missionaries admit that they are much more immoral—setting apart the Parisian immorality of West London of which the missionary is blissfully ignorant.
And, indeed, the confessional does not exercise any general restraining influence upon its frequenters. No doubt a priest is often able to exert a good influence over his habitual penitent, but, on the other hand, large numbers of young people are encouraged in vice by the facility of absolution. I have been informed by penitents, on more than one occasion, that they have sinned more readily under the influence of the thought of confession. In certain monastic or quasi-monastic institutions the weekly confession to the chaplain does exercise a certain degree of influence, but even here nature has its revenge. The temptation to conceal and the practice of concealing is so great that the Church commands the introduction of an extraordinary confessor every three months, and commands each monk or nun or cleric to present himself: in discharging that function I have not only met cases of long concealment, as might be expected, but I have known them to deliberately indulge their morbid tendencies in the prospect of my coming. I have heard confessions in very many parts of England and abroad, I have read much casuistic literature which is permeated with confessional experience, and I have conferred on the subject with missionaries who have heard hundreds of thousands of confessions; and I am convinced that
