him;
if he would speak to him alone, without the knowledge of any one, and with
care lay all before him, easily would he amend his failings; _for the
confession of sins is the absolution of crimes_."(453)

St. Jerome writes: "If the serpent, the devil, secretly bite a man and
thus infect him with the poison of sin, and this man shall remain silent,
and do not penance, nor be willing to make known his wound to his brother
and master; the master, who has a tongue that can heal, cannot easily
serve him. For if the ailing man be ashamed to open his case to the
physician no cure can be expected; for medicine does not cure that of
which it knows nothing."(454)

Elsewhere he says: "With us the Bishop or Priest binds or looses--not them
who are merely innocent or guilty--but _having heard, as his duty requires,
the various qualities of sin_ he understands who should be bound and who
loosed."(455)

Could the Catholic doctrine regarding the power of the Priests and the
obligation of confession be expressed in stronger language than this?

And yet these are the very Fathers who are represented to be opposed to
Sacramental Confession! With a reckless disregard of the unanimous voice
of antiquity our adversaries have the hardihood to assert that private or
Sacramental Confession was introduced at a period subsequent to the
twelfth century. They do not, however, vouchsafe to inform us by what Pope
or Bishop or Father of the Church, or by what Council, or in what country,
this monstrous innovation was foisted on the Christian Republic. Surely,
an institution which, in their estimation, has been fraught with such dire
calamity to Christendom, ought to have its origin marked with more
precision. It is sometimes prudent, however, not to be too particular in
fixing dates.

I shall now, I trust, show to the satisfaction of the reader: First--That
Sacramental Confession was not introduced. Second--That it could not have
been introduced into the Church since the days of the Apostles, and
consequently that it is Apostolic in its origin.

That Confession was not invented since the days of the Apostles is
manifest as soon as we attempt to fix the period of its first
establishment. Let us go back, step, by step, from the nineteenth to the
first century.

It had not its origin in the present century, as everybody will admit.

Nor did it arise in the sixteenth century, since the General Council of
Trent, held in that age, speaks of it as