“Every Man is a Man, and Monks above all others.” He might at least have said, “Every Man is a Man, and Monks as well as others;” and to this have added, that their virtue, especially that of Confessors, is exposed to dangers of a peculiar kind. In fact, the obligation which those who perform that office are under, to hear, with seeming indifference, the long confessions of Women of every age, who frequently enter into numerous particulars concerning the sins which they have either committed, or had distant wishes to commit, is no very easy talk for Men who, as hath just now been observed, are after all nothing but Men; and they are, under such circumstances, frequently agitated by thoughts not very consonant with the apparent gravity and sanctity of their looks. Nay, raising such thoughts in them, and in general creating sentiments of love in their Confessors, are designs which numbers of female penitents, who at no time entirely cease being actuated by womanish views, expressly entertain, notwithstanding the apparent ingenuity of their confessions, and in which they but too often succeed, to their own, and their frail Confessors, cost. Thus, it appears from Miss Cadiere’s declarations, that she had of herself aimed at making the conquest of Father Girard, though a Man past fifty years of age, being induced to it, by his great reputation both as a Preacher and a Man of parts; and she expressly confessed that she had for a long while been making interest to be admitted into the number of his penitents. Indeed, these dangers to which Confessors are exposed from their continual and confidential intercourse with the Sex, (for, to the praise of Women be it spoken, they are infinitely more exact than Men in making their confessions) are much taken notice of in the books in which directions are given to such Priests as are designed for that employment; and they are warned against nothing so much as an inclination to hear preferably the confessions of the other Sex.----St. Charles Borrommee, as I have read in one of those books, prescribed to Confessors to have all the doors wide open, when they heard the confession of a Woman; and he had supplied them with a set of passages from Psalms, such as, _Cor mundum crea in me Domine_, and the like, which he advised them to have pasted on some conspicuous place within their sight, and which were to serve them as ejaculatory exclamations by which to vent the wicked thoughts with which they might feel themselves agitated, and as kinds of _Abracadabras_, or _Retrò Satanas_, to apply to, whenever they should find themselves on the point of being overcome by some too sudden temptation.