then." "Do you go to church?" I asked the eldest boy. "Yes." "Do you take the sacrament?" "I have taken it four times." I learned afterwards that the priests are attempting to seize upon the rising generation in Italy, by compelling all the children from twelve years and upwards to go to mass. "Do you go to confession?" I next asked. "Yes, I confess." "Do other boys and girls, your acquaintances, go to confession?" "Yes, all go," he replied. "We meet the priest in church on Sabbath, and he tells us when to come and confess." "Well, when you go to confess, what does the priest ask you?" "He asks me if I steal, and do other bad actions." "When you confess that you have done a bad action, what then?" "The first time I do it, the priest pardons me." "If you confess it a second time, what happens?" "The second time he beats me with a rod." "Does the priest ask you about anything else?" I inquired. "Yes," he rejoined; "he asks me about my father and my mother." "What does he ask you about them?" "He asks me if they do dirty actions," said the boy. Now, here the enormity and vileness of the confessional peeped out. Here one can see how the confessor can look into every hearth, and into every heart, in Rome. The priests had dragged this young boy into their den, and taught him to play the spy on his father and mother. The hand that fed him, the bosom that cherished him, he must learn to betray. I appeal to the fathers and mothers of Britain, whether, than see their children degraded to such infamous purposes, they would not an hundred times rather see them laid in the silent grave. Yet some are labouring to introduce the confessional among us. Should they succeed, it will be the garrotte on the throat of English liberty.