The psychological phenomena of Christianity

Front matter

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THE PSYCHOLOGICAL PHENOMENA OF CHRISTIANITY

Preface

The attempt to. approach religion from the standpoint of psychology is a matter of comparatively recent endeavor. The serious consideration of this subject has been confined to the last twenty-five years, and America has taken a leading part in the investigations; England, France, and Germany have all made contributions. The titles of some of the earlier volumes published have been far too comprehensive, but it is only natural that a part should be conceived as the whole in the days when a science is young and undeveloped.

Minute investigations concerning some phases of the subject have been made and much of real value has been contributed in this way, but it seemed that some one should essay a summation of the conclusions of these detailed studies, with other material, so that there might be laid before the public an outline of the psychological phenomena of Christianity, covering as nearly as possible the whole field. This is the object of the present volume.

With the exception of a few examples used for comparison or illustration, only the phenomena of Christianity are presented, not because other religions could not furnish instructive and interesting material, but because every religion could provide so much that a mere outline, as this is, would necessitate a volume of equal size, and so it would become too extensive and diversified for our present purpose.

It will be noticed that the whole range of phenomena of Christianity has been included, abnormal and normal, pathological and healthful. In general, the first half is taken up with the abnormal and the latter half with the normal.

viii PREFACE

I have tried to keep in mind, in my writing, the general reader as well as the psychological and theological student, and hope that I have so far succeeded that both classes may find some profit in the reading. It has been my purpose to eschew philosophy and theology, and also to a great extent psychological theory, but two or three theories which seem to me fundamental have been made more or less prominent.

It is my hope to make this the basis of another study in which the theory shall have the more prominent part.

George Barton Cutten.

Columbus, Ohio,

CHAPTER I Theough the Human Mould 3

The Moulder, the Metal, and the Mould — Different forms of the mould explain variety of product — Laws of moulds — Science and Religion — Religion a psychological study — Complex character of psychological study — Need of psychological study by a soul physician — Medical versus theological schools — The theological seminary curriculum — Objections to a psychological study of religion — Data difficult to obtain — Individuality

CHAPTER II The Religious Faculty n

Old idea — Later psychology — Religion for the whole man — Richness of religious experience — Symmetrical functioning of the whole mind needed — The subconsciousness — Its functions — The ally of consciousness — Genius — Sleep — Communication with the subconsciousness — Suggestibility — Over-emphasis and over-valuation of some mental activities — Why is man religious?

CHAPTER III Mysticism 20

Extreme form a matter of temperament — Common to all persons — Prayer — Ecstasy — Definition — Value — Christian and non-Christian mystics — Speculative mysticism — Pantheism — Self-surrender — Unity — Oneness with God — Mystical certainty — Epistemological factor — Value of mysticism — Stages in the mystical experience — Means for acquiring extreme states — Early versus later mystics — Love — Symbolic interpretations — Mystics in churches to-day — Subconsciousness

ix x CONTENTS

CHAPTER IV Ecstasy 37

A common phenomenon — Characteristics — Contagion — Resignation — Insensibility to pain — Non-religious ecstasy — Causes of ecstasy — Oriental means of attaining ecstasy — Primitive methods — A modern case — Forms of ecstasy — Relation of ecstasy to similar states — Analysis of ecstasy — Subconsciousness — Value of ecstasy

CHAPTER V Glossolalia 49

Ambiguity concerning the character of glossolalia — Pentecost and other New Testament references — Paul's valuation of the gift — The modern view — The Catholic Apostolic Church — Mormons — Demoniacal possession — Another explanation — Exalted memory — As a contemporary mania — Apostolic Faith movement — Sleeping preachers — Rachel Baker

CHAPTER VI Visions 60

Visions of the Bible — Importance in the Christian Church — St. Teresa on visions — Value to some individuals — Causes of visions among the hermits — Contents of visions among different people — Vision of the Virgin at Dordogne — Definition — Factors which decide the character of visions — How valued by the different ages — Elements of visions — Visions apart from ecstasy

CHAPTER VII Dreams 71

Value assigned to dreams among primitive people — Veridical and prophetic dreams — Subconscious element in dreams — Immediate stimuli of dreams — Two kinds corresponding to the distinction between hallucinations and illusions — Memory in dreams — Work done in dreams — Example of Coleridge—Supernormal revelation psychologically possible — New Testament and other dreams with religious significance — Dreams during religious awakening

CHAPTER VIII Stigmatization 78

Marks among the ancients — New Testament idea — Stigmatization — St. Francis of Assisi — St. Catherine of Sienna —

CONTENTS xi

PAGE

Dominicans and Franciscans — Explanation — Experiments — Louis V. — A young marine suggestively stigmatized — Other similar cases — Power of the mind over the body — Four divisions of stigmatics — Three possible explanations — Louise Lateau — Professional examination of her case — Mrs. Stuckenborg — Young converts

CHAPTER IX Witchcraft 89

Demoniacal possession and witchcraft — Witchcraft a Christian doctrine — Primitive beliefs — Characteristics of witches — Jane Brooks — Amy Duny and Rose Cullender — Susannah Martin — Mrs. Hicks — The evidence considered — Four kinds — Fraud — Partisanship in Salem — The crime not witchcraft but the denial of the doctrine — Cotton Mather misrepresented — Unreliable evidence — Experts — Torture — Suicide — The witch finder general — Psychological explanation — Looking for causes — Evidence by the accused — Witch spots — Decline in the belief — Final cases

CHAPTER X Demoniacal Possession 104

Belief among Christians to-day — Jesus' relation to demonism — Different theories — Belief among primitive people — New Testament use of the term — Exorcism — Epidemic form of demonism — Different cases — Father Surin — Wesley — Final cases — A case in Ceylon — China — Case of Kwo — Explanation — Double Personality — Heightened memory — Case of Achille — Age, sex and characteristics of demoniacs — Conclusion

CHAPTER XI MONASTICISM AND ASCETICISM Il8

Non-Christian ascetics — Psychological distinction between monk and churchman — Stages of development and characteristics — Results— Self-denial — Value — Negative and positive attitude — Jesus' asceticism — Negative side primary — The body evil— Humility — Confession — Obedience — Poverty — Self-denial and will power— Fasting — Eliminated from modern Protestantism — Value has changed — Fasting girls — Examples — Ann Moore — Psychological value — Visions — Concomitant virtues and vices — Rebellion against fasting — Modern investigations — Solitude — Causes and types — Individual piety — Famous solitary saints — Value — World still necessary — Injurious aspects — Torture — Causes xii CONTENTS

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— Wrong conception of God — Endeavor to cure sensuality — Different views — Mental torture — Value — Henry Suso — Odor of sanctity — Baths — Transfiguration — Women — Chronological table

CHAPTER XII Religious Epidemics 146

Social groups — Waves of movements — Epidemics impossible in early Christianity — Monasticism — Beginnings — Statistics — Exaggeration — Decline — Preparation for later epidemics — Pilgrimages — Causes — Extent — Crusades — Peter the Hermit — Urban II — Council of Clermont — Mobs led by Walter, Peter, Gottschalk, Bolkar, and Enricon — Children's crusades — The German army — The French army — Extent of the movement — Flagellants — Dancing mania — Characteristics and classes — St. John's dance — St. Vitus' dance — Tarantism — Witchcraft— Statistics — Reasons for decline of religious epidemics — Chronological table

CHAPTER XIII Contagious Phenomena 163

Psychology of the crowd — Influence of lack of inhibitory control — Power of imitation — Value of habit of control — Principles laid down by Le Bon — Suggestibility — Leader of a crowd — Collective hallucinations — Examples — Convulsionaries— McDonaldites — Jewish Messiahs — Negroes — Influence of former beliefs — The negro preacher — Phenomena of negro meetings — Example

CHAPTER XIV Revivals 174

Mixture of good and evil — Revivalists cling to the faults — Different kinds of revivals — Early revivals — New England prior to 1734 — Edwards — The Great Awakening — The Wesleyan revival — The Kentucky revival — Character of the preaching — Crowds — Characteristics of the phenomena — Revival of 1832 — Nettleton and Finney — Revival of 1857 — Revival of 1875 — The Welsh revival — Revival in India in 190(5 — Chronological table — Physical manifestations — Revival methods — Emotionalism in revivals — Dangerous results — Character of revivalists — A modern example — The revival a power — Prognostication — Decline — The new revival — Value — Do revivals do any good?

i-

CONTENTS xiii

CHAPTER XV Faith Cure 196

Primitive therapeutics — Egypt — ^Esculapius — Healing a slave to religion — Influence of saints and images — Relics — Absurdity unnoticed — Medicine sinful — Division into religious and mental healing — The king's touch — A modern example — Paracelsus' shrewd words — Relics not necessarily authentic — Three classes of religious healing — Christian shrines — Lourdes and St. Anne de Beaupre — Healers — Greatrakes — Gassner — Healing power — Braid — 111 repute of hypnotism — Psychological explanation — Influence of mind over body — Pain — Subconsciousness — Divine power — Expectancy — Patent Medicines — Placebo — General law

CHAPTER XVI Christian Science 214

Origin — Attraction — Philosophical and Practical — Therapeutics — Lack of diagnosis — Curable cases — Method — Sin and disease — Metaphysical and faith cures — Functional diseases alone to be treated — "Unity" — Testimonials — Suggestion through literature — Value

CHAPTER XVII The Miracles 223

Problem stated — Statistics — Character of miracles — Effect of explanation — Proof of historicity — Miracles duplicated — Unique miracles — Classes versus individual cases — Necessary elements in suggestive therapeutics — Suggestion — Jesus' and Peter's methods — Repeated suggestion — Faith — Three examples — Conclusions

CHAPTER XVIII Conversion 232

Incomplete treatment — Data deficient — Term "conversion" restricted — The Pauline type — Conversion a normal experience^ — A part of a process — Other forms of conversion — Types — Definitions — Unity — Factors — Sense of sin — Jonathan Edwards — Hall — Leuba — The divided self — Doubt — Self -surrender — Physiological explanation — Psychological explanation — The will — Unification — Faith — Results of process — Feeling of newness — Joy, confidence and optixiv CONTENTS mism — New truths — Altruism — Awakening of self — Hopefulness — Annulling of lower temptations — Reasons — Desire for reform — Associations changed — Provides an emotional substitute — Will — Temperamental hindrances — Permanence — Subconsciousness — Temperamental qualifications — Photisms — Hypnotism and conversion — Objections — Subconscious elements essential — Divine element — Works subconsciously — Admissible

CHAPTER XIX Age 262

Types of religion according to age — Horrible examples of the past — Case of Marion Lyle Hurd — Jonathan Edwards' doctrine — A French priest — Hymns of fifty years ago — Modern examples — Sources of the fallacy — Total depravity — Parental ignorance — Children treated as children — Divisions of life — Divisions of childhood — Characteristics of infancy — Credulity and concreteness — Children's ideas of God — From six to nine — From nine to twelve — General deductions regarding childhood— Religion fitted to the form of development — Comparison regarding the race and the B ible — Adolescence — D ivisions — Second birth — Characteristics — Conversion out of time — Religion and adolescence — Subconscious forces — Criticism by adolescent — Doubt — Independence — Need of doubt — Criticism of self — Of life work — Christianity an adolescent religion — Mature religion — Different experiences

CHAPTER XX Sex 284

Psychological distinction between s es — Manifested in religion — Characteristics of sex — Masculine and feminine psychology — Women intellectually inferior — Women volitionally inferior — Men emotionally inferior — Suggestibility — Effects on religion — On conversion phenomena — Women morally superior — Sexual results of leadership — Reasons for sexual differences — Education and development — Organic causes — Gradual change — Greek life masculine — Christianity feminine — Was Jesus effeminate? — The [manliness of Christ — Will — Intellect — Emotions — Mixture of masculine and feminine in Christianity — Post-reformation period — Catholicism and Protestantism contrasted — Causes of modern Christian effeminacy — Early training — Revivals — Worship of luxury

CONTENTS xv

CHAPTER XXI Intellect 302

Intellectual definitions of religion— Intellectual balance— Mystics disparage reason— Connection between intellectuality and religion — Importance of reason — Reason a source — Other contributions — Reformers — Warfare of science and religion — Metaphysics — Analysis of religious belief — Primitive credulity — Intellectual belief — Emotional belief — Criticism — Definition of reason — Nature of belief determined by its object — Doubt — A factor of adolescence — This an age of inquiry — Cases of doubt classified — Faith — Chronological position — Faith-state and faith-belief — Faith vital — Comprehensive^ — Faith rational — Its convictions

Chapter XXII

Distinction between knowledge, belief, and faith — Philosophy involved in knowledge — Psychology not investigating reality — All knowledge the same kind — Degrees of knowledge — Epistemological problems in religion — Growth of religious knowledge — Knowledge uses all departments of the mind — Feeling now prominent in knowledge — The intellect — Interpretation — Solipsism and agnosticism — The feelings — Feeling of certainty — Logical feelings — The mystics — Temperamental considerations — The will — The practical test — Religious knowledge possible and valuable.

Chapter XXIII

Imagination under-valued — Scientific use — Some imaginative qualities in use in all departments of life — Imagination and fancy — Harmony with other mental factors — Subconsciousness — The mystics — Edwards on imagination — Whitefield's controversy — Value — Bushnell on imagination — Reason and imagination — Creating ideals — Use in religion

CHAPTER XXIV Inspiration 342

Inspiration common to all religions — Founders of religions special mediums of revelation — Abnormal phenomena connected with revelation — Development of prophetism — Value of prophets — Subconscious processes — Individuality — Method of inspiration — The mouthpiece of the Infinite — xvi CONTENTS

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Examples — Inspiration verbal or dynamic — Degrees and modes of inspiration — Foretelling — Inspiration suggestive rather than dictatorial — Subconscious factor — Genius — An external power — Inspiration and abnormality — Conscious as well as subconscious factors used — Difference in the kinds of inspiration — All life inspired

CHAPTER XXV Will 358

Return to belief in importance of will — True in religion — Heresy trials — Practical tests — Revival methods — Self-surrender — Incorrect translations — Repentance — Conversion — Jesus' will — Religious effect on a shattered will — Mystical depreciation of will — Religion an emotional outlet — Beliefs — Activity — Factors of will — End — Deliberation — Control — Choice — Effort — Freedom of will — Moral freedom

Chapter XXVI

Emphasis and depreciation of emotions both found to-day — Intellectual and conative factors in emotion — Emotions alone not the source of religion — Difficulty in studying emotions — Revival and solitary type of emotionalism — Religion the cure as well as the inciter of emotionalism — Emotions not uniform in experience — Emotionalism declines as thought advances — Fear — Dark ages — Modern times — Punishment — Decline of fear — Awe and the sublime — Not used by Protestants— ^Esthetic emotions — Art — Love — Mysticism — Conative factor in love — Joy — Joy of sadness — Examples — Edwards and Wellwood — Humility

Chapter XXVII

Emotional — Early Christian worship spontaneous — It became formal — Ambiguity — Temperamental considerations — Abstractions difficult — Intolerant — Danger of replacing Deity by symbols — Form versus real religious life — Protestantism anti-Roman — Ceremonial the seed and fruit of doctrine — Mere externals — Feminine and masculine elements — Valuable factor of worship — Fear versus love — Effects — Sunday — Origin — Rest — Joy — Present lack of Sunday observance — Cure — Music — Protestant hymnology — Incite to emotion rather than to action — The same is true of prayer meeting and revival songs.

CONTENTS xvii

CHAPTER XXVIII Prayer 4° 2

Prayer universal — Why do we pray — Filial attitude — Justification intrinsic — Restrictions of peace and media — The Lord's prayer — Causes for decline of prayer — Petitional prayer — The weather — Influence of prayer — Results of prayer — Subjective value — Reflex effect — Relation to the subconsciousness — Therapeutic value of prayer — Direct answers in sickness — Real influence of prayer — God a companion rather than a giver — Influence of the prayers of others — George Muller — Personal and material answers

CHAPTER XXIX Sexuality 419

Relation between sexuality and religion — Love and religion — Classes of evidence — Christianity and sexuality — Irregularities in primitive Christianity — Some early Protestants — Argument from pathology — Psychological argument — Two phases — Connection between human and divine love — Objection of Prof. Ladd — Connection between sexual and religious life in adolescence — Over emphasis — Hymnology — Objection of Prof. James — Sexual abnormality in religious devotees — Excess — Influence of Revivals — Revival of 1832 and its results — Justification of licentiousness — Spiritual marriage — Marriage between God and the soul — Gradations of mystical experiences — Suso — Gertrude — Marie de lTncarnation — Carnal form of spiritual marriage — Justification — Perfection — Affinities — Biblical warrant — Three contemporaneous movements — Progress of the movements — America — Mormonism — Battle-Axe letter — Davis and Spiritualism — Continence — Castration — Vows — Biblical warrant — Women considered evil — Dispute between Northern and Southern Europe— Praiseworthy self-denial — Influence upon marriage — Violence to human nature — Remedy for clerical licentiousness — Temperamental elements in choosing priesthood — Influence of confession — Moral result — Cruelty — Morbid effects of continence

CHAPTER XXX Denominationalism 456

Necessity of denominationalism — Temperamental considerations — Origin of sects — Symptom of vigor of religion — Originality and spontaneity — Temperamental differences due to heredity and environment — Variation — Many have not found denominational affinity— Roman Catholics and Protxviii CONTENTS

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estants — Authority and emphasis — Men cannot get most out of worship until they find their proper groups — All denominations emphasize some important tenet — Some have had their distinctive tenets universally accepted

CHAPTER XXXI Immortality 465

Psychology and immortality — Destructive — No mind without brain — Explanation — Spiritual body — Prof. James' solution — Spiritism — Prejudice against — Science — Supersensible foundations — Evidence scanty — Telepathy — Its operation — Mr. Myers — Opinions concerning spiritism — Kind of evidence necessary — The investigators — Telepathy and spiritism — Explanation of character of evidence already obtained

CHAPTER XXXII Preaching 477

Importance of preaching — Is it declining? — The personality of the preacher — Interest and attention — Voluntary and spontaneous attention — Personality — Earnestness — New and old subjects — Suggestive preaching — Fluctuation of attention— Variety — Rhythm — Uniformity of — Factors of — The crowd — Conditions favorable for changing audiences into crowds — Limitation of voluntary movements — The leader — Fitting the sermon to the crowd — Affirmation — Reaction — Mental imagery — Arousing emotion — Expression of emotion — Laws of — Attraction of

Index of Subjects 495

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL PHENOMENA OF CHRISTIANITY

THE

PSYCHOLOGICAL PHENOMENA

OF CHRISTIANITY

Chapter I

"What a piece of work is man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a God!" — Shakespeare.

Have you ever watched the iron moulder or the worker in bronze? The hour for casting has arrived; the glowing, molten mass is carried in large vessels by clanging, creaking cranes to the huge moulds which seem to cover the floor; or strong-armed men bear hand-ladles, filled to the brim with liquid metal from the same furnace, and pour it into lesser moulds which stand ready to receive it. Presently the bands are loosened, the boxes are removed, and behold the product ! The same moulder, the same charge, but how dissimilar the results ! It is the mould which is responsible for the difference.

For thousands of years men have tried to fathom the profound mysteries of religion by speculating concerning the Moulder and the metal, but not until the eighteenth century did they think of examining the mould. This seems the more incomprehensible when we consider that the mould — the human mind — was the factor which was the most easily accessible for definite study and exact knowledge. It appears to be the natural starting-place instead of the final subject in the examination. But it is ever thus — distance lends enchantment, and the comparatively unattainable is always attractive. The Holyoke resident rushes across sea and land to obtain the view from the Swiss Alps, but has never ascended Mt. Tom; we go farther to fare worse.

When we consider the mould, several things become apparent. We think of God, the Moulder, as the Father of Lights, with whom is no variableness; we consider His revelation and His grace as constant toward all men; why, then, the difference in religious experience? Why the primitive nature worship and the exalted Christianity in the same world? Why the childish credulity, the adolescent doubt, and the mature, reasonable faith in the same person ? Why the different forms of Christianity as exhibited by the several denominations? It depends on the mould. We cannot understand how the mystic and the ecstatic can be embracing the same religion as the rationalist, if we consider only the Moulder and the metal, but the explanation is plain when we examine the capacity and form of the mould. With an exact knowledge of the minds of men we can prognosticate what form of expression the religious life will take in a particular case, for this is the one variable quantity. It is this that is meant when it is said that man is the maker of his religion. It might be still more definitely said that each man is the maker of his own religion, i. e., that his religion is moulded according to the characteristics of his soul.

We must not think, however, because moulds are different that they do not conform to any laws. There are laws of moulds as there are laws of metals. It is because of the science of psychology and the well known laws of mental action that we can study religion from the human standpoint. True, religion has been tangled with all forms of abnormal, and even insane, mental vagaries, yet we recognize laws of abnormality as we do of normal processes, and we may separate the dross from the metal.

Among the first to direct attention to the psychological study of religion was Schleiermacher. He was interested in the emotional nature of religion and made some shrewd observations concerning this phase of the subject. But this was rather the result of the Zeitgeist than an original and novel innovation on his part, for with the genesis of scientific development it was inevitable that a scientific study of religion should occur. There is no other domain of human experience so universal and profound as religion, and the allpervading scientific spirit must reach it. Although about a century has elapsed since that time, comparatively little has been accomplished, for our ways change slowly and our prejudices die hard. Some religious leaders have always feared science — feared that the development of science would result in the disintegration of religion. This cannot be. They are both manifestations of the same God, and instead of being antagonistic they are friendly and helpful. True, science may destroy theory and dogma, but such of these as it annihilates are best eliminated from our systems. Facts are solid rock on which we can build, or the same solid rock will prove an impregnable barrier against which we shall hurl our opposition in vain.

The study of religion is always essentially psychological. Whatever else can be predicated of religion, we must admit that it consists of a great variety of mental experiences, and of mental experiences only. We must take for granted that these mental states may be examined, analyzed, and described as other mental states may be, and this without reference to dogmatic theology. Theology has, in the past, endeavored to prove what mental states the religious person must have; psychology now assumes the task of observing what these states actually are.

The facts in the religious life — the psychological data — form a foundation on which theology must build, for it is only as we examine the products of the moulds, as variable as they may be, that we can hope to understand the nature of the material or the design of the Moulder. The modern psychological and pedagogical method is from the known to the unknown, L e.y in this case from man to God. the ancient theological method was from the unknown to the known. By resting our theories upon the facts we obtain exactness, and thereby rid theology of the superstition with which it has abounded. Chance, which formerly seemed to play an important r61e in religion, is now only useful as a mathematical fiction.

In applying the methods of science to religion there may be needed a word of warning. The phenomena of material science are comparatively simple and its laws proportionately easy to discover. When, however, these same methods are applied to mental phenomena, which are vastly more complex and the laws of which are more obscure and elusive, there is great need of severely testing every hypothesis and theory by the facts and sacrificing any which do not stand the test. If we find this necessary in dealing with psychology, ethics, sociology, and history, it is still more important when we are dealing with religion, which involves questions, not only of man's whole complex nature, but of his still more complex and mysterious dealings with God.

The psychological standpoint is not only important but indispensable for the religious worker, whether preacher or teacher. No amount of goodness or devotion can take its place. To the medical man, not therapeutics, but diagnosis, is the chief matter of concern to-day. If he knows definitely what is the trouble with the patient there is some hope of cure. The same thing is even more true with those who are concerned in "the cure of souls." The difference between the physician and the minister is this : the medical schools are doing all they can to instruct their pupils in this important branch of knowledge, the theological seminaries comparatively nothing. Years ago the witch doctor and the medicine man had one prescription for every disease, and to-day the nostrum vender and the proprietary medicine men are getting wealthy by the same means. But we recognize this as neither scientific nor conforming to ordinary common sense. Does the seminary course lead to similar training ?

Suppose a school of medicine to start with a curriculum containing adequate courses in chemistry and the compounding of drugs in the most elaborate way, the best methods of sugar-coating pills and administering doses, the history of medicine from ^Esculapius to the present time, a description of superficial pathology, analytical study of the lectures of famous and successful physicians, gynaecology, and similar courses, but absolutely nothing on gross anatomy, histology, or physiology, and consequently little or no surgery, how would such an abbreviated and deformed course be received by competent medical men or even by the average public? To ask the question is to answer it. The query would be, "Of what use is the part which you do get if you leave out the other ? How will you use your drugs if you know nothing of the different organs of the body and their functions?" These would be sensible and cogent questions. I do not criticise what is taught — far from it ; these things ought ye to teach, but ye should not leave untaught the other things.

What does the ordinary seminary graduate know of the histology, anatomy, physiology, or surgery of the soul? Absolutely nothing. He must stumble along through years of trying experience and look back over countless mistakes before he understands these things even in a general way. What does the ordinary graduate understand about doubt? It is all classed together, whether in adolescents or in hardened sinners, and one dose is applied. What does the graduate know about sexuality, so closely allied with certain forms of religious manifestations ? What about ecstasy in its various forms, the numerous methods of faith cure thrust upon an illiterate but credulous people, or the significance or insignificance of visions and dreams ?

The seminary student is taught ancient languages, which are excellent, but I am afraid a great many Hebrew Bibles need dusting. He is now taught sociology — the history and idiosyncrasies of races and crowds — but he goes out and meets but one race, and never sees a crowd except at a fire. What he does see and with what he has to deal are individual men with their different spiritual diseases, yet how many are prepared for this ? The same question may be asked of the Sunday-school teacher, who has similar work and problems, and we must suggest the same answer. The psychological view-point, the study of men and their religious experiences, is the only solution.