The Sun.
London, England, 1858-07-14 00:00:00

THE CaIiFESSIONAL IN BELGRAVIA

(From the Daily News.)
There is, no mistake. It is the settled purpose
of a vigorous party among us to establish and pro-
mote the practice of Confession to the Priest, by
the influence and authority of the National Church.
As long as, it was possible to think that the dispute
of the Rev. Alfred Poole, curate of St. Barnaba.,
Pimlico, with the Bishop of London, might after
all be founded on mutual misapprehensions, or be
explained as one of those accidental collisions of
authority which take place where duties and rights
are loosely defined, we kept silence. But the cor-
respondence which has now transpired, and which
we produce elsewhere, removes all doubt, and
places the conduct both of the bishop and the
curate in the clearest light. It is no longer the
question how much credit is due to the inculpatory
gossip of a knot of loose women. The bishop bas
proceeded on broader and firmer grounds. He does
not impeach the motives of Mr. Poole'; on the
contrary, be gives his most valuable testimony to
the goodness of that gentleman's intentions. But
he takes Mr. Poole's admissions as to his own
practice—admissions which recur in the published
letters—and he says :---" By them I" am led to
regard the course you are in the habit of pursuing
with reference to confession as likely to cause
scandal and injury to the C4urch. I feel especially
that this questioning of females on the subject of
violations of the Seventh Commandment is of dan-
gerous tendency, and I am convinced, generally,
that the sort of systematic admission of your people
to confession and absolution, which you have al-
lowed to be your practice, ought not to take place."
This would have been sufficiently explicit
for most people. Not so, however, for Mr.
Poole. He wants to know just how far he
may go in the forbidden path without forfeit-
ing his position. He recurs to his interviews
with the Bishop, and tries to recall the special in-
stances respeCting which he has given information.
In his letter of May 15 he refines on the Bishop's
words, asks what particular practice is referred to,
and nevertheless is compelled to acknowledge not
only that be had been in the habit of receiving his
people to confession, buttliat in his secret interviews
with the femaleomembers of his flock, he had put
those very minute questions respecting violations of
a particular commandment which the Bishop had
signalised as dangerous, and calculated to cause
scandal in the Church. Even while complaining of
his diocesan for describing his admission of the
people of St. Barnabas to confession as systematic,
he owns that he has taught them to regard his
questionings and his absolution as the way to
peace pointed out by the Church of England ; and
he justifies his inquisitorial practices by a permis-
sion given somewhere in the Prayer-book to the
afflicted to " open their griefs ;" as if advice to an
householder to open his door were quoted to justify
some one in the streetinpicking thelock. But time
is wasted in pursuing these vain quibbles. Every-
body knows to what, according to the principles of
our common nature, practices like those of Mr.
Poole must inevitably lead. Indeed, that gentle-
man saysin one of his letters—" I admit that when
persons, male or female, have sought ray ministry
in confession, I have put to them such questions as
have been suggested by the matter confessed, which
have appeared to me necessary in order to enable
me to give the counsel and advice which the case
required." Ilabenius confitentem return. After the
first confession such questions will be expected,
their subject will therefore be mentally dwelt on ;
the interview follows, quickening thought and
filling the imagination, and thus the whole
mind receives a downward direction. According
to the Rev. W. Gresley, one of the leaders
of the party with which Mr. Poole acts, " the very
shame of the avowal and confession made is a part
of the contrition and the cure." That procedure,
then, will be observed in the confessional which is
most likely to kindle shame. The heart sickens and
refus-s to f How out in thought the emsequsnsos
of a principle Ito reveltisg. -
The pra4sice of coofession to the priest at St.
Barnabas is avowed, defended, justified, and the
Bishop by whose authority the confessor has minis-
tered for seven years, whose licence he has held,
who is responsible for his conduct and the ten-,
dency of his teaching, would have failed egregiously
if he had lost any time in putting a stop to prac-
tices which, whatever else may be said of them,
would be fatal to the Church of which he is an
officer. He has interposed firmly, but temperately,
patiently, and in a spirit of paternal kindness,
amounting almost to indulgence, which must exalt
his reputation and increase his influence for good,
not only in his diocese but throught the kingdom.
He has set his mark plainly not only on the prac-
tice of secretly questioning woman on subjects from
which modesty shrinks, but on the systematic praa-
tics of confession to whomsoever applied.
That it might be seen that this was no mere per-
sonal question, Mr. Poop's local superior, the Rev.
Mr. Liddell, had appliel to the bishop, praying
that he might be substituted for his curate in any
proceedings that were taken. The bishop, however,
preferred to deal with fie case as it came before
him, and the revocation of Mr. Poole's license was
the result. An appeal from this decision to the
Archbishop of the province was the next step, and
we now learn its fate. The Archbishop upholds
the judgment of Dr. Tait, and says that Mr.
Poole must no longer minister in the church of
St. .Barnabae. It is well that he has done so, be-
cause had he done otherwise people would have
been likely to inquire what was the use of a Chief
Shepherd too feeble or teo irresolute to defend the
flock from noisome intruders 7 But Mr. Poole and
his friends would greatly err if they were to sup-
bearings.o or,
ivionight is onlyposa that their defeat is a temporary reverse, due
to the personal tendenoie: of a particular couple of
eday
prelates. They may depend on it that the Eng-
lish people thoroughly understand the Confes-
sionalhel in i
ts p
practical great meeting
din Sloane-street a
spiscimen of manifestationswhiCh would be repeated
in every town in England, were there the least
chance that secret confession tee the priest would
become a prevalent practice in the Church of Eng-
land. In this country, happily, the fullest liberty
is accorded to the professor; of every form of reli-
gion. But when the minitters of a national and
heavily endowed Church isk that they may unite
the immunity and license of the voluntary com-
munions with the prerogatives and privileges of
their own position, they riquire that which will
certainly not be granted. Whatever Deans of
Arches and OffiAal Plituipals may decide, the
people of this country will rot tolerate the Confes-
sional in our Reformed Protestant Chorch. They
well comprehend the system of which the practices
at the church of St. Barnabas are the expression.
They are resolved that the mental peace of their
wives and daughters shall not be held at the plea-
sure of the Priest, nor their purity of mind lie at
the mercy of a set of men who have on their
tongues a thousand ready-made questions which
have accumulated through centuries devoted to the
analysis of pollution, and who have charged their
memories with monstrous cases to qualify them-
selves for this fearful business. The life of the
Family is too sacred acid mysterious to be aban-
doned to unsyinpathising livisectors, trained to
probe souls, apt to worm out secrets, proud of their
skill to break hearts and to heal, to kill and to make
alive ; men not afraid to interfere between those
whom a divine ordinance has made one—bccause
they address only the weaker party. We know
their zeal, their numbers; their restlessness : we
shall soon hear of them agaOr, but let them beware,
for, with only an outworn
dogma to support them,
and condemned by the grad body of earnest Chris-
tians throughout the land, they have entered into
conflict with some of the doepest, strongest, holiest
passions that can inflame the human breast.

(From tht Times.)

An open-air meeting on a question of ecclesi-
astical discipline is not likely
to be distinguished by
judicial impartiality or
by profound theological
research. Some hundieds of zealous Protestants
assembled the other day in Chelsea to denounce
the system of Confession, which has justly alarmed
the neighbourhood, with the collateral object of
promoting a subscriptiot for the zealous Church-
warden, Mr. Wester.on. The statements and
arguments brought forward at the meeting were
open to exception, yet it would be unwise in the
leaders of the English clergy to disregard popular
manifestations because they may display an illogical
mode of reasoning, or even a spirit of persecution.
It is perfectly true tha faith and conscience are
independent of popularity, and that one of the chief
uses of au establishuiejt consists in the intellectual
independence which it secures to the clergy; but
the Church of England can only retain its position
through a general conformity to the feelings and
COATiOtiQnS Of OW nation. It i 5 Ullollbtr