the Holy Ghost." These are as follows:"Wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and the fear of the Lord." Our foreheads were rubbed with a bit of wool dipped in chrism, which was composed of holy oil and the ashes of consecrated palm; after which the Bishop gave us a gentle slap on the right cheek, to enable us to profess Christ openly."

Thus endued with "power from on high," as we then imagined, we went forth, fearless of hell; and, in the buoyant consciousness of supernatural energy, rather ambitious of some skirmishing with the devil himself in his proper person.

In early youth, my experience of the restraining power of confession was similar to that of Marmontel. It engendered a sort of morbid conscientiousness, which, while it damped the ardour of youth, and checked the innocent play of the feelings, rendered me excessively scrupulous about things indifferent, and fastidiously observant of trifles. Thus, taking a drink of milk on the morning of Ash Wednesday, once threw me into the utmost distress of mind; and this inadvertence, for it was nothing more, formed the burden of my next confession. Indeed, such an occurrence is an important event in the diary of

a boy, whose confessions are made up of idle words or ceremonial omissions.

I was once, since my conversion, travelling with a Roman Catholic friend; and calling to see a Protestant clergyman on the way, we took some bread and meat for a lunch. My friend suddenly recollected that it was Friday; and the mingled expression of alarm, remorse, and shame painted on his countenance, would have furnished an admirable subject for the genius of Hogarth. He deemed himself more defiled by this single mistake, than if he had broken half the commands of the decalogue.

An oversight of a similar nature, committed by myself, was the first thing that occurred to set my mind a little afloat from the moorings of the confessional. The Rev. Mr. Ha Priest "just let loose" from Maynooth, was, of course, very zealous. But he was one of those whose zeal lacked discretion. His Sunday evenings were spent, not explaining the Word of God to the ignorant, but riding from one side of the parish to the other, in order to scatter with his whip the groups of young people that sauntered for pleasure along the road. His approach was the signal for retreat, and it was amusing to see the routed flock flying in all directions to escape the shepherd's vengeance. This was acting fully

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up to the letter of the present Pope's exhortation to his bishops, &c., "to drive the flock.' It was driving them, indeed, but alas! not into "wholesome pastures." They took shelter behind the hedges and in groves, or they concealed themselves in the cabins by the roadside--scenes less favourable to virtue than those from which they had been dispersed, The Priest seeks to govern by terror-an engine which, while it is present to the mind, may partially restrain the ebullitions of passion; but it is wholly inefficient as an instrument of moral reformation.

Father H- commenced his labours in the confessional, by calling on all the penitents to make a general confession; that is, to repeat all past confessions from the beginning of the penitential course to the present time. Whether the object of this requirement was to free the penitents from the consequences of bad confessions, abortive absolutions, and unworthy communions; or to enlarge the casuistical experience of the Priest; or to gratify the prurient curiosity natural to young men on leaving such a college as Maynooth; or to acquire that sway over the mind which a knowledge of the heart, and the secret history of individuals, is calculated to impart I will leave you to judge. Perhaps in

most cases all these motives conspire to recommend this course of proceeding.

However that may be, I was among the number of those who wished to make a general confession to so holy a man. He occupied a room in the house of the Parish Priest. I found him, as usual, seated near the fire, with a small table before him, on which was some silver with a considerable quantity of pence. There was a good deal of the dandy in his appearance, and he evidently paid much attention to his toilet. He contemplated, with apparent satisfaction, the whiteness of his hand, and the ring with which it was adorned. An anecdote, current through the parish, will throw some light on his character. His servant brought his boots one day, polished as brightly as "Warren's Jet" could make them. But he haughtily ordered them to be done over again, as, he said, they were not fit to be seen. The servant, despairing of making them better, showed them to the Parish Priest, who told him to lay them by for a few minutes, and then take them in, pretending they had been polished a second time. The joke pleased Tom exceedingly.

"Well, your reverence," said he, "I hope they'll do now?"

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"Oh, admirably!" said the Priest, "now, indeed, they are decent; but before they were intolerable."

Perhaps the good old father took the hint of this trick from that which POPE played on a great lord, who ventured to criticise one of his poems.

But we must return to the confessional. According to custom, I bowed down at Mr. H- L's knee. But he roughly ordered me to kneel at a chair beside him, where I related the long catalogue of my sins, for the most part venial indeed, but occasionally a mortal sin stood prominently out, like the large stone called the. decade on the beads. When I returned again I advanced to the chair above mentioned; but in a very angry tone he commanded me to fall. down at his knee. This manifestation of bad temper and caprice surprised me.

"You bid me kneel here, Sir," I ventured to remark.

"Silence, Sir; do as I bid you now," was his meek reply.

On this occasion I was enjoined to abstain from breakfast every morning till I came again. It was Christmas week; but I did not think the prohibition extended to the morning of that day of universal feasting. I was mistaken. When