There are three of those very terrible places called confessionals
at St. Augustine's, and one day not so long since we visited all of
them. It is enough for an ordinary sinner to patronise one
confessional in a week, or a month, or a quarter of a year, and then
go home and try to behave himself. But we went to three in one
forenoon with a priest, afterwards had the courage to get into the
very centre of a neighbouring building wherein were two and twenty
nuns, and then reciprocated compliments with an amiable young lady
called the "Mother Superior." Terrible places to enter, and most
unworldly people to visit, we fancy some of our Protestant friends
will say; but we saw nothing very agonising or dreadful--not even in
the confessionals. Like other folk we had heard grim tales about,
such places--about trap doors, whips, manacles, and all sorts of
cruel oddities; but in the confessionals visited we beheld nothing
of any of them. Number one is a very small apartment, perhaps two
yards square, with a seat and a couple of sacred pictures in it. In
front there is an aperture filled in with a slender grating and
backed by a curtain which can be removed at pleasure by the priest
who officiates behind. On one side of the grating there is a small
space like a letter-box slip, and through this communications in
writing, of various dimensions, are handed. Everything is plain and
simple where the penitent is located; and the apartment behind,
occupied by the priest who hears confession, is equally simple.
There is no weird paraphernalia, no mysterious contrivances, no
bolts, bars, pullies, or strings for either working miracles, or
making the hair of sinners stand on end. Number two confessional is
similarly arranged and equally plain. We examined this rather more
minutely than the other, and whilst we could find nothing dreadful
in the penitents' apartment, we fancied, on entering the priest's
side, that, we had met with something belonging the realm of