"Mrs. Mallory did not undo the fact of her lapse from absolute truthfulness by telling you of it, in a way which she must have known would cause you both mortification and pain. She simply added to the sin of untruthfulness, the sins of ingratitude, and of inconsideration for the feelings of another. Had she forged your signature to a cheque, she would have been right to confess it; because confession would have been a necessary step toward restitution. All confession which rights a wrong, is legitimate and essential. Confession which merely lays a burden upon another, is morbid and selfish. The loneliness of a conscience under conviction, bearing in solitude the burden of acute remembrance of past sins, is a part of the punishment those sins deserve. Then—into that loneliness—there comes the comfort of the thought: 'He Who knows all, understands all; and He Who knows and understands already, may be fully told, all.' And, no sooner is that complete confession made, than there breaks the radiance of the promise, shining star-like in the darkness of despair: 'If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.' Mrs. Mallory could thus have got back into the light of restored communion, without ever mentioning the matter to you.

"But this kind of mind is so difficult to help, because its lapses are due to a lack of straightforward directness, which would be, to another mind, not an effort, but an instinct.

"Such people stand in a chronic state of indecision, at perpetual cross-roads; and are just as likely to take the wrong road, as the right; then, after having travelled far along that road, are pulled up by complications arising, not so much from the predicament of the moment, as from the fact that they vacillated into the wrong path at the crucial time when they stood hesitating. They need Elijah's clarion call to the people of Israel: 'How long halt ye between two opinions? If the Lord be God, follow Him; but, if Baal, then follow him'—honest idolatry being better than vacillating indecision.

"This species of mental lameness reminds me of a man I knew at college, who had one leg longer than the other. He was no good at all at racing on the straight; but, round the grass plot in the centre of one of our courts, no one could beat him. He used to put his short leg inside, and his long leg out, and round and round he would sprint, like a lamplighter. People who halt between two opinions always argue in a circle, but never arrive at any definite conclusion. They are no good on the straight. They find themselves back where they originally started. They get no farther.