tender care for her children's innocence, have the greatest horror of seeing her little ones kneeling before the priest, and every careful father would forbid his boys and girls from incurring the risk of such contamination. Is this the case? Do we find good Catholic parents dreading the influence of the confessional for their children? On the contrary, there is nothing that gives them more hearty satisfaction than to know that their sons and daughters are, from their earliest years, regular in making their confession month by month, or week by week. They regard it as the best possible safeguard for their innocence and virtue. They are alarmed and anxious if, when boyhood emerges into youth, their sons grow irregular in frequenting the tribunal of penance. They fear there must be something wrong. They urge and entreat them not to fall away from the practice of confession. Joy fills the mother's heart when she sees her son once more returning, it may be after long absence, to that fount of mercy and of grace, where she knows that he will obtain pardon for the past, and strength and help for the struggles of the future."
It would be presumption on our part to make further comment on these beautiful words. Every Catholic will testify to the truth of Father Clarke's description of the salutary influence confession exercises over the young during the most dangerous period of life. Now let us contrast with this description a picture drawn from the life of a Protestant. Newman, in the introduction of Loss and Gain, describes a clergyman of the Church of England, who has just decided to send his son Charles to one of the large public schools. "Seclusion", he says to himself, "is
