I wish, in this first chapter, to point out to my reader something in the nature and effects of confession which every one has perhaps, at some time, experienced, but which few sufficiently consider-I mean its power to bring peace and happiness to the heart. But to make myself clearly understood, I must suppose a case.
Two boys, on a pleasant winter evening, ask their father to permit them to go out upon the river to skate. The father hesitates, because, though within certain limits he knows there is no danger, yet he is aware that above a certain turn of the stream the current is rapid and the ice consequently thin. At last, however, he says, "You may go, but you must on no account go above the bend."
The boys accept the condition, and are soon among their twenty companions, shooting swiftly over the smooth black ice, sometimes gliding in graceful curves before the bright fire, which they have built in the middle of the stream, and sometimes sailing away into the dim distance, in search of new and unexplored regions.
Presently a plan is formed by the other boys for going in a cheerful company far up the stream to explore its shores, and then return again in half an hour to their