symbol, being constantly in view, must
keep her attention fixed on its natural object, and continually remind
her of the gratitude she owed the Creator for having taken her into his
service, made her partaker of his most valuable blessings, and employed
her as the passive instrument in the exertion of his most beneficial
power. The female organs of generation were revered as symbols of the
generative power of nature or matter, as the male's were of the
generative powers of God."[91]

[91] Knight: _The Worship of Priapus_, p. 27, _et seq._

CHAPTER III.

THE PSYCHICAL CORRELATION OF RELIGIOUS EMOTION AND SEXUAL DESIRE.

That there exists a relationship between the cultivated ethical emotion,
religious feeling, and the essentially natural physio-psychical
function, sexual desire or _libido_, is a fact noticed and commented on
by many thinkers and writers. The literature of the subject is, however,
exceedingly fragmentary and disconnected, no author (as far as I have
been able to determine) having devoted as much as one thousand words to
the consideration of this very interesting psychical phenomenon. Hence,
my data have been gathered from many sources, which are as diversified
as they are numerous.

Beyond a question of doubt, man becomes religiously enthused most
frequently either early in life, when pubescence is, or is about to be,
established, or late in life, when sexual desire has become either
entirely extinct or very much abated. Young boys and girls are
exceedingly impressionable at, or just before, puberty, and are apt to
embrace religion with the utmost enthusiasm. A distinguished evangelist
declares that "men and women seldom or never enter into the kingdom of
God after they have arrived at maturity. Out of a thousand converts,
seven hundred are converted before they are twenty years old."[92]

[92] B. Fay Mills, _Sermon to Young Men and Young Women_, at
Owensboro, Ky., May 20, 1894.

The Roman Catholic church is keenly alive to these facts, therefore
requires the rite of confirmation to be administered, if possible, to
its would-be communicants at, or before, the age of puberty.[AE]

[AE] This knowledge is not confined to the Catholic church alone;
in all denominations the pubescent human being is considered most
susceptible to religious influences. The cause or _raison d 'etre_
of this susceptibility is, by no means, generally recognized.

Of all the insa