University of Virginia Library

Chapter III.

THE CONFESSION OF CHILDREN.

NO words can express to those who have never had any
experience in the matter, the consternation, anxiety and
shame of a poor Romish child, when he hears, for the first time,
his priest saying from the pulpit, in a grave and solemn tone,
"This week, you will send your children to confession. Make
them understand that this action is one of the most important of
their lives, that for every one of them, it will decide their eternal
happiness or misery. Fathers and mothers, if, through your
fault, or his own, your child is guilty of a bad confession—if he
conceals his sins and commences lying to the priest, who holds
the place of God himself, this sin is often irreparable. The devil
will take possession of his heart: he will become accustomed to
lie to his father confessor, or rather to Jesus Christ, of whom he
is a representative. His life will be a series of sacrileges; his
death and eternity those of the reprobate. Teach him, therefore,
to examine thoroughly his actions, words and thoughts, in order
to confess without disguise."

I was in the church of St. Thomas when those words fell
upon me like a thunderbolt.

I had often heard my mother say, when at home, and my
aunt, since I had come to St. Thomas, that upon the first confession
depended my eternal happiness or misery. That week
was, therefore, to decide about my eternity.

Pale and dismayed, I left the church, and returned to the
house of my relatives. I took my place at the table, but could
not eat, so much was I troubled. I went to my room for the
purpose of commencing my examination of conscience and to
try to recall my sinful actions, words, and thoughts. Although

scarcely over ten years of age, this task was really overwhelming
for me. I knelt down to pray to the Virgin Mary for help; but
I was so much taken up with the fear of forgetting something,
and of making a bad confession, that I muttered my prayers
without the least attention to what I said. It became still worse
when I commenced counting my sins. My memory became
confused, my head grew dizzy; my heart beat with a rapidity
which exhausted me, and my brow was covered with perspiration.
After a considerable length of time spent in these painful efforts,
I felt bordering on despair, from the fear that it was impossible
for me to remember everything. The night following was
almost a sleepless one; and when sleep did come, it could
scarcely be called a sleep, but a suffocating delirium. In a
frightful dream, I felt as if I had been cast into hell, for not
having confessed all my sins to the priest. In the morning, I
awoke, fatigued and prostrated by the phantoms of that terrible
night. In similar troubles of mind were passed three days
which preceded my first confession. I had constantly before
me the countenance of that stern priest who had never smiled
upon me. He was present in my thoughts during the day, and
in my dreams during the night, as the minister of an angry God,
justly irritated against me on account of my sins. Forgiviness
had indeed been promised to me, on coudition of a good
confession; but my place had also been shown to me in hell, if
my confession was not as near perfection as possible. Now, my
troubled conscience told me that there were ninety-nine chances
against one, that my confession would be bad, whether by my
own fault I forgot some sins, or I was without that contrition of
which I had heard so much, but the nature and effects of which
were a perfect chaos to my mind.

Thus it was that the cruel and perfidious Church of Rome took
away from my young heart the good and merciful Jesus, whose
love and compassion had caused me to shed tears of joy when I
was beside my mother. The Saviour whom that church made
me to worship, through fear, was not the Saviour who called little
thildren unto Him, to bless them and take them in His arms.
Her impious hands were soon to torture and defile my childish

heart, and place me at the feet of a pale and severe looking man—
worthy representative of a pitiless God. I was made to tremble
with terror at the footstool of an implacible divinity, while the
gospel asked of me only tears of love and joy, shed at the feet
of the incomparable Friend of sinners!

At length came the day of confession; or rather of judgment
and condemnation. I presented myself to the priest.

Mr. Loranger was no longer priest of St. Thomas. He had
been succeeded by Mr. Beaubien, who did not favor our school
any more than his predecessor. He had even taken upon himself
to preach a sermon against the heretical school, by which we
had been excessively wounded. His want of love for us,
however, I must say, was fully reciprocated.

Mr. Beaubien had, then, the defect of lisping and stammering.
This we often turned into ridicule, and one of my favorite amusements
was to imitate him, which brought bursts of laughter from
us all.

It had been necessary for me to examine myself upon the
number of times I had mocked him. This circumstance was
not calculated to make my confession easier, or more agreeable.

At last the dreaded moment came. I knelt at the side of my
confessor. My whole frame trembled. I repeated the prayer
preparatory to confession, scarcely knowing what I said so
much was I troubled with fear.

By the instructions which had been given us before confession,
we had been made to believe that the priest was the true representative—yea,
almost the personification of Jesus Christ. The
consequence was, that I believed my greatest sin had been that
of mocking the priest. Having always been told that it was
best to confess the greatest sin first, I commenced thus: "Father
I accuse myself of having mocked a priest."

Scarcely had I uttered these words, "mocked a priest," when
this pretended representative of the humble Saviour, turning
towards me, and looking in my face in order to know me better,
asked abruptly, "What priest did you mock, my boy?" I would
rather have chosen to cut out my tongue than to tell him to his
face who it was. I therefore kept silent for a while. But my

silence made him very nervous and almost angry. With a
haughty tone of voice he said, "What priest did you take the
liberty of thus mocking?"

I saw that I had to answer. Happily his haughtiness had
made me firmer and bolder. I said "Sir, you are the priest
whom I mocked."

"But how many times did you take upon you to mock me,
my boy?"

"I tried to find out," I answered, "but never could."

"You must tell me how many times; for to mock one's own
priest is a great sin."

"It is impossible for me to give you the number of times,"
answered I.

"Well, my child, I will help your memory by asking you
questions. Tell me the truth. Do you think you have mocked
me ten times?"

"A great many times more, sir."

"Fifty times?"

"Many more still."

"A hundred times?"

"Say five hundred times and perhaps more," answered I.

"Why, my boy, do you spend all your time in mocking me?"

"Not all; but unfortunately I do it very often."

"Well may you say unfortunately; for so to mock your
priest, who holds the place of our Lord Jesus Christ, is a great
misfortune, and a great sin for you. But tell me, my little boy,
what reason have you for mocking me thus?"

In my examinations of conscience I had not foreseen that I
should be obliged to give the reasons for mocking the priest;
and I was really thunderstruck by his questions. I dared not
answer, and I remained for a long time dumb, from the shame
that overpowered me. But with a harrassing perseverance the
priest insisted on my telling why I had mocked him; telling
me that I should be damned if I did not tell the whole truth.
So I decided to speak, and said, "I mocked you for several
thing."

"What made you first mock me?" continued the priest.

"I laughed at you because you lisped. Among the pupils of
our school, it often happens that we imitate your preaching to
excite laughter."

"Have you often done that?"

"Almost every day, especially in our holidays, and since you
preached against us."

"For what other reasons did you laugh at me, my little boy?"

For a long time I was silent. Every time I opened my mouth
to speak courage failed me. However, the priest continuing to
urge me, I said at last, "It is rumored in town that you love
girls; that you visit the Misses Richards every evening, and this
often makes us laugh."

The poor priest was evidently overwhelmed by my answer,
and ceased questioning me on this subject. Changing the conversation,
he said:

"What are your other sins?"

I began to confess them in the order in whice they came to
my memory. But the feeling of shame which overpowered me
in repeating all my sins to this man was a thousand times greater
than that of having offended God. In reality this feeling of
human shame which absorbed my thought—nay, my whole
being—left no room for any religious feeling at all.

When I had confessed all the sins I could remember, the
priest began to ask me the strangest questions on matters about
which my pen must be silent. I replied, "Father, I do not
understand what you ask me."

"I question you on the sixth commandment (seventh in the
Bible). Confess all. You will go to hell, if through your
fault you omit anything."

Thereupon he dragged my thoughts to regions which, thank
God had hitherto been unknown to me.

I answered him: "I do not understand you," or "I have
never done these things."

Then, skilfully shifting to some secondary matter, he would
soon slyly and cunningly come back to his favorite subject,
namely, sins of licentiousness.

His questions were so unclean that I blushed and felt sick

with disgust and shame. More than once I had been, to my
regret, in the company of bad boys; but not one of them has
offended my moral nature so much as this priest had done. Not
one of them had ever approached the shadow of the things from
which that man tore the veil, and which he placed before the
eye of my soul. In vain did I tell him that I was not guilty of
such things; that I did not even understand what he asked me;
he would not let me off. Like the vulture bent upon tearing
the poor bird that falls into his claws, that cruel priest seemed
determined to defile and ruin my heart.

At last he asked me a question in a form of expression so bad
that I was really pained. I felt as if I had received a shock
from an electric battery; a feeling of horror made me shudder.
I was so filled with indignation that, speaking loud enough to be
heard by many, I told him: "Sir, I am very wicked; I have
seen, heard and done many things which I regret; but I never
was guilty of what you mention to me. My ears have never
heard anything so wicked as what they have heard from your
lips. Please do not ask me any more of those questions; do not
teach me any more evil than I already know."

The remainder of my confession was short. The firmness
of my voice had evidently frightened the priest, and made him
blush. He stopped short and began to give me some good
advice, which might have been useful to me if the deep wounds
which his questions had inflicted upon my soul had not so
absorbed my thoughts as to prevent me from giving attention to
what he said.

He gave me a short penance and dismissed me.

I left the confessional irritated and confused. From the
shame of what I had just heard from the mouth of that priest I
dared not lift my eyes from the ground. I went into a retired
corner of the church to do my penance; that is, to recite the
prayers he had indicated to me. I remained for a long time in
church. I had need of a calm after the terrible trial through
which I had just passed. But vainly I sought for rest. The
shameful questions which had been asked me, the new world of
iniquity into which I had been introduced, the impure phantoms

by which my childish heart had been defiled, confused and
troubled my mind so strangely that I began to weep bitterly.

Why those tears? Why that desolation? I wept over my
sins? Alas! I confess it with shame, my sins did not call forth
those tears. And yet how many sins had I already committed,
for which Jesus shed his precious blood. But I confess my sins
were not the cause of my desolation. I was rather thinking of
my mother, who had taken such good care of me, and who had
so well succeeded in keeping away from my thoughts those
impure forms of sin, the thoughts of which had just now defiled
my heart. I said to myself, Ah! if my mother had heard those
questions; if she could see the evil thoughts which overwhelm
me at this moment—if she knew to what school she sent me
when she advised me in her last letter to go to confession, how
her tears would mingle with mine! It seemed to me that my
mother would love me no more—that she would see written
upon my brow the pollution with which that priest had profaned
my soul.

Perhaps the feeling of pride was what made me weep. Or
perhaps I wept because of a remnant of that feeling of original
dignity whose traces had still been left in me. I felt so downcast
by the disappointment of being removed farther from the
Saviour by that confessional which had promised to bring me
nearer to Him. God only knows what was the depth of my
sorrow at feeling myself more defiled and more guilty after than
before my confession.

I left the church only when forced to do so by the shades of
night, and came to my uncle's house with that feeling of uneasiness
caused by the consciousness of having done a bad action,
and by the fear of being discovered.

Though this uncle, as well as most of the principal citizens of
the village of St. Thomas, had the name of being a Roman
Catholic, yet he did not believe a word of the doctrines of the
Roman Church. He laughed at the priests, their masses, their
purgatory, and especially their confession. He did not conceal
that when young, he had been scandalized by the words and
actions of a priest in the confessional. He spoke to me jestingly.

This increased my trouble and my grief. "Now," said he "you
will be a good boy. But if you have heard as many new things
as I did the first time I went to confess, you are a very learned
boy;" and he burst into laughter.

I blushed and remained silent. My aunt, who was a devoted
Roman Catholic, said to me, "Your heart is relieved, is it not,
since you confessed all your sins?" I gave her an evasive
answer, but I could not conceal the sadness that overcame me.
I thought I was the only one from whom the priest had asked
those poluting questions. But great was my surprise, on the
following day, when going to school I learned that my fellow
pupils had not been happier than I had been. The only difference
was, that instead of being grieved, they laughed at it. "Did
the priest ask you such and such questions?" they would demand
laughing boisterously. I refused to reply, and said, "Are you
not ashamed to speak of these things?"

"Ah! ah! how very scrupulous you are," continued they.
"If it is not a sin for the priest to speak to us on these matters,
how can it be a sin for us?" I stopped, confounded, not knowing
what to say.

I soon perceived that even the young school girls had not
been less polluted and scandalized by the questions of the priest
than the boys. Although keeping at a distance, such as to
prevent us from hearing all they said, I could understand enough
to convince me that they had been asked about the same questions.
Some of them appeared indignant, while others laughed heartily.

I should be misunderstood were it supposed that I mean to
convey the idea that this priest was more to blame than others,
or that he did more than fulfil the duties of his ministry in asking
these questions. Such, however, was my opinion at the time,
and I detested that man with all my heart until I knew better.
I had been unjust towards him, for this priest had only done his
duty. He was only obeying the Pope and his theologians. His
being a priest of Rome was, therefore, less his crime than his
misfortune. He was, as I have been myself, bound hand and
foot at the feet of the greatest enemy that the holiness and truth
of God have ever had on earth—the Pope.

The misfortune of Mr. Baubien, like that of all the priests
of Rome, was that of having bound himself by terrible oaths
not to think for himself, or to use the light of his own reason.

Many Roman Catholics, even many Protestants, refuse to
believe this. It is, notwithstanding, a sad truth. The priest of
Rome is an automaton —a machine which acts, thinks and speaks
in matters of morals and of faith, only according to the order and
the will of the Pope and his theologians.

Had Mr. Beaubien been left to himself, he was naturally too
much of a gentleman to ask such questions. But no doubt he
had read Liguori, Dens, Debreyne, authors approved by the
Pope, and he was obliged to take darkness for light, and vice
for virtue.