From the Original Brass preserved in the Church of Sawbrey, All
Saints, Huntingdonshire. Date, about 1380.
]
It must be observed that after all, confessors are nothing but men, and
they are, under such circumstances, frequently agitated by thoughts not
very consonant with the apparent gravity and sanctity of their looks.
Nay, raising such thoughts in them, and in general creating sentiments
of love in their confessors, are designs which numbers of female
penitents—who at no time entirely cease being actuated by womanish
views—expressly entertain, notwithstanding the apparent ingenuity of
their confessions, and in which they but too often succeed, to their own
and their frail confessors’ cost. Thus, it appears from Miss Cadiere’s
declarations, that she had of herself aimed at making the conquest of
Father Girard, though a man past fifty years of age, being induced to it
by his great reputation as a preacher and a man of parts; and she
expressly confessed that she had for a long while been making efforts to
be admitted into the number of his penitents.
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