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The president said, that the case was impossible, and that the woman was mad; that he was of the opinion to send the woman to the physicians to be cured of some bodily distemper she was troubled with. The Jesuit proponent replied, that the woman was in her perfect senses, and that the case well required further consideration: upon which, F. Antonio Palomo, who was reputed the most learned of the academy, said, that saint Augustin treats de Incubo et Sucubo, and he would examine the case, and see whether he might not give some light for the resolution of the case?

And another member said, that there was in the case something more than apparition and devilish liberty, and that he thought fit that the father Jesuit should inquire more carefully into the matter, and go himself to examine the house, and question the people of it; which being approved by the whole assembly, he did it the next morning, and in the afternoon, being an extraordinary meeting, he came and said,

Most reverend and learned fathers, the woman was so strongly possessed with such a vision, that she has made public the case among the neighbors, and it is spread abroad. Upon which the inquisitors did send for the woman and the maid, and this has discovered the whole story, viz: That father Conchillos, victorian friar, was in love with the woman, but she could not endure the sight of him. That he gained the maid, and by that means he got into the house every night, and the maid putting some opium into her mistress's supper, she fell fast asleep, and the said father did lie with her six nights together. So the child is not the son of the devil, but of father Conchillos. Afterwards it was resolved to enter the case for a memorandum, in the academy's book.

The friar was put into inquisition for having persuaded the maid to tell her mistress that it was the devil; for she had been under the same fear, and really she was in the same condition. What became of the friar I do not know, this I do aver for a truth, that I spoke with the woman myself, and with the maid; and that the children used to go to her door, and call for the son of the devil. And being so mocked, she left the city in a few days after, and we were told that she lived after a retired christian life in the country.

The private confession of a priest, being at the point of death, in 1710. 1 shall call him Don Paulo.

Don Paulo, Since God Almighty is pleased to visit me with his sickness, I ought to make good use of theme I have to

live, and I desire of you to help me with your prayers, and to take the trouble to write some substantial points of my confes sion, that you may perform, after my death, whatever I think may enable me in some measure, to discharge my duty towards God and men. When I was ordained priest, I made a general confession of all my sins from my youth to that time; and I wish I could now be as true a penitent as I was at that time; but I hope, though I fear too late, that God will hear the prayer of my heart.

I have served my parish sixteen years, and all my care has been to discover the tempers and inclinations of my parishioners, and I have been as happy in this world as unhappy before my Saviour. I have in ready money fifteen thousand pistoles, and I have given away more than six thousand. I had no patrimony, and my living is worth but four hundred pistoles a year. By this you may easily know, that my money is unlaw fu 'ly gotten, as I shall tell you, if God spare my life till I make an end of my confession. There are in my parish sixteen hundred families, and more or less, I have defrauded them all some way or other.

My thoughts have been impure ever since I began to hear confessions; my words grave and severe with them all, and all my parishioners have respected and feared me. I have had so great an empire over them, that some of them knowing of my misdoings, have taken my defence in public. They have had in me a solicitor, in all emergencies, and I have omitted nothing to please them in outward appearance; but my actions have been the most criminal of mankind; for as to my ecclesiastical duty, what I have done has been for custom's sake. The necessary intention of a priest, in the administration of baptism and consecration, without which the sacraments are of no effect, I confess I had it not several times, as you shall see,' in the parish books; and observe there, that all these names marked with a star, the baptism was not valid, for I had no intention: And for this I can give no other reason than my malice and wickedness. Many of them are dead, for which I am heartily sorry. As for the times I have consecrated without intention, we must leave it to God Almighty's mercy, for the wrong done by it to the souls of my parishioners, and those in purgatory cannot be helped.

As to the confessions and wills I have received from my parishioners at the point of their death, I do confess, I have made myself master of as much as I could, and by hat means I have gathered together all my riches. I have sent this morning for

fifty bulls, and I have given one hundred pistoles for the benefit of the holy crusade, by which his holiness secures my soul from eternal death.

As to my duty towards God, I am guilty to the highest degree, for I have not loved him; I have neglected to say the private divine service at home every day; I have poluted his holy days by my grievous sins; I have not minded my superors in the respect due to them; and I have been the case of many innocent deaths. I have procured, by remecice, FIXTY abortions, making the fathers of the chicrea their murderers; besides many other intended, though not executed, by some unexpected accident.

As to the sixth commandment, I cannot confess by parimulars, but by general heads, my sins. I confess, in the first place, that I have frequented the parish club twelve years.— We were only six parish priests in it; and there we cas cou sult and contrive all the ways to satisfy our passras. Exery body had a list of the handsomest women in the parise; and when one had a fancy to see any woman, remarks. & fr her beauty, in another's; arist, the priest of ber parist sear for her to his own house; and having prepared the way for wingedness, the other had nothing to do but to meet her there, and fulfil his desires; and so we have served one anuber these twelve years past. Our method has been, to persuade the husbands and fathers not to hinder them any FUTUL COLL fort; and to the lacies to persuade them to te su jest to our advice and will; and that in so doing, they shout tase wery at any time to go out on pretence of comrnating some spiritual business to the priest. And if they refused it a. r, then we should speak their bustands and fatten not to it them go out at all; or, which would be worse for them, we should inform against them to the holy trial of inquirin And by these diabolical persuasions they were at our ou mand, without fear of revealing the secret

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I have spared no woman of my parish, whom I had a finer for, and many other of my brebren's parades; but latut tell the number. I have sixty nepoter & ive, of severe" WONDED: But my principal care ought to be of those fat I have the two young women I keep at home sore their wants died. Both are sisters, and I had is de elder wo tea, and by the youngest, one: and one which I suéta mo own the I is dead. Therefore I leave to my acer fie bourant pattes, upon condition that she would cater on in N. Benson's monastery, and upon the same codie Leite thousand

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pistoles a-piece to the two young women; and the remainder I leave to my three nepotes under the care of Mossen John. Peralta, and ordering that they should be heirs to one another if any of them should die before they are settled in the world, and if all should die, I leave the money to the treasury of the church, for the benefit of the sculs in purgatory. Item: I order that all the papers of such a little trunk be burnt after my confession is over, (which was done accordingly,) and that the holy bull of the dead be bought before I die, that I may have the comfort of having at home the Pope's pass for the next world. Now I ask your penance and absolution for all the sins reserved in all the bulls, from the first Pope; for which purpose I have taken the bull of privileges in such cases as mine.

So I did absolve him, and assist him afterwards, and he died the next day. What to do in such a case, was all my uneasiness after his death; for if I did propose the case before the members of the academy, every body could easily know the person, which was against one of the articles we did swear at our admittance into it: And if I did not propose it, I should act against another article. All my difficulty was about the baptisms which he had administered without intention: For it is the known opinion of their church, that the intention of a priest is absolutely necessary to the validity of the sacrament, and that without it there is no sacrament at all. I had examined the books of the parish, and I found a hundred and fiftytwo names marked with a star, and examining the register of the dead, I found eighty-six of them dead: According to the principles of the church, all those that were alive were to be baptized; which could not be done w out great scandal, and prejudice to the clergy. In this uneasiness of mind I continued, till I went to visit the reverend father John Garcia, who had been my master in divinity, and I did consult him, on the case, sub secreto naturali. He did advise me to propose the case to the assembly, upon supposition, that if such a case should happen, what should be done in it; and he recommended to me to talk with a great deal of caution, and to insist that it ought to be communicated to the bishop; and if the members did agree with me, then without further confession, I was to go to the bishop, and tell his lordship the case, under secrecy of confession: I did so, and the bishop said he would send for the books, and take the list of all those naines; and as many of them as could be found he would send for, one by one into his own chamber, and baptize them; commanding

them, under the pain of ecclesiastical censure, not to talk of it, neither in public or private. But as for the other sins, there was no necessity for revealing them, for by virtue of the bull of Crusade, (of which I shall speak in the second chapter,) we could absolve them all.

Hear, O heaven! Give ear, O earth! And be horribly astonished! To see the best religion in the world turned into superstition and folly; to see, too, that those who are to guide the people, and put their flock in the way of salvation, are wolves in sheep's clothing, that devour them, and put them into the way of damnation. O God, open the eyes of the ignorant people, that they may see the injuries done to their souls by their own guides!

I do not write this out of any private end, to blame all sorts of confessors; for there are some who, according to the principles of their religion, do discharge their duty with exactness and purity, and whose lives, in their own way, are unhlamable, and without reproach among men. Such confessors as these I am speaking of, are sober in their actions: they mortify their bodies with fasting over and above the rules prescribed by the church, by discipline, by kneeling down in their closets six or eight hours every day, to meditate on the holy mysteries, the goodness of God, and to pray to him for all sorts of sinners, that they may be brought to repentance and salvation, &c. They sleep but few hours. They spend most of their spare time in reading the ancient fathers of the church, and other books of devotion.

They live poorly, because whatever they have, the poor are enjoyers of it. The time they give to the public is but very little, and not every day; and then whatever counsels they give are right, sincere, without flattery or interest. All pious, religious persons do solicit their acquaintance and conversation; but they avoid all pomp and vanity, and keep themselves, as much as they can, within the limits of solitude; and if they make some visits, it must be upon urgent necessity. Sometimes you may find them in the hospitals among the poor, sick, helping and exhorting them: but they go there most commonly in the night, for what they do, they do it not out of pride, but humility.

I knew some of these exemplary men, but a very few; and I heard some of them preach with a fervent zeal about the promoting of Christ's religion, and exhorting the people to put their lives voluntarily in the defence of the Roman-Catholic faith, and extirpate and destroy all the enemies of their