solicitous for such as are under your charge, and provided for their souls and bodies? Have you neglected to relieve the poor according to your ability, or treated them any ways unkindly or contemptuously? Have you committed theft? Have you by overreaching, cheating, unfairness, or in any other way injured any one in property? Have you done all in your power to make restitution, or compensation, to those whom you may have ever injured by word deed?

ΟΙ

If such as confess often fall into any of the more grievous sins, not here mentioned, their own memory will easily suggest them; since it is impossible for a tender soul to forget any mortal offence, which must of necessity afflict

her.

I

Prayer for obtaining Contrition.

HAVE now here before me, O Lord, a sad prospect of the manifold offences whereby I have displeased thy divine Majesty, and which I am assured will appear in judgment against me, if by repentance and a hearty sorrow, my soul_be not prepared to receive thy pardon. But this sorrow and this repentance, O Lord, must be the free gift of thy mercy, without which all my endeavours will be in vain, and I shall be for ever miserable. Have pity therefore on me, O merciful Father, and pour forth into my heart thy grace, whereby I may sincerely repent of all my sins. Grant me true contrition, that I may bewail my base ingratitude, and grieve from my heart for hav

ing offended so good a God. Permit me not to be deluded by a false sorrow, as I fear I have been too often, through my own weakness and neglect: but let it now be thy gift, descending from thee, the Father of lights, that so my repentance may be accompanied by an amendment and a change of life, that being thus acquitted from the guilt of my sins, I may once more be received into the number of thy servants. Amen.

Prayers before Confession.

HAVE pity on me, O God, and let me par

take of the effects of thy great mercy.

I here acknowledge and am sensible of the multitude and enormity of my sins. It is thou, O my God, perfidious creature as I am, whom I have offended; it is against thee that I have rebelled. To follow my plea sures and indulge my passions I have abandoned thee, and lost thy grace. I, whom thou hast created to thine own likeness, and redeemed by the blood of thy only Son, have, by my sins, made my soul resemble those monsters of ingratitude, the infernal spirits: like them, I have forfeited heaven, my blessed country, and deserved hell and damnation, which I shall never be able to escape, without the assistance of thy bound less mercy. The injury I have offered thee, O Lord, is so great, that it caused thy Son Jesus Christ, my Saviour, to suffer death. How then, O my God! how can I sufficiently deplore so great an evil! Who will give

water to my head, and a fountain of tears to my eyes, that I may incessantly deplore my misery and malice, and do penance for my sins?

I

ACKNOWLEDGE my transgressions, O Lord! I feel that I am not worthy to appear in thy presence, or to call on that adorable name, which I deserve not to pronounce. I have offended thee more grievously than many who are now plunged in the eternal fire of hell. I have abused thy grace, trampled on thy blood, ungratefully turned thy benefits against thyself, and neglected opportunities of salvation, which will

never return.

Ah! if I had treated my fellow creatures with half the ingratitude I have shewn thee, my good God, I should despair of their forgiveness; but though most unworthy either to ask or obtain thy pardon, I do not despair of being once more received into thy grace and friendship. I know that I cannot trust too confidently in thy mercies; I know that my multiplied sins are few when contrasted with thy abundant merits, and that thou never canst reject an humble and contrite heart. I cast myself with all my sins and miseries, at the foot of thy cross, where no sinner was ever condemned, who implored thy pardon with humility and sorrow. I embrace thy feet with penitent Magdalene, and I ardently wish, that like her, I could love thee as much as I have offended. Ah! do not refuse me

that pardon, which I desire more ardently than any other blessing I could possibly enjoy. Take compassion on me, O my God and my Father! for to whom can I have recourse but to thee? Why were the best days of my life spent in exasperating my Creator? At least, may I now for ever forsake that sinful, useless course I have too long pursued; may sin always appear to me, as it now does, more dreadful than hell itself; and the least temptation to offend thee, more frightful than death. O, let every hour of my life henceforward increase my sorrow for all my offences, and strengthen my firm resolution, to prefer a thousand deaths, to the unspeakable misfortune of committing one deliberate sin.

Prayer after Confession.

GOD of mercy, having now, through thy gracious goodness, disburdened my conscience of the guilt wherewith it was oppressed, and in the humblest manner I was able, discovered all the sins I could recollect, to thy minister, my ghostly father, I most humbly beseech thee to accept this confession, and forgive me all my trespasses, as well those I have forgotten as those I have remembered. Grant me grace, O Lord, to live more carefully hereafter, and to abstain from my former vices, which I utterly detest, firmly purposing never to be guilty of them any more. But especially, O most merciful and bountiful Saviour, enable me to withstand

those temptations with which I am most infested, and to avoid all occasions of offending thee for the future. If the just man fall seven times in the day, how much more reason have I to be jealous of myself, O Lord, and to fear that I shall not be steadfast in my resolutions, having, through my own frailty and vicious customs, increased the natural blindness and weakness in which I was born. Yet, O Lord, I firmly purpose, through thy merciful assistance, never to consent to any mortal sin, from which I humbly beseech thee to preserve me whilst I live: and, as to my venial sins and imperfections, I resolve to strive against them, and hope, through thy goodness, at length to amend them. For this end grant me thy grace, sweet Jesus, diligently to examine my conscience every night; and each day, to offer thee the first fruits of all my actions, that the rest of it may be incessantly employed to thy glory. As to the penance enjoined me, I humbly crave thy assistance for the remembering and performing it as I ought; and that I may never forget my resolutions, or lay aside my endeavours of changing my life, till, at length, I become a true penitent, and put on the new man; that so, through the merits of thy blessed passion, I may here obtain the full pardon of my sins, and hereafter life everlasting. Grant this, O my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who, with God the Father, and the Holy Ghost, livest and reignest, world without end

Amen.