to amend. It is hardly necessary to add, in these enlightened days, that no money is ever exacted or received for absolution: the stories circulated by certain clerical travellers of lists of prices of absolution seen in Continental churches are entirely devoid of foundation—if any lists existed outside their heated imaginations they were probably lists of prices of chairs or of votive candles. It may be added, too, that an ‘indulgence’ has no reference whatever to future sin, but is a remission of purgatorial punishment due to sin, already forgiven, which the Church of Rome believes herself empowered to give. That indulgences are still practically sold cannot be denied for a moment: not that a written indulgence is now ever handed over for so much hard cash—such bargains have proved too disastrous to the Church—but papal blessings, richly indulgenced crosses and rosaries, &c., are well known rewards of the generous almsgiver.
A curious instance is mentioned in Dr. Tyndall’s ‘Sound’ of a church in which certain acoustic peculiarities enable the listener at a distant point to hear the whispers in the confessional: it is said that a husband had the equivocal pleasure of hearing his own wife’s confession. Such contingencies are foreseen and provided for in theological works: the seal of confession applies not only to the priest, but to every person who comes to a knowledge of confessional matter. Indeed, it happens not infrequently
