The indisposition to license confessors to absolve for heresy in the forum of conscience is easily explicable. By compelling the penitent to come to the tribunal, a record was made for use in case of relapse; if he had accomplices he could be forced to reveal them and their prosecution followed, and there was an opportunity of inflicting pecuniary penances, although confiscation was waived in such cases.[72] These same reasons operated in a contrary sense with the penitent, besides the horror which all men felt as to falling into the hands of the Inquisition. When he was obstinate, the tribunal was powerless, for the seal of confession shielded his identity; it finally yielded the point and no longer pretended that licenses could not be given to confessors. In 1562 a case was referred to the Suprema of a person who had confessed sacramentally to certain heresies, without having been taught them by any one, when the inquisitor-general empowered the inquisitors to absolve him in such way as they thought best and they empowered the confessor.[73] Finally it became the rule that the confessor sought to induce the penitent to apply to the Inquisition; if he resolutely refused the confessor applied for a faculty, which was granted or not, according to the temper of the tribunal.[74] [Sidenote: _OCCULT HERESY_] A case in 1754 shows the Inquisition in a favorable light and has interest also as illustrating the tortures of a soul which rejects belief and yet holds belief to be essential to salvation. Fray Thomas de Sos reported to the Toledo tribunal that, while on a mission at Ajofrin, a penitent had asked him to obtain a commission to absolve her for heresies internal and external, which yet were occult, as she had never expressed them except to her aunt. She said that, on a previous occasion, a confessor had done this for her and she wished to avoid the disgrace of personal appearance before the Inquisition. He was ordered to ascertain all details and reported that the penitent was a poor woman named María Lara, living with an aunt aged eighty. Her heresies were only of a few months' standing, occasioned by intense grief at the ingratitude of one whom she had benefited; she disbelieved in the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Law of God, the Virgin, hell and the devil and at the same time felt herself lost beyond the hope of salvation. She could not say how much of this she had uttered to herself or before her aunt and the importance attached to this point indicates the weight attributed to the distinction between internal and external heresy. The aunt was examined, the cura of Ajofrin was called in, the registers were searched and finally, after six weeks had been consumed, a commission was issued which the good fraile, eager to heal a despairing soul, at an hour's notice bore to Ajofrin and absolved her.[75]