ething of the decisive initiative of maturity. These
qualities wisely guided might be turned to the great advantage of both
the individual and of the community. Mere incitement by religious
revivalism can result in little else than misdirection and injury. It
should be the most obvious of truths that the attractiveness of hymns
such as the one given, with the keen delight in the suggested pictures,
lies in their yielding--all unknown, perhaps, to those participating--
satisfaction to feelings that are very frequently imperious in their
demands, and are at all times astonishingly pervasive in their
influence.

Much valuable light is thrown upon this aspect of the subject by a
study of human behaviour under the influence of actual disease. Of late
years much useful work has been done in this direction, and our
knowledge of normal psychology greatly helped by a study of abnormal
mental states.[117] This is mainly because in disease we are able to
observe the operation of tendencies that are unobscured by the
restraints and inhibitions created by education and social convention.
And one of the most striking, and to many startling, things observed is
the close relation existing between erotic mania and religious delusion.
The person who at one time feels himself under direct religious
inspiration, or who imagines himself to be the incarnation of a divine
personage, will at another time exhibit the most shocking obscenity in
action and language. Sir T. S. Clouston furnishes a very striking case
of this character, which he cites in order to show "the common mixture
of religious and sexual emotion."[118] I do not reproduce it here
because of its grossly obscene character; but, save for coarseness of
language, it does not differ materially from illustrations already
given. Almost any of the text-books will supply cases illustrating the
connection between sexualism and religion, a connection generally
recognised as the opinions cited already clearly show.

Dr. Mercier, in dealing with the connection between sexualism and
religion, which he says "has long been recognised, but never accounted
for," traces it to a feeling of, or desire for self-sacrifice common to
both. Certainly sacrifice in some form--of food, weapons, land, money,
or bodily inconvenience--is a feature present in every religion more or
less. And it is quite certain that not merely the fact, but the desire
for some amount of sacrifice, forms "an integral, fundamen