e any compensation for absolving them, and
this is true of every Priest with whom I have been acquainted. The truth
is, the Priest who would solicit a fee for absolution knows that he would
be guilty of simony, and would be liable to suspension.

But we are told that confession is an intolerable yoke, that it makes its
votaries the slaves of the Priests.

Before answering this objection, let me call your attention to the
inconsistency of our adversaries, who blow hot and cold in the same
breath. They denounce confession as being too hard a remedy for sin and
condemn it, at the same time, as being a smooth road to heaven. In one
sentence they style it a bed of roses; in the next a bed of thorns.

In a preceding objection it was charged that the votaries of confession
had no moral constraint at all. Now it is said that their conscience is
bound in chains of slavery. Surely, confession cannot be hard and easy at
the same time.

I have already refuted, I trust, the former charge. I shall now answer the
second. I am not aware in what sense our people are less independent than
those of any other class of the community. The only restraint, as far as I
know, imposed on Catholics by their Priests is the yoke of the Gospel, and
to this restraint no Christian ought to object. In my estimation, no body
of Christians enjoys more Apostolic freedom than those of the Catholic
communion, because they are guided in their conduct, not by the
ever-changing _ipse dixit_ of any minister, but by the unchangeable
teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ.

But if to love their Priest, to reverence his sacred character, to obey
his voice as the voice of God; if to be willing to make any sacrifice for
their spiritual father; if, I say, you call this slavery, then our
Catholic people are slaves, indeed, and, what is more, they are content
with their chains.

Even our Manuals of Devotion have not escaped the lash of wanton
criticism. They have excited the pious horror of some modern Pharisees
because they contain a table of sins for the use of those preparing for
confession. The same flower that furnishes honey to the bee supplies
poison to the wasp; and, in like manner, the same book that gives only the
honey of consolation to the devout reader has nothing but moral poison for
those that search its pages for nothing else.

How can anyone object to the table of sins in our prayer-books and
consistently advocate the circulation of the Bible, w