CONFESSION. T HAT confession often seems good for the soul we
do not doubt for a moment. That it is a comfort to the per- plexed, and an immediate relief to those who are heavily bur- dened in spirit, is indeed the experience of all Christians in all ages. That being so, is it to be wondered that the right to confess, and due provision for the hearing of confessions, are claimed by numbers of men and women, and that certain of the more active and energetic among the High Church clergy desire to make a wider use of confession as a spiritual instru- ment P They see the satisfaction which is obtained by the act of confession, and therefore its attractiveness, and they not unnaturally wish to gain for religion all the advantages of that attractiveness. Some of them may no doubt, consciously or unconsciously, advocate the use of confession because of the vastly increased power and influence it gives to the clergy, but in the majority of cases we are sure that this is not the motive. The desire is to give the Church another and what seems at first sight to be a most effective method of increasing and deepening the spiritual life of its members. Here is a form of lifebelt which will help thousands of souls; why not employ it P That is, we are convinced, the feeling which ordi- narily inspires those who desire to make use of confession in the English Church. But strong as is this desire among certain Englishmen to make use of confession as an aid to religion and the higher spiritual life, far stronger is the instinctive horror of confession felt by the mass of ordinary men and women in this country. They may not be able to give any very coherent account of their aversion, but that they feel it cannot be doubted. It is a case of horror naturalis.
In our opinion, this instinctive dread of, and shrinking from, confession is, for Englishmen at any rate, entirely justifiable. We have no hostility to confession in the abstract, and indeed are perfectly well able to understand how many and how great are the spiritual advantages that ought to be derived from it. Yet in spite of that, we should most deeply regret to see it assume any large proportions in the religious life of the English people. Of course, the moment one attempts to come to close quarters with the subject of confession it becomes clear that what must be objected to is the confessional rather than con- fession. No religious man can object to confession per se,—to the act, thatia, of telling to another your sins, your doubts, your perplexities and trials, your fears and temptations, and askia him for sympathy and advice. To forbid such nnorganise spontaneous confession is obviously an absolute impossibili But when we come to the confessional as an institution, an see it regarded as a regular and organised part of Christia0 life, as a duty to be strictly and methodically accomplished, i has entirely altered its character. To confess at a mom of great spiritual need is one thing. It is quite another make a regular practice of pouring out the secrete of the so to one who has been specially designated to hear such on pourings. Under such circumstances, it cannot be but t confession changes its character. The regular telling the soul's history—we do not, of course, fall into the error supposing that the confession means a mere catalogue of a' —and the regular hearing of such histories is bound to p duce a certain atmosphere of conventionality and unreali in both teller and hearer. But the spiritual objections re regular and systematic confession, that is, to the confessional as an instrument of religion—quite apart from the civic objeo tions, which we do not propose to deal with to-day, thougl they are many and important—do not stop here. We cannot doubt that repeated outpourings of the spirit made at regular intervals to another person debilitate, and may ever demoralise, a man's nature. The original " outpourings " of the earlier Puritans came straight from the heart, and did not harm, but good, to the men who used them. But when they became a regular and accepted practice, sophistry, pride, self-consciousness, and, lastly, hypocrisy, simple or inverted, crept in, and the men who were always "engaging" became debilitated and injured in mind. They "testified" when they had really nothing to "testify" about, and when they would have done much better by remaining silent. Sc with the habitual use of confession. The ordinary man who gete in the way of constantly confessing is in danger of weakening and sophisticating his conscience. The fact that the confession is secret will not matter. It is as great a triumph to imprese one man with your awful spiritual temptations, or potential depravity, or potential holiness, or marvellous power of resisting sin, or capacity for self-torture, as a whole company. But confession is, of course, only half the matter of the confessional. Behind it stands the claim to pronounce absolution. No doubt in theory that absolution will not be pronounced, and, at any rate, cannot be effectual unless the true and real and inner repentance has taken place, which ie the only remedy for sin. But men and women cannot alwaye feel sure that they are penitent. It is far easier to consider oneself truly penitent when helped by a little discipline, or after one has expressed one's own belief in one's penitence and had that belief endorsed by the priest. Hence the power of absolution has an immense attractive force. Again, it is true that all educated people know that if they commit a sin with the intention of confessing it later, and then repenting and obtaining absolution, they are guilty of the most awful of sins. In spite of that, however, and in a measure unconsciously, men and women will venture nearer the precipice of temptation because at the back of their minds is the feeling that if thing go wrong they will be able to pour the whole tale into kind and sympathetic, even if stern, ears, and gain an instant relief But, it will be said, even if this is so, the confessional does nc harm. The man may not be restrained, but if there were nc confessional he would not do better. In our opinion, this h not the case. To the religious man the thought of facing, in a silence that none will break, the question of whether his penitence is real, and whether God will forgive, is far more terrible, and so far more of a deterrent, than the thought of having to make admissions of guilt to a tender-hearted fellow man. Men fly from conscience to the confessional, as the more lenient Tribunal, and so abdicate a right and shirk a duty that they ought to face. No, doubt in certain special and abnormal cases of mental self .torture confession may produce excellent results, and may save men from the horror and misery of those dark hours which the Puritans experienced,—hours which played so great a part in the early life of Cromwell. Yet on certain natures these darl hours have a strengthening effect, and at any rate it is a ver: doubtful question if these exceptional men are to be helpee at the risk of weakening and demoralising the natures whicl use confession as a kind of spiritual dram-drinking. At th best, confession is a dangerous medicine, which ought only k be used most sparingly,—a poison which may sometimes care
but can never be used as a food.—We know, of course, that the skilled confessors say they can detect the spiritual dram- drinkers at once, and that they deal with them sternly, but we very much doubt the truth of their assertion.
The experience of parents may be cited to afford yet another illustration of how demoralising is the effect of habitual and constant confession. Nothing seems more natural or more proper than for fathers or mothers to urge their children to confess promptly when they have done wrong, and to assure them that if they are really sorry for what they have done and make a clean breast of it they will always be forgiven. When such confessions are strictly kept to real offences nothing could be better. But the parent soon finds that it is necessary to keep these confessions very much under control and very narrowly limited. If not, a sort of nursery confessional soon grows up, and the child takes to a daily and most objection- able exposition of its baby misdemeanours. The offences are not exactly invented, but they are largely exaggerated, and there is a mawkish and enfeebling delight shown in the double act of confession and forgiveness. As in children, so in grown-up people it will be found that habitual and regular confession makes things too easy for the offender. Hence we hold that the instinctive English dislike of the confessional and of systematic confession hearing and making is sound and well founded, however ignorantly and offensively that dislike is sometimes expressed. The danger is not so much of family life being interfered with, and of the occasional bad clergy- man spreading the corruption of his own nature in a specially odious and degrading way, for such cases can occur quite well without the confessional, but of men and women having their spiritual strength and vigour sapped by constant and hysterical outpourings made to one who is very likely out of kindness of heart and a desire to help and console in- clined to stimulate rather than discourage the demoralising process.
Are we, then, to conclude that confession is to be abso- lutely and entirely condemned under all possible circum- stances? That is not our conclusion. We hold that in this case, as in so many others, the English Church has hit the true mean, and given its true place to con- fession. As Canon Gore points out in his very interesting letter in Tuesday's Times, the Church of England recognises and provides for the use of confession, but only "within care- fully guarded limits." Canon Gore, we are glad to see, entirely repudiates any plan of making confession obligatory on communicants—to do so would infallibly destroy the English Church—but we think for the reasons we have given above that he goes a good deal too far in his general apology for confession. He seems to see the spiritual advantages which we readily admit, but to ignore the spiritual drawbacks. He admits the liabilities to abase and the disappointments, but he does not touch on the spiritual dangers of confession even if all possibility of scandal were avoided, and if the voluntariness of confession were entirely established. By all means let us have such confession as the Prayer-book allows, the confession which is occasional and limited, unorganised and spontaneous; but let us avoid any stimulus to confession or any appearance of a regularly instituted confessional. The Church of England has not absolutely con- demned confession, for she could not do so without a capital error in the understanding of human nature, but she has most carefully prevented the growth of the confessional as an institution. In that, as in so many other compromises and acts of comprehension, she is wise, and may be content to endure the railings of those who say that she tries to face all ways at once. As we have said above, it is very tempting to keep the lifebelt of confession always at hand and in use, but it is far better to teach men to swim. Those who trust to cork jackets are not so well provided as those who have learnt to rely on their own powers.
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