Penitent groups went from town to town, calling on people to change their lives.

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Designed to be used in the confessional , this app is the perfect aid for every penitent.

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By the seventeen-eighties, Newton was living as a penitent and a monk in a small Anglican church in London.

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In the church courtyard it is hard to miss "One Leg Thomas" as he calls himself, dispensing blessings to penitent pilgrims.

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Rothkopf, who was a Deputy Under-Secretary of Commerce during the Clinton Administration and is now a globe-trotting consultant, writes as a quasi-penitent member of this group.

NEWYORKER: Evening the Odds

Done skilfully, his could be an apology on behalf of the over-profligate nation as much as to it in the manner of a penitent husband, who invites his wife for mutual counselling with a view to everyone behaving better in future.

ECONOMIST: Bagehot

On Friday, John Mack , chief executive of Morgan Stanley (nyse: MS - news - people ), and usually one of Wall Street's top paid, became the latest to perform the penitent ritual of forgoing an annual bonus.

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