414

DOMESTIC MANNEES OF THE PBUSSIANS.

assured us that they were not acquainted with one Catliolic inall Ooblenz whom they could or would implicitly trust.

Now, tlie Protestant bigot must not rub bis hands withglee, under the belief that we cite these facts as argumentsagainst the practice of confession in a religious point of view.We say again, we have nothing to do with the particularforms or ceremonies that different sects may imagine to beacceptable to the Almighty, and we have too sincere a regardfor the principles of religious liberty, which we are hereadvocating, to dream of reviling or mocking any body ofpeople for matters which concern themselves and the Creatoronly. We repeat, that it is merely as a social Institution thatwe here speak of the confessional and other chureh ceremonies,and whose effects upon the Community we believe we havea perfect right, as what the Scotch call " humanists," tocriticise.

It is in the same spirit that the following remarks aremade; for our opinions, so far from being dictated by anysectarian feeling, proceed rather from a true Catliolic feel-ing: our objections being raised not against the creed of thepeople indulging in such observances, but merely against theobservances themselves, as being degrading to mankind, andhaving a tendency to foster the worst errors of the dark ages,rather than to propagate the enlightenment of the present.

The art of healing, for instance, was in the ignorance ofpast times regarded as being more intimately connected withreligion than with medicine; so that the priests in those dayswere the sole physicians, and the multitude were taught todrink at Holy Wells, or to kiss the bones of defunct " saints,"as the only means of getting cured of their diseases. Withinthe last few centuries, however, different notions have comeover the people; we have learnt that the Almighty Power that

w

äsiS

fe23i f

psiki<

.::za-i

kHfh