f what we find outside of conversion that we are tempted to
class them along with other automatisms, and to suspect that what makes
the difference between a sudden and a gradual convert is not
necessarily the presence of divine miracle in the case of one and of
something less divine in that of the other, but rather a simple
psychological peculiarity, the fact, namely, that in the recipient of
the more instantaneous grace we have one of those Subjects who are in
possession of a large region in which mental work can go on
subliminally, and from which invasive experiences, abruptly upsetting
the equilibrium of the primary consciousness, may come.

I do not see why Methodists need object to such a view. Pray go back
and recollect one of the conclusions to which I sought to lead you in
my very first lecture. You may remember how I there argued against the
notion that the worth of a thing can be decided by its origin. Our
spiritual judgment, I said, our opinion of the significance and value
of a human event or condition, must be decided on empirical grounds
exclusively. If the fruits for life of the state of conversion are
good, we ought to idealize and venerate it, even though it be a piece
of natural psychology; if not, we ought to make short work with it, no
matter what supernatural being may have infused it.

Well, how is it with these fruits? If we except the class of
preeminent saints of whom the names illumine history, and consider only
the usual run of "saints," the shopkeeping church-members and ordinary
youthful or middle-aged recipients of instantaneous conversion, whether
at revivals or in the spontaneous course of methodistic growth, you
will probably agree that no splendor worthy of a wholly supernatural
creature fulgurates from them, or sets them apart from the mortals who
have never experienced that favor. Were it true that a suddenly
converted man as such is, as Edwards says,[125] of an entirely
different kind from a natural man, partaking as he does directly of
Christ's substance, there surely ought to be some exquisite class-mark,
some distinctive radiance attaching even to the lowliest specimen of
this genus, to which no one of us could remain insensible, and which,
so far as it went, would prove him more excellent than ever the most
highly gifted among mere natural men. But notoriously there is no such
radiance. Converted men as a class are indistinguishable from natural
men; some natural men even