Fifthly, When the physician performs a delicate operation on one of his female patients, the operation is usually accompanied with pain, cries, and often with bloodshed. The sympathetic and honest physician suffers almost as much pain as his patient; those cries, acute pains, tortures, and bleeding wounds make it morally impossible that the physician should be tempted to any improper thing.
But the sight of the spiritual wounds of that fair penitent! Is the poor depraved human heart really sorry to see and examine them? Oh, no! it is just the contrary!
The dear Saviour weeps over those wounds; the angels are distressed at the sight. Yes. But the deceitful and corrupt heart of man, is it not rather apt to be pleased at the sight of wounds which are so much like the ones he has himself, so often been pleased to receive from the hand of the enemy?
Was the heart of David pained and horror-struck at the sight of the fair Bath-sheba, when imprudently and too freely exposed in her bath? Was not that holy prophet smitten and brought down to the dust by that guilty look? Was not the mighty giant, Samson, undone by the charms of Delilah? Was not the wise Solomon ensnared and befooled in the midst of the women by whom he was surrounded?
Who will believe that the bachelors of the Pope are made of stronger metal than the Davids, the Samsons, and the Solomons? Where is the man who has so completely lost his common sense as to believe that the priests of Rome are stronger than Samson, holier than David, wiser than Solomon? Who will believe that confessors will stand up on their feet amidst the storms which prostrate in the dust those giants of the armies of the Lord? To suppose that, in the generality of cases the confessor can resist the temptations by which he is daily surrounded in the confessional, that he will constantly refuse the golden opportunities which offer themselves to him, to satisfy the almost irresistible propensities of his fallen human nature, is neither wisdom nor charity; it is simply folly.
I do not say that all the confessors and their female penitents fall into the same degree of abject degradation; thanks be to God, I have known several who nobly fought their battles and conquered on that field of so many shameful defeats. But these are the exceptions. It is just as when the fire has ravaged one of our grand forests of America—how sad it is to see the numberless noble trees fallen under the devouring element! But, here and there the traveller is not a little amazed and pleased to find some which have proudly stood the fiery trial without being consumed.
Has not the world at large been struck with terror when they heard of the fire which a few years ago had reduced the great city of Chicago to ashes? But those who have visited that doomed city, and seen the desolating ruins of her 16,000 houses, had to stand in silent admiration before a few which, in the very midst of an ocean of fire, had escaped untouched by the destructive element.
It is so that, owing to a most marvellous protection of God, some privileged souls do escape, here and there, the fatal destruction which overtakes so many others in the confessional.
The confessional is just as the spider's web. How many too unsuspecting flies find death when seeking rest on the beautiful framework of their deceitful enemy! How few escape! and this only after a most desperate struggle. See how the perfidious spider looks harmless in his retired, dark corner; how motionless he is; how patiently he waits for his opportunity! But look how quickly he surrounds his victim with his silky, delicate, and imperceptible links! how mercilessly he sucks its blood and destroys its life!
What does remain of the imprudent fly, after she has been entrapped into the nets of her foe? Nothing but a skeleton. So it is with your fair wife, your precious daughter; nine times in ten nothing but a moral skeleton returns to you, after the Pope's black spider has been allowed to suck the very blood of her heart and soul. Let those who would be tempted to think that I do exaggerate read the following extracts from the memoirs of the Venerable Scipio de Ricci, Roman Catholic Bishop of Pistoia and Prato, in Italy. They were published by the Italian Government, to show to the world that some measures ought to be taken by the civil and ecclesiastical authorities to prevent the nation from being entirely swept away by the deluge of corruption flowing from the confessional, even among the most perfect of Rome's followers, the monks and the nuns. The priests have never dared to deny a single iota of those terrible revelations. In page 115 we read the following letter from Sister Flavia Peraccini, Prioress of St Catherine, to Dr. Thomas Comparini, Rector of the Episcopal Seminary of Pistoia:—