The Sun.
London, England, 1858-09-27 00:00:00

tie inquiry has placed this ridiculous affair,

must transport themselves to a Lai masque, such as that which had been going on, we know not
how many hours or days, when Covent-garden was
burnt down. A solemn-looking friar, telling his
beads and conning his book, addresses in succession
the frail nymphs that make half the throng. With
the same solemn grimace, and the
same ;‘ syste-
matic ccurse" for all, he asks some grave
question, the -gist--of which consintssin its being
utterly inappropriate to the known character of the
poor thing addressed. Her life and acts are patent
there is no disguise. Her defence is effrontery.
Use your eyes, hear one tone of her voice, and yon
know all you want to know. The humour of the
occasion is,. however, not to use one's eyes or ears
for any honest purpose ; so the masquerader ad-
dresses himself to the pangs of a conscience that
-has -long ceased -to feel a wound, and to the
"spiritual" interpretation of a Commandment that
has long been trampled under foot by every act of
body and soul. He softly probes her conscience
with terms which to her are suggestive, not
of ideas, but of facts, the horror of which
has long departed from the mind of both exa-
miner and examined. If such a mummer were
found to be a recreant clergyman, and if the
performance wercn reported to his- Bishop and a
commission of inquiry appointed, most certainly
the commissioners would not recognise ill the case
an attempt to introduce the confessional. They
would probably think the wretched jester the last
man to confess really in any form whatever. Whe-
ther they thought there was a prima facie case for
further proceedings might depend upon the terms
of the commission. We have now to return from
Covent-garden to Boyn-hill, and there we see the
very thing, with scarcely less levity and even more
absurdity. Of course, we have not the least wish to
say more harm than we can help about the poor
creature who has been made the victim of this
sport ; indeed, We should have an interest in be-
lieving her a per Son justly aggrieved by too minute
inquiries. So we only take the woman as described
by Mr. West himself, and the witnesses for the
defence. llis knoWledge of the woman is itself the
just msasure of his folly.
Here is a woman, then, who, on Mr. 'West's own
showing, and by the evidence of competent wit-
nesses on his side, had been openly living with two
men at once at a publichouse for a year together,
and had a child, of whom she was accustomed to
declare, with an oath or a jest, that she did not
know who was its father. On the same evidence,
—that is of Mr. West and his friends—we learn
that the woman was an habitual liar and
profane talker ; that nobody would believe
her on her oath, and that her most solemn
affirmation, therefore, was good for nothing.
By one man or another she had had eight children ;
and the most flagrant of her criminalities were ten
or twelve years back, though not the 'less fresh in
the memory of her neighbours, including Mr.
Gressly's own gardener, summoned in the defence.
Supposing any clergyman of common sense snd
simple feeling visiting such a woman on the bed of
sickness, and on the eve of her confinement, we all
know what he would do. He would assume
what was known ; he would not ask the woman to
confess with the lips what was notorious in
her life ; he would not appeal to sins of imagi-
nation and disorders of the heart when deeds
were sufficient. Think of gently asking a
woman who had openly lived with two
men at once whether, twenty years ago, before •
she was married, she had ever had any improper
feelings towards any other man than the one who
became her husband ! Is it possible to conceive
more astoundingfolly ? We should hardly believe
it, except on Mr. West's own willing and obtruded
testimony. He insisted on his evidence being
taken, and, once in court, he took the opportunity
of pleading his own cause, with. the usual result.
He says he knew in a general was-, on the informa-
tion of his predecessor, that • the woman had
had illegitimate children. Her's was the first
house he was taken to on entering upon li:ss
charge, so it was a prominent as well as a
notorious case. Such was the woman whom Mr.
West selected for the trial of his " more systematic
course " of confession. The process he described.
For the special information of Dr. Robert Philli-
more and the other Commissioners, he premised
that "each Commandment contains more than the
letter." Proceeding upon. this great arean um of
his art, " he had explained to the woman," he
said, " in the best way he could, the spirit and.
intention of each precept in the Decalogne."
" He went through the various Commandments in
this way, explained their spirit, and asking her if
she had broken them." On coming to the
seventh, "he explaining to her its spirit, and when
she denied having broken it he told her it con-
tained more than the letter ; " and then, knowing,
as he said, that she had had illegitimate children,
and that all the world knew it, he asked, " Have
you ever lusted after any other man besides your
husband ?" -What possible occasion could there be
for such a question? The greater includes the less,
and the actual crime implies the vitiated mind.
Who needs to inquire, who cares to know, the steps
of a moral decline the result of which is manifest.?
If there ever was a case in the world for that gene-
ral confession which is enjoined by our Church, and
if there ever was just reason to suspect an improper
motive in superfluous interrogatories, this is the
case, and the only escape from the suspicion is that
which the Commissioners appear to have taken—
viz., the utter absurdity of Mr. West's conduct.
The result of the ins:sail-3- therefore is, not to dis-
robe a too prying confessor, but to strip a wooden
lay figure. The confessional was to be part of the
system, so a Father Confessor was ordered from
town, sent down by luggage train, warranted of the
best seasoned materials, and certain not to shrink.
It had only to be wound up, and then wheeled to the
Ledside of the patient to be experimented upon, and
it would goo through" systematic course" without
its
the omission of a Commandment, a letter, a spirit, an
intention, or a Word. The machine, of course, could
not be expeeted.to regard any nice distinction in the
persons to be operated upon. Man or woman, old
and ugly, young and pretty, husband of one wife,
wife of two or more husbands, young ladies, town
scandals, good, bad, and indifferent, fish, flesh,
and fowl, white and black, sound and rotten, were
all the same to it. Pull the string, and there it
goes, click, clack, click, clack, right through the
Ten commandments, fetter and spirit, " acts,"
" lusts," " looks," " feelings," and everything,
till The " systematic course" is gone through,
and the penitent, or no penitent, is duly con-
fessed. Mr. Gresley appears to be perfectly
satisfied with the working of the machine.
He says the fathers and mothers of Bos-n-hill
and the neighbourhood send their children to be
confessed by it, and, as its application to young
gentlemen and young ladies would certainly not be
ridiculous, as in the case of the strong-minded Mrs.
Nancy Arnold, no doubt it has worked to admira-
tion in their case. For our part, however, we beg to
demur to the use of wood, or machinery of any kind,
in spiritual affairs, particularly in the treatment of
consciences. A barrel-organ is a disagreeable neces-
sity, but a barrel confessor, blundering through all
sorts of brutalities, and dragging the purest minds
and tenderest consciences through its villanous
systematic course," has not even necessity to de-
fetid it. The Church of England, evidently, has no
wish to send round a spiritual reaping-machine to
collect daily mountains of secret offences into an
ecclesiastical granary. Except in extraordinary
cases, where the conscience is evidently burdened,
and where the sense of some secret crime drives the
offender from religious ordinances, the Church does
not encourage penitents to reveal their hidden sores;
nor does she desire -the clergy to receive such reve-
lations. There is pollution in this sort of hus-
bandry ; it is pollution to tell, pollution to hear—
and, if there is anywhere in the world, which we
beg to doubt, a class of persons who can be trusted
with confessions of a startling and interesting cha-
racter,affecting tLe reputations of ladies, of fathers
o f
families—of any persons that anybody cares
about, that safe depositary is not to be found in
the clergy of the Church of England.

THE RECENT VISIT OF HER MAJESTY TO LEEDS.
—Lady Fairbairn, the Mayoress of Leeds, has just had the
honour of receiving from her Majesty a beautiful bracelet
set with diamonds and turquoises, accompanied by a letter
from Sir Charles Phipps, expressive of her Majesty's grati-
fication for the attention the Royal Family received during
their visit to Woodsley-house, the residence of Sir Peter
Fairbairn2 the Mayor of Leeds, and also for the adroirablo:
Frangements so successfully carried out in the town of
Levis dduring her Majestyes visit,