"Say, five hundred, and perhaps more;" I answered.
"Well, my boy, do you spend all your time in mocking me?"
"Not all my time: but unfortunately, I have done it very often."
"Yes may you say: "unfortunately!" for to mock, your priest, who holds the place of our Lord Jesus Christ, is a great sin and a great misfortune for you. But tell me, my little boy, what reason have you for mocking me, thus?"
In my examination of conscience, I had not forseen that I should be obliged to give the reasons for mocking the priest, and I was thunderstruck by his questions. I dared not answer, and I remained for a long time dumb, from the shame that overpowered me. But, with a hara.s.sing perseverance, the priest insisted upon my telling why I had mocked him: a.s.suring me that I would be d.a.m.ned if I did not speak the whole truth. So, I decided to speak, and I said: "I mocked you for several things."
"What made you, first mock me?" asked the priest.
"I laughed at you, because you lisp: among the pupils of the school, and other people, it often happens that we imitate your preaching to laugh at you," I answered.
"For what other reasons did you laugh at me, my little boy!"
For a long time I was silent. Every time I opened my mouth to speak, my courage failed me. But the priest continued to urge me, I said at last; "It is rumoured in town, that you love girls: that you visit the Misses R"s----almost every night; and this, often made us laugh."
The poor priest was evidently overwhelmed by my answer, and ceased questioning me on that subject. Changing the conversation, he said: "what are your other sins?"
I began to confess them according to the order in which they came to my memory. But the feeling of shame which overpowered me, in repeating all my sins to that man, was a thousand times greater than that of having offended G.o.d. In reality, this feeling of human shame, which absorbed my thoughts, nay, my whole being, left no room for any religious feeling at all.
When I had confessed all the sins I could remember, the priest began to put to me the strangest questions about matters on which my pen must be silent.... I replied "Father, I do not understand what you ask me."
"I question you," he answered, "on the the sins of the sixth commandment of G.o.d, (the seventh in the Bible) Do confess all, my little boy, for you will go to h.e.l.l if, through your fault you omit any thing."
And thereupon he dragged my thoughts into regions of iniquity which, thanks be to G.o.d, had been hitherto quite unknown to me.
I answered him again, "I do not understand you," or "I have never done those wicked things."
Then, skillfully shifting to some secondary matters, he would soon slyly and cunningly come back to his favorite subject, namely, sins of licentiousness.
His questions were so unclean that I blushed and felt nauseated with disgust and shame. More than once, I had been to my great regret, in the company of bad boys, but not one of them had offended my moral nature so much as this priest had done. Not one of them had ever approached the shadow of the things from which that man tore the veil, and which he placed before the eyes of my soul. In vain I told him that I was not guilty of those things; that I did not even understand what he asked me; but he would not let me off.
Like a vulture bent upon tearing the poor defenceless bird that falls into its claws, that cruel priest seemed determined to defile and ruin my heart.
At last, he asked me a question in a form of expression so bad that I was really pained and put beside myself. I felt as if I had received the shock from an electric battery: a feeling of horror made me shudder. I was filled with such indignation that speaking loud enough to be heard by many, I told him: "Sir, I am very wicked, but I was never guilty of what you mention to me: please don"t ask me any more of those questions which will teach me more wickedness than I ever knew."
The remainder of my confession was short. The stern rebuke I had given him had evidently made that priest blush, if it had not frightened him. He stopped short, and gave me some very good advice which might have done me good, if the deep wounds which his questions had inflicted upon my soul, had not so absorbed my thoughts, as to prevent me from giving attention to what he said. He gave me a short penance and dismissed me.
I left the confessional irritated and confused. From the shame of what I had just heard, I dared not raise my eyes from the ground. I went into a corner of the church to do my penance, that is to recite the prayers which he had indicated to me. I remained for a long time in the church. I had need of a calm, after the terrible trial through which I had just pa.s.sed.
But vainly sought I for rest. The shameful questions which had just been asked from me, the new world of iniquity into which I been introduced, the impure phantoms by which my childish head had been defiled, confused and troubled my mind so strongly, that I began to weep bitterly.
I left the church only when forced to do so by the shades of night, and came back to my uncle"s house, with a feeling of shame and uneasiness, as if I had done a bad action and feared lest I should be detected. My trouble was much increased when my uncle, jestingly, said: "now that you have been to confess, you will be a good boy. But if you are not a better boy, you will be a more learned one, if your confessor has taught you what mine did when I confessed for the first time."
I blushed and remained silent. My aunt said: "you must feel happy, now that you have made your confession: do you not?"
I gave an evasive answer, but could not entirely conceal the confusion which overwhelmed me. I went to bed early; but I could hardly sleep.
I thought that I was the only boy whom the priest had asked these polluting questions: but great was my confusion, the next day when on going to school, I learned that my companions had not been happier than I had been.
The only difference was that, instead of being grieved as I was, they laughed at it.
"Did the priest ask you this and that," they would demand laughing boisterously; I refused to reply, and said: "are you not ashamed to speak of these things."
"Ah! Ah! how scrupulous you are:" continued they, "if it is not a sin for the priest to speak to us on these matters, how can it be a sin for us to laugh at it." I felt confounded, not knowing what to answer. But my confusion increased not a little, when soon after, I perceived that the young girls of the school had not been less polluted, or scandalized than the boys. Although keeping at a sufficient distance from us to prevent us from understanding every thing they had to say on their confessional experience, those girls were sufficiently near to let us hear many things which it would have been better for us not to know. Some of them seemed thoughtful, sad and shameful: but several laughed heartily at what they had learned in the confessional box.
I was very indignant against the priest; and thought in myself, that he was a very wicked man, for having put to us such repelling questions. But I was wrong. That priest was honest; he was only doing his duty, as I have known since, when studying the theologians of Rome. The Rev. Mr. Beaubien was a real gentleman, and if he had been free to follow the dictates of his honest conscience it is my strong conviction he would never have sullied our young hearts with such impure ideas. But what has the honest conscience of a priest to do in the confessional, except to be silent and dumb? The priest of Rome is an automaton, tied to the feet of the Pope by an iron chain. He can move, go right or left, up or down; he can think and act, but only at the bidding of the infallible G.o.d of Rome. The priest knows the will of his modern divinity only through his approved emissaries, emba.s.sadors and theologians. With shame on my brow, and bitter tears of regret flowing just now, on my cheeks, I confess that I have had myself to learn by heart those d.a.m.ning questions, and put them to the young and the old; who like me, were fed with the diabolical doctrines of the church of Rome, in reference to auricular confession.
Some time after, some people waylaid and whipped that very same priest, when during a very dark night he was coming back from visiting his fair young penitents the Misses Rs.... And the next day, the conspirators having met at the house of Dr. Stephen Tache, to give a report of what they had done to the half _secret_ society to which they belonged, I was invited by my young friend Louis Casault[6] to conceal myself with him, in an adjoining room, where we could hear every thing without being seen. I find in the old ma.n.u.scripts of "my young year"s recollections" the following address of Mr. Dubord.
Mr. President--"I was not among those who gave to the priest the expression of the public feelings with the eloquent voice of the whip: but I wish I had been, I would heartily have co-operated to give that so well deserved lesson to the father confessors of Canada, and let me give you my reasons for that.
"My child who is hardly twelve years old, went to confess, as did the other girls of the village, some time ago. It was against my will. I know, by my own experience, that of all actions, confession is the most degrading of a person"s life. I can imagine nothing so well calculated to destroy forever one"s self-respect, as the modern invention of the confessional. Now, what is a person without self-respect? Especially a woman? Is not all forever lost without this?
"In the confessional every thing is corruption of the lowest grade. There, the girl"s thoughts, lips, hearts and souls are forever polluted. Do I need to prove you this? No! for though you have given up, long since auricular confession, as below the dignity of man, you have not forgotten the lessons of corruption which you have received from it. Those lessons have remained on your souls as the scars left by the red hot iron upon the brow of the slave to be a perpetual witness of his shame and servitude.
"The confessional box is the place where our wives and daughters learn things which would make the most degraded woman of our cities blush!
"Why are all Roman Catholic nations inferior to nations belonging to Protestanism? only in the confessional can the solution of that problem be found. And why are Roman Catholic nations degraded in proportion to their submission to their priests? It is because the more often the individuals composing those nations go to confess, the more rapidly they sink in the sphere of intelligence and morality. A terrible example of the auricular confession depravity has just occurred in my own family.
"As I have said a moment ago, I was against my own daughter going to confession, but her poor mother, who is under the control of the priest, earnestly wanted her to go. Not to have a disagreeable scene in my house, I had to yield to the tears of my wife.
"On the following day of the confession, they believed I was absent, but I was in my office, with the door sufficiently opened to hear every thing which could be said by my wife and the child. And the following conversation took place:
"What makes you so thoughtful and sad my dear Lucy, since you went to confess? It seems to me you should feel happier since you had the privilege of confessing your sins."
My child answered not a word, she remained absolutely silent.
After two or three minutes of silence, I heard the mother saying: "Why do you weep, my dear Lucy? are you sick?"
But no answer yet from the child!
"You may well suppose that I was all attention, I had my secret suspicions about the dreadful mystery which had taken place. My heart throbbed with uneasiness and anger.
"After a short silence, my wife spoke again to her child, but with sufficient firmness to decide her to answer at last. In a trembling voice, she said:
"Oh I dear Mamma, if you knew what the priest has asked me and what he said to me when I confessed, you would perhaps be sad as I am."
"But what can he have said to you? He is a holy man, you must have misunderstood him, if you think that he has said anything wrong."
"My child threw herself in her mother"s arms, and answered with a voice half suffocated with her sobs: "Do not ask me to tell you what the priest has said--it is so shameful that I can not repeat it--His words have stuck to my heart as the leech put upon the arm of my little friend, the other day."
"What does that priest think of me, for having put to me such questions?"
My wife answered: "I will go to the priest and will teach him a lesson. I have noticed myself that he goes too far when questioning old people, but I had the hope he was more prudent with children. I ask of you, however, never to speak of this to anybody, especially; let not your poor father know anything about it; for he has little enough of religion already, and this would leave him without any at all."
"I could not refrain myself any longer: I abruptly entered the parlor. My daughter threw herself into my arms: my wife screamed with terror, and almost fell into a swoon. I said to my child: If you love me, put your hand on my heart, and promise never to go again to confess. Fear G.o.d, my child, love Him and walk in his presence. For his eyes see you everywhere.
Remember that He is always ready to forgive and bless you every time you turn your heart to him. Never place yourself again at the feet of a priest to be defiled and degraded."