d, and twisted, and reached up
and down. Once he was on the floor for just a second, in the attitude of
crawling, to show that all crime crawled out of the saloon; then he was
on his feet as quickly as a cat could jump. At the end of forty-five
minutes he mounted a chair, reached high, as he shouted, then again was
on the floor, and dropped prostrate to illustrate a story of a drunken
man, bounded to his feet again as if steel springs filled that lithe,
slender, lightning-like body. He generally breaks a common kitchen chair
in this sermon, and this came after a terrible effort, with eyes
flashing, face scowling, the picture of hate. He whirled the chair over
his head, smashed the chair to the platform floor, whirled the shattered
wreck in the air again, and threw it to the ground in front of the
pulpit. In two minutes men from the front row were tearing the wreck to
pieces and dividing it up--a round here, a leg there, a piece of the
back to another, and so on. Later, men carried away in cheering could be
seen in the audience waving those chair fragments in the air."

This is, of course, an extreme case, although it is but an exaggeration
of methods in common use among these professional revivalists. The whole
aim and purpose of these men is to arouse in the audience a high
emotional tension, and any means is acceptable that succeeds in doing
this. On the part of the congregation a large portion go for the express
purpose of indulging in an emotional debauch. Many attend revival after
revival, living over again the debauch of the last, and treasuring
lively expectations of the next. Between these and the victim of alcohol
tasting again his last 'burst,' and seeking opportunities for another,
there is really little moral or psychological distinction. The social
consequences of these engineered revivals have never been fully worked
out, but when it is done by some competent person, the conclusions will
be a revelation to many. One thing is certain: to expect really useful
social results from such methods is verily to look to gather grapes from
thistles.

During recent years the phenomena of religious conversion have been
studied in a more scientific spirit.[143] Statistics have been compiled
and analysed, the frames of mind attendant on conversion arranged and
studied, with the result that the salient features are to be discerned
by all who approach the study of the subject with a little detachment of
mind. One outstand