The confessor is taught to make the first steps towards the citadel with the utmost caution, in order that his female penitent may not suspect at first what he wants her to reveal; for this would generally induce her to shut for ever the door of the fortress against him. After the first steps of advance, he is advised to make several steps back, and to put himself in a kind of spiritual ambuscade, to see the effect of his first advance. If there is any prospect of success, then the word "March on!" is given, and a more advanced post of the citadel must be tried and stormed if possible. In that way, little by little, the whole place is so well surrounded, so well crippled, denuded, and dismantled, that any more resistance seems impossible on the part of the rebellious soul. Then the last charge is ordered, the final assault is given; and if God does not perform a real miracle to save that soul, the last walls crumble, the doors are beaten down! Then the confessor makes a triumphant entry into the place; the very heart, soul, conscience, and intelligence, are conquered. When once master of the place, the priest visits all its most secret recesses and corners; he pries into its most sacred chambers. The conquered place is entirely, absolutely in his hands; he does what he pleases within its precincts; he is the supreme master, for the surrender has been unconditional. The confessor has become the _only_ infallible ruler in the conquered place--nay, he has become its only God--for it is in the name of God that he has besieged, stormed, and conquered it, it is in the name of God that, hereafter, he will speak and be obeyed. No human words can adequately give an idea of the irreparable ruin which follows the successful storming and unconditional surrender of the once so noble fortress. The longer the resistance has been, the more terrible and complete is the destruction of its beauty and strength; the nobler the struggle has been the more irretrievable are the ruin and loss. Just as the higher and stronger the dam is built to stem the current of the rapid and deep waters of the river, the more awful the disasters which follow its destruction, so it is with that noble soul. A mighty dam has been built by the very hand of God, called self-respect and womanly modesty, to guard her against the pollutions of this sinful world; but the day that the priest of Rome succeeds, after long efforts, in destroying it, the soul is carried by an irresistible power into unfathomable abysses of iniquity. Then it is that the once most respectable lady will consent to hear, without a blush, things against which the most degraded woman would indignantly shut her ears. Then it is that she freely speaks on matters for repeating which a printer in England has lately been sent to jail.