“As the physician cannot apply his remedy unless he knows in what the malady of his patient consists, so cannot sins be healed without confession; for, with our heart we believe unto justice, but with our lips confession is made unto salvation. He who conceals his sins cannot be directed; but he who confesses them and relinquishes them all, will obtain mercy”—_Collect. Hib. Canonum_, xlviii. 3. In the other fragments which are still preserved of our early literature, we find many passages connected with the same great sacrament. Thus St. Mochta, in his _Apologia_, amongst the other articles of faith, professes: “Poenitentiam peccatorum plenissima fide suscipimus ac veluti secundam gratiam suspicamur” (see _Essays on the Early Irish Church_, pag. 302); that is to say, it is the only plank that remains to him after shipwreck. Amongst the Irish MSS. preserved in the public library of Basle, in Switzerland, there is one (Ff. iii. 15) which presents a curious form of prayer to be observed by our clergy when administering the sacrament of penance. We give it in full in its original language; the reader will remark that it omits the form of absolution, for which it refers to _the sacramentary_, and the words which we here enclose within parentheses are written as rubric in the original manuscript: “Incipit ordo ad poenitentiam dandam. “Credis in Patrem et Filium et Spiritum Sanctum? _Respondet_: Credo. “Credis, quod istae tres personae, quo modo diximus, Pater et Filius et Spiritus Sanctus, tres sunt, et unus Deus est? _Respondet_: Credo. “Credis, quad in ista ipsa carne in qua nunc es, habes resurgere in die judicii et recipere sive bonum sive malum quod egisti? _Respondet_: Credo. “Vis dimittere illis quicumque in te peccaverint, Domino dicente, si non remiseritis hominibus peccata eorum, nec Pater vester coelestis dimittet vobis peccata vestra? _Respondet_: Dimitto. “(Et require diligenter; si est incestuosus, si non vult ipsa incesta dimittere, non potes ei dare poenitentiam: et si vult ipsa incesta dimittere, _fac eum confiteri omnia peccata sua_, et ad ultimum diecre.) “Multa sunt peccata mea, in factis in verbis et in cogitationibus”. (Tunc da illi poenitentiam et dic istas orationes super eum.) “Oremus. Praeveniat hunc famulum tuum _N._ Domine, misericordia tua, et omnes iniquitates ejus celeri indulgentia doleat. Per, etc. “Oremus. Exaudi, Domine, preces nostras et confitentium tibi parce peccatis ut quos conscientiae reatus accusat, indulgentia tuae pietatis absolvat.