dealing alone with the wife and
daughters, than when driving the horses? No human act of folly, moral
depravity, and want of common sense, can equal the permission given by a
man to his wife to go and confess to the priest.

That day he abdicates the royal--I had almost said divine--dignity of
husband; for it is from God that he holds it: his crown is forever lost,
his sceptre broken!

What would you do to any one mean enough to peep or listen through the
key-hole of your door, in order to hear or see everything that was said or
done within? Would you show so little self-respect as to tolerate such
indiscretion? Would you not rather take a whip or a cane, and drive away
the villain? Would you not even expose your life to free yourself from
impudent curiosity?

But what is the confessional, if not the key-hole of your house and of your
very chamber, through which the priest can hear and see your most secret
words and actions, nay, more, know your most intimate thoughts and
aspirations?

Are you men to submit to such sly and insulting inquisition? Do you deserve
the name of men who consent to put up with such ignoble affront and
humiliation?

"The husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the Head of the
Church." "Therefore, as the Church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives
be to their own husbands, in everything" (Eph. v.) If these solemn words
are the true oracles of divine wisdom, is not the husband divinely
appointed the _only_ adviser, counsellor, help of his wife, just as Christ
is the _only_ adviser, counsellor, and help of His Church?

If the Apostle was not an impostor when he said that the wife is to her
husband what the body is to the head, and that the husband is to his wife
what the head is to the body--is not the husband appointed by God to be the
light, the guide of his wife? Is it not his duty, as well as his privilege
and glory, to console her in her afflictions, strengthen her in her hours
of weakness, keep her up when she is in danger of fainting, and encourage
her when she is on the rough and uphill ways of life?

If Christ has not come to deceive the world through His Apostle, must not
the wife go to her husband for advice? Ought she not to expect from him,
and him alone, after God, the light she wants and the consolation she is in
need of? Is it not to her husband, and to him alone, after God, she ought
to look in her days of trial for help? Is it not under his leadership alone