Are not facts the best arguments? Well, here is an undeniable, a public fact, which is connected with a thousand collateral ones to prove that auricular confession is the most powerful engine of demoralization which the world has ever seen.
About the year 183—, there was in Quebec a fine-looking young priest; he had a magnificent voice, and was a pretty good speaker.[[4]] Through regard for his family, which is still numerous and respectable, I will not give his name, I will call him Rev. Mr. D——. Having been invited to preach in a parish of Canada, about 100 miles distant from Quebec, called Verchères, he was also requested to hear the confessions during a few days of a kind of Novena (nine days of prayer), which was going on in that place. Among his penitents was a beautiful young girl, about nineteen years old. She wanted to make a general confession of all her sins from the first age of reason, and the confessor granted her request. Twice every day she was there, at the feet of her handsome young spiritual physician, telling all her thoughts, her deeds, her desires. Sometimes she was remarked to have remained a whole hour in the confessional-box, in accusing herself of all her human frailties. What did she say? God only knows; but what became hereafter known by the entire of Canada is that the confessor fell in love with his fair penitent, and that she burned with the same irresistible fires for her confessor, as it so often happens.
It was not an easy matter for the priest and the young girl to meet each other in as complete a tête-à-tête as they both wished, for there were too many eyes upon them. But the confessor was a man of resources. The last day of the Novena he said to his beloved penitent, "I am going to Montreal, but three days after I will take the steamer back to Quebec. That steamer is accustomed to stop here. At about twelve a.m., be on the wharf, dressed as a young man. Let no one know your secret. You will embark in the steamboat, where you will not be known, if you have any prudence. You will come to Quebec, where you will be engaged as a servant-boy by the curate, of whom I am the vicar. Nobody will know your sex except myself, and we will there be happy together."
The fifth day after this there was a great desolation in the family of the girl, for she had suddenly disappeared and her robes had been found on the shores of the St. Lawrence river. There was not the least doubt in the minds of all relations and friends, that the general confession she had made had entirely upset her mind, and, in an excess of craziness, she had thrown herself into the deep and rapid waters of the St. Lawrence. Many searches were made to find her body, but all in vain; many public and private prayers were offered to God to help her to escape from the flames of Purgatory, where she might be condemned to suffer for many years, and much money was given to the priest to sing high masses, in order to extinguish the fires of that burning prison, where every Roman Catholic believes he must go to be purified before entering the regions of eternal happiness.
I will not give the name of the girl, though I have it, through compassion for her family; I will call her Geneva.
Well, when father and mother, brothers, sisters, and friends were shedding tears on the sad end of Geneva, she was in the rich parsonage of the Curate of Quebec, well paid, well fed and dressed; happy and cheerful with her beloved confessor. She was exceedingly neat in her person, always obliging, ready to run and do what you wanted at the very twinkling of your eye. Her new name was Joseph, by which I will now call her.
Many times I have seen the smart Joseph at the parsonage of Quebec, and admired his politeness and good manners; though it seemed to me sometimes that he looked too much like a girl, and that he was a little too much at ease with Rev. Mr. D——, and also with the Right Rev. M——. But every time the idea came to me that Joseph was a girl, I felt indignant with myself. The high respect I had for the Coadjutor Bishop made it impossible to think that he would ever allow a beautiful girl to sleep in the adjoining room to his own, and to serve him day and night; for Joseph's sleeping-room was just by the one of the Coadjutor, who, for several bodily infirmities, which were not a secret to every one, wanted the help of his servant several times at night, as well as during the day.
Things went on very smoothly with Joseph during two or three years in the Coadjutor Bishop's house; but at the end it seemed to many people outside that Joseph was taking too great airs of familiarity with the young vicars, and even with the venerable Coadjutor. Several of the citizens of Quebec, who were going more often than others to the parsonage, were surprised and shocked at the familiarity of that servant-boy with his masters; he really seemed sometimes to be on equal terms with, if not somewhat above them.
An intimate friend of the Bishop, a most devoted Roman Catholic, who was my near relative, took one day upon himself to respectfully say to the Right Rev. Bishop that it would be prudent to turn out that impudent young man from his palace; that he was the object of strong and deplorable suspicions.