "Think what you are doing either these sacraments are necessary, to escape damnation; or salvation may be obtained without them, by faith, hope, charity, good works, and the merits of our Saviour. If salvation be attainable without this viaticum, your tickets are useless: if the sacraments be absolutely necessary, you damn all whom you deprive of them; you consign to eternal fire seven hundred thousand souls, supposing you live long enough to bury them :-this is violent: calm yourself, and let each one die as well as he can." In this dilemma he gave no answer, but persisted. It is horrible to convert religion, which should be man's consolation, into his torment. The parliament, in whose hands is the high police, finding that society was disturbed, opposed (according to custom) decrees to mandaments. But ecclesiastical discipline would not yield to legal authority. The magistracy were under the necessity of using force, and to send archers to obtain for the Parisians confession, communion, and interment. By this excess of absurdity, men's minds were soured; and cabals were formed at court, as if there had been a farmer-general to be appointed, or a minister to be disgraced. In the discussion of a question, there are always incidents mixed up which have no radical connection with it; and in this case so much so, that all the members of the parliament were exiled, as was also the archbishop in his turn. These confession tickets would, in the times preceding, have occasioned a civil war; but happily, in our days, they produced only civil cavils. The spirit of philosophy, which is no other than reason, has become, with all honest men, the only antidote against these epidemic disorders. CONFISCATION. It is well observed, in the Dictionnaire Encyclopédique, in the article CONFISCATION, that the fisc, whether public, or royal, or seignorial, or imperial, or disloyal, was a small basket of reeds or osiers, in which was put the little money that was received or could be extorted. We now use bags: the royal fisc is the royal bag. In several countries of Europe it is a received maxim, that whosoever confiscates the body, confiscates the goods also. This usage is established in those countries in particular where custom holds the place of law; and in all cases, an entire family is punished for the fault of one man only. To confiscate the body, is not to put a man's body into his sovereign lord's basket: this phrase, in the barbarous language of the bar, means to get possession of the body of a citizen, in order either to take away his life, or to condemn him to banishment for life. If he is put to death, or escapes death by flight, his goods are seized. Thus it is not enough to put a man to death for his offences; his children, too, must be deprived of the means of living. In more countries than one, the rigour of custom confiscates the property of a man who has voluntarily |