Gregory of Nyssa has given us the life of St. Gregory of Neo-Caesarea, of the 3rd century, and of St. Basil, of the 4th century. But neither speak of their having gone to confess, or having heard the confession of any one. It is thus evident that those two great and good men, with all the Christians of their times, lived and died without ever knowing any thing about the dogma of auricular confession. We have the interesting life of St Ambrose, of the 4th century, by Paulinus; and from that book it is as evident as two and two make four, that St. Ambrose never went to confess. The history of St Martin of Tours, of the 4th century by Severus Sulpicius of the 5th century, is another monument left by antiquity to prove that there was no dogma of auricular confession in those days; for St. Martin has evidently lived and died without ever going to confess. Pallas and Theodoret have left us the history of the life, sufferings and death of St. Chrysostom, bishop of Constantinople, who died at the beginning of the 5th century, and both are absolutely mute about that dogma. No fact is more evident, by what they say, than that holy and eloquent bishop lived and died also without ever thinking of going to confess. No man has ever more perfectly entered into the details of a Christian life, when writing on that subject, than the learned and eloquent St Jerome, of the 5th century. A great number of his admirable letters are written to the priests of his day, or to some Christian ladies and virgins, who had requested him to give them some good advices about the best way to lead a Christian life. His letters, which form five volumes, are most interesting monuments of the manners, habits, views, morality, practical and dogmatical faith of the first centuries of the church; and they are a most unanswerable evidence that auricular confession, as a dogma, had then no existence, and is quite a modern invention. Would it be possible that Jerome could have forgotten to give some advices or rules about auricular confession, to the priests of his time who asked his counsel about the best way to fulfil their ministerial duties, if it had been one of their duties to hear the confessions of the people? But we challenge the most devoted modern priest of Rome to find a single line in all the letters of St Jerome in favour of auricular confession. In his admirable letter to the priest Nepotianus, on the life of priests, vol. II, p. 203, when speaking of the relations of priests with women, he says: "Solus cum sola, secreto et absque arbitrio vel teste, non sedeas. Si familiarus est aliquid loquendum, habet nutricem majorem domus, virginem, viduam, vel maritatam; non est tam inhumana ut nullum praeter te habeat cui se audeat credere."