unters more terrible
dangers when hearing the confessions of refined and highly-educated ladies,
than when listening to those of the humbler classes of his female
penitents.

I solemnly testify that the well-educated lady, when she has once
surrendered herself to the power of her confessor, becomes, as a general
rule, at least as vulnerable to the arrows of the enemy as the poorer and
less educated. Nay, I must say that, once on the down-hill road of
perdition, the high-bred lady runs headlong into the pit with a more
deplorable rapidity than her humbler sister.

All Canada is witness that a few years ago it was among the highest ranks
of society that the Grand Vicar Superior of one of the richest and most
influential colleges of Canada, was choosing his victims, when the public
cry of indignation and shame forced the Bishop to send him back to Europe,
where he soon after died. Was it not also among the higher classes of
society that a Superior of the Seminary of Quebec was destroying souls,
when he was detected, and forced, during a dark night, to fly and conceal
himself behind the walls of the Trappist Monastery of Iowa?

Many would be the folio volumes which I should have to write, were I to
publish all that my twenty-five years' experience in the confessional has
taught me of the unspeakable secret corruption of the _greatest_ part of
the so-called respectable ladies who have unconditionally surrendered
themselves into the hands of their holy (?) confessors. But the following
fact will suffice for those who have eyes to see, ears to hear, and an
intelligence to understand.

In one of the most beautiful and thriving towns along the St. Lawrence
River lived a rich merchant. He was young, and his marriage with a most
lovely, rich, and accomplished young lady had made him one of the happiest
men in the land.

A few years after his marriage, the Bishop appointed to that town a young
priest, really remarkable for his eloquence, zeal, and amiable qualities,
and the merchant and the priest soon became connected by links of the most
sincere friendship.

The young, accomplished wife of the merchant soon became the model woman of
the place, under the direction of her new confessor.

Many and long were the hours she used to pass by the side of her spiritual
Father, to be purified and enlightened by his godly advices. She soon was
seen at the head of the few who had the privilege of receiving the holy
communion once a we