As Mayor points out, James expands the words of Jesus about forgiving those who have trespassed against us (Matt. 5:23 f.; 6:14), so as to bring out both sides of the subject. Let the sick man ask forgiveness of those whom he has wronged. Then let them forgive him and pray for him. “Pray one for another.” The Roman Catholics—Bellarmine, for instance—sometimes appeal to this passage as a justification for auricular confession to the priest; but Luther has a pointed answer: “A strange confessor. His name is ‘One Another.’” Cajetan “speaks the language of common sense” (Mayor) and admits that James has no such custom in mind. What James urges is public confession, in particular to those wronged, not private and secret confession to a priest. The Roman Catholic confessional is one of the most dangerous of ecclesiastical institutions. It puts untold power for harm into the hands of the priest. It is difficult to conceive how a husband or father could be willing for wife or daughter to make secret confession to a priest. The abuses of the confessional make a horrible chapter in human history. Not merely are things wrung out that should not be told, but evil is suggested that would never be thought of. The original form of absolution was “precatory rather than declaratory” (Plummer). But it is a great good to the soul to open the heart and make a frank confession to the church or to the persons who have been injured. Great sorrow would be avoided if men would only have the manhood to do this thing. Tertullian (On Penance viii) well says, “Confession of sins lightens as much as concealment aggravates them.” Confession of sin was one of the cardinal tenets in the preaching of John the Baptist. The Romanists demanded penance for sins publicly confessed, and private enmity (Plummer) took advantage of it for purposes of revenge. Then it is a good time to pray “that ye may be healed.” Then the power of God is with men to heal both soul and body. Many a revival has started in a church because those who have been estranged have buried the hatchet and seen eye to eye again. There is power in prayer when the soul is open to God, as can be true only when hate disappears from the heart. “The supplication of a righteous man availeth much in its working,” “the prayers of the righteous have a powerful effect” (Moffatt).