irty to forty.[160]

The peculiar danger, then, of the modern appeal for conversion is that
it is couched in a form likely to do the minimum of good and the maximum
of harm. Where religion exists as a normally operative factor of the
environment--as in lower stages of culture--the danger is avoided,
because no special machinery is required to bring about religious
conviction. The general social life secures this. But at a later stage,
when the religious and secular aspects of life become separated, with a
growing preponderance of the latter, religion must be, as it were,
specially and forcibly introduced. Whether for good or ill, it is a
disturbing force. It strives to divert the developing organic energies
into a new channel. To effect this, it plays upon the emotions to an
altogether dangerous extent, in complete ignorance of the nature of the
passions excited. In the older form of the religious appeal, that in
which fear was the chief emotion aroused, it is now generally conceded
that the consequences were wholly bad. But under any form the emotional
appeal is fraught with danger, since the tendency is for it to bring out
unsuspected weaknesses in other directions. Sir W. R. Gowers wisely
points out that "mental emotion--fright, excitement, anxiety--is the
most potent cause of epilepsy," which is accounted for by bearing in
mind "the profoundly disturbing effect of alarm on the nervous system,
deranging as it does almost every function of the nervous system."
Persons with predispositions to nervous disorders may pass with safety
through the period of adolescence so long as their circumstances provide
opportunities for healthy occupation with no undue emotional strain. But
let the former be lacking, and the latter danger is always present. The
hidden weakness develops, and injury more or less permanent follows.
There is hardly a qualified medical authority in the country who would
deny the truth of what has been said, although many do not care to speak
out in relation to religious matters. But all would doubtless agree with
Dr. Mercier that "every revival is attended by its crop of cases of
insanity, which are the more numerous as the revival is more fervent and
long continued."[161]

Something must be said on the moral character of conversions in
general. This is, naturally, greatly exaggerated, often deliberately so.
In the first place, confessions of 'sinfulness' in a pre-conversion
state, when made by youths of b