often pretend, even to ourselves, that what we know to be the most
precious pearl in our possession is valueless.

Most masters and boys would agree that, in the few weeks preceding
confirmation, the religious life is deepest and most sincere. There is
a moving of the waters then, and many make the effort, and step in,
and are made whole for the time at all events. As to what exactly goes
on in the mind of anyone at such a time there can be no certainty.
There is the obvious danger of a reaction, and, guard against it as
one may, it exists and sometimes leads to disaster; but there is
another danger to which the schoolmaster is then liable, it is the
danger of making confirmation an occasion for much talk on sexual
difficulties. The existence of these should be faced, but at any time
rather than at confirmation, except so far as they occur quite
naturally in dealing with the commandments.

It is a real disaster for a child to associate this time, when he
should be trying to shoulder enthusiastically his responsibilities as
a citizen of God's Kingdom upon earth, with any particular sin. He
must indeed overcome evil, but he must overcome it with good. It is on
good that his eyes should be fixed. It is towards the Lord of all that
is good that his heart should be uplifted. Anyone who has had to do
with this time knows what it means in a boy's religious life, how
reluctant he is to speak of it, how perilous it is to disturb his
reluctance by inquisitive question or excessive exhortation. He knows,
too, how much his own nature has gained by contact at such times with
the reverent stirrings of less world-stained souls, how wondrous has
been the spiritual refreshment that has come to him from the
unconscious witness of the younger heart.