The fact is, there is no keeping a secret, even if it concerns oneself. There is a necessity for a confidant to whom we can confide something that lies close about our bosom. There are few persons in the world who are entitled to say this with more certainty than clergymen and clerical editors, to whom are entrusted every week secrets ordinary and extraordinary, from crimes of the deepest dye to little peccadilloes at which the purest innocence only is abashed. These confidences are made by people of all ranks, and from all the civilised parts of the globe, and from their number and nature never can be, and never are revealed. A line in print, an indication where to find consolation or succour, or in what way to retrace incautious steps, directed to simple initials or an assumed name, catches the eye of the confessor at breakfast, and may make the heart beat quicker; but no one else knows it, and no one can act upon the confession, while hundreds who intuitively read why the advice was given, can act upon the advice. Although these questions, confessions, and confidences are now confined to the cheap magazines, the number who take advantage of such-persons of fair education-is very large, and betokens a human want. Being human it is ancient. In Plutarch's Moralia questions are debated that are not settled yet, and if some of the confessions in Addison's 'Spectator' were manufactured, there can be little doubt that many, and those the most startling, were true. As the 'Saturday Review' says, they cannot all have been invented. It is more than 150 years since similar questions and answers were published under the direction of John Dunton, a somewhat eccentric bookseller, as the 'Athenian Mercury'* (republished in 1728 as the 'Athenian Oracle'), and in those answers may be observed matters touching religion and morals. But, as the Laureate tells us : No being on this earthly ball so certainly no journal or periodical is the exact counterpart of another. Half of the successors of the 'Mercury' seem to have failed for want of earnestness, many from want of ability; others, with plenty of ability, from a notion that the proper way to amuse A, B, and C, was to make fun of D, E, and F, forgetting that one man's mind is very much a counterpart of another's. It is now found that, laying aside the petty temptation to laugh at the simplicity of some questions, the plain and best way is to answer all seriously. A wise answer may be given to a very foolish question. The heart recognises the sincerity of the head; and this is the secret of speaking to the heart. The world cannot do without confession in some way. *The Athenian Mercury, or a Scheme to Answer a Series of Questions Monthly, the Querist remaining Concealed.' men. Cunning men have taken advantage of this, and added another link to the great long chain by which they bind Confession seems to some to imply absolution : it does no such thing. A true Christian, before he commits a crime, is already absolved; and God, who sees the fall, knows when to raise the weakling and to comfort him with hope. But without referring to the practice of private confession, as urged on the patient by some religions—a bad and misdirecting practice, we believe we may urge that the confessional must have a very disheartening and bad effect upon the priest. Father Gavazzi once likened the bosom of the holy man, who sits in a little box, and puts his ear to the grated opening where the penitent kneels, to the Thames before its purification, which had all the pollutions and filth of the sewers poured into it. How could such a man believe in goodness? The demure maiden who knelt before him had to tell of some dreadful and secret sin; the pious father, of some unholy plot for pleasure or for gain; the chaste and excelling matron, beloved, admired, wondered at for her goodness, of some folly or some crime, we may well believe. It is wisely done in the Church of Rome that, for the most part, the priest and the penitent know little of each other, or else! -the prospect is not pleasant. Another reflection which somewhat comforts us is this: that the crimes of man are, like the keys in a piano, by no means infinite. You can get certain tones out of them, and no more; you may have many deficiencies and multitudinous combinations. But, after all, few men are original in their vices. We envy, we hate, we backbite, we steal, we lust, we murder, and we combine these and their various modifications in many ways. One man is honourable, excellent, admirable, but for a besetting sin; in this sin he slips, then repents, and slips again and again. The confessors know all this. The very tone and tint of every sin is marked down in Peter Dens and Sanchez, and marked and priced in the confessional; for it yields a good revenue, as the Cenci said on one notable occasion. In Protestant countries our confessors are our friends, our advisers, or, best of all, the Almighty, as the old anti-Roman set of verses, written long years ago, said: He's able to confess, and always willing; But there are very few people who do not seek some sympathising soul to pour into it their troubles, trials, follies, and virtues. The reason why lovers are so fond of each other's company is that they confess to each other, talk about themselves. Annie tells William what mamma and papa said about him, or someone else, or how someone blamed somebody, and how Annie thought differently. Then comes the feeling which is properly simpatica. William thinks as Annie thinks, and Annie thinks as he thinks. Their very confessions are half praises of themselves: 'Do you know I'm such a passionate creature, but —'; and then comes the sweeter confession, 'I'm very jealous of those I love; but then --.' And as one thinks, so does the other; and quite right too. It is hard indeed in this hard world if two cannot be in perfect confidence; but it is doubtful whether many are really so. Does every lover know all that his mistress has done before he met her? Many lovers are like the roguish fellow in Boccaccio's story, who, after a life of debauchery, vowed that he would die in the odour of sanctity. He therefore sent for a simple monk, and confessed that he had committed the greatest crime in the world, that nothing could cleanse him, and he wept and howled pitiably. The good monk tried in vain to pacify him, and to make him particularise the crime, but in vain; half the monastery tried, but with as little success. At last, just before he died, he confessed to the bishop-no smaller priest would serve that he had once, when a boy, disobeyed his mother, and as a grey-haired man he still repented it. 'Is this all ?' cried the bishop. All!' gasped the penitent; 'is it not enough?' And after receiving the sacrament, he died. If this be all his sins,' said the simple priests, 'he was the finest saint in the world;' so they carried his body to the church, worked miracles at his tomb, and in due time had him canonised. Such is the Italian's wicked 6 |