OTHER  CHARACTERISTICS  463

no  longer  smears  it  over  whh  a  hypocritical  show  of
virtue  —  he  lives  at  least  upon  a  basis  of  veracity.  The
complete  decay  of  the  practice  of  confession  in  Anglo-
Saxon  communities  is  a  little  hard  to  account  for.  Re-
action against  popery  is  of  course  the  historic  explana-
tion, for  in  popery  confession  went  with  penances  and
absolution,  and  other  inadmissible  practices.  But  on  the
side  of  the  sinner  himself  it  seems  as  if  the  need  ought
to  have  been  too  great  to  accept  so  summary  a  refusal  of
its  satisfaction.  One  would  think  that  in  more  men  the
shell  of  secrecy  would  have  had  to  open,  the  pent-in
abscess  to  burst  and  gain  re'ief,  even  though  the  ear
that  heard  the  confession  were  unworthy.  The  Catholic
church,  for  obvious  utilitarian  reasons,  has  substituted
auricular  confession  to  one  priest  for  the  more  radical
act  of  public  confession.  We  EngUsh-speaking  Protes-
tants, in  the  general  self-reliance  and  unsociability  of  our
nature,  seem  to  find  it  enough  if  we  take  God  alone  into
our  confidence.^

The  next  topic  on  which  I  raust  comment  is  Prayer,  —
and  this  time  it  must  be  less  briefly.  We  have  bird
much  talk  of  late  against  prayer,  especially  against  prayers
for  better  weather  and  for  the  recovery  of  sick  people.
