THE CONFESSIONAL IN ENGLAND.
THAT the practice of confession has been extended within the pale of the Church of England we now learn, not on the testimony of very doubtful witnesses but on the avowal of an English clergy- man ; and while we censure any harshness to Mr. Poole, while we condemn in the severest spirit that we can command anything which gives colour to charges sustained by the most worthless evidence, we can neither slight the feeling which is roused against confession as a stated practice, nor refuse our sympathy to those who demand guarantees against its further extension. It is amongst the points which were, no doubt unavoidably, left in a somewhat unsatisfactory state at the time of the Reformation. Any candid man who will review the work then done, with re- ference to the vastness of the labour, the difficulties of the time, and the comparative success, will be compelled to acknowledge the honesty and mastery of the reformers with admiration and gratitude ; but it was simply impossible that they should entirely avoid that imperfection which clings to all human institutions, and we may admit, without either reproach or humiliation, that imperfections have remained even after subsequent reformatory processes. It has been left to this year, for example, seriously to raise the question whether our church services shall continue to be disfigured by the memorials of old civil wars which have been intruded upon them. The reformed church found the practice of confession existing, and it did not exclude it from the recognized offices of the clergymen. The error was natural. The practice cannot in any degree be prohibited to a clergyman who knows what his duties are. It has been one fundamental principle of the Church of England, to exercise a considerable supervision over the ministrations of the clergy, and hence it naturally fol- lowed that supervision should be extended over this confession, as one amongst other duties which the clergyman would be called upon to perform. The office, we say, cannot be denied to the clergyman, for it is involved in the very nature of his post. The sinner cut short in the midst of his crimes, the penitent awakened to a sense of his past misdoings, the over sensitive valetudinarian apprehending fearful consequences from errors perhaps overrated, —all these do but represent very numerous classes of sufferers who naturally turn to the clergyman to tell him what has hap- pened through their deeds, to ask him what has been the amount of their wrong-doing, to learn what hope there may be of penal- ties remitted. In short, it is absolutely impossible to prevent the sufferer in such cases from seeking the undeniable resources of con- fession and penitence, and some words as to the possible remission of sins. Such a resource lies at the very foundation of the Christ- ian religion, at the very threshold of the mansion where the clergyman is doorkeeper, in the very heart of the believer. But is it necessary that the supervision dictated by the Reformation should be extended to this intercourse, which is nothing more than the necessary relation between the clergyman and the mem- ber of his flock in certain cases ? Confession unrecognized, we might assume, would be properly conducted by that clergyman who should successfully stand the tests of his order in other re- spects. Recognize it, and with confession it is almost inevitable that you must recognize the confessional—things as distinct as the spirit of Christianity and the trappings of the Roman Church. What is the confessional ? In its most material aspect it is a a species of watch-box, divided in two, or three. In the larger, iltrall. . compartment, sits the ecclesiastical watchman, to whom every a n is bound to go and report himelf at stated periods, leo
and the up may often be seen—the ecclesiastical watchman
leaning against the grated boundary between the two compart- ments ; sometimes drowsily listening to the tedious recital of small sins, sometimes eagerly following a tale more interesting per- chance than any told in our melodramatic cheap literature ; at other times watching to seize the opportunity offered for extend- ing the empire If the clergy, and fixing the pegs of its overspread- mg tent in the very hearts of an abject population. That is the confessional, in is most popular and practical aspect, and the pic- ture of it is alm__itst enough to tell the English people what A is we should fie! !aiiit amongst us. But the spirit e. the confessional can be carried far beyond the range of that oat -box ; and confession, if it be a recognized, stated, and Perl° duty of the clergyman, becomes a locomotive machine for oppression which cannot remain without abuse. In the hands of the best of priests, it must do harm. By the ne- cessity of the case, he wields powers which are supposed to be tut- limited. The better he is in his disposition and conduct, the greater his influence will be, the more positive his success. His kindliness, the power given to him by his experience of searching into the hearts, the moral reliefs conveyed by his pardon an promises will work such changes that to the listening Fanner they will stand as absolute and veritable miracles ; and through the good priest, the power of his order is established on the bleeding heart of living Christianity. The power of the priest becomes magnified, accumulated, in the power of the priesthood ; and the sway which is exercised in the family, is extended over the whole of the political family. We need not here allude to the checks which a priesthood of this fashion has given to civilization; we need not recall the states which it has held in terror ; we are now speaking of its works in detail; but we may observe that with re- gard to these broader considerations, the confessional is almost seen to do its worst when it is administered by a good priest. Its influence becomes directly injurious and humiliating, when the confession is administered by an inferior over a superior na- ture. This must happen, and not infrequently. The clergy of any country is a numerous body, and it must include men of many grades and dispositions. It is highly trained, especially in dialectics and in the arts of intellectual fence—powerful weapons in the hands of a clever man, though he be narrow-minded and narrow-hearted, There is many a man with a large brain and a large heart who is untried in that species of " noble science" ; and thus, through the confessional, the inferior acquires the power to trample upon the superior. The individual suffers, and, through the individual, society.
But the same power may be,—Heaven be our witness !—in the hands of a bad priest. Yes, the same power ! The machine is the same ; so long as the criminal be undetected, the terms of the commission are the same ; the aspect of Divine command is the same, at least to those who are under subjection to the official; to those Christians who have not yet detected him for their own defence, his wisdom is the same, and his means of enforce.. ment the same,—for has he not in his lips the powers of in- quest, of interpretation, and of absolution? Armed with this machine, with this authority, and with these powers, the criminal enters into the very bosom of the family. He comes between husband and wife, in every room of the mansion, at every hour of the twenty-four. He stands at the bedside of the dying fa- ther, making the last provision for his family. He has entrance to the study of the young son. And—need we follow the wolf in sheep's clothing further ?—he has access, aye, access authorized by church and parent, to the solitude, the hopes and fears, the very dreams of the young daughter.
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