to this particular matter they
certainly are not. Their viewpoint is precisely that of the lowest tribe
of savages. Savages, indeed, could not do more; our 'civilised'
missionaries do no less. Tylor well says that "such descriptions carry
us far back in the history of the human mind, showing modern men still
in ignorant sincerity producing the very fits and swoons to which for
untold ages savage tribes have given religious import. These
manifestations in modern Europe indeed form part of a revival of
religion, the religion of mental disease."[158]

The truth is that the appeals usually made to induce conversion, and the
methods adopted, tend to develop a morbid state of mind, which very
easily passes into the pathological. A too insistent habit of
introspection is always dangerous, and the danger is heightened when it
takes the form of religious brooding. In Dr. Starbuck's collection of
cases, seventy-five per cent. of the males and sixty per cent. of the
females confessed to feelings of depression, anxiety, and sadness before
conversion. This may be attributed partly to the harping upon a
conviction of sinfulness, which in itself is wholly of an unhealthy
character. It does not indicate moral health, and it is very far from
indicating physiological health. The following confessions are
pertinent, and will illustrate both points. I give in brackets the ages
of the subjects where stated:--

"I felt the wrath of God resting on me. I called on Him for aid, and
felt my sins forgiven" (13).

"I couldn't eat, and would lie awake all night."

"Often, very often, I cried myself to sleep" (19).

"Hymns would sound in my ears as if sung" (10).

"I had visions of Christ saying to me, Come to Me, My child" (15).

"Just before conversion I was walking along a pathway, thinking of
religious matters, when suddenly the word H-e-l-l was spelled out five
yards ahead of me" (17).

"I felt a touch of the Divine One, and a voice said 'Thy sins are
forgiven thee; arise and go in peace'" (12).

"The thoughts of my condition were terrible" (13).

"For three months it seemed as if God's Spirit had withdrawn from me.
Fear took hold of me. For a week I was on the border of despair" (16).

"A sense of sinfulness and estrangement from God grew daily" (15).

"Everything went wrong with me; it felt like Sunday all the time" (12).

"I felt that something terrible was going to happen" (14).

"I fell on my face by a bench and tried to pr