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He told me then not to distress myself; that I had pleased God greatly, and had not sinned against Him throughout the whole affair; that I was to do what my confessors required of me, and be silent on the subject till the time came to resume it. I was so comforted and so happy, that the persecution which had befallen me seemed to be as nothing at all.
The bishop of Hippo is indeed right in what he said. A sacrament depends on the form; its virtue is in its form; its vice is in its form. Listen, confessors and pontiffs, to my woeful story. I was a priest in Rome under the rule of the Emperor Gordianus. Without desiring to recommend myself to you for any special merit, I may say that I exercised my priesthood with piety and zeal.
The confessors who were condemned to work in the mines were permitted by the humanity or the negligence of their keepers to build chapels, and freely to profess their religion in the midst of those dreary habitations. 2. The bishops were obliged to check and to censure the forward zeal of the Christians, who voluntarily threw themselves into the hands of the magistrates.
Some idea may be formed of the manner in which even such women as many of my sister nuns were regarded the confessors, when I state, that there was often a contest among us, to avoid entering the apartment as long as we could, endeavouring to make each other go first, as that was what most of us dreaded.
But, all things duly examined, they thought it of more consequence to God's service, to administer the sacrament of penance, than to preach the word; because the court of Portugal was furnished with able preachers, but was much wanting in judicious confessors; which was the very observation that Xavier made in the letter above cited.
It was no easy undertaking, in a time of such excitement, to keep peace among them, especially because the fiercest enemies of reform, the Dominican monks, who were devoted to the same rule of order, had abundant access to them as preachers, as confessors, and under all possible pretences.
They have no convents to initiate young girls in the arts of dissimulation; no debauched court to contaminate, by its example, the wavering principles of the weak part of the sex, or sap the more determined ones of those whose mind is of a firmer texture; nor have they any friendly, sympathizing confessors to draw a spunge, as it were, over the trespasses hid in a snug corner of their heart.
"Fra Francesco so holy and gentle a man to trust!" "Ay, I have naught against him, save that he is trained in the school of Rome, having a conscience to uphold their claims, and with no thought or care for anything but the Church no wisdom to discover any right of princes. Such confessors make trouble among the people.
Reviews are like Jesuit father confessors guiding the opinions of the multitude, who blindly follow the suggestions of those to whom they may have entrusted their literary consciences.
The book is a very good book; but forasmuch as it touches one of the Queenmother's fathers confessors, the Bishop, which troubles many good men and members of Parliament, hath called it in, which I am sorry for.
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