ental Confession _was not
instituted since the time of the Apostles_. I shall now endeavor to prove
to your satisfaction _that its introduction into the Church, since the
Apostolic age, was absolutely impossible_.

There are two ways in which we may suppose that error might insinuate
itself into the Church, viz.: suddenly, or by slow process. Now, the
introduction of Confession in either of those ways was simply impossible.

First, nothing can be more absurd than to suppose that Confession was
immediately forced upon the Christian world. For experience demonstrates
with what slowness and difficulty men are divested of their religious
impressions, whether true or false. If such is the case with individuals,
how ridiculous would it seem for whole nations to adopt in a single day
some article of belief which they had never admitted before. Hence, we
cannot imagine, without doing violence to our good sense, that all the
good people of Christendom went to rest one night ignorant of the
Sacrament of Penance, and rose next morning firm believers in the Catholic
doctrine of auricular Confession. As well might we suppose that the
citizens of the United States would retire to rest believing they were
living under a Republic, and awake impressed with the conviction that they
were under the rule of Queen Victoria.

Nor is it less absurd to suppose that the practice of Confession was
introduced by degrees. How can we imagine that the Fathers of the
Church--the Clements, the Leos, the Gregories, the Chrysostoms, the
Jeromes, the Basils and Augustines, those intrepid High Priests of the
Lord, who, in every age, at the risk of persecution, exile and death have
stood like faithful sentinels on the watch-towers of Israel, defending
with sleepless eyes the outskirts of the city of God from the slightest
attack--how can we imagine, I say, that they would suffer the enemy of
truth to invade the very sanctuary of God's temple? If they were so
vigilant in cutting off the least withered branch of error, how would they
tamely submit to see so monstrous an exotic engrafted on the fruitful tree
of the Church?

What gives additional weight to these remarks is the reflection that
Confession is not a speculative doctrine, but a doctrine of the most
practical kind, influencing our daily actions, words and thoughts--a
Sacrament to which thousands of Christians have constant recourse in every
part of the world. It is a doctrine, moreover, hard to fl