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 passing over to Rome. One of our most powerful preachers at Forest Gate gave a course of sermons on the confessional for the avowed purpose of ‘converting’ a non-Catholic solicitor who attended our Church, and who was thought to be deterred by the confessional. It is urged that confession gives a certain relief to the soul burdened with the consciousness of sin—which, in the majority of cases, is the reverse of the truth, and in any case does not touch the question of obligatory confession; and especially the confessional is lauded as a great preventive of sin. Whatever may be thought of the intrinsic probability of such an issue (which the preacher exclusively regards) we must candidly admit that, in the estimation of the community at large, Catholics are neither more nor less moral than their fellow-countrymen. To compare Catholic countries against Protestant would be fruitless and unprofitable: there is not a country or city in the civilised world which has not its distinguished advocates for the title of ‘the most immoral.’ London, Christiania, and Berlin, if we must strike an average of opinions, are neither better nor worse than Paris, Rome, or Madrid. But within our own frontiers there is a large section of frequenters of the confessional, and a comparison of their average lives with those of their fellow citizens reflects no special credit upon their institutions as moral prophylactics. Liverpool and Glasgow are much more Catholic than Manchester or London: