“That’s very true—and the same applies to everything a man cannot help. A man has both the make of his mind and of his circumstances to do the best he can with, and sometimes they don’t seem to fit each other—so well as, I hope, your boots will fit my feet.” “Ye’re richt there, sir—only that no man’s bun’ to follow his inclinations or his circumstances, ony mair than he’s bun’ to alter his fut to the shape o’ a ready-made beet!—But hoo wull ye hae them made, sir?—I mean what sort o’ butes wad ye hae me mak?” “Oh, I leave that to you, Mr. MacLear!—a sort of half Wellington, I suppose—a neat pair of short boots.” “I understand, sir.” “And now tell me,” said the minister, moved by a sudden impulse, coming he knew not whence, “what you think of this new fad, if it be nothing worse, of the English clergy—I mean about the duty of confessing to the priest.—I see they have actually prevailed upon that wretched creature we’ve all been reading about in the papers lately, to confess the murder of her little brother! Do you think they had any right to do that? Remember the jury had acquitted her.” “And has she railly confessed? I _am_ glaid o’ that! I only wuss they could get a haud o’ Madeline Smith as weel, and persuaud _her_ to confess! Eh, the state o’ that puir crater’s conscience! It ’maist gars me greit to think o’ ’t! Gien she wad but confess, houp wad spring to life in her sin-oppressed soul! Eh, but it maun be a gran’ lichtenin to that puir thing! I’m richt glaid to hear o’ ’t.” “I didn’t know, Mr. MacLear, that you favoured the power and influence of the priesthood to such an extent! We Presbyterian clergy are not in the way of doing the business of detectives, taking upon us to act as the agents of human justice! There is no one, guilty or not, but is safe with us!” “As with any confessor, Papist or Protestant,” rejoined the soutar. “If I understand your news, sir, it means that they persuaded the poor soul to confess her guilt, and so put herself safe in the hands of God!” “And is not that to come between God and the sinner?” “Doubtless, sir—in order to bring them together; to persuade the sinner to the first step toward reconciliation with God, and peace in his own mind.” “That he could take without the intervention of the priest!” “Yes, but not without his own consenting will! And in this case, she would not, and did not confess without being persuaded to it!” “They had no right to threaten her!” “Did they threaten her? If they did, they were wrong.—And yet I don’t know! In any case they did for her the very best thing that could be done! For they did get her, you tell me, to confess—and so cast from her the horror of carrying about in her secret heart the knowledge of an unforgiven crime! Christians of all denominations hold, I presume, that, to be forgiven, a sin must be confessed!” “Yes, to God—that is enough! No mere man has a right to know the sins of his neighbour!”