The priest is the sister's only confident--she must talk to him on subjects that she would not tell her mother. He is to her what Christ would be if He would come from Heaven and sit there with her. He is her justifier, as she is absolutely in his wily meshes and victimized in his hellish power--for nothing less than hell on earth is the confessional to sisters. It is the destroyer of womanly purity, womanly refinement--destroying the higher instincts and ennobling qualities. A sister does not talk in the confessional of what is best and noblest in her, but is racking her brain all week preparing and gathering everything that is mean, low, degrading, contemptible--digging up secret things to tell and talk about to the priest. The thought of having to stoop and grovel so low and worm-like is sickening, not only soul sickening, but often agonizing physically to the extreme, in the act of ejecting and getting rid of a vast amount of much imaginary wrong and scruples. It keeps the mind poisoned and enslaved in the powers of darkness, busily endeavoring to become sanctified on the mistaken road of pagan degradation, dispair and hell. A form of beginning and finishing confession. This is precisely the same form I used all my life in the church of Rome, but I will copy from Deharbe's Catechism, translated from the German by a Father of the Society of Jesus, of the Province of Missouri, published by Benziger Brothers, Printers to the Holy Apostolic See, and with the Imprimatur of John Card. McCloskey, then Archbishop of New York. Page 110, question 55: "How do you begin Confession? "Having knelt down, I make the sign of the cross and say: 'Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I confess to Almighty God, and to you, Father, in His stead, that since my last confession, which was ... I have committed the following sins.' (Here I confess my sins.)" Question 56. "How do you conclude your confession? "I conclude by saying, 'For these and all my other (P. III) sins which I cannot at present call to mind, and also for the sins of my past life, especially for ... I am heartily sorry. I most humbly ask pardon of God, and penance and absolution of you, my Ghostly Father.'" Question 57. "What must you do then? "I must listen with attention to the advice which my Confessor may think proper to give me, and to the Penance he enjoins; and whilst he gives me absolution I must excite my heart to true sorrow." Now, if the priest is good and kind enough to say the magic words, "I absolve the, etc." and absolve the penitent, he is just as pure and free from sin, according to the Roman Catholic belief, as if he had submitted to baptism, and he can go and sin again, so long as he will return to the priest for absolution.