St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1890-03-31
LAST OF THE LECTURES.


Father O'Gor man Concludes His
Series Of Penitential Dis
courses.
| ! The interesting and eloquent series
Of Lenten lectures by Father 0'Gorman
at ST. Mary's church, closed yesterday
with the sixth. The reverend lecturer
said:
Confession offs sins is necessarily inn
piied In the power to forgive and retain
that Jesus Christ gave to His apostles
and their successors; therefore confess
sion is of divine institution. That such
is the meaning Of the words of Christ is
| proved by the unanimous teaching or
all, the master minds of Christendom
from the beginning of Christianity
down to the sixteenth century, when
Professionalism was driven by the logic
CT It's position to give the lie to- the pre-
cedlngI centuries, and also to the con
slant practice of Christendom from our
days to the apostolic times. A holder,
more perilous enterprise, humanity
speaking, than the Institution of Coll
fession was not undertaken by the
Savior. He had to create the penitent.
He had to create the c0nfessor. TO
create the penitent he had to take man,
high and low, learned and ignorant,
pope, bishop. priest, as well as laVman -
every man with his pride, his love of
secrecy that closes the soul to every
| to klleel at the feet of feiiowm mortal,
and reveal not only the open fault, but
the hidden sin, the inner thought, the
secret desire that befouls. To create
| the copfessor, He had to effect no less
superhuman transformation. Think OF
| the fatherIy patience, cOndescenSIon,
compassion, love and purity that are
needed in the minister of reconciliation.
| Think Of the inviolable discretion abso-
lutely necessary to such practice, ii 1T
| is to be adopted by mankind; the con-
fessor must he as Silenta as the unfath-
ENABLE abysseS that give back no re.
yerbatioh or echo; he must he capable
| of sealing by his life blood, IT necessary.
the secrecy of the confessional. 70
| have dared such an enterprise was dl-
vine: to have brought it into worldwide
execution was divine. Ii confession is
not the institution Of Christ, then who is
The Man That Invented 1t?
At what hour in history did it make
its appearance in the world? Undoubt-.
edly it is one OF the great forces OF the
church. Now we know and honor the
| names of the pOpes, bishops, priests. of
| the men or women who have originated
many of the. minor, non-obli gatorI de-
yOtiOnS of the church, such as feaStS,
+ PROFESSIONS, forms of prayer, etc. Yet
| of him who gave the church this Won
| derful power of the confessional no re-
membrance whatever, not the slightest
| trace. Strange, and greater he i'll the
| spiritual order than Galileo, a Kepler,
| a Newton, a Fulton, an Edison in the
| domain of material sciences. If eccle-
| siastics had invented it, surely they
| would have exempted themselves from
| its obligation; being confeSSor is
hardship enough, without the additional
| burden of being a penltent. In the
ninth century the Greeks broke from
| Western ChristendOm; they carried
| away with them the confession, and
! have it still. Would they have done so
| il it had been the invention Of Rome?
! Or would Rome hold to confession
| if it were the invention of COnStantl-
NOBLE? In the fifth and sixth centuries
| the HISTORIANS and EutychianS aban-
| dDned, the church; they suppressed
| many things. but not confession, which
| they Retain to this day. And so Of the
| Arians and the ileresies that preceded
! Arianism. Heretlcs in all ages have
| accused the mother church OF having
| corrupted the pure revelation of Christ
| oh the points of doctrine or practice
| that were the reason OF their secession,
! but never on this score. The denial of
the. divine institution of confession was
| reserved to a later date, the sixteenth CELL
| turyc9 However, let the following facts
| show how unwillingly III this matter
| the .reformers yielded to the logic of
| theirsecesSion. Luther, in his "Baby-
| lonian Captivity" in the ninth article
of tile Augsburg confession, in the
| Smalcaide conference, in the catechism
he drew up for children, acknowledges
! the necessity, the utility. the beauty Of
confession, aad the power Of the keys
/ to remit sin, not only before the
| church, but before God Calvin in
| his Institutes acknowledges that pri-
| yate confession is most useful, VI rec
| ommend it, provided it be non-obliga-
| tory. and free from superstition" Look
| i'm the Book of Common Prayer, "Serv.
| ice for the Ordination of Priest;"
| poWer to forgive. or retain sin Is inn
parted to the candidate; again, Vista
ton of the Sick" the priest is hidden
| to receive the confession of the sick and
| then says'I absolve thee from thy SINS"
/ In the names of Luther, Calvin, Henry
| Will there is not any spell OF potency;
there is not anything that the nine
teenth century need respect. we nave
| come on days when creeds are revised.
| and the founders of churches are found
to be. behind the times. The children