The absolute interdiction of divorce among the Catholics (man has not the right to separate those whom God has joined together) seals forever the most unfortunate unions and leads to misfortunes of all kinds, separation of the married couple, _liaisons_ apart from marriage, etc. According to Liguori, the Catholic Church prescribes a number of details concerning sexual relations in marriage. The woman who, during coitus places herself upon the man instead of under him, commits a sin. The position and manner of performing coitus are prescribed in the most minute details, and the holy fathers make the woman play a part unworthy of her position as wife, while according the man the widest liberty. In truly Catholic marriage it is prescribed to procreate as many children as possible, and all preventive measures in coitus are severely condemned. Hence, if the woman is very fruitful, the husband has only the choice between complete abstention from coitus (when both conjoints are in agreement) and pregnancies following without interruption. The woman never has the right to refuse coitus to her husband, nor the latter to refuse it to his wife, so long as he is capable of accomplishing it. It is easy to understand what powerful effects such precepts have had and still have on the conjugal life of the Catholics, particularly on the quantity and quality of their descendants. =Aural Confession.=--Confession requires special mention. In his book, "Fifty Years in the Roman Church" (Jeheber, Geneva), on page 151, Father Chiniqui, the celebrated Canadian reformer, who later on became a Protestant, and for many years played an important part in the Canadian Catholic clergy, mentions the points on which the confessor interrogates the penitents of both sexes. One cannot reproach him with being incompetent. No doubt the Church of to-day would reply that the confessor is not obliged to put all these questions and that the details are left to his tact. We will agree that there is a difference between the Canada of the last century, a new and primitive country, and the Europe of the present day. But I maintain: First, that the confessor does not content himself with listening to what the penitents of both sexes tell him, but that it is his duty to interrogate them; secondly, that a celibate Catholic person, extremely serious and virtuous, to whom I put the question unawares, informed me that not only are sexual matters dealt with at the confessional, but that they play the principal role. And, as it is a question of warning the penitents against so-called sins, mortal or not, or of absolving them, I fail to see how the priest can avoid speaking of them, when the detailed precepts of which we have spoken exist. I reproduce here the original Latin text. It deals with questions which have been treated in Chapter VIII, so that I shall dispense with giving a translation. The confessor puts the following questions to his penitents: