WHO LOVE AND WHO HATE THE CONFESSIONAL—AND WHY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 70, 29 August 1874, Page 8

WHO LOVE AND WHO HATE THE CONFESSIONAL—AND WHY.

Auckland. The Confessional is loved by Catholics and hated by the world. Like the pillar, which of old guided the people of God, to us it i 3 all light. To the world it is all darkness. There are two things of -which the world would fain rid itself: the day of judgment ; and the Confessional. Of tho day of judgment;, because it is searching and inevitable ; of the Confessional, because it ia the anticipation and the witness of the judgment to come. For this cause there i 3 no evil that the world will not say of tho Confessional. It would dethrone the eternal Judge if it could; therefore it spurns at the Judge who sits on the Confessional, becauso he is within reach of its heel. And not only the world without tho Church — but the world within its limits, the impure, the false, the- proud, the lukewarm, the worldly Catholic ; in a word, all who are impenitent fear and shrink from the shadow of the great white throne which falls upon them from the Confessional. — ARCHBISHOP Manning-.

H.B. — There is an Anglican Archdeacon in Auckland, Dp Maunsell, who has publicly distinguished himself of late by his hatred to tho Confessional, and it is possible some of the Dunedin clergy or newspapers may show a similar hostility. To all such, Archbishop Manning's remarks are respectfully commended for consideration. It is well known that a very large portion of Anglicans, led by Archdeacon Denison, concur with Archbishop Manning in his view of the Confessional, and go to Confession eveu more frequently than many Catholics do. In fact a Pusoyite Protestant layman is often far more of a practical Catholic than many professed Catholics themselves. Of courso such a state of things cannot long last. Such Protestants must come over to Rome ere Jong. Whenever a Protestant begins to fast aud abstain, and go to Confession, it is a clear case. His conversion to the Catholic faith is a mere question of time, or rather hia reception into the Catholic Church is, for he is converted already. No mere Protestant formalist will ever fast and abstain and goto confession. He must be in earnest about religion ere he would do that.

/ i ■ — — ■ A Calcutta despatch says that the rivers from Assam to Oude have flooded tlie country, causing much damage.