re absolution privately given, confession must
be made to a Priest privately.

_Q._ In what case does the Church of England order her ministers to move
people to private, or, as it is called, to auricular confession?

_A._ When they feel their conscience troubled with any weighty matter.

_Q._ What is weighty matter?

_A._ Mortal sin certainly is weighty; sins of omission or commission of
any kind that press upon the mind are so, too. Anything may be weighty
that causes scruple or doubtfulness.

_Q._ At what times in particular does the Church so order?

_A._ In the time of sickness, _and before coming to the Holy Communion_.

_Q._ Is there any other class of persons to whom confession is profitable?

_A._ Yes; to those _who desire to lead a saintly life. These, indeed, are
the persons who most frequently resort to it._

_Q._ Is there any other object in confession, besides the seeking
absolution for past sin and the quieting of the penitent's conscience?

_A._ Yes; the practice of confessing each single sin is a great check upon
the commission of sin and a preservative of purity of life.(457)

Here we have the Divine institution of priestly absolution and the
necessity and advantage of Sacramental confession plainly taught, not in a
speculative treatise, but in a practical catechism, by a distinguished
minister of the Church of England; taught by a minister who draws his
salary from the funds of the Protestant Episcopal church; who preaches and
administers in a church edifice recognized as a Protestant Episcopal
church, and who is in strict communion with a Bishop of the Protestant
Episcopal Church of England.

And these doctrines are upheld, not by one eminent Divine only, but by
hundreds of clergymen, as well as by thousands of the Protestant
Episcopalians of England.

What a strange spectacle to behold the same church teaching diametrically
opposite doctrines! What is orthodox in the diocese of Bath and Wells is
decidedly heterodox in the diocese of North Carolina. An ordinance which
Rev. Mr. Grueber proclaims to be of Divine faith is characterized by Rt.
Rev. Bishop Atkinson(458) as the invention of men. What Dr. Grueber
inculcates as a most salutary practice Dr. Atkinson anathematizes as
pernicious to religion. Confession, which, in the judgment of the former,
is a great "check upon the commission of sin," is stigmatized by the
latter as an incentive to sin. "Behold how good and pleasant it is for
br