eart drove me about like a slave, telling
me that I must do this and do that, and bear this and bear that, and
turn here and turn there, to keep my credit up, and retain the esteem
of my associates: and all this while I continued as strict as possible
in my duties, and left no stone unturned to pacify my conscience,
watching even against my thoughts, and praying continually wherever I
went: for I did not think there was any sin in my conduct, when I was
among carnal company, because I did not take any satisfaction there,
but only followed it, I thought, for sufficient reasons.

"But still, all that I did or could do, conscience would roar night and
day."

Saint Augustine and Alline both emerged into the smooth waters of inner
unity and peace, and I shall next ask you to consider more closely some
of the peculiarities of the process of unification, when it occurs. It
may come gradually, or it may occur abruptly; it may come through
altered feelings, or through altered powers of action; or it may come
through new intellectual insights, or through experiences which we
shall later have to designate as 'mystical.' However it come, it
brings a characteristic sort of relief; and never such extreme relief
as when it is cast into the religious mould. Happiness! happiness!
religion is only one of the ways in which men gain that gift. Easily,
permanently, and successfully, it often transforms the most intolerable
misery into the profoundest and most enduring happiness.

But to find religion is only one out of many ways of reaching unity;
and the process of remedying inner incompleteness and reducing inner
discord is a general psychological process, which may take place with
any sort of mental material, and need not necessarily assume the
religious form. In judging of the religious types of regeneration
which we are about to study, it is important to recognize that they are
only one species of a genus that contains other types as well. For
example, the new birth may be away from religion into incredulity; or
it may be from moral scrupulosity into freedom and license; or it may
be produced by the irruption into the individual's life of some new
stimulus or passion, such as love, ambition, cupidity, revenge, or
patriotic devotion. In all these instances we have precisely the same
psychological form of event,--a firmness, stability, and equilibrium
{173} succeeding a period of storm and stress and inconsistency. In
these