There the priest was all things to all men.
He showed just so much rigour as might not drive those who knelt at his spiritual tribunal to the Dominican or the Franciscan church.

If he had to deal with a mind truly devout, he spoke in the saintly tones of the primitive fathers, but with that very large part of mankind who have religion enough to make them uneasy when they do wrong, and not religion enough to keep them from doing wrong, he followed a very different system.

Since he could not reclaim them from guilt, it was his business to save them from remorse.

He had at his command an immense dispensary of anodynes for wounded consciences.

In the books of casuistry which had been written by his brethren, and printed with the approbation of his superiors, were to be found doctrines consolatory to transgressors of every class.