To Whom Should We Repent

When a man undertakes to repent toward his fellowmen, it is repenting
straight up a precipice; when he repents toward law, it is repenting into
the crocodile's jaws; when he repents toward public sentiment, it is
throwing himself into a thicket of brambles and thorns; but when he repents
toward God, he repents toward all love and delicacy. God receives the soul
as the sea the bather, to return it again, purer and whiter than he took it.

Henry Ward Beecher