o form a caste of men with any marvellous power over the rest of His
disciples. The priests of Rome, then, are impostors, and nothing else, when
they say that the power of loosing and unloosing sins was exclusively
granted to them.

Instead of going to the confessor, let the Christian go to his merciful
God, through Christ, and say, "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them
that trespass against us." This is the Truth, not as it comes from the
Vatican, but as it comes from Calvary, where our debts were paid, with the
only condition that we should believe, repent, and love.

Have not the Popes publicly and repeatedly anathematized the sacred
principle of Liberty of Conscience? Have they not boldly said, in the teeth
of the nations of Europe, that _Liberty_ of Conscience must be
destroyed--killed at any cost? Has not the whole world heard the sentence
of death to Liberty coming from the lips of the old man of the Vatican? But
where is the scaffold on which the doomed Liberty must perish? That
scaffold is the confessional-box. Yes, in the confessional, the Pope had
his 100,000 high executioners! There they are, day and night, with-sharp
daggers in hand, stabbing Liberty to the heart.

In vain will noble France expel her old tyrants to be free; in vain will
she shed the purest blood of her heart to protect and save Liberty! True
Liberty cannot live a day there so long as the executioners of the Pope are
free to stab her on their 100,000 scaffolds.

In vain chivalrous Spain will call Liberty to give a new life to her
people. She cannot set her feet there except to die, so long as the Pope is
allowed to strike her in his 50,000 confessionals.

And free America, too, will see all her so dearly-bought liberties
destroyed the day that the confessional-box is reared in her midst.

Auricular Confession and Liberty cannot stand together on the same ground;
either one or the other must fall.

Liberty must sweep away the confessional, as she has swept away the demon
of slavery, or she is doomed to perish.

Can a man be free in his own house, so long as there is another who has the
legal right to spy all his actions, and direct not only every step, but
every thought of his wife and children? Can that man boast of a home whose
wife and children are under the control of another? Is not that unfortunate
man really the slave of the ruler and master of his household? And when a
whole nation is composed of such husbands and fathe