Monday's Times contains a very interesting extract from a pastoral
letter addressed by the Bishop of Gibraltar to the English congregations under his charge. In the portion 'which deals with private confession the Bishop states plainly that the English people will never tolerate regular and systematic auricular confession. "They may tolerate a large amount of ritual ; when they become habituated to it, they may even prefer an ornate to a simple service of worship. But the confessional is alien to their very nature. They shrink from it instinctively with aversion." Englishmen, the Bishop continues, are a reserved, proud, independent, self - reliant, .and manly people, and they will never again submit to "a system which requires themselves, their wives and daughters, to tell into the ears of man their most secret sins, and the most sacred confidences of their personal and their domestic lives." After dealing with the debilitating effects of systematic -confession, the Bishop of Gibraltar goes on "There are secrets of the moral life which should always remain secrets, which a God-implanted instinct forbids us to tell any one, however wise, however full of sympathy, however reticent, however trustworthy, and which we cannot tell without serious peril to our souls." No doubt expert controversialists 'night make a certain number of " points " against the Bishop's view, but we are persuaded that his letter exactly represents the feelings of the great mass of the laity.
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