oman Catholicism" Miss Eliza Richardson,
writes, (Page 34 and 35.)

"Thus I silenced my foolish quibbling, and went on to the test of a
convert's fervour and sincerity in confession. And here was assuredly a
fresh source of pain and disquiet, and one not so easily vanquished. "The
theory had appeared, as a whole, fair and rational, but the reality, in
some of its details, _was terrible_!"

"Divested, for the public gaze, of its darkest ingredients, and dressed up,
in their theological works, in false and meretricious pretentions to truth
and purity, it exhibited a dogma only calculated to exert a beneficial
influence on mankind, and to prove a source of morality and usefulness.
_But oh, as with all ideals, how unlike was the actual!_"

"Here, however, I may remark, in passing, the effect produced upon my mind
by the first sight of the _older_ editions of "the Garden of the Soul". I
remember the stumbling-block it was to me, my sense of womanly delicacy was
shocked. It was a dark page in my experience, when first I knelt at the
feet of a mortal man to confess what should have been poured into the ear
of God alone. I cannot dwell upon this...."

"Though I believe my Confessor was, on the whole, as guarded as his manners
were kind; at some things I was strangely startled, utterly confounded."

"The purity of mind and delicacy in which I had been nurtured, had not
prepared me for such an ordeal; and my own sincerity, and dread of
committing a sacrilege, tended to augment the painfulness of the occasion.
One circumstance especially I will recall, which my fettered conscience
persuaded me I was obliged to name. My distress and terror, doubtless, made
me less explicit than I otherwise might have been. The questioning,
however, it elicited, and the ideas supplied by it, outraged my feelings to
such an extent, that, forgetting all respect for my Confessor, and
careless, even, at the moment, whether I received absolution or not, I
hastily exclaimed, "I cannot say a word more," while the thought rushed
into my mind, "all is true that their enemies say of them." Here, however
prudence dictated to my questioner to put the matter no further; and the
kind and almost respectful tone he _immediately_ assumed, went far towards
effacing an impression so injurious. On rising from my knees, when I should
have gladly fled to any distance rather than have encountered his gaze, he
addressed me in the most familiar manner on different subjec