f a truth, it is not _ecstasy_ which characterizes the saints; it is
the real and victorious struggle of the higher against the lower
nature.

* * * * *

=Morality and religion=.--It is well known that in strong religious
impressions, such as the crises of what is called conversion, the
phenomenon is characterized by "an inner light," an "order" which
suddenly establishes itself, and by means of which that which was
before unseen becomes manifest: the distinction between good and evil,
and hence the revelation of oneself. Indeed, the converted, at the
moment when the revelation takes place, seem little concerned with
divinity, or dogmas, or rites; they are persons given over to a
violent commotion, who seem forgetful of all their physical and
intellectual life, and who are absorbed in contemplation of themselves
in relation to a central point of their consciousness, which seems to
be illuminated by some prodigious radiance. The cry of the convert in
the majority of cases is: "I am a sinner!" It seems as if darkness had
fallen away from him, together with all the evil which was corroding,
weakening, and suffocating him, and which at length he saw, when it
was separated from him, terrible, obscure, and full of hideous
dangers. It is this which agitates him, and makes him weep; it is this
which urges him to seek some one who can understand, comfort, and help
him. The converted want help, as do the newly born; they weep and
struggle like men who are born to a new life, and who are restrained
by no human respect, by no restriction. It is their own life they
feel; and the value of their own life seems to them greater than the
riches and convenience of the whole world. They feel an ecstasy of
relief at having escaped from a great peril; their chief anxiety is
that they may be liberated from the evil that oppresses them. Before
they can take another step forward they are obliged to reconsider the
terrible time when evil was rooted within them, and they felt nothing
of it.

"And as a man with difficult short breath
Forespent with toiling, 'scaped from sea to shore,
Turns to the perilous wide waste, and stands
At gaze; e'en so my spirit that yet fail'd
Struggling with terror, turn'd to view the straits
That none hath past and lived."
(Carey's translation of Dante's _Inferno_, Canto I.)

This evil had held captive all the treasures of the spirit, which, set
free at last,