“My dear sir,” said I, “that is a most prudent regulation. I see nothing to fear now. No confessor can dare to be refractory after this. Indeed, I was not aware that you had the power of issuing your orders on pain of damnation. I thought that your skill had been confined to the taking away of sins; I had no idea that it extended to the introduction of new ones. But from what I now see, you are omnipotent.” “That is not a correct way of speaking,” rejoined the father. “We do not introduce sins; we only pay attention to them. I have had occasion to remark, two or three times during our conversation, that you are no great scholastic.” “Be that as it may, father, you have at least answered my difficulty. But I have another to suggest. How do you manage when the Fathers of the Church happen to differ from any of your casuists?” “You really know very little of the subject,” he replied. “The Fathers were good enough for the morality of their own times; but they lived too far back for that of the present age, which is no longer regulated by them, but by the modern casuists. On this Father Cellot, following the famous Reginald, remarks: ‘In questions of morals, the modern casuists are to be preferred to the ancient fathers, though those lived nearer to the times of the apostles.’ And following out this maxim, Diana thus decides: ‘Are beneficiaries bound to restore their revenue when guilty of mal-appropriation of it? The ancients would say Yes, but the moderns say No; let us, therefore, adhere to the latter opinion, which relieves from the obligation of restitution.’” “Delightful words these, and most comfortable they must be to a great many people!” I observed. “We leave the fathers,” resumed the monk, “to those who deal with positive divinity.[144] As for us, who are the directors of conscience, we read very little of them, and quote only the modern casuists. There is Diana, for instance, a most voluminous writer; he has prefixed to his works a list of his authorities, which amount to two hundred and ninety-six, and the most ancient of them is only about eighty years old.” “It would appear, then,” I remarked, “that all these have come into the world since the date of your Society?” “Thereabouts,” he replied. “That is to say, dear father, on your advent, St. Augustine, St. Chrysostom, St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, and all the rest, in so far as morals are concerned, disappeared from the stage. Would you be so kind as let me know the names, at least, of those modern authors who have succeeded them?”