The daily abominations, which are the result of auricular confession, are so horrible and so well known by the popes, the bishops, and the priests, that several times, public attempts have been made to diminish them by punishing the guilty priests; but all these have failed. One of the most remarkable of those efforts was made by Pius IV. about the year 1500. A Bull was published by him, by which all the girls and the married women who had been seduced into sins by their confessors were ordered to denounce them; and a certain number of high church officers of the Holy Inquisition were authorized to take the depositions of the fallen penitents. The thing was at first tried at Seville, one of the principal cities of Spain. When the edict was first published the number of women who felt bound in conscience to go and depose against their father confessors was so great that, though there were thirty notaries and as many inquisitors to take the depositions, they were unable to do the work in the appointed time. Thirty days more were given, but the inquisitors were so overwhelmed with the numberless depositions that another period of time of the same length was given. But this, again, was found insufficient. At the end, it was found that the number of priests who had destroyed the purity of their penitents was so great that it was impossible to punish them all. The inquest was given up, and the guilty confessors remained unpunished. Several attempts of the same nature have been tried by other popes, but with about the same success. But if those honest attempts, on the part of some well-meaning popes, to punish the confessors who destroy the purity of their penitents, have failed to touch the guilty parties, they are, in the good providence of God, infallible witnesses to tell to the world that auricular confession is nothing else than a snare to the confessor and his dupes. Yes, those Bulls of the popes are an irrefragable testimony that auricular confession is the most powerful invention of the devil to corrupt the heart, pollute the body, and damn the soul of the priest and his female penitent! * * * * * CHAPTER IV. HOW THE VOW OF CELIBACY OF THE PRIESTS IS MADE EASY BY AURICULAR CONFESSION. * * * * * Are not facts the best arguments? Well, here is an undeniable, a public fact, which is connected with a thousand collateral ones to prove that auricular confession is the most powerful engine of demoralization which the world has ever seen.