The boy's list.

Effect of this confession.

now that you can recollect any cases in which you have shown vanity?"

S. I don't know; perhaps I could if I should have a little time."

F. “Well, I will give you time to think, and if you really wish to correct yourself of the fault, you may think of all the cases you can, and tell me of them. If you prefer it, you may write the list and show it to me."

Now, if the subject is taken up in this spirit, most boys, who had been treated on these principles before, would receive the communication with pleasure, and would engage with interest in the work of exploring the heart. And such a boy will succeed. He will bring a list of instances, not perhaps fully detailed, but alluded to distinctly enough to recall them to mind. His list might be perhaps something as follows:

"Dear Father," I have made out a list of the times in which I was vain, and I now send it to you.

"1. I brought out my writing-book a few evenings since, when some company was here, in hopes they would ask to see it.

"2. I said yesterday at table, that there was something in the lesson which none of the boys could recite until it came to me, and I recited it.

"3. I pretended to talk Latin with George when walking, thinking that you and the other gentlemen would overhear it.

"I suppose I could think of many other cases if I had time. I am glad you told me of the fault, for I think it a very foolish one, and I wish to correct it.

"Your dutiful son.

21

Now, let me ask every one of my readers who has any knowledge of human nature, whether, if the effort of the father to correct this fault should stop here, a most pow

Secret confession to be minute.

erful blow would not have been struck. Do you think that a boy can make such a self-examination, and confess freely his faults in this manner, without making a real progress in forsaking them? Can he as easily, after this, attempt to display his accomplishments, or talk of his exploits?

The process ought not to stop here, but this is the first step; confession-full, free, and particular confession. In the first chapter I described the power of confession to restore peace of mind, after it is lost by sin; and in alluding to the subject of confession again here, it will be seen that I look to another aspect of it, viz. its tendency to promote reformation. It is in this latter respect only that I consider it now.

The first step then which any of you are to take in order to break the chains of any sinful habit which you have formed, is to confess it fully and freely. That single act will do more to give your fault its death blow, than almost any thing else you can do. If you are a child, you can derive great assistance from confessing to your parents. If you shrink from talking with them face to face about your follies and faults, you can write. Or confess, and express your determination to amend, to some confidential friend of your own age; but above all, be sure to confess to God; lay the whole case before him in full detail. I cannot press upon you too fully the necessity of being distinct and definite, and going into full detail, in these confessions.

There is one very erroneous impression which young persons receive from hearing public prayer. It is alway, as it ought to be, general in its language, both of con fession and request. Take for instance the following language of the prayer book of the Protestant Episcopal Church, so admirably adapted to its purpose:

"We have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and de

Secret prayer often too general.

sires of our own hearts.

We have offended against thy

holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; and we have done those things which we ought not to have done; and there is no health in us."

66

How general is this language. It is so with our Savior's model of prayer! Forgive us our debts, as we forgive those who are indebted to us. ." Public prayer ought to be somewhat general in its expressions, for it is the united voice often of thousands, and should express acknowledgments and petitions which are common to them all.

But the mistake that multitudes fall into is, that when they begin to pray themselves, they take public prayer as the model for secret supplication; and they spend their season of retirement in repeating the same general supplications which they hear from the pulpit in the hour of public worship. But this is a very great error. The very object of secret prayer is to afford the soul an opportunity of going minutely into its own particular and private case. There is no magic in solitude, no mysterious influence in the closet itself, to purify and sanctify the heart. It is the opportunity which the closet affords of bringing forward the individual case in all its particularity and detail, which gives to secret devotion its immense moral power. The general and comprehensive language which is adopted in public prayer, is thus adopted because it is the object of public prayer to express only those wants, and to confess those sins, which are common to all who join in it. The language must necessarily therefore be general. But it is always the intention of those who use it, that minute detail should be given in private supplications. In the prayer of the Episcopal church, for example, the evening prayer for families is printed thus:

Way to make prayer interesting.

Here you

Formal confession.

"We come before thee in an humble sense of our unworthiness, acknowledg ing our manifold transgressions of thy righteous laws.* But O, gracious Father, who desirest not the death of a sinner, look upon us, we beseech thee, in mercy, and forgive us all our transgressions."

will observe that on the margin it is suggested that this entering into detail should be done even in the family worship. How much more when the individual has retired alone, for the very purpose of bringing forward the peculiar circumstances of his own case!

This is the only way to make secret prayer interesting, as well as profitable. A child, just before retiring to rest, attempts to pray. He uses substantially the expressions which he has heard in the pulpit: "I acknowledge that I am a great sinner. I have done this day many things which are wrong; I have neglected many duties, and broken many of thy commands." Now how easy is it for a person to say all this with apparent fervor, and yet have present to his mind while saying it, no one act in which he really feels that he has done wrong, and consequently no distinct mental feeling that he is guilty! Our confessions, half of the time, amount to nothing more than a general acknowledgment of the doctrine of human depravity. "I humbly confess that I have been a great sinner this day," says a Christian at his evening prayer, and while he says it, the real state of his mind is, "I sup pose I must have been so. All men are sinners, and I know I am." As to any distinct and definite feeling of personal guilt, it is often the farthest from the mind while using such language.

It is astonishing how easily and how soon we become habituated to the general language of confession, so as

Excuses. Way to make secret prayer interesting.

Private prayer.

to use it most freely without any sense of personal guilt. A parent will reprove a boy for a fault, and the boy will, as the father goes over the details, defend and excuse himself at every step. Here he will lay off the blame upon his brother-there he will say he did not know what else to do—and in another respect he will say that he tried to do as well as he could. And yet, after he has finished all this, he will say gravely, "But I do not pretend to excuse myself. I know I have done wrong." I have had such cases occur continually in the management of the young.

But do not forget what is the subject of this chapter. It is the means of correcting faults, and as the first means, I am describing full and particular confession of the sins you wish to avoid in future. Before I go on, however, I wish to say one thing in regard to the effect of going into minute detail in prayer. It is the only way to make prayer interesting. When you come at night, with a mind wearied and exhausted with the labors of the day, to your hour of retirement, you find your thoughts wandering in prayer. No complaint is more common than this. There is scarcely any question which is asked more frequently of a pastor than this: “How shall I avoid the sin of wandering thoughts in prayer?" It would be asked, too, much oftener than it is, were it not that Christians shrink from acknowledging to their religious teachers a fault which seems to imply their want of interest in spiritual things. Now the remedy in nine cases out of ten is, coming to particulars in your prayers. Have no long formal exordiums. Abandon the common phrases of general confession and request, and come at once to the particular circumstances and minute wants and trials of the day. Describe not only particular faults, but all the minute attending circumstances. Feel that you are alone; that the restraints of publicity are removed from you; that