This interpretation had given such great uneasiness to the poor friar, that he found it necessary to disburthen his conscience, by relating the whole to the Inquisitors. I do not recollect on what occasion, or in what place, I told him all this: it is, however, perfectly true; and I imagine, in his own mind, the friar did not disagree with me; though he found it extremely difficult to reconcile it with the tenets of the Church of Rome, which preach that Jesus Christ, in these words, confers upon Peter, and upon him alone, the authority of the keys; by which is to be understood the power of excommunication, and of absolution, to whomsoever he thinks proper, and for whatever cause he may judge expedient; and that this power is still possessed by the heirs of St. Peter, the popes of Rome. My opinions on these heads were extremely unpalatable to the Church of Rome; and the more so from the consequences that might attach to them. Other accusations were also preferred against me, with reference to the famous dogma of Transubstantiation. It was asserted that I did not appear to believe in the literal sense of the words of Christ, respecting the bread and wine of the Last Supper. All this, however, was very imperfectly related by my accuser, so that I think no great effect was produced by his disclosures on the minds of the reverend Inquisitors. Much clearer was the account of a poor nun, written, as she set forth, at the instigation of her confessor. With great simplicity, she related a conversation she had held with me in the confessional, respecting the two sacraments, which entirely occupied the spiritual thoughts of this poor sister, Confession, and the Holy Supper. With respect to the first, she stated, that of all the confessors she had ever heard of, I had the most strange and singular method. I would listen, she said, with the greatest patience, to the disclosure, not only of her sins, but of her thoughts and feelings as well; in short, of all her deficiencies; and that I was very earnest in directing her conscience with respect to what she ought to do, according to the dictates of the Spirit; but that when we were arrived at that point when I ought to have given her absolution, I invariably turned my back, saying that it belonged to God alone to give absolution for sins committed against himself; that we can only absolve each other for the offences we may have mutually committed against each other; and that the priest and the bishop can, in the name of the church, absolve such sins as are committed against the church, but nothing further. "One day, I said to him," added the nun, "'I believe that Confession, as the church teaches, is a sacrament instituted by Christ for the remission of all sins whatsoever. Is it not so?'--'I think not,' replied he, 'because I do not find any passage in the Holy Scriptures where the institution of this sacrament is spoken of.'