I once asked a young man how he got on at confession--whether he told all his sins. He replied, "Sometimes I disremember a few, and if the priest, suspects it, he pulls my hair and boxes my ears, to help my memory." "And how do you feel when you have got absolution?" "I feel all right; and I go out and begin again." "And how do you know that God has really pardoned you?" "He doesn't pardon me directly; only the priest does. He, the priest, confesses my sins to the bishop, and the bishop confesses them to the pope, and the pope sees the Virgin Mary every Saturday night, and tells her to speak to God about it." "And you really believe this monstrous story?" "Why shouldn't I? But it is no affair of mine, for, once I have confessed, all my sins are laid on the priest, and he must do the best he can to get rid of them. I am safe." Of such materials is the net composed that holds these people in bondage; and who can marvel that such prostration of mind before a fellow-mortal should lead to an abject slavery of the whole man, body, conscience, and understanding? We see the effects, and abhor them; but we do not go to the root of the matter. The priest himself is equally enslaved; his oath binds him to an implicit blind reception of tenets which he is not permitted to investigate, and which make him the pliant tool of a higher department of this detestable machinery. He receives his cue from the bishops, and they are wholly governed by the Propaganda at Rome, whither each of them is bound periodically to appear for personal examination and fresh instructions. The Propaganda is, of course, the _primum mobile_ of the system, set agoing by Satan himself. Hence the mischief that is perpetrated by the unhappy beings who form the operative section of this cunning concern--the handicraft men of blood. It is an awful spectacle, and one that we cannot long avert our eyes from contemplating with the deep interest that personal peril excites. All is preparing for a burst of persecution against the people of the Lord, and happy is he who shall be found armed with watching. LETTER IX. ENGLAND. We started for Dublin with sorrowing hearts, for it was likely to be a long, if not a last farewell to friends who were endeared as well by a participation in danger as in feeling. * * *