does auricular confession bring peace to the soul?
The connecting of Peace with Auricular Confession is surely the most cruel sarcasm ever uttered in human language.
It would be less ridiculous and false to admire the calmness of the sea, and the stillness of the atmosphere, when a furious storm raises the foaming waves to the skies, than to speak of the Peace of the soul either during or after the confession.
I know it; the confessors and their dupes chorus every tune by crying "Peace, peace"! But the God of truth and holiness answers, "There is no peace for the wicked!"
The fact is, that no human words can adequately express the anxieties of the soul before confession, its unspeakable confusion in the act of confessing, or its deadly terrors after confession.
Let those who have never drunk of the bitter waters which flow from the confessional box, read the following plain and correct recital of my own first experiences in auricular confession. They are nothing else than the history of what nine tenths of the penitents[[5]] of Rome old and young are subject to; and they will know what to think of that marvellous Peace about which the Romanists, and their silly copyists, the Ritualists, have written so many eloquent lies.
In the year 1819, my parents had sent me from Murray Bay (La Mal Baie) where they lived, to an excellent school, at St. Thomas. I was then, about ten years old. I boarded with an uncle, who, though a nominal Roman Catholic, did not believe a word of what his priest preached. But my Aunt had the reputation of being a very devoted woman. Our School-master, Mr. John Jones, was a well educated Englishman: and a staunch PROTESTANT. This last circumstance had excited the wrath of the Roman Catholic Priest against the teacher and his numerous pupils to such an extent, that they were often denounced from the pulpit with very hard words. But if he did not like us, I must admit that we were paying him with his own coin.
But let us come to my first lesson in Auricular Confession, No! 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 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 ruin. Fathers, Mothers and guardians of those children, if, through your fault or theirs, your children are guilty of a false confession: if they do not confess every thing to the priest who holds the place of God, Himself, this sin is often irreparable: the Devil will take possession of their hearts: they will lie to their father confessor, or rather to Jesus Christ, of whom he is the representative: Their lives will be a series of sacrileges, their death and eternity, those of reprobates. Teach them therefore to examine thoroughly all their actions, words, thoughts and desires, in order to confess every thing just as it occurred, without any disguise."
I was in the Church of St. Thomas, when these 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 the vital question of my eternity!