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Rh CHAPTER VI

THE CONFESSIONAL

point in the vast and much contested system of the Church of Rome has excited, and still excites, a deeper and a more suspicious interest than the practice of auricular confession. The Inquisition and the commerce in relics and indulgences are still favourite subjects of the historical critic; monasticism, the Index, the dead language, political ambition and intrigue are some of its actual features which attract no small quantity of opprobrium, and even try the patience of many of its own adherents. But the happy hunting-ground of the innumerable tribe of anti-papal lecturers and pamphleteers is the confessional. Unlike monastic life, the air of mystery and secrecy is a necessary evil of the confessional, and it is the characteristic which is most incentive to criticism. A Catholic layman cannot, of course, with delicacy enlarge upon his experience of the confessional, and, in any case, it would be too personal to be instructive or effective. No ex-priest has hitherto given his