c" or
"exact" in our terms would only stamp us as lacking in understanding of
our task. Things are more or less divine, states of mind are more or
less religious, reactions are more or less total, but the boundaries
are always misty, and it is everywhere a question of amount and degree.
Nevertheless, at their extreme of development, there can never be any
question as to what experiences are religious. The divinity of the
object and the solemnity of the reaction are too well marked for doubt.
Hesitation as to whether a state of mind is "religious," or
"irreligious," or "moral," or "philosophical," is only likely to arise
when the state of mind is weakly characterized, but in that case it
will be hardly worthy of our study at all. With states that can only
by courtesy be called religious we need have nothing to do, our only
profitable business being with what nobody can possibly feel tempted to
call anything else. I said in my former lecture that we learn most
about a thing when we view it under a microscope, as it were, or in its
most exaggerated form. This is as true of religious phenomena as of
any other kind of fact. The only cases likely to be profitable enough
to repay our attention will therefore be cases where the religious
spirit is unmistakable and extreme. Its fainter manifestations we may
tranquilly pass by. Here, for example, is the total reaction upon life
of Frederick Locker Lampson, whose autobiography, entitled
"Confidences," proves him to have been a most amiable man.

"I am so far resigned to my lot that I feel small pain at the thought
of having to part from what has been called the pleasant habit of
existence, the sweet fable of life. I would not care to live my wasted
life over again, and so to prolong my span. Strange to say, I have but
little wish to be younger. I submit with a chill at my heart. I
humbly submit because it is the Divine Will, and my appointed destiny.
I dread the increase of infirmities that will make me a burden to those
around me, those dear to me. No! let me slip away as quietly and
comfortably as I can. Let the end come, if peace come with it.

"I do not know that there is a great deal to be said for this world, or
our sojourn here upon it; but it has pleased God so to place us, and it
must please me also. I ask you, what is human life? Is not it a
maimed happiness--care and weariness, weariness and care, with the
baseless expectation, the strange cozenage of a