"My child who is hardly twelve years old, went to confess, as did the other girls of the village, some time ago. It was against my will. I know, by my own experience, that of all actions, confession is the most degrading of a person's life. I can imagine nothing so well calculated to destroy forever one's self-respect, as the modern invention of the confessional. Now, what is a person without self-respect? Especially a woman? Is not all forever lost without this? "In the confessional every thing is corruption of the lowest grade. There, the girl's thoughts, lips, hearts and souls are forever polluted. Do I need to prove you this? No! for though you have given up, long since auricular confession, as below the dignity of man, you have not forgotten the lessons of corruption which you have received from it. Those lessons have remained on your souls as the scars left by the red hot iron upon the brow of the slave to be a perpetual witness of his shame and servitude. "The confessional box is the place where our wives and daughters learn things which would make the most degraded woman of our cities blush! "Why are all Roman Catholic nations inferior to nations belonging to Protestanism? only in the confessional can the solution of that problem be found. And why are Roman Catholic nations degraded in proportion to their submission to their priests? It is because the more often the individuals composing those nations go to confess, the more rapidly they sink in the sphere of intelligence and morality. A terrible example of the auricular confession depravity has just occurred in my own family. "As I have said a moment ago, I was against my own daughter going to confession, but her poor mother, who is under the control of the priest, earnestly wanted her to go. Not to have a disagreeable scene in my house, I had to yield to the tears of my wife. "On the following day of the confession, they believed I was absent, but I was in my office, with the door sufficiently opened to hear every thing which could be said by my wife and the child. And the following conversation took place: "What makes you so thoughtful and sad my dear Lucy, since you went to confess? It seems to me you should feel happier since you had the privilege of confessing your sins." My child answered not a word, she remained absolutely silent. After two or three minutes of silence, I heard the mother saying: "Why do you weep, my dear Lucy? are you sick?" But no answer yet from the child! "You may well suppose that I was all attention, I had my secret suspicions about the dreadful mystery which had taken place. My heart throbbed with uneasiness and anger. "After a short silence, my wife spoke again to her child, but with sufficient firmness to decide her to answer at last. In a trembling voice, she said: "Oh I dear Mamma, if you knew what the priest has asked me and what he said to me when I confessed, you would perhaps be sad as I am."