How many times I have wept as a child when some noble-hearted and intelligent young girl, or some respectable married woman, yielding to the sophisms with which I, or some other confessor, had persuaded them to give up their self-respect, their womanly dignity, to speak with me on matters on which a decent woman would never say a word with a man! They told me of their invincible repugnance, their horror of such questions and answers, and they asked me to have pity on them. Yes! I often wept bitterly on my degradation when a priest of Rome! I felt all the strength, the grandeur, the holiness of their motives for being silent on those defiling matters. I could not but admire them. It seemed, at times, that they were speaking the language of angels of light; that I ought to fall at their feet, and ask their pardon for having spoken to them of questions on which a man of honour ought never to converse with a woman whom he respects. But, alas! I had soon to reproach myself and regret these short instances of my wavering faith in the infallible voice of my Church; I had soon to silence the voice of my conscience, which was telling me, "Is it not a shame that you, an unmarried man, dare to speak on those matters with a woman? Do you not blush to put such questions to a young girl? Where is your self-respect? where is your fear of God? Do you not promote the ruin of that girl by forcing her to speak with a man on such questions?" I was compelled by all the Popes, the moral theologians, and the Councils of Rome, to believe that this warning voice of my merciful God was the voice of Satan; I had to believe, in spite of my own conscience and intelligence, that it was good, nay, necessary, to put those polluting, damning questions. My infallible Church was mercilessly forcing me to oblige those poor, trembling, weeping, desolated girls and women to swim with me and all her priests in those waters of Sodom and Gomorrha, under the pretext that their self-will would be broken down, their fear of sin and humility increased, and that they would be purified by our absolutions. In the beginning of my priesthood, I was not a little surprised and embarrassed to see a very accomplished and beautiful young lady, whom I used to meet almost every week in her father's house, entering the box of my confessional. She used to go to confess to another young priest of my acquaintance, and she was looked upon as one of the most pious girls of the city. Though she had disguised herself as much as possible, that I might not know her, I thought that I was not mistaken--she was the amiable Mary * * * * Not being absolutely sure of the correctness of my impressions, I left her entirely under the hope that she was a perfect stranger to me. At the beginning she could hardly speak; her voice was suffocated by her sobs; and, through the little apertures of the thin partition between her and me, I saw two streams of big tears trickling down her cheeks.