From time to time it is possible to have voluntary services, and attendance at Holy Communion should always be voluntary, not only in name but in fact.  On the whole it is better that a boy who neglects this duty should go on neglecting it, than that those who come should feel that their presence is noted with approval or the reverse.

But it is different with the daily service.  Irksome it may sometimes be, not only to boys; but half its virtue lies in the fact that all are there in body and may sometimes be there in spirit too.  The familiarity of the oft-repeated prayers and the oft-sung hymns leads to inattention perhaps, but seldom, it may be hoped, to callousness; religious emotion may only occasionally be stirred but the thread of natural piety, binding man to man and man to God, is strengthened, as fresh strands are added.  At the least it may be claimed for the chapel services that they rescue from our hours of business some minutes each day in which our thoughts are free to make their way to the throne of God.  Christ’s promise to bring rest to those who come to him has been fulfilled in many a school chapel.  Those of us who have had to pass through the valley of sorrow and temptation and loneliness—­and who has not?—­know that this is no mean claim.  Boys, even men, often grumble at what they really value.  To do so is our national defect, misleading to the onlooker.  The truth is, we are so fearful of being accused of casting our pearls before swine, that we 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.