o cruelty."[99]

Even so orthodox a writer as the Rev. S. Baring-Gould points out that--

"The existence of that evil, which, knowing the constitution of man, we
should expect to find prevalent in mysticism, the experience of all ages
has shown following, dogging its steps inevitably. So slight is the film
that separates religion from sensual passion, that uncontrolled
spiritual fervour roars readily into a blaze of licentiousness."[100]

No useful purpose would be served by lengthening this list of citations.
Enough has been said to show that the point of view expressed is one
endorsed by many sober, competent, and responsible observers. There
exists among them a general, and one may add a growing, recognition of
the important truth that the connection between religious and sexual
feeling is of the closest character, and that one is very often mistaken
for the other. Asceticism, usually taken as evidence to the reverse, is
on the contrary, confirmative. The ascetic often presents us with a
flagrant case of eroto-mania, expressing itself in terms of religion.
It is highly significant that the biographies of Christian saints should
furnish so many cases of men and women of strong sensual passions, and
whose ascetic devotion was only the reaction from almost unbridled
sensualism. No wonder that in the temptations experienced by the monks
the figures of nude women so often appeared before their heated
imaginations. Sexual feeling suppressed in one direction broke out in
another. Feelings, in themselves perfectly normal, became, as a
consequence of repression and misdirection, pathologic. And one
consequence of this was that many of the early Christian writers brought
to the consideration of the subject of sex a concentration of mind that
resulted in disquisitions of such a nature that it is impossible to do
more than refer to them. The sexual relation instead of being refined
was coarsened. Marriage was viewed in its lowest form, more as a
concession to the weakness of the flesh than as a desirable state for
all men and women. Nor can it be said, after many centuries, that these
ideas are quite eradicated from present-day life.

A field of investigation that yields much illuminating information is
the biographies of the saints and of other religious characters. In many
of these cases the acceptance of sexual feeling for religious
illumination is very clear. Thus of St. Gertrude, a Benedictine nun of
the thirteenth centu