General Confession totius vitae; and the experience of every succeeding year will teach us the profound wisdom of this rule. Nor are they less emphatic in requiring that when a "Confessio Generalis alicujus tantum temporis" is permitted, it should commence "ab ultima Confessione Generali"-never going behind it, and never leaving an interval, Therein they assume what has been already stated--that all concerned have done what was necessary to render each General Confession, pro tanto, a final settlement of the past, so that any defect that may be afterwards discovered, can be prudently traced to ignorantia invincibilis or oblivio inculpata. Such subsequent discovery involves no obligation that is not satisfied by "submitting to the keys," that is, mentioning for direct absolution at next confession, whatever may have been thus inculpably omitted.

But besides these positive rules, theologians are careful to lay down the following negative ones, which are by no means less important:

(1) "Potissimum cavere debent confessarii ne facilius poenitentes ad Confessionem Generalem compellant: et summopere sunt reprehendendi, qui ab omnibus novis poenitentibus hanc exigunt, praetextu necessitatis, vel ratione directionis," &c. They tell us that it is our duty to assume, at least for some considerable time, that those "novi poenitentes" of ours have been judiciously treated by our predecessors," nisi luce clarius sit contrarium." They remind us that that physician is not to be trusted who hastily discredits the prescription of those who have gone before him, inasmuch as it takes time to learn the constitution, habits, &c., of his patient. Experience," optima rerum magistra," generally proves that we ourselves may, in the long run, be obliged to adopt the line of direction which we had inconsiderately condemned in others. One of our ablest theologians declares that he would not hesitate to relieve of jurisdiction those intuitive reformers.

(2) "Non est permittenda Confessio Generalis etiam in dubio de validitate praecedentium confessionum, ubi ex illa metuenda sunt incommoda notabilia, ratione scrupulorum, perturbationis conscientiae, &c., quia ob dubiam obligationem subeunda non sunt gravia ac certa incommoda."

(3)" NUNQUAM permittenda est Confessio Generalis scrupulosis aut meticulosis;" and Collet pronounces the man to be "vere et mere scrupulosus, qui confessiones ex

vero conversionis desiderio et sincere factas repetere velit, iisque aliquid semper defuisse credat."

(4) St. Leonard, speaking of such persons, lays down the following admirable rule, which all the principles of sound theology sanction, and which, in the absence of any other copy, is reproduced from Gaume's French

version:

"Faitez-vous une regle de ne jamais permettre de confession generale a celui qui (a) en a deja fait; qui (b) s'est corrigé ; qui (e) a joui de la paix de l'ame; et que (d) rien de particulier ne constitue dans la mauvaise foi sur ses confessions passées."

We have known some of the most practical and successful directors-men vere timoratae conscientiae-whose rule it is, when dealing with penitents even doubtfully scrupulous, to decide against permitting a General Confession, whenever they receive a negative reply to the question: Is there anything in the past that you have ever forgotten or neglected to confess? In this, they are borne out by St. Leonard, who adds:-

"Au reste, le meilleur conseil qu'on puisse donner a tous ces penitents, c'est de faire souvent des actes de contrition. Mettez-leur bien dans l'esprit cette doctrine de S. Thomas, savoir: que lorsqu'une personne animée d'un vrai desir de se reconcilier avec Dieu, a fait ce qu'elle a pu pour faire une bonne confession, et employé tous les moyens d'avoir une vraie contrition et a cru l'avoir, en premier lieu, sa confession est exempte de faute; en second lieu, il n'y a nulle obligation de la refaire, il suffit de renouveler sa contrition pour en assurer la valeur. Tout cela doit s'entendre des scrupuleux veritables et craignant Dieu, qui, dans leurs confessions passées, ont agi arec bon foi."

It frequently happens that a penitent will, without any suggestion from us, and outside of Missions, &c., express an anxiety to make a General Confession, and that we ourselves may see the desirability of his doing so, when, nevertheless, it will be our duty to oblige him to postpone for a time the making of it. Of the most ordinary of these cases, Collet writes:

"Si poenitens proprio motu ad Confessionem Generalem admitti postulet, monendus est non esse festinandum in re tanti momenti, sed ante omnia incumbendum esse plenae conversioni, extirpandis pravis habitibus, augendae et firmandae bonae voluntati quam Deus largiri dignatus est.

II. We may state unqualifiedly that theologians and

spiritual writers are unanimous in counselling the making of General Confessions:

"1o. Ut intimam criminum nostrorum cognitionem ac detestationem sentiamus; 2° ut anteactae vitae ordinem perversum agnoscentes atque abhorrentes emendationi nostrae studeamus ; 3 ut inspectis inimicorum nostrorum pravitate ac fraudibus, ab eis caveamus." (St. Ignatius.)

With all this, they are equally unanimous in warning us against the perilous practice of insisting upon it where a strict and well-defined necessity does not appear. To exact it, then, would be, they tell us, to provide for our penitents a "jugis anxietatum scatebra," and to convert this Sacrament of Mercy into a "carnificina animarum." So strongly indeed do they write on this subject, that the words of St. Leonard, before quoted-" Faitez-vous une regle, &c."-seem to express their views of the treatment of penitents without distinction.

Hence they lay down the absolute law: "Confessio non est NECESSARIO repetenda nisi de ejus invaliditate moraliter certo constet." St. Liguori, having given this law, adds: “Ut recte dicunt Croix, &c., cum communi contra Antoine."

The reason of this law seems, on reflection, plain and forcible. For taking the case that ordinarily occurs (and we have no present concern about others), we assume (1) that those confessions, about the validity of which doubts have arisen, were made with an honest intention of recovering the friendship of God, and that all the elements of the Sacrament were provided with average care. We assume (2) that, since the making of those possibly invalid confessions, at least one other has been made, about the validity of which, judged on its own merits, we have no reason for doubting. The penitent, so circumstanced, is placed in possession of sanctifying grace by his last absolution, and from that possession he cannot be dislodged except (in the case under review) by a deliberate violation of a divine precept requiring him to submit anew, for possibly a second direct absolution, those sins for which, it may be, he has received no more than an adventitious pardon. But where is that law? St. Liguori tells us that theologians communiter deny the existence of any such law, and with equal unanimity affirm that we may depose all anxiety by applying the axiom: Standum est pro valore actus. To To say the very least, this practically certain

doctrine places us in invincible ignorance of the existence. of the law: we cannot become deliberately guilty of violating it; and we may conclude, with absolute safety, that no such law affects us.

Again, should those doubts that have sprung upon us have reference to the integrity of past confessions, we should remember that, as Layman puts it:-

"Diligenter observandum est quod specifica et numerica explicatio omnium peccatorum, per se et directe non pertinet ad necessitatem sive essentiam sacramenti, quasi sacramentum Poenitentiae nunquam consistere possit nisi integra omnium mortalium confessio fiat, sicuti post alias notavit Suarez, &c., &c., sed potius spectat ad necessitatem praecepti divini.”

In the absence, therefore, of a certainly binding lex divina, we have no theological reason for doubting the validity of the Sacrament now being received; and we may feel assured that these supervening doubts carry with them no grounds for anxiety.

Should we fear that our past confessions have not been accompanied with the requisite dolor and propositum, theologians still tell us that we may have no apprehension: Standum est, &c. It is indeed the common teaching that "non sunt repetendae confessiones cum dubia contritione. factae." (Gury, n. 513.) "Per se non sunt repetendae confessiones," even in the case of Recidivi, about whose propositum such grave doubts may be reasonably entertained. Ballerini thinks it pure Jansenism to doubt

it.

All this is expounded in the manifestly well-weighed and weighty words with which St. Charles Borromaeo concludes his " Monitum Undecimum ad Confessarios:”

"Debet interrogare de actis antea confessionibus, in quantum ei necessarium fuerit, ut resciat num poenitens in casum inciderit ex quo confessiones nullae fuerint, et iterandae sint ; puta si . . . poeniters ipse scienter mortale aliquod peccatum omiserit, aut confessionem ita diviserit ut aliam uni confessario peccatorum partem et alteri partem aliam declaraverit ; aut sine ullo peccatorum dolore, et emendandi proposito accesserit, aut pro excutiendis inveniendisque peccatis nullam diligentiam adhibuerit. Et quia plerique in confessione debite facienda negligentius se gerunt, ii potissimum qui nullum vel levem Dei timorem habent nec ullam propriae salutis curam, ita ut potius aliquo ex usu quam ex peccatorum horrore et vitam emendandi desiderio confiteantur; et quia communiter utilitas maxima ex confessionibus generalibus oritur,

maxime conversionis meliorisque frugis initio; debent confessarii debitis loco et tempore, juxta personarum qualitatem, ad confessionem generalem poenitentes exhortari, ut ejus ope in memoriam revocatis totius vitae actionibus, ardentius ad Deum convertantur, et pro omnibus defectibus quos in praeteritis confessionibus agnoverint, satisfaciant."

C. J. M.

SAINT COLGA OF KILCOLGAN.

NOT OT far from the armlet of Galway Bay, up which Lugad Mac Con with his fleet of foreigners, sailed in the year 250-some say 224-stands the village of Kilcolgan. It is in truth a deserted village now. The circumstances which lent it some distinction, are long since forgotten. Its chief interest for us at the present day is borrowed from the ruins among which it stands; and from such fragments of their history as have come down to us in the pages of our ancient records. St. Assourrida's Church is in the immediate vicinity, and there, too, are the Churches of Foila, and of her holy brother Colga. The river which guided O'Donnell in the sixteenth century in his predatory excursion from Athenry to Mairee, flows by, as abundant in its supplies of trout and salmon as when St. Enda blessed its waters about a thousand years before.

But our annalists give no notice of Kilcolgan till long after the period when Mac-Con and his foreigners won the crown of Ireland on the adjoining plains of Moyveala. Later on, however, there is a far larger number of references to its history than its present insignificance would lead us to expect. In 1258 it was a town of some importance in the territory of Owen O'Heyne, Prince of Hy-Fiachrach Aidhne. In one of those struggles for the sovereignty of Connaught, between the sons of Roderick O'Connor and those of Cathal Crovedearg, which disgraced the history of the period, we find that Kilcolgan was burned to the ground "with many other street towns." The proximity of Kilcolgan to the residence of Clanricarde gained for it an undesirable notoriety in the years 1598-99-1600 in connection with the raids made by the Northern Princes on the territories of Clanricarde and Thomond. In 1598 O'Donnell pitched his camp at "its gates"; and it was