In the Church of Rome, through the confessional, the priest is much more the husband of the wife than the man to whom she was wedded at the foot of the altar. The priest has the best part of the wife. He has the marrow, when the husband has the bones. He has the juice of the orange, the husband has the rind. He has the soul and the heart; the husband has the skeleton. He has the honey; the husband has the wax cell. He has the succulent oyster; the husband has the dry shell. As much as the soul is higher than the body, so much are the power and privileges of the priest higher than the power and privileges of the husband in the mind of the penitent wife. As the husband is the lord of the body which he feeds, so the priest is the lord of the soul, which he also feeds. The wife, then, has two lords and masters, whom she must love, respect, and obey. Will she not give the best part of her love, respect, and submission to the one who is as much above the other as the heavens are above the earth? But as one cannot serve two masters together, will not the master who prepares and fits her for an eternal life of glory, certainly be the object of her constant, real, and most ardent love, gratitude, and respect, when the worldly and sinful man to whom she is married will have _only_ the appearance or the crumbs of those sentiments? Will she not, naturally, instinctively serve, love, respect, and obey, as lord and master, the godly man whose yoke is so light, so holy, so divine, rather than the carnal man whose human imperfections are to her a source of daily trial and suffering? In the Church of Rome the thoughts and desires, the secret joys and fears of the soul, the very life of the wife, are sealed things to the husband. He has no right to look into the sanctuary of her heart; he has no remedy to apply to the soul; he has no mission from God to advise her in the dark hours of her anxieties; he has no balm to apply to the bleeding wounds, so often received in the daily battles of life; he must remain a perfect stranger in his own house. The wife, expecting nothing from her husband, has no revelation to make to him, no favour to ask, no debt of gratitude to pay. Nay, she shuts all the avenues of her soul, all the doors and windows of her heart, against her husband. The priest, and the priest alone, has a right to her entire confidence; to him, and him alone, she will go and reveal all her secrets, show all her wounds; to him, and him alone, she will turn her mind, her heart and soul, in the hour of trouble and anxiety; from him, and him alone, she will ask and expect the light and consolation she wants. Every day, more and more, her husband will become as a stranger to her, if he does not become a real nuisance, and an obstacle to her happiness and peace.