Great dislike to the Bible was shown by those who conversed with me about it, and several have remarked to me, at different times, that if it were not for that book, Catholics would never be led to renounce their own faith. I heard passages read from the Evangile, relating to the death of Christ; the conversion of Paul; a few chapters from St. Matthew, and perhaps a few others. The priest would also sometimes take a verse or two, and preach from it. I read St. Peter's Life, but only in the book called the "Lives of the Saints." He, I understand, has the keys of heaven and hell, and has founded our church. As for St. Paul, I remember, as I was taught to understand it, that he was once a great persecutor of the Roman _Catholics_, until he became convicted, and confessed to one of the _father confessors_, I don't know which. For who can expect to be forgiven who does not become a Catholic, and confess? CHAPTER V. Received Confirmation--Painful Feelings--Specimen of Instruction received on the Subject. The day on which I received confirmation was a distressing one to me. I believed the doctrine of the Roman Catholics, and according to them I was guilty of three mortal sins; concealing something at confession, sacrilege, in putting the body of Christ in the sacrament under my feet, and receiving it while not in a state of grace; and now, I had been led into all those sins in consequence of my marriage, which I never had acknowledged, as it would cut me off from being admitted as a nun. On the day, therefore, when I went to the church to be confirmed, with a number of others, I suffered extremely from the reproaches of my conscience. I knew, at least I believed, as I had been told, that a person who had been anointed with the holy oil of confirmation on the forehead, and dying in the state in which I was, would go down to hell, and in the place where the oil had been rubbed, the names of my sins would blaze out on my forehead; these would be a sign by which the devils would know me; and they would torment me the worse for them. I was thinking of all this, while I sat in the pew, waiting to receive the oil. I felt, however, some consolation, as I often did afterward when my sins came to mind; and this consolation I derived from another doctrine of the same church: viz. that a bishop could absolve me from all these sins any minute before my death; and I intended to confess them all to a bishop before leaving the world. At length, the moment for administering the "sacrament" arrived, and a bell was rung. Those who had come to be confirmed had brought tickets from their confessors, and these were thrown into a hat, carried around by a priest who in turn handed each to the bishop, by which he learnt the name of each of us, and applied a little of the oil to our foreheads. This was immediately rubbed off by a priest with a bit of cloth, quite roughly.