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Show APPROVED CONFESSIONAL Remarkable Sermon Delivered Twenty Years Ago . by Minister Lately Deceased. A tribute to the late Rev. E. R. Donehoo. pastor pas-tor of the West End Presbyterian church of Pittsburg, Pitts-burg, by the Observer (Catholic), of that ci-.v. prompted a reader to send the editor a copy of a sermon by the deceased, who during his thirty-four years' pastorate expressed great admiration for the Catholic church, and who was an advocate of Irish freedom. The sermon, which was delivered over twenty years ago. was in part, as follows: "Confess your sins one to another." James v., 1(3. ' One of the hard things to do is to make amen Is for an injury done to a fellow-man. The conviction convic-tion that we are the offending parties does not always al-ways drive us to the confession that we were in the wrong. The courage demanded to ask forgiveness forgive-ness of a brother is purer and nobler than that which nerves one to face death at the cannon's mouth. If the secrets locked up in the human heart were all laid here, what a host of generous thoughts which died unborn would be disclosed, what n vast array of sins against our fellow-man would come to light which had remained uncon-fessed uncon-fessed when we were fully alive to the necessity of making the proper apology. We all have our faults. So palpable is this truth that the saying has grown trite and commonplace. common-place. It is mostly used in the way of apology and to palliate our guilt, if not to actually condone the offense altogether. The most inveterate thief in prison excuses himself on .the plea that everybody 6teals when they get a chance. Political corrup-tionista corrup-tionista think nothing of defrauding the public, alleging al-leging as they do that others would act in the same way if they haopened to be sharp enough to see their opportunity. Conceded that all have their faults, the fact cannot be advanced in mitigation miti-gation of guilt, but rather as an aggravation of it. As society is constituted the liability, to offense is constantly imminent, no matter how carefully we may guard against it. The man who sets out to please everybody is brought up short when he lea?t expects it, and about the most melancholy failure in this w:6rld is the man who is always fearful that he may say or do something aggressive lest somebody some-body will be shocked. You cannot defend ajiy cause" without offending some one. These timorous people who have no positive convictions on any subject, but insist on agreeing with us as did Po-lonius Po-lonius with Hamlet, are a nuisance in any societv; this very harmlessness exasperates those who arc obliged to associate with theml Do your best and after all you will have occasion often to' bewail your shortcomings in this particular and ample op- f portunit to put into effect the grace of confession. confes-sion. The obligation to make confession one to another. an-other. This does not mean that we are to blazon our turpitude before the whole world. We have had too many proofs of the worthlessnes3 of such confessions to be deceived by them. In religious and temperance revivals many have gloried in their evil deeds and unblushingly proclamied them in the ears of all who would listen to the recital, only to go back to their old ways when the excitement had died out. Some people pray in stich an abject and self-condemnatory way, charging themselves with all manner of sins, that if we dared to repeat what they accused themselves of we would doubtless doubt-less subject ourselves to a suit for libel of character. charac-ter. If we were to judge from the subsequent life and the little that comes of such confessions we would not attach much value to them. When a man cheats me, the best evidence I can have of his penitence is his restitution of what he had unlawfully un-lawfully appropriated to himself. It is a habit with some of our Protestant zealots to decry the confessional of the Catholic church. It has been pronounced an invention of the evil one, designated designat-ed to deceive and corrupt the young and unsuspecting unsus-pecting and to hold the devotees of that faith in an iron grasp. I have never known of a single fact which would lead me to suspect that such base use had been made of the secrets confided under such circumstances. I do know of cases where the guilty have been induced to make restitution and the tempted to turn back from the path which lead to ruin. In our eagerness to get as far away as possible from the ehurch of Rome we have gone to the extreme ex-treme of refaining from all confession to pastor, or friend, or enemy. By such a course we lose the benefit of his wise counsel and helpful sympathy. It does us good to tell one in which we can confide our infirmities and follies, just as James has advised, ad-vised, j It is inconceivable that a frank apology to one whom we have injured can lower us in their estimation. esti-mation. It will certainly elevate us in our own, a3 it will also constrain the. world to respect us. There are victories within the reach of every one which are grander in their consequences and more glorious glori-ous in the sight of God and the angels than ever were achieved on tented field. Overcome the pride and selfishness which hold you back from doing justice to all mankind, and you have won a victory the fruits of which shall be exhibited when the triumphs tri-umphs on earth's battlefields have perished out of mind. |