e dam is built to stem the current of the rapid and
deep waters of the river, the more awful the disasters which follow its
destruction, so it is with that noble soul. A mighty dam has been built by
the very hand of God, called self-respect and womanly modesty, to guard her
against the pollutions of this sinful world; but the day that the priest of
Rome succeeds, after long efforts, in destroying it, the soul is carried by
an irresistible power into unfathomable abysses of iniquity. Then it is
that the once most respectable lady will consent to hear, without a blush,
things against which the most degraded woman would indignantly shut her
ears. Then it is that she freely speaks on matters for repeating which a
printer in England has lately been sent to jail.

At first, in spite of herself, but soon with a real sensual pleasure, that
fallen angel will think, when alone, on what she has heard and what she has
said in the confessional-box. In spite of herself, the vilest thoughts will
at first irresistibly fill her mind; and soon the thoughts will engender
temptations and sins. But those vile temptations and sins, which would have
filled her with horror and regret before her entire surrender into the
hands of the foe, beget very different sentiments now that she is no more
her own self-possessor and guide, under the eyes of God. The conviction of
her sins is no more connected with the thought of a God, infinitely holy
and just, whom she must serve and fear. The conviction of her sins is now
immediately connected with the thought of the man with whom she will have
to speak, and who will easily make everything right and pure in her soul by
his absolution.

When the day of going to confess comes, instead of being sad and uneasy and
bashful, as she used to be formerly, she feels pleased and delighted to
have a new opportunity of conversing on those matters, without impropriety
and sin to herself; for she is now fully persuaded that there is no
impropriety, no shame, no sin, nay, she believes, or tries to believe, that
it is a good, honest, Christian, and godly thing to converse with her
priest on those matters.

Her most happy hours are when she is at the feet of that spiritual
physician showing him all the newly made wounds of her soul; explaining all
her constant temptations, her bad thoughts, her most intimate secret
desires and sins.

Then it is that the most sacred mysteries of the married life are revealed;
then it is