"But what was of the chief importance to me at this time was, being in a house and with company, where, if subjects of religion were not so much put before me as with Mr. Godley, and if I was not constantly exhorted and encouraged in simple piety, I and my fellow pupils felt that no word of immorality would have been anywise tolerated. Prayers were daily read in the family, the service of the Church was performed with zeal and regularity, the Sunday was strictly observed, and a prominent part of our instruction was on matters of religion. It was also to me an invaluable benefit, that the companion with whom I was principally associated, during the chief part of my time at Dunton, was one who, like me, after a careful education at home, where he had imbibed religious feelings, had gone through the corruptions of another public school, but was now, like me, happy to find himself in purer air. "With him I was confirmed at Easter, 1816, by Dr. Howley, then Protestant Bishop of London, now Archbishop of Canterbury. It was an incalculable blessing to me, slave as I was to false shame, and cowardly as I was to resist against bold iniquity, that I now had had a period granted me, as it were, to breathe and gain a little vigour again, before the second cruel and more ruinous devastation which my poor heart was shortly to undergo. I prepared seriously for my confirmation, and for receiving the Sacrament from time to time, and recovered much of my former good practices of private devotion. I remember especially to have procured once more a manual of prayers, and during the last months of my stay at Dunton I spent a long time in self-examination by the table of sins in that book, somewhat similar to our Catholic preparation for confession. But, alas! I could go no further than the preparation. Oh! the great enemy of our souls knew well what he was {21} doing in abolishing confession. As before, when I first lost my innocence and piety at Eton, confession would, I am convinced, have preserved me from that fall; so now that I was almost recovering from the fall, if I had had the ear of a spiritual father to whom I might with confidence have discovered the wounds of my poor soul, he would have assisted me utterly to extirpate the remains of those evil habits of my heart. He would have shown me what I knew so imperfectly, the horrible danger of the state in which I had been so near eternal damnation; he would have made me feel that holy shame for my sins, which would have overcome that false earthly shame by which I still was ready to be mastered; and he would, in short, have poured in that balm and oil which the ministers of God possess, to heal, and strengthen, and comfort me for my future trials, so that I might have stood firm against my enemies. But it pleased Thee, O my God, that once more, by such sad experience, I should have occasion to