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RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS AND CONFESS-
ANTS.
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
THE JESSOP BEQUEST.
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS AND
CONFESSANTS
RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
AND CONFESSANTS ^ ** *
WITH A CHAPTER ON THE
HISTORY OF INTROSPECTION
BY
ANNA ROBESON BURR
II
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
1914
S
COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY ANNA ROBESON BURR
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Published May IQI4
"0 this gloomy world !
In what a shadow or deep pit of darkness
Doth womanish and fearful mankind live!"
The Duchess of Malfi.
897583
PREFACE
IT has been the privilege of the writer to do much
of her work in the library of the late Dr. Henry C.
Lea its shelves still laden with that material which
assumed so significant an aspect under the guidance
of his distinguished mind. Such surroundings were
in themselves an inspiration and she is grateful for
the kindness which procured them.
Thanks are also due for the courteous co-operation
of the librarians of the two Friends' Libraries, of the
Presbyterian and Methodist Historical Societies, of
the Philadelphia Library, of Haverford College, of S.
Carlo Borromeo, and of S. Thomas of Villanova.
Through the kindness of Dr. Jastrow, the University
of Pennsylvania Library gave the writer access to her
material all over the country. Such goodwill has lent
the work an ever-increasing pleasure.
While reading for an earlier study on autobiog-
raphy, the writer had been impressed by the present
superabundance of works on religious and mystical
theory, side by side with a total absence of any col-
lation of the documents of personal religion. No one
has apparently thought it worth his while to examine
the foundations on which the current elaborate doc-
trines are based. Some years of investigation have
resulted in this book. If the work has turned in
directions not at first anticipated, yet it formulates
viii PREFACE
no theory except by induction from the data it fur-
nishes. In its final position, it agrees with Hobbes,
when he remarks, "that ignorant and superstitious
men make great wonders of those works, which other
men, knowing to proceed from nature (which is not
the immediate but the ordinary work of God), ad-
mire not at all. ' '
March, 1914.
CONTENTS
I. INTRODUCTORY 3
II. CONFESSION AND APOLOGIA .... 19
III. INTROSPECTION : THE INTROSPECTIVE TYPE 71
IV. THE DOCUMENTS 141
V. THE DATA ANALYZED: I .... 171
VI. THE DATA ANALYZED: II . . . . 229
VII. THE DATA ANALYZED: III ... 273
VIII. MYSTICISM AND ITS INTERPRETATION . . 329
IX. THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: I ... 397
X. THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: II ... 449
NOTES 491
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF CASES .... 527
INDEX . 549
RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS AND
CONFESSANTS
I
INTRODUCTORY
RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
AND CONFESSANTS
INTRODUCTORY
ONE of the characteristics of the present age, so
often accused of infidelity, is its interest in religion.
Works upon this subject were never so many in the
ages of faith. Indeed, one may almost go so far as
to say that the study of religion is a study essentially
modern. In the past, men studied dogma, they studied
theology, they studied metaphysics and mystical phi-
losophy, but they did not study religion. For such
study there is necessary not only a knowledge of cer-
tain basic sciences very recent of date in themselves,
such as ethnology and anthropology, biology and
psychology, but also the security of our latter-day
ideals of tolerance. Protected by these, the writer on
religious topics has been able, for the first time in the
world's history, to place his matter in perspective for
proper examination. The strict limitations imposed
on such work in the past, with the sinister shadow of
the Inquisition ever ready to fall across his page,
produced in the writer a fret and a tension which
caused him too often to be personal and acrimonious in
RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
tone, while in statement he remained safely indefinite.
To-day, his manner is calmer and less controversial,
while the nature of his work has tended to become less
abstract and more concrete, more specialized, and more
individual.
The present essay is an attempt to handle, in a
broad way, some of the more intimate aspects of man 's
knowledge of himself. A chief element of this knowl-
edge has been his natural interest in the question of
his ultimate destination, with his concomitant feelings
and ideas respecting all that part of his nature which
is unknown to him. This interest in, this curiosity
about, self, was made the subject of observation and
theory long before the simplest knowledge of physical
man had been acquired. But such theory necessarily
remained a priori for centuries, until the bulk of sci-
entific facts increased sufficiently to allow of sounder
methods.
If sounder method is possible to-day, it must be
borne in mind that possible is the word. Many diffi-
culties will occur to the student ; there are many which
may not occur to him. He will easily recall the names
of several recent books on religious psychology, and
he will agree that their effect, on the whole, has been
far from conclusive, while yet he may or may not
realize that this impression springs from their funda-
mental weakness in the matter of data. To do such
work to-day there is needed, first of all, a definitive,
systematic collection of the available data of personal
religious experience, and such a collection may come
to the rescue of the theorist.
The material for such data is not wanting; it lies
INTRODUCTORY 5
embedded in the recorded history of the human mind
for over two thousand years. Scattered in a hundred
corners, it has crumbled with the crumbling edifice
of succeeding civilizations, and the fragments that re-
main have been trodden under foot by prejudice, or
ignored by tradition. Its presence has had little sig-
nificance for the exact mind, and as to its value, opin-
ions have fluctuated. Bacon held that ' ' as for the nar-
rations touching the prodigies and miracles of reli-
gions, they are either not true or not natural, and there-
fore impertinent for the story of nature." 1 At the
same time, while he decided that the "narrations which
have mixture with superstition be sorted by them-
selves," he yet would not omit them altogether. Our
modern idea holds rather that "the study of religion
is essentially psychological. . . . Whatever else can be
predicated of religion, we must admit that it consists
of a great variety of mental experiences"; 2 and the
difficulty of obtaining the facts concerning such
experience although acknowledged constitutes no
valid excuse for ignoring them. The student must
simply apply to their examination certain important
correctives, just as he must apply similar correctives
to the examination of any mass of facts. He will
rather repeat the words of Montesquieu: "J'ai
d'abord examine les hommes et j 'ai cru que, dans cette
infinie diversite de lois et de mo3urs, ils n'etaient pas
uniquement conduits par leurs f antaisies. ' ' 3
Thus what appears to be mere chaos, is not so ; and
through all these passions, characters, and experiences,
there operates the universal law of the identity of our
common nature. "The life of the individual," says
6 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
Caird, " is a sort of epitome of the history of human-
ity"; 4 and it must be studied from this point
of view, not forgetting the corrective influence brought
to bear upon it by the broader outlines of history.
If opinions as to the value of the material are not
unanimous, yet there has been no doubt as to the imme-
diate necessity for its examination. The religious con-
fessionjfwith which it is the main object of this essay
to deal, is nothing less than the first coherent, system-
atie, voluntary attempt at self -study, by which man
has sought to determine the nature and the limits of
his consciousness. From this first effort has been
evolved all later, more complex religious ideas, and
many of the later philosophic ideas. The confession,
therefore, would have a vital historical interest for
us if it had no other. But in reality it has far
more. It serves to lay bare the fundamental forces of
history. A recent historian 5 has made a penetrating
commentary on the value of the private record as a
means of understanding public action ; while a recent
psychologist 6 has observed that the most instructive
human documents lie along the beaten highway. The
personal record, in many cases, furnishes the only
valid means of observing the movement of certain
minds under the pressure of given circumstances. 7
Any work upon the development of the idea of sect
must needs be built upon these documents, whose
existence alone has made it possible. If any excuse
were needed for this attempt to bring the alien,
uncharted matter into the domain of law, it will surely
be found in the present cry of the scientist for more
facts.
INTRODUCTORY 7,
11 II n'y avait point d'emploi plus legitime et plus
honorable de 1 'esprit, " writes Sainte-Beuve, "que de
voir les choses et les hommes comme ils sont et de les
exprimer comme on les voit, de decrire, autour de soi
en serviteur de la science, les varietes de 1'espece, les
divers formes de I'organisation humaine, etrange-
ment modifiee au moral dans la societe et dans le
dedale artificiel des doctrines. " 8
To be the servitor of science, in regard to the study
of men's beliefs, is, as we have said, an ideal of to-day ;
yet in saying this, one must not forget that the very
constitution of the religions preceding Christianity
admitted of a similar ideal.
Havet 9 points out that the ancient religions, so ex-
acting in respect of cult, had comparatively few dog-
mas, thus leaving open a vast field for those fruit-
ful discussions which Christianity forbade. In the
fragments of those discussions which remain to us,
there is a freshness and often a boldness of concep-
tion which render them significant and suggestive,
bringing, as they do, the mind of the ancient student
closer to the mind of the student of to-day. When
Manu speaks of self-consciousness and egoism as
"lordly" he joins in the speech of Schopenhauer or
Nietzsche. 10
Both ancient and modern students recognize two
main approaches to the study of religion. This force
in human life is manifested in two ways: it may be
observed in its effect upon the mass, through its group-
manifestation ; or in its effect upon the individual,
through its personal, psychological manifestation.
The gate of the first approach has been open for cen-
8 EELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
turies; philosophers and historians have passed there-
by, each aiding future generations, though not al-
ways in the way he expected. The gate of the second
approach has not yet been opened to the investigator ;
and the difficulties in the way of a valid study of
religion in the individual cannot be over-impressed
upon the reader's attention.
The perplexing question of fundamental sincerity
has been dealt with in a preceding volume. 11 When
the degree of this sincerity has been, relatively speak-
ing, determined, the student is brought face to face
with the equally perplexing problem of classification.
A fair degree of candour in the personal revelation may
be admitted ; and yet how are the results of such can-
dour to be rendered amenable to science ? Can they be
so rendered ? At first sight nothing would seem more
impossible "than to find law, order, and reason in
what seems accidental, capricious, and meaningless, ' ' 12
Nevertheless, no mean authority assures us that this is
the true work of science; and while he suggests its
accomplishment by restricting the field, and by limit-
ing its content as much as possible, Caird adds that,
while the spiritual life is most complex and difficult to
understand, yet it must be intelligible ; for, if man can
comprehend the phenomena of the universe, he should
surely be able to comprehend his own ! 13
On the other hand, it must not be forgotten that
what is fortuitous or casual in itself does not enter
into the domain of science. Law is only "that con-
stant rule to which a given order of facts is subservi-
ent" 14 It may be determined from observation of
the facts themselves, when they are properly limited,
INTRODUCTORY 9
classified, and compared. The broad general prin-
ciples of science in regard to this classification and
comparison must be brought to bear upon this mate-
rial. Human specimens must needs be subjected to the
same treatment as botanical or marine specimens.
They must be gathered, identified, labelled, and made
accessible to study. And human specimens have this
permanent disadvantage as specimens, that in the
nature of things they cannot present data mechan-
ically consistent. The data are in fact accidental
and capricious to a degree, varying in different ex-
amples, but always sufficiently to daunt the orderly
mind.
The first task, therefore, must be to determine the
constant factors in each case, analyze the elements
thereof, and classify these elements for comparison.
It has been remarked of the comparative method that
it can be properly employed only where the things
compared resemble each other. Yet the things com-
pared must also differ from one another or there
would be no need to compare them. The presence of
a definite religious emotion, then, is the first factor
whose presence should determine the use of a docu-
ment for this work. Various as may be the manifesta-
tions of this emotion, it must exist in a recognizable
form.
The second factor, not less important, must be the
first-hand composition of the document it must be
the work of the person himself. Such limitation per-
mits us to include, beside formal autobiography or
confession, the material contained in journals, day-
books, diaries, intimate letters, as well as that which
10 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
may be found in philosophical disquisition or in theo-
logical apologia asking only that it be religious, that
it be personal, and that it be composed by the subject
himself. Those " young adventurers who produce
their performance to the wise ear of Time, ' ' 15 have
equal right to be heard in this regard with the medi-
aeval mystics or the self -analyzing philosophers, since
all are moved by the same spirit.
"Once read thine own breast right,
And thou hast done with fears;
Man gets no other light,
Search he a thousand years.
Sink in thyself! there ask what ails thee, at that shrine!" ^
And it is with the seekers at this shrine that we are
here to deal. It would seem obvious that the study
of religion in its group-manifestation must precede
and lay the foundation for any study of the individual
manifestation, yet it were well at the outset to remind
one 's self of this truth. No overcharged attention to
a task apparently more novel should cause the student
to minimize the greater relative importance of the
historical treatment, or to undervalue its effect upon
the work at hand. The individual may be properly
understood only through a study of his group, his
nation, his race. ' ' If religion is veritably to be based
upon experience/' Dr. Watson reminds us, "no one
is justified in citing the partial and fragmentary con-
sciousness of this or that individual." 17 He must
generalize rather from a whole than from a partial
experience.
Such work as we are to do in this place must needs
be supplementary to any broad, general study; and
INTRODUCTORY 11
the work and conclusions of the greater religious his-
torians must take precedence of it, must form its
proper corrective. By no means does this fact lessen
the value of an investigation into the individual mind,
it rather heightens such value. By specialization, a
service is rendered to all those engaged in generalizing,
and who are perpetually in search of suitable material.
In the following pages we shall endeavor to contrib-
ute to the work of religious investigation an amount
of data, which has at least the merit of having been
collated under a salutary method. Should it be im-
possible to arrive at any conclusions as to the major
problems presented by the subject, such conclusions
may, perchance, be suggested to the mind of some
future investigator.
Our business, then, to put it briefly as may be, is to
study, by means of induction through individual ex-
amples, the manifestation in human life of that force
to which tradition has assigned the name religion.
This is no new idea, for just so do we study, by
means of its manifestations, that physical force to
which we have assigned the name electricity. Both
of these forces proceed from unknown and invisible
causes. Both of them are observable only through
their direct and indirect effects. Both of them are
continuously present, though dormant, in the very at-
mosphere around us; from both of these silent, in-
visible forces, the proper agent will on an instant
draw the leaping spark. Our prejudices in the past
have so hampered us, by attaching a factitious and
sacrosanct character (almost in the nature of the
savage tabu) to the manifestations of the force known
12 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
as religion, that we are much more deficient, scien-
tifically speaking, in our knowledge thereof.
We have not weighed it, nor measured it, nor stud-
ied, in any fulness, the conditions which give rise to
it, nor noted when we may expect it, and when we
may not expect it. Our reverence forbade us to
experiment in the ages when experiment might have
been of value. But if reverence once hampered us,
irreverence to-day hampers us still more. The sub-
ject of electricity and electrical forces does not tempt
the untrained; nor will the ignorant gather an au-
dience if he theorize thereon. But upon the obscure
subject of religion, any fool is sure of an audience
to his folly. Our irreverence toward our fellow-men
has cast them helpless into the power of the sciolist
and the charlatan, who have added to the confusion
by obscuring the facts. For, upon this vital subject
there appears to prevail a constitutional inability to
preserve what Delacroix has called 'Tintegralite du
fait." 18
To the facts, then, and to the facts alone, we must
turn and return. The subjective can only be reached
objectively; these cases must be handled in the same
way as are other natural phenomena. A full list
must include emotional natures and philosophical na-
tures, objective types and introspective types, normal
cases and abnormal cases. Many writers have dealt
with religion; we shall seek to know the religious.
Tiny as the individual may be, he is at least a part, by
means of which the mind may better grasp the whole.
As for the proposed method, it is similar to that
now advocated by students of English law. Law had
INTRODUCTORY 13
been taught as philosophy was taught, from textbooks
of broad general principles. Science has to-day
tended to substitute the inductive method; and from
groups of cases, the student is now required to in-
duce a principle and to make the application. There
is no reason why such method should not be equally
valid for the study of religion, even though the law
has the immense advantage in having had its data me-
chanically collected, for centuries past, into systematic
records.
The difficulties in the way of so collecting the reli-
gious data are very great, but they are not insur-
mountable ; they but demand a special word of warn-
ing. The great temptation in all work of this nature
is to carry it too far. Human specimens are not ma-
rine specimens, and human cases are not law cases;
and if it be important that the student should be able
to see the conclusions they present, it is even more
important that he should be able to refrain from see-
ing what is not there. For, when he falls into that
error, he at once lowers himself to the level of those
recent writers on mysticism, whose method has thus
effectually checked all progress in the direction of
truth.
There is much to repay the patient collector of
these facts. In her preface to Obermann, George
Sand says, most beautifully, that "for all profound
and dreamy souls, for all delicate and openminded
intelligences," 19 the rare and austere productions of
human suffering have an importance even greater
than that of history. Anything, she adds, which as-
sists us to understand such suffering must ultimately
14 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
assist us to ameliorate it. And this voices the stimu-
lating, the sustaining hope of such an inquiry as the
present.
There is need to point out that the inductive method
may yield a very different result from the selective
method. It is one thing to evolve a theory, and after
it has taken shape, to seek for its confirmation by
means of some ten or twenty carefully selected cases ;
it is quite another to start without any a priori con-
ceptions, simply to gather together all available data
bearing on the subject, and then to note how the cases
so gathered may confirm, contradict, or comment upon
each other. It is one thing to select a special set of
facts to confirm your special theory; it is another to
determine which theory will best account for all the
facts. Through a peculiar misconception as to the
nature of the material at hand, the first of these
methods has been used, practically without exception,
in all work on this subject; and used, moreover, by
those who must needs have been aware of its technical
unsoundness. 20 And it is doubtless for this if for
no other reason that the new religious psychology has
produced, as a whole, such negligible results. Once
more we must repeat that a definitive collection of
the data of religion must needs take precedence of any
theory.
The essential difficulty in treating this subject is
just that it is religion and religion is the product of
centuries of emotion, and indissolubly woven into the
very fabric of the theorist's race and temperament,
prejudices and traditions. The very word implies
idealism ; the very conception colors the mind dealing
INTRODUCTORY 15
with it. Thus, that writer whose mystical tempera-
ment inclines him to believe in the influence of this
force for good, will select his evidence according to
its beauty and balance ; while that writer whose cyni-
cal temperament inclines him to believe in the in-
fluence of this force for evil, will select his evidence
according to its ugliness and abnormality. One
writer hopes that doubt will be cleared and faith stim-
ulated by such investigation; while another believes
that by the same investigation ancient superstition will
receive its death-blow.
No other scientific work seems to strike its roots thus,
through the intellect, into the obscure depths of heredi-
tary tendency and emotional bias. It seems too much
to ask of us being what we are, the children of our
fathers to handle the material bearing on the reli-
gious life coolly and impersonally. Yet an approach
to impersonal coolness must be made if any real work
on this topic is ever to be done. Man, hitherto,
has made it the battleground of his passions ; surely, in
this tolerant age, he should be able to go soberly to
and fro, and decide how much of it is worth his con-
test. The field lies open to certain fundamental and
searching queries. What are the manifestations, in
an individual, of the force we name religion? What
reasons have we for thinking these particular mani-
festations are due to that particular force and not to
some other force? How do we know them to be re-
ligious? Since we can judge this force only through
its effects, and since each one of us during his life
can come into contact with but few of these effects,
how can we be sure that we are correct in ascribing
16 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
them to that cause ? What are the recognizable symp-
toms of the religious experience?
These are vital questions, and it is worth while to
attend to them, even if most of us, being what we are,
should fail to give an answer. At least, we may
examine the material at hand, since such examination
is a part of " the proper study of mankind. "
A word as to the plan of approach: Since the mo-
tive-power of this documentary material lies in cer-
tain impulses and faculties, which, in themselves, have
had no small influence over the trend of literature and
philosophy, the first two sections of this work have
been devoted to their better understanding. The im-
pulse toward confession, and the faculty of introspec-
tion by which such impulse is usually accompanied,
are here discussed in their Jmmder .asp&cts. The rec-
ords are next approached through an analysis of their
main characteristics and are related to the groups or
sects from which they have emanated. Then the data
in the records are classified under separate heads, in
such manner that the reader himself may follow the
progress of the religious experience in every phase,
from its first indication to its termination. A thor-
ough comprehension of underlying conditions, together
with the cases which they have produced, is essential
to the reader's grasp of the final, theoretical sections.
Distinct as these seem in treatment and manner, their
conclusions are based upon the preceding material
without which they must lack stability and authority.
The bearing of the data on the fundamental question
of the existence and meaning of religious instinct, is
the raison d'etre of its collection and of this book.
II
CONFESSION AND APOLOGIA
I. 1. Confession in ancient religions, Egyptian, Baby-
lonian, Islamic, Vedie, Manu.
2. Buddhistic, Greek, Hebrew.
3. The early Church, Origen.
4. Rite of Exomologesis, libelli, Loyola, Abelard,
Othloh.
5. Augustin and his imitators.
6. Port-Royal, Petrarch.
II. 1. The confessional impulse; publicity as privacy.
2. Relation of thought and speech.
3. Power of ideas; exaggeration; Macaulay, Shelley,
Morley.
III. 1. The classic apologia.
2. Rufinus and Jerome; the personal note.
3. Middle Ages, testamenta, apologia, confessiones.
4. The mystics and their records.
5. Hamilton and the Reynolds Pamphlet.
6. Development of the modern personal apology.
II
CONFESSION AND APOLOGIA
MOST of us are so well accustomed to the phenomena
of our conscious being that its common miracles of
thought and emotion no longer rouse astonishment.
Now and again, however, one of us will call the others
to some appreciation of these imperious wonders, as
Stevenson, when he found the universal ideal of duty
" strange to the point of lunacy." 1 The uneasi-
ness of thought concealed, the pain of having some-
thing " on one's mind," the relief when one is rid
of it these rank surely among our most familiar
mental sensations, without which no one of us can
live for long. Yet how often do we ask ourselves why
this should be ? Why is there, for most of us, an un-
easiness in the fact of concealment, and why does the
act of confession bring so definite a relief? "What is
the reason that our thoughts are, on the whole, so
difficult to hide, and so easy to avow?
People exist, of course, in whom this impulse counts
for little ; to whom concealment is more natural than
avowal. Yet this temperament is rare and is regarded
as apart from the common human type. And what
is the reason? Is nature a moralist in this respect,
laying some vital prohibition on the hiding of the
truth ? Whence spring those impulses which urge us
19
20 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
to tell what we know ? That we are so urged is matter
of human history, and is traceable long before the time
religion caused the impulse to crystallize into the
shape of ritual.
To-day we associate the idea of confession wholly
with confession of sin, and with that group of ideas
concerning penitence and submission. And yet its
presence in that group is not readily accounted for.
Has human nature elaborated an idea having a source
purely artificial and ritualistic; or rather, has ritual
seized upon and elaborated an idea sprung from a
fundamental need of human nature?
To the impulse toward confession and its evolu-
tion, much in literature is owing, and this fact is a suf-
ficient warrant to justify any formal enquiry into its
nature and origin. Nor could there be a better intro-
duction to such an inquiry than an historical survey
of its presence in its technical religious form. Brief
as this survey will be, it should at least serve to con-
nect in the reader's mind the auricular, with the writ-
ten confessions of the past; a formal act of penitence
and submission, with that spontaneous, individual,
even, if one will, rebellious, movement of the suffering
human soul.
The rite of confession of sin in the Christian Church
has a direct, concrete bearing on the genesis of the
written confession, and its significance is shown by its
great antiquity. Public confession of wrongdoing was
current in the ritual of the ancient religions, although
holding no such important place therein as it came
later to acquire in the Christian ritual. The confes-
sion-idea, however, will be found manifest in some
CONFESSION AND APOLOGIA 21
very curious and suggestive forms. In the religion of
ancient Egypt, for instance, it is connected with that
elaborate trial of the soul after death of which we
possess full records. The dead soul was obliged to
make a curious "plea" or "negative confession,'*
when it came before Osiris and forty-two other judges
in Amenti. 2
" I have not told falsehoods," pleaded the soul,
awaiting judgment, "I have not done any wicked
thing. ... I have not murdered. ... I have not
done fraud to men. ..." And so on, through a
catalogue of acts and deeds, ending, * * I am pure . . .
I am pure ... I am pure!"
This formula appeared to have a cleansing and
absolving significance, and was evidently not intended
to be taken literally. Then followed a positive confes-
sion addressed to the gods of the underworld. " I
live upon right and truth," the soul declared. . . .
"I have performed the commandments of men. . . .
I have given bread to the hungry man . . ," 3 And
the same idea was repeated in a litany or hymn to
Osiris, which formed part of the ceremony of the
soul's reception. Each verse ends, "For I am just
and true, I have not spoken lies wittingly nor have
I done aught with deceit." 4 After such formulas the
soul was weighed and admitted.
The Babylonian religion had a conventionalized
form of confession which does not appear to have
expressed any individual appeal, although the Baby-
lonian penitential hymns contain certain forms of con-
fession of suffering, wherein the supplicant, who has
failed to fulfil the law, bewails his sin. 5 But there
22 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
is little likeness to any modern spiritual confession in
these forms, nor in that avowal of guilt which was
required by the ritual of Zoroastrianism. 6 The faith
of Islam is too objective to make any such requirement
of confession of sin as it made of fighting for the
Prophet. The Koran makes but an insignificant ref-
erence to this spiritual need; and in truth, humility
was not insisted upon by Mahomet save under certain
special conditions. It is interesting to contrast Islam,
in this respect, with the various religions of India,
whose deeply introspective character caused them to
lay great stress on the idea of self-examination and
confession of sinful act and thought.
This is clearly developed in the collections of Sacred
Books. Manu says : * ' In proportion as a man who has
done wrong himself confesses it, even so far is he
freed from guilt as a snake from its slough. ' ' 7 There
will also be found in one of the Vedas (the ceremonial
code of the Brahmans) the statement that, "when con-
fessed, the sin becomes less because it becomes
truth." 6 The Mahavagga of the Palis contains the
sentence: "For this is called progress in the dis-
cipline of the Noble One [i.e., the disciple of Buddha],
if one sees his sin in its sinfulness, and duly makes
amends for it, and refrains from it in future." 9
Upon the idea of the value of self-examination were
founded the practices of the Buddhist "Samgha" a
confraternity of monks, who, at stated intervals, made
confession one to another according to a fixed form. 10
Such a rite is familiar to the Christian, who will not
have forgotten that it is advocated by St. James, in no
uncertain words. 11 To find that the earlier Buddhist
CONFESSION AND APOLOGIA 23
doctrines had so clear an idea of the need for self-
study and confession as an aid to religious develop-
ment, would seem to prove that the religions of India
had passed through their subjective period long before
the Western world came into contact with them ; 12 and
before such ideas as these crystallized into mere for-
malism. The naturally introspective cast of the Orien-
tal mind tended to adopt all such religious practices,
although they have later developed the more mystical
at the expense of the less.
Definite public confession was enjoined by the
Greeks under certain circumstances, when it was ad-
dressed to an oracle or to a priest. "In the days of
Socrates, " recounts Plutarch, "Lysander consulted
the oracle at Samothrace, and was told by the priest to
confess the worst actions of his life. 'Is it thou who
commandest this,' he asked, 'or the gods?' The
priest replied, 'It is the gods.' 'Then at once retire,'
said Lysander, 'that I may answer the gods!' " 13
This anecdote displays a typical situation as re-
gards the confession; i.e., the priestly effort to make
use of it as a weapon for the benefit of the hierarchy,
with the ensuing resentment of a certain kind of
penitent. Moreover, it is precisely this Lysander-type
whose influence has been set against the practice from
the beginning and continues until the present day. A
masterful man is willing to confess to God, but not to
the priest; and had there been more examples of this
temperament, the control of the confessional would
have lapsed more slowly into priestly hands. Early
ideas of submission and of discipline, with the early
lack of individualism, made this control inevitable;
24 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
but that Lysander and his like existed and must be
reckoned with, cannot be ignored when the origin of
the written confession is to be discussed. 14
From very early times, the Jews made confession
on the eve of Day of Atonement. The form which
they recited differs little from that employed by Chris-
tianity; and involved an act of atonement, just as,
later on, the penitent will be found making a rich gift
to the Church. But the Hebrew confession was less in-
dividual than national; the people, as one penitent,
could and did make confession of their sin. 15 From
the evidence of the Old Testament, this movement
seems to have sprung from a deep and spontaneous
emotion of patriotism; and its impressiveness had,
doubtless, much to do with its later influence over
the penitential system of the Church. The emotional
Aramean, who beat his breast and confessed his sin,
presented a more vivid picture of remorse than the
pagan world was accustomed to behold. Thus, many
of the rites and formulas, which served to heighten the
emotional appeal of Christianity, were retained there-
in, despite their origin.
The Jewish confession does not seem to have been
often a written document; but preserved its public
and national character. Unquestionably, this was at
first also the character of the Christian confession.
It was enjoined by the Church as a public, penitential,
and disciplinary formula, without any individual sig-
nificance whatever, and this fact must be remembered
when the reader plunges into the vast literature of the
Christian ritual. There was no need for Lysander to
protest in those days. By the time public confession
CONFESSION AND APOLOGIA 25
of sin had become a regular sacrament of the Church,
its disadvantages were manifest and its use had begun
to create scandal; while to regularize the practice by
private confession had become inevitable. 10 The pe-
riod of transition, according to scholars, is somewhat
vague ; for the Church long wavered between her defi-
nite dogmatic necessities and the authority of certain
texts, which, though clear in their general meaning,
were yet not specific. 17
In the first and second centuries confession pre-
ceded baptism. "The pardon symbolized by the
baptismal rite," says Dr. Lea, 18 "was only to be
earned by a cleansing of the heart, confession of sin
to God and earnest repentance. ..." This confes-
sion, which was supposed to be public and voluntary,
was to be rewarded by a mitigation of that penalty
which the sinner incurred as discipline, at the hands
of the Church. 19 Nor would the Church, even at this
date, have permitted so high-handed an action as that
of Lysander : she was already jealous of her authority.
"Public confession and public penance were the only
process then recognized by the Church;" while Ori-
gen 20 in his "Homilies" recommends the penitent to
lay bare his soul to some expert in whom he has confi-
dence.
It appears to be the influence of Origen, rather than
the action of Pope Calixtus, which systematized defin-
itively the rite of confession. The former had in-
stituted it in 218 A.D. ; 21 but the rite of Exomologesis,
as it is called, and as it appears in the old Armenian
service-books, was but a repetition of the rite of bap-
tism, involving confession, but involving much else
26 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
beside. The confession-idea, in reality, was therefore
but a part of the whole penitential system it had no
such importance as it afterwards received, and some
historians even make no separate mention of it. 22
Origen planned the different steps and stages of pen-
ance as "contrition, satisfaction, and self -accusation
or confession." 23 During the transition period, to
which we have just alluded, this confession varied.
Sometimes "it was private before the bishop or priest,
sometimes public before the whole congregation,
Public confession was demanded of persons who were
guilty of grievous public sins"; unless the recital of
such sins would tend to create scandal. In other
words, the bishops were required to use their own
judgment; in special cases they are found consulting
their diocesan counselor, or asking the advice by
letter of their brother-bishops.
Such was the situation regarding confession of sin,
in which the penitent Christian convert of the first
and second centuries found himself. The public re-
cital of his crimes was no doubt even then largely con-
ventional, consisting, as it now does, in the repeti-
tion of a set formula. But his vital offences were
obliged to have a private hearing ; and this latter prac-
tice so personal, so intimate, fed the Church 's growing
need of power to knit together her isolated con-
gregations. For this reason, if for no other, the
practice of auricular private confession was encour-
aged. 24 Yet so many of the devout shared the objec-
tion of Lysander that progress in this direction was
felt to be provokingly slow; the cases remaining
scanty, indeed, even in the third century. 25 The
CONFESSION AND APOLOGIA 27
custom was held to be salutary for the penitent, and a
wholesome exercise in the development of self-re-
straint, but since Dr. Lea writes that it was far from
common as late as 850 A.D., one may judge of its in-
frequency in the days of Augustin.
The name of the great Bishop brings us without
further parley to the immediate point of departure
between the spoken and the written confession.
While his influence on the latter is profound, it formed
but a part of his general influence on the whole pen-
itential system of the Church; while the breadth and
force of this personal and intellectual influence is
difficult to overestimate. "In the Decretum of Gra-
tian, no less than 607 canons are taken from his works.
St. Paul furnished but 408. It was on Augustin
rather than on Paul that the schoolmen built. " * 6 So
writes the historian, not omitting to note that in the
"Confessiones," Augustin had laid a foundation upon
which not only the Church, but the whole world of
thought was to build.
The modern student of philosophy 27 sees in Augus-
tin "a virtuoso of self -observation and self -analysis ";
and to the open-minded reader his greatest book is
charged with the vital power of literary genius, and
full of the zeal and color with which genius informs
a new idea. This literary quality must not be for-
gotten, because it is a factor only recently acknowl-
edged as responsible for the book's success. To find
in publicity all the sacredness of the confessional, is
Augustin 's new idea; and his genius pours forth his
sin and his humility, his love and his joy, "in the ears
of the believing sons of men." While it is easy to
28 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
realize the effect upon the sensitive mind of such con-
fidences as these, and to understand how literature at
large came to regard them, yet their immediate result
was not literary but theological, heightening the im-
portance of Exomologesis in the eyes of the Church.
There has never been a shorter and more inevi-
table road to power than that furnished by the confes-
sional. 28 The rule laid down by Gregory of Nyssa
"mitigated all penance to those persons who volunta-
rily revealed any sin not before known, and who sought
a remedy. " 29 Gradually the practice became regular-
ized after the penitent had been taught the means of
duly expressing his humility. The word confessio
meant also memoria, the burial-place of a martyr, or
the shrine of a reliquary ; and in this manner the idea
of revealing something precious and hidden became
identified with the idea of a self -revelation.
It is not easy to state when the practice of writing
the confession developed; doubtless in the beginning
it was the necessary result of the distances which
separated the members of those early isolated con-
gregations. Libelli (as these written records were
called) came to be read aloud in church to spare the
personal mortification of the penitent. 30 St. Basil,
who advocated this custom, states that he received such
a written record from a woman in Caesarea, of high
rank but very evil life, who, in this manner, laid con-
fession of her sins before the Lord. 81
In the ninth century, Robert of Le Mans, when sick
unto death, sent a written statement of his sins to the
Bishop, and received absolution in the same way. 32
But by the thirteenth century the written records were
CONFESSION AND APOLOGIA 29
forbidden, and the rule finally established that all con-
fession must be auricular. Dr. Lea, however, reminds
us that the practice itself did not become annually ob-
ligatory on the faithful until the year 1216, in the
reign of Pope Innocent III. 33
With the history of auricular confession this study
has little to do. After it has been related to the
special document with which it is our business to
deal, the evolution of the practice does not greatly con-
cern us. The fathers differed widely in their opinion
of its value, and these opinions furnish a suggestive
commentary upon their personalities. Abelard is not
sure it is always desirable ; St. Bernard is never weary
extolling its virtues. 3 * Long after private confession
had superseded the older public form, that form sur-
vived when men made confession to one another, in
crises where no priest was to be had. 35 This act had
the warrant of St. James, and more than one autobiog-
raphy of the Middle Ages make mention of the oc-
currence. "When the expected day of battle came,"
writes Loyola, "he made his confession to one of the
nobles who had often fought by his side, and who, in
turn, also confessed to him." 36 To a similar impulse
is due Abelard 's letter, "Historia Calamitatum";
while Abbot Othloh of St. Emmeran writes a detailed
account lest death should prevent him from making a
full oral confession. 37 No better proof could be given
of the penitent's deep 'humility and sincere repent-
ance. Other mediaeval expedients show the depth of
this feeling. The nun, Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi,
was used to kneel in the chapel and, after repeating
certain psalms, to recite aloud her faults of the day,
30 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
addressing herself directly to God. In a phraseology
full of touching humility and beauty, she accused her-
self of negligence and of preoccupation with things
of the flesh. Her very simplest thoughts, she felt,
were wholly unworthy of her Lord. "Deja, mon
Dieu, la nuit arrive, et je n'ai rien fait encore sans
vous offenser!" 38 was her avowal. And no doubt
there were many to follow her pious example.
The intensity of this desire to confess will be felt
by even the most casual student of these days. Au-
gustin 's influence, both literary and theological, had
been to vitalize all penitential practices with the
breath of emotion, and to stimulate them by his liter-
ary genius. His work lent the penitent a sacredness
which he has not lost even to-day ; a sacredness which
Augustin felt to be inherent in his own humility and
love of the Divine. No cold array of dogmas could
possibly have roused the sinful man to a sense of his
sinfulness, as does this personal contact with the soul
of another man who is at once his fellow-sinner and
his guide. What the Church owes Augustin on this
one count is incalculable, since he provided a means
whereby the Lysanders of this world may be brought to
their knees without a loss of self-respect. That there
are yet other sources affecting both the production and
the character of these documents, cannot be forgotten,
and they are to receive, in their turn, full considera-
tion at our hands. Yet, when all is said and done, it
may be doubted if they are more powerful than the
personal appeal of the "Confessions." The author's
understanding of human nature is equal to his pity,
and both are based on real experience. No figment of
CONFESSION AND APOLOGIA SI
life had he lived the Bishop of Hippo ! He knew the
horror of the sinner and the exaltation of the saved.
He had realized to the full a Vedic saying, "that,
when confessed, the sin becomes less, because it be-
comes truth" : and he felt in his own proper person the
"purifying influence of public confession" by which
' ' hope in lies is forever swept away. ' ' 39
In treating his " Confessions" as a perfect type of
this document, one desires to do away with those
clouds which the misinterpretation of centuries has
caused to dim its brilliant surface. Perfect con-
fession is indeed rare and difficult and distrusted of
men. According to Ramon de Penafort it must be
"bitter, speedy, complete, and frequent." 40 So hard
is it for an active, objective mind to grasp the princi-
ples of self-examination that it tends to confuse the
practice with an unhealthy self-depreciation. Along
with reverence for Augustin, distrust of Augustin's
introspection has gone hand in hand for centuries,
and it has so permeated many minds that we find the
edition prepared for general reading has most of the
self -study expurgated. It is a shock to the Church, it
is a shock to the average reader, to find so great a
figure making an avowal of this and that, with such
a great humility. But to another type of mind this
avowed kinship is as the breath of life; nor can Au-
gustin have lacked the knowledge that herein lay the
great value of his work. No book has been more
studied, and to less purpose; no book has been more
read, and is less really known. The world, for a
thousand years and more, has tried to open these doors
without a key. Just as in the case of Jerome Cardan's
32 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
very different but equally candid life, 41 the world has
been obliged to wait until science gave it both the facts
and the knowledge of how to apply them, which it
needed to elucidate the writer's statements.
Meanwhile, a mountain of exegesis, criticism, and so-
called interpretation has been piled upon the "Con-
fessions." The favorite attitude of critic and com-
mentator insists that the "Confessions" are not auto-
biographical at all and were never intended by the
author to be thought so. The Church is very strong
upon this view, chiefly, it would seem, to preserve the
great Father's sanctity; and in order that the vulgar
shall not have the satisfaction or the scandal of be-
lieving that he lied, or stole, or dwelt "in a chaldron
of unholy loves." As he is St. Augustin, argues the
Church, he cannot have done these things. He must
have exaggerated his trifling peccadilloes, because we
have canonized him. The logic here is the logic of the
cleric, but its effect has so deeply permeated the his-
tory of the subject as to have an unfortunate result
for the written confession in general. For Augus-
tin 's supposed exaggeration has, of course, been made
a text for the exaggeration of his followers, without
the churchly reasoning being taken into account.
Quite apart from questions of hierarchical policy,
Augustin has suffered, with many another, from that
passion of the commentator for the involved, indirect
explanation, invented by himself, instead of the
simple, direct explanation furnished by the words
of the subject. 42 Even in the English standard edi-
tion, the translator is found to have made the impor-
tant discovery that the "Confessions" are only "con-
CONFESSION AND APOLOGIA 33
fessions of praise. " This is based on an observation
of Augustin in his exposition of the Psalms, that
* ' Confessions of sin all know, but confessions of praise
few attend to." These words, together with the un-
dercurrent of worship and praise carrying along the
music of the prose, satisfy this editor that Augustin
did not intend to tell all about himself.
One is roused in these latter days to a weary im-
patience when it comes to combating such artificial
views as these, but it must be done, since they prevent
us from seeing our subject as it really is. From
the standpoint of reverence which should have
weight with many it would seem very little to listen
and believe what Augustin tells us. "We know his
heart to beat with ours, we have the best of human
reasons to feel his truth and his sincerity; let us be
confident, then, that he did what he says he did, and
that he confessed his sins when he declares that he
confessed them. The words are there in all their
poignancy, and the man who wrote them did not write
for the purpose of hiding his real meaning. More-
over, it is not difficult to decide whether or not the
"Confessions" form a genuine autobiography. We
have but to compare the body of facts which the book
contains with the body of facts obtainable from other
sources. If the book be not intended as an autobiog-
raphy, then these facts will necessarily be fewer and
less essential than the outside facts; and we should
be able to gain just as clear a picture of the man if he
had never written any confessions at all.
A rapid examination of the different chapters will
show, better than any words, how exceedingly rich
34, RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
they are in personal data. In his first book Augnstin
presents a minute analysis of his childish development,
not omitting such details as his prayer to God that
he might not be flogged. 43 Book II contains a study
of the crisis of puberty; and after that a careful
description of his education. 44 Book III opens with
one of the most striking pictures in all literature of the
effect of life and art upon a vivid, youthful imagina-
tion; its new joy in ideas, and chiefly in the drama,
whence came, he declares, "my love of griefs/' 45 If
his purpose, indeed, was not primarily autobiograph-
ical, why these analyses ? Whence these details ? They
serve no purpose in the scheme of a "confession of
praise. " Let the reader compare them with Rous-
seau ; or their vitality of ideas with the similar youth-
ful vitality displayed in such letters as those of Shel-
ley 46 or the young Goethe, and he will see that the re-
ligious purpose has not been allowed to interfere with
the intention of sincere self -study. Later, in depicting
his period of temptation through the senses, Augus-
tin's self -observation is remarkably full and valuable.
He tells of his indifference to perfume, his fondness for
music, his delight in beautiful imaginings and colors,
and "that vain and curious longing" which he terms
the "lust of the eye for things hidden." 47 There are
similar details given in such highly secular studies as
Cardan's, 48 and the "De Profundis" 49 of Oscar
Wilde, and for the same reason, i.e., that the writer
may "be known to the reader as he really is. Augus-
tin's whole book, in truth, loses meaning if it be re-
garded in the sense insisted upon by the religious world
as that of a mere penitential handbook of prayer and
CONFESSION AND APOLOGIA 35
praise. Such prayer and praise it contains in full
measure, 50 but they are intended to be secondary and
should be so regarded.
Moreover, the power and influence of Augustin 's
"Confessions" over the world of literature has been
maintained for no other reason than their sincerity
and truthful information. Prayer and praise have
their own beauty and place, but they make no such
universal appeal to man as do the works which add
to his stock of knowledge. In vain has the Church
warned the faithful that he must not dare to suppose
Augustin lived in sin simply because he says that he
did; the human heart knows better. It knows that
for one exaggeration of an error, a man will write
ten understatements. It feels exactly what Augustin
meant when he cried out to God; "Accept the sacri-
fice of my confession by the agency of my tongue. ' ' 51
And it echoes and reechoes the words of his humility
through all the years to the present, when yet another
sinner repeats them: "A man's very highest moment
is, I have no doubt, when he kneels in the dust and
beats his breast, and tells all the sins of his life. ' ' 52
"What, then, have I to do with men that they should
hear my confession ? ' ' Augustin asks of future genera-
tions. "A people curious to know the lives of others,
but slow to correct their own. ' ' 53 To-day we wonder
if his wildest dreams showed him to what extent this
estimate was true. The effect of the "Confessions"
during certain eras became a sort of spiritual conta-
gion ; and a volume would be all too small to hold its
manifestations. Of M. de Saint-Cyran the Port-Roy-
alist, we read, for instance, that he "plunged and re-
36 KELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
plunged, lost himself in this writer. ' ' B * Sainte-Beuve
speaks with weariness of "toute cette serie d'ouvrages,
qui sont les l Confessions' de St. Augustin seculari-
sees et profanees"; 65 while he compares its influence
in literature to one other only, that of the man with-
out God, Montaigne.
In one of the most beautiful of his familiar letters, 56
Petrarch describes the effect upon himself of an ex-
perience which in his day was practically unique, the
ascent of a mountain. For us to-day, who rejoice in
the large freedom of nature, to whom no peak ap-
pears unconquerable, it is hard to realize what such an
action meant in the fourteenth century. Petrarch's
ascent of Mont Ventoux has been called an "epoch-
making act," but our modern mind finds itself less in-
terested in the deed than in the thoughts which the
poet took with him to that windy height. ' ' At first, ' '
he writes, "owing to the unaccustomed quality of the
air and the effect of the great sweep of view ... I
stood like one dazed. I beheld the clouds under our
feet, and what I had read of Athos and Olympus
seemed less incredible as I myself witnessed the same
thing from a mountain of less fame. ... Then a new
idea took possession of me, and I shifted my thoughts
to a consideration of time rather than place. * To-
day it is ten years since, having completed thy youthful
studies, thou didst leave Bologna. ... In the name of
immutable wisdom, think what alterations in thy char-
acter this intervening period has beheld!' ... I am
not yet in a safe harbor where I can calmly recall past
storms. The time may come when I can review in due
order all the experiences of the past, saying with St.
CONFESSION AND APOLOGIA 37
Augustine, 'I desire to recall my foul actions and the
carnal corruption of my soul, not because I love them,
but that I may the more love thee, my God ! ' " 57
How naturally did these words of Augustin rise in
Petrarch's heart, how readily did he yield himself to
that poignant influence ! "I rejoiced in my progress. ' *
he proceeds, "mourned my weaknesses, and commis-
erated the universal instability of human conduct.
. . . The sinking sun and the lengthening shadows of
the mountain were already warning us that the time
was near at hand when we must go. ... While I was
thus dividing my thoughts, now turning my attention
to some terrestrial object that lay before me, now rais-
ing my soul, as I had done my body, to higher planes,
it occurred to me to look into my copy of St. Augus-
tine's * Confessions/ a gift that I owe to your love,
and that I always have about me. ... I opened the
compact little volume, small, indeed, in size, but of
infinite charm, with the intention of reading whatever
came to hand. . . . Where I first fixed my eyes it was
written : ' And men go about to wonder at the heights
of the mountains, and the mighty waves of the sea,
and the wide sweep of rivers, and the circuit of the
ocean, and the revolution of the stars, but themselves
they consider not/ ' It would seem to us who read
these words that the revelation which came on the top
of Mont Ventoux to the first of modern men is hardly
less important than that which came to the lawgiver
on Sinai. All about him were spread the glories of
this world, and they were as nothing compared to the
wonder of self. ' ' I closed the book, ' ' he adds, ' ' angry
with myself that I should still be admiring earthly
38 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
things, who might long ago have learned even from
the pagan philosophers that nothing is wonderful but
the soul. ... I turned my inward eye upon myself,
and from that time not a syllable fell from my lips
until we reached the bottom again. Those words had
given me occupation enough. . . . " 58
In this passage the world may almost be said to come
of age; the mind of man, if we permit Petrarch to
personify it for us, attains maturity. The touch of
Augustin has led many another to that threshold since,
but no one has described the crisis more beautifully.
"The face of all the world is changed, I think,
Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul
Move still, oh, still, beside me . . ." <">
has been the cry of the devout heart to the Bishop
of Hippo, from almost every reader of his great "Con-
fessions." Later in his life, Petrarch definitely imi-
tates them, and, by the practice of self-examination,
"laid open the secret uncleanness of my transgres-
sions," 60 not once but many times. And from Pe-
trarch's day it shall be our task to mark the footsteps
of the saint, as he walks through these pages beside
the souls of men.
With the appearance of Augustin 's book, a means
was indicated to the sincere and introspective man,
whereby he might, as it were, make his confession di-
rect to God. Such a man must have felt very early
the inadequacy, for his soul's needs, of the auricular
confession; and that he did so feel is shown by
the rapid growth of the written record. Dr. Lea 61
has fully determined (though the question is somewhat
CONFESSION AND APOLOGIA 39
beside our present business) that the salutary effect
of confession largely ceased when addressed in private
to a single priest. Too much power had been deliv-
ered into priestly hands; while the confession itself
tended to lose spontaneity. Similar objections may
be raised to the questionnaire method in general,
wherever it obtains, and whether it be applied by re-
ligion or by science, by the confessor, or by the psy-
chologist. 62
But at the moment this question does not concern
us. What we wish to emphasize is the recognition
by Augustin, in the fourth century, of a fundamental
psychological fact, and his own admirable use of it
for the purpose of leading souls to God. From this
recognition we may date the appearance, in litera-
ture, of the * ' Conf essant ' ' himself. The term is used
and sanctioned by Bacon in order to escape the
ambiguity of the word ' ' Confessor, " which, as we have
seen, may indicate both the penitent and the priest to
whom the confession is addressed. From this time on,
we shall make use of Bacon's term in discussing the
person with whom it is the object of this book to
deal. The confessant, as he appears in these pages,
is personally, at least, the direct result of the influence
of Augustin.
That human impulse to "cleanse the stuff 'd bosom
of that perilous stuff which weighs upon the heart, ' ' 63
first really understood by the Bishop of Hippo, is re-
sponsible for more than one philosophic and literary
tendency. Reading the "Confessions" from this
point of view, the author's subtlety of understanding
seems freshly amazing, so does it outrun the develop-
40 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
ment of the surrounding civilized world. Modern to
the last degree, both in its expansions as in its reti-
cences, it proves at least the familiarity of the idea
of self -study to the more cultivated minds of that
time. Dr. Lea has exhaustively portrayed the
Church's effort to utilize this human impulse in a
social-religious attempt to bind together its congrega-
tions; but he nowhere suggests that such an attempt
was other than instinctive. It seemed simply a part
of the natural effort at unification, for the purpose of
self-preservation. If we know all about each other's
sins and errors, then we must stand and fall to-
gether. A solidarity is at once formed, based on
mutual understanding and mutual leniency, and this
solidarity was the pressing and immediate need of the
Church for several centuries. Later conditions tended
to conventionalize this idea into a ritual, but in this
universal human impulse the Church found a weapon
which it did not scruple to use for its own purposes
and the purposes, supposedly, of Heaven.
How may one best define this universal human im-
pulse? Though we know it to be influential upon al-
most all branches of literature, yet, by scholars, it has
been practically ignored. "All men have a natural
impulse to communicate their inward feelings and sen-
sations," writes a modern investigator. "The desire
to 'tell all about it 9 produces intense satisfaction of the
emotions. Suppression of it involves a tension . . .
and a general uneasiness. Criminals are not seldom
led by this impulse to confess offenses committed long
before. This impulse is quite a normal one, and be-
longs in some measure to every man." 64 The writer
CONFESSION AND APOLOGIA 41
adds that in poets and artists this feeling is apt to be
intensified, although he does not tell us why ; and our
ease-list more or less confirms his observation. In the
simple fact of suppression, involving tension and un-
easiness, lies the whole religious situation of the con-
verted individual.
The practice of written confession, as we have seen,
composed in heart-searching privacy, permits the con-
fessant to gain all the benefit, all the exaltation, of
the confession-idea, without the humiliation attend-
ing upon the auricular form; it encourages self -disci-
pline and self-knowledge, without weakening the in-
dividual will. So long as the Church, recognizing the
soul's impulse to "tell all about it," made use of that
impulse for the health of the soul itself, just so long
was a direct means provided for a human need.
But the moment that the Church began to use the
confession-idea, if only partially, for its own bene-
fit and that of its confessors, at once the practice de-
generated into tyranny of a peculiarly hateful sort.
No necessity is there to repeat in these pages the de-
tails of that tyranny and the protests against it ; 65
the reader sees for himself at once that the independent
mediaeval mind must needs have found another chan-
nel for its impulse to "tell all about it." Even Au-
gustin, in the fourth century, knew this; and under
his influence the written confession sprang into being,
supplying in a measure the place of that general,
public avowal which prevailed in the naif beginnings
of the early Church.
For public opinion to which such a record is con-
fided is safer than the seal of the confessional.
42 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
Men may securely tell their sins to a collective body
of their fellow-men; such confidence presupposes a
very sacredness of privacy. That this paradox is
true is proven by the nature of some of the sins thus
entrusted to the printed page, by such confessants as
Abelard 66 and Cardan, such self -students as Ben-
venuto Cellini and Rousseau. The feeling which
realizes that this privacy is real because it is also
publicity, forms a part of the autobiographical inten-
tion toward sincerity, which is one of the basic ideas
of self -study in autobiography. 67
The origins of the written confession, therefore, are
seen to be social, literary, and psychological ; and these
must receive due consideration, since the religious self-
study is in a measure evolved from all of them. At
the moment, our purpose is but to establish the con-
nection between the ritual and the document, with
the effect on both of the work of Augustin. When
that original, human impulse to * ' tell all about it ' ' had
familiarized itself with a form of expression provided
for its aid by the builders of the early Church, a
fresh impetus was given to all similar forms. Hence
Augustin 's " Confessions" introduced to the confes-
sion proper the autobiographical intention and idea.
It was plain that a full sincerity involved giving the
complete history of the subject, the sources of his sin,
the progress of his conversion-process. A definite
plan of self -study thus came to be formulated. Au-
gustin not only taught this self -study to be full and
sincere, but furnished an imperishable classic by the
way of example, and one which was to be followed by
the most enthusiastic imitation. Through him, the
CONFESSION AND APOLOGIA 43
religious record became the natural means of expres-
sion for the emotions of the Middle Ages.
Since the day of the Bishop of Hippo, the further
evolution of this type has been comparatively slow.
Already has it been noted that the derivation of the
confession-idea from paganism was hardly more than
formal; and that in the more ancient religions it
lacked both in vitality and personal appeal. Its
vital conception is purely the flower of Augustin's
genius. Modern exponents have added but little:
more facts, perhaps ; a clearer understanding of what
was seen ; better comparison in the matter of case and
case; nothing more. There are more minds of an
introspective cast to-day, owing to the tendency and
development of modern thought, yet their records
have added but little to the form bequeathed by
Augustin. His fascination over their imaginations
has endured for nearly one thousand years, while his
method of self-revelation has proved more satisfying
than that of the confessional. To its disciplinary
effect, since it requires an equally stringent self-ex-
amination, there are many to testify; while the ugli-
ness of the written sin constitutes no light penance for
the sensitive mind.
Many temperaments are aided and uplifted by this
act of confession; it is their natural need, and may
be the only hold which goodness has upon them. Lit-
erature is filled with examples to show that the impulse
may become overmastering, such as the cases in ' ' The
Scarlet Letter," or in Dostoievski's " Crime and Pun-
ishment. ' ' 68 But it does not need examples so melo-
dramatic to bring this truth home to us. What
44 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
mother has not had the startling yet sacred experience
of hearing a sensitive child make sudden and volun-
tary confession? Some evil act which may be
wholly unsuspected or some evil thought which has
been too long suppressed serves to set up an unbear-
able tension and uneasiness. Is not this what De
Quincey meant when he wrote, "If in this world
there is one misery having no relief, it is the pressure
on the heart from the Incommunicable. And . . .
what burden is that which only is insupportable by
human fortitude ? I should answer ... it is the bur-
den of the Incommunicable. ' ' 69 True, indeed, it is
that * ' For him who confesses, shams are over and reali-
ties are begun. " 70 The soul's endeavor to purge itself
is an impulse so definite and so universal at certain
stages in its development, that to determine these
stages forms a valuable point of departure for a
psychological analysis.
The question asked at the outset of this chapter
will not have been forgotten by the reader. When
we turn to science and enquire why the act of confes-
sion should bring a relief so intense to the mind and
spirit, the mental physiologist has an answer ready.
If it seem an answer more or less theoretical, one
must not forget that the whole subject, after all, is
still in the realm of hypothesis and theory, and that
a categorical reply cannot in the nature of things be
given until there is a further advance in the study
of the mental phenomena. Yet much has been de-
termined. By recent experiment it has been shown
that the connection between our speech and our ideas
is closer than we used to think; that the latter, indeed,
CONFESSION AND APOLOGIA 45
is practically dependent upon the former; and that
upon the faculty of language our whole intellectual
fabric really rests. 71
Many philosophers have suggested this dependence
in the past. From Abelard to Humboldt, it has been
the favorite paradox of the bolder mind. But it
can never have been more than a paradox, a sug-
gestion, until the modern experiments in the study
of the deaf-mute revealed its possibilities as a truth.
These studies have demonstrated at least one fact;
i.e., that the person deprived of the faculty of speech
(and this includes, of course, any possibility of hear-
ing and understanding speech) is deprived as well of
those mental images which are associated with lan-
guage. Lacking the means of expression, the subject
will be found also lacking in the ideas to express.
The teachers of Helen Keller 72 describe her original
condition as one almost of idiocy. This woman, who
now wields a prose of extraordinary clarity and beauty
in the service of the most poetic and complex ideas,
as a young child felt none but brute emotions, such
as hunger or anger; and was incapable of anything
even approaching an abstract conception. By the
restoration of the normal channels to thought, very
gradually, but very surely, the ideas themselves, first
simple, then more elaborate, were evolved and re-
stored to their domination in the human scheme. The
power of forming a conception is by this example
seen to be dependent on the means of expressing it;
while language takes its place as the normal and indis-
pensable prerequisite to thought. 73
Once possessed of language, man raised himself very
46 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
rapidly above the brute-level, for his every new word
became the nucleus for a group of new concepts. Com-
municativeness, as such, is therefore his natural tend-
ency; his mental capital must be kept constantly in
circulation if it is to increase ; and the busy garrulity
of the world is a guaranty of its vitality. Further,
it is normal, if not inevitable, for speech to utter
whatever thought the mind conceives. That restless
spirit which we call human cannot lie hid; it must
forth or die. After having once attained to a certain
degree of vitality, no concept can be suppressed with-
out strain. An idea, once formulated in your mind,
is a power which must act, and if you fail to give it
an outlet by your utterance, it is apt to create a dis-
agreeable tension. That these suppressions are ab-
normal, that if persisted in they cause a marked un-
easiness, that one's natural impulse is to share one's
thought or idea with another, we do not need to read
in books ; they are matter of daily experience.
Such popular phrases as "having something on
one's mind," express clearly our perception of this
condition. In children, to whom fresh ideas are a
continual source of excitement, the strain may become
exaggerated. Wholly apart from conduct, many a
child cannot eat or sleep normally if it be prevented
from "telling mother" of some new idea which has
taken a hold upon its mind. A child known to the
writer will lie awake for hours under the tension of
such a suppression, and be asleep in five minutes after
the perplexity has been communicated, even when all
explanation has been postponed till morning. Adults
have naturally more self-control ; yet literature is filled
CONFESSION AND APOLOGIA 47
with the struggles involved by such suppression, when
the suppressed idea is one of importance. Bizarre
avowals, confessions, and explanations crowd the pages
of history; yet we continue to wonder at the candid
revelations of Pepys, or Cellini, Ivan the Terrible, or
Catherine of Russia, without realizing the power of
the law by which they are driven to make them. 74
It has been assumed that the idea must attain to a
certain degree of importance in the mind conceiving it.
No ideas are more important to most of us than
those affecting our own conduct or opinions. A per-
son having these under consideration has created a
group of ideas concerning self. If he adds thereto dis-
satisfaction with himself due to newly aroused reli-
gious feeling, immediately this nucleus is charged with
emotion, penitence, grief, and humility. Thus height-
ened, it becomes an unbearable centre of mental ac-
tivity, possessing temporarily all his energies, and in
its struggle for expression, distracting the whole poor
creature. Hawthorne vividly describes this condition
in "The Marble Faun." 75 "I could not bear it,"
Hilda cries. ' ' It seemed as if I made the awful guilt
my own by keeping it hidden in my heart. I grew
a fearful thing to myself. I was growing mad ! ' ' The
relief when she makes her confession is described as
unspeakable, the satisfaction of a great need of the
heart, and the passing away of a torture. 76
For a longer or shorter period of time, according to
the subject's strength of character and the various
crises through which he may pass, this suppression
continues, bringing with it an intense misery. The
religious crisis forwards the moment of confession by
4,8 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
softening the man's heart and loosening his will.
And when, by his first words of avowal, this tension
is relaxed, the relief has been compared to the drain-
ing of an abscess. Physicians understand this fact
so well, in their treatment of many nervous cases, that
confessions are not discouraged, and are treated as
under the seal. The writer heard not long since how a
famous neurologist had treated a woman patient un-
successfully for many months ; but after she had con-
fessed to a hidden sin, she recovered rapidly.
In examples where this impulse is heightened by
literary gifts and natural expansiveness, the relief
is touched with joy. Not only has a channel been
provided through which the pent-up feelings may
readily flow, but it is a channel also open to the crea-
tive faculties a new outlet for newly acquired powers.
Thus Augustin is filled with exultant delight, prais-
ing God; thus, too, is Teresa, casting aside her diffi-
dence. The sense of serene power, so strong in
Cardan's "Life," and in the opening books of Rous-
seau's "Confessions," is due to such a combination.
Many critics have set this emotion down to piety
only, but if we regard it nearly, we will see that it
partakes the characteristics of a joy more constant and
less subject to fluctuation than the pious joy no less
than the happiness of intellectual creation.
Were it possible to obtain the data, it would be
interesting to determine the usual length of the period
of suppression and its cause. These must vary
widely. Criminal annals have shown us cases where
such a suppression has lasted for many years; and
there may, of course, be natures who die unconf essed.
CONFESSION AND APOLOGIA 49
But when we realize that the recipient of the confession
need only be one other, and that the relief of such
confession may be just as great if no action of any
kind follow it, we see that it is very doubtful if many
men go to their graves carrying with them secrets
which no other human being has shared. And if
any religious emotion or disturbance enter into one's
life at all, its first effect would be unquestionably to
rouse and to excite this impulse to confess.
The characteristics of the earlier confessions are
readily comprehended. Their motive-forces have not
changed to-day, although familiarity with the literary
form has brought into play the confusing elements
of imitation, and the ages have weakened the primal
emotions. Still are they being written under the
influence of that autobiographical intention, which
has been discussed elsewhere, 77 and which has been
denned "as writing as though no one in the world
were to read it, yet with the purpose of being read/' 78
In the privacy of unveiling the soul to God and so
making a fuller revelation to man, the first religious
confession was written, and the last will be writ-
ten. ' * Columbus, ' ' says Emerson, * ' discovered no isle
or key so lonely as himself/' 79 and this is the first
discovery of all serious self -study. Charged with a
feeling the more intense because of its previous sup-
pression, a confessant sits down to "tell all about it"
as far as his gifts and powers of expression will permit.
We have seen how these differ, and we shall return
to this difference, which is important. All confess-
ants are not Augustin, nor yet Bunyan, nor yet James
Linsley, nor yet John Gratton. But they must and do
50 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
share certain characteristics and tendencies, however
wide the variations in individual force.
Surely the very act of writing a confession presup-
poses that the emotions confessed have dropped from
their first height, and reached a secondary stage.
This subsidence must not be forgotten, though it gen-
erally is ; it is equally true of every feeling described,
of love or hate, of pious or criminal passion. The
mere fact of writing about it shows that the high- water
mark of the emotion itself has been passed. Failure
to comprehend this is one of the most potent sources
of prevalent misinterpretation of the document.
When the confessant writes, "I feel thus and so," a
distrust is immediately bred in the mind of the reader,
who, finding it impossible to believe that a fellow-
creature can so catch his own moods and feelings "on
the wing," as it were, communicates this distrust to
the matter of the record. Less difficulty is experienced
where the writer substitutes the past tense ; remember-
ing that all confessions must needs be confessions of
something which the mind is able to analyze and sur-
vey, i.e., of something past. That in a sensitive nature
the mental eye may exaggerate the past experience,
is of course true; but it is less common than many
have imagined. The reasons why Augustin is accused
of it have already been mentioned. Many of us, how-
ever, share Macaulay's feeling, that the religious man
over-accents his wickedness. " There cannot be a
greater mistake," declares Macaulay with his usual
emphasis, "than to infer from the strong expressions
in which a devout man bemoans his exceeding sinful-
ness, that he has led a worse life than his neighbors.
CONFESSION AND APOLOGIA 51
Many excellent persons . . . have in their autobiogra-
phies and diaries applied to themselves, and doubtless
with sincerity, epithets as severe as could be applied
to Titus Oates or Mrs. Brownrigg. " 80
Macaulay, with many others, fails to observe that
the difference here is not that the converted man has
led a worse life than his neighbors, but only that he
is now able to recognize it as evil. Bunyan's youth
resembles that of many men, yet the moralist does not
find it admirable any more than Bunyan did. 81 The
early years of Tolstoi differ very little from those
spent by other young Russians of his day and so-
ciety; but are we required to think, for that reason,
that they were well spent? Do we really feel as we
read his avowals, or those of Alfieri, for instance, that
he exaggerates when he calls that preconverted time
immoral ? 82 When John B. Gough describes his
drunkard degradation, and George Miiller the vices
for which he was arrested, 83 are they exaggerating be-
cause they have come to see themselves as others see
them? The facts of the case are against Macaulay.
And if we shift our standards a little, believing that
the eyes which see the hideousness of sin are now open,
when before they were closed, then we feel no distrust
of the self-depreciation of our great confessants.
In one of Shelley's letters, he remarks that "Rous-
seau's 'Confessions' are either a disgrace to the con-
fessor or a string of falsehoods, and probably the lat-
ter. ' ' 84 The ' ' either-or, ' ' in this sentence is very
characteristic of Shelley 's hasty and tumultuous mind ;
and his criticism well exhibits his inability to see
things as they really were. With all his high ideals
52 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
of virtue, his acts yet produced the miserable re-
sults of vice; with all his delicate sensitiveness to
beauty, his private relations yet show an ugly as-
pect ; while the lack of courageous self-knowledge ham-
pered him throughout his life. A man like this finds
an indelicacy in all real candour, and by temperament
would rather never look facts about himself in the
face. His attitude toward Rousseau is shared by
many, even Lord Morley thinks that the opening
sentences of the "Confessions" are blasphemous. 85
Yet it is to such an one, if he be at all open-minded,
that the sincere confession is especially addressed,
and for whom it has a particular value. It may form,
perhaps, his only influence on the subjective side, caus-
ing him for once to examine his real state ; "to strip
himself bare as Christ stripped himself before cruci-
fixion ... to look at the face of his soul in the mir-
ror of the virtues of Christ. ' ' 86 Such examination
is in itself a religious act, and shows its effect by the
impression which these records have produced in
times past over minds by no means naturally intro-
spective.
For the introspective person has his uses, though he
will never form one of the majority. He is a develop-
ment of the Christian influence, which has for cen-
turies worked to produce this special and highly evo-
lutionized type of the inward-looking mind. What
religion encouraged, on the one hand, science also, with
her perpetual questioning and analyzing, encouraged
on the other, so that the very word philosophy has to-
day become almost a synonym for subjective discus-
sion. What result these influences have had upon the
CONFESSION AND APOLOGIA 53
evolution of modern man, and modern thought ; upon
the recorded inner life of the first, and the special
trend of the second, must needs form the subject of a
separate chapter.
It has been noted that there are other sources for
the early religious self -study, and other influences af-
fecting its character, upon which we have not yet
touched. Before entering on the study of the basic
underlying problems of subjectivity and introspection,
it were well to consider such of these sources as may
be revealed by history. The connotation in our minds
of the words " apologia " and " confession" is founded
on a very modern rapprochement of the two ideas.
When Newman wrote an " Apologia pro Vita sua," he
used a title which already carried for his reader an
idea beyond mere exposition, and involving excuse.
Now, this meaning of excuse is modern and secon-
dary, although in a sense it usurps the functions of the
primary meaning of exposition. When one examines
that group of writings technically known as the ' ' Cor-
pus Apologetarum Christianorum, " or the "Body of
Christian Apologetics, " he is struck with their im-
personal character. A defence of the faith by means
of an adequate exposition of its doctrines, this was
the original aim of the apologist. To him, there would
have been dishonor in the faintest suggestion of ex-
cuse.
This same intention is maintained here and there
in literature, during the Middle Ages, and there are
returns to it, occasionally, even to-day. But these
returns only serve to mark more strikingly that a
new, personal meaning is now attached to the word
54 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
"apology." When Pietro Pomponazzi 87 wrote an
"Apologia" for his materialistic tract whose doctrine
disagreed with the doctrine of the soul's immortality,
one somehow expects to find it contain his personal
excuses for his lack of faith. When Sir Leslie Ste-
phen 88 calls his volume of essays "An Agnostic's Apol-
ogy, ' ' one is somehow surprised to find the term used
in its elder sense of doctrinal defence and exposition.
How, then, did this idea of defence by exposition
come to include that of personal statement and per-
sonal confession ? The Greek word means simply the
speech of a defendant in reply to that of a prose-
cutor. 89 Hence the "Apology" of Socrates, whose de-
fiant attitude seems in our minds a very contradic-
tion of his titular address. 90 "I am conscious of no
guilt, ' ' he declared ; and then entered on certain argu-
ments in support of his opinions which permitted him
to display his powers in their most characteristic
form. 91 There is certainly here no intention of ex-
cuse.
It has been similarly suggested that Christianity,
being a prophetic religion, should not have descended
to argument, but should have continued merely to de-
clare God's will. The Fathers, however, did not find
that a mere declaration sufficed them. During that
great second century, when apologetics 92 became prac-
tically a science, all literature of this kind begins to
change in tone. It displays, in fact, the first effects of
that spontaneous evolution from the objective to the
subjective which was characteristic of other lines of
thought as well. The Fathers may not have known,
as we know, that every creed must pass through its
CONFESSION AND APOLOGIA 55
apologetic stage, when the energy of its adherents
must needs be devoted to doctrinal exposition, defini-
tion, and defence. The building of a Church from a
creed, of an organization from a set of opinions, is
largely dependent upon the manner in which this
primary exposition is accomplished. The definition
and development of men 's ideas as to the value of such
and such a belief, is naturally of the greatest impor-
tance in causing that belief to prevail.
Christianity possessed an immense advantage in the
vitality, the acumen, and the energy of its primary
apologists and expositors. It is true that the modern
reader will have difficulty in finding a single docu-
ment of this large group 93 which bears what he to-day
would term an apologetic significance. Their attitude
is as sure and unswerving as that of Socrates him-
self ; nor must it be forgotten that the whole world
stood, at this time, for the prosecutor of Christianity,
whose place at the bar was not unlike that of the
Greek philosopher, while facing some of the same
charges.
These disquisitions are almost wholly doctrinal in
character, many of them occupied only in the analy-
sis of certain moot-points of dogma. The only sugges-
tion of personality about them lies in their acrimony.;
for the vexation of the writer is an indication that
his feelings and his temperament in general are in-
volved in the discussion.
By the time of the Eenaissance, the classic, i.e., the
impersonal, intellectual apology, had grown to be dif-
ferentiated from the personal apology. This last was
the child of Christian controversy, born of the furious
56 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
zeal of the saints, to whom a difference of opinion on
doctrinal points meant life or death. To our greater
tolerance there is something strange and unnecessary
in this ready anger of the Fathers, which charged their
writings with animus, while at the same time it re-
moved them even further, if possible, from our pres-
ent conception of the sphere of apology. Let us take
the famous controversy between Rufinus and Jerome. 04
The former states his attitude toward Manichseanism,
with his reasons for making certain interpretations
from the works of Origen; the latter directly attacks
these views, and gives his reasons therefor. Both
adopt an assertive manner quite contrary to what we
should now term "apologetic" in any current sense
of that word. Rufinus talks of Jerome 's ' ' invectives ' '
and of his "subterfuges of hypocrisy." Jerome re-
torts upon "the unprecedented shamelessness" of
Rufinus, whom he scruples not to call "a scorpion."
Each accuses the other of heresy and of double-deal-
ing; each defends himself by accusing the other. 95
When Rufinus asserts that Jerome is still a Cicero-
nian, notwithstanding his dream that God accused
him of following Cicero more ardently than Christ,
Jerome opens the full vials of his irony upon his less
cultured opponent. He congratulates Rufinus upon a
literary style, so unclassical, so rough and thorny,
which shows that he has not been hampered by any love
of the classics ! Although Jerome himself has written
of his famous dream as a complete conversion to
things heavenly; yet he cannot bear that Rufinus
should say a word against * ' My Tully ' * ; and immedi-
ately rushes to declare, with all heat and defiance, that
CONFESSION AND APOLOGIA 57
no sensible person would hold himself to be bound by a
promise given in a dream !
Neither of these two men offers any explana-
tion of his own views which would convince a modern,
unpartisan outsider that he had the right to such a
hostile attitude toward the views of the other. Apolo-
getic is the least accurate possible word to describe
the assaults of Jerome's wit, his irony, vituperation,
and impatient energy of refutation. Yet both in his
matter and manner, in his imagery and his attack,
there is seen the development of a personal note ; and
this personal tone is augmented by the introduction of
autobiographical details, though these are scattered
and slight. 96
Here, then, is the beginning of the personal note in
apology ; and of course it is more marked in a nature
like that of Jerome than it would be in a cooler head
and heart. John Chrysostom 97 makes use of the per-
sonal manner, but he is not, like Jerome, introspec-
tive. In Justin Martyr, the personal tone has grown
into a full personal explanation.
The study of early Christian apologetics will not
further our purpose in these pages beyond this point.
It will be understood that the drill in exegesis which
work of this type lent to the powerful intelli-
gences of the Fathers tended to expand and heighten
the qualities which make for self -study and self -un-
derstanding. Jerome and Eufinus may confine their
personal exposition to an interchange of vituperation ;
Tertullian's voice may thunder down the ages bear-
ing his expression of opinion; but the tendency to
make personal all religious appeal becomes more
58 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
marked. No man can explain to another a truth very
near his own heart without studying his own nature;
nor can any one vividly expound his religious views
without drawing some picture of their effect upon him-
self. An appreciation of this verity is borne in upon
us on reading such documents as Justin Martyr's
"Dialogue with Trypho," and the apocalyptic "Shep-
herd of Hernias." In the former, several paragraphs,
dealing with Justin's education and religious develop-
ment, show how keenly he felt the need of a personal
exposition of these matters. The unknown Hermas,
author of the "Shepherd," makes one of the earliest
attempts in literature to give a systematic account of
a personal revelation through divine visions. 98 Thus,
the appeal of a man's belief to himself, its influence on
himself, are, after all, his chief reasons for trying to
impose it upon another, as well as his best guides as
to the manner of so doing. Faith is an emotional
factor; and no one can hope to make converts by a
mere abstract discussion of its validity or its reason-
ableness. "La raison," observes Renan, "aura tou-
jours peu de martyrs." The doctrines of Manichasus
seemed to Augustin to have been based on a truly
scientific method," but that fact could not hold him,
once their personal appeal had waned. The instant
they ceased to affect him for good, to aid his steps,
that instant they appeared to his mind to be pernicious
and heretical. The influence which sways another to
our view is, first of all, the effect our opinion has had
upon ourselves. The vitality in all defence, in all
apology, lies here.
Once introduced into the religious literature of the
CONFESSION AND APOLOGIA 59
early Middle Ages, this personal note becomes clearly
traceable through the scattered monkish and ecclesias-
tical and even the secular confessiones, testamenta,
and apologiae of the first twelve centuries. In many
cases, such as that of the anti-Christian Epistle of the
Neo-Platonist Porphyry to the prophet Anebo, 100 the
personal manner is merely rhetorical, and is not in-
tended to be taken literally. In this Epistle, the
author states his religious doubts and asks for their
elucidation, with an assumption of ignorance which we
know cannot have been real; though it is interesting
to find him using a personal method. The oft-cited
passages in the work of Philo-Judasus 101 contain not
only real and important self -study, but also some of
the earliest data obtainable 102 on the influence of that
Daemon, "who is accustomed, ' ' writes Philo, "to con-
verse with me in an unseen manner, prompting me
with suggestions. " The material, however, is em-
bodied in this paragraph without further evolution;
it has evidently little self-consciousness in its testi-
mony.
A number of autobiographical, apologetic confes-
sions are to be found during the centuries before these
documents took the conventional shape to which we
are now accustomed. Some among them suggest the
religious confession of the future; although it must
be remembered that, before the unrest preceding the
Reformation, they lacked the powerful motive for
completeness which is furnished by change of sect.
Among the more noteworthy should be mentioned the
testament and confession in Syriac, of Ephraim of
Edessa, 103 who, in the fourth century, accuses himself
60 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
of being envious, quarrelsome and cruel, until his heart
was touched by a spirit. Some doubt attaches to the
authenticity of this document in its present form, but
it holds a curious interest for us. The better-known
"Confessio Patricii" 104 is entirely personal, touching,
and complete. There will be occasion later in these
pages to refer to the narrative of Patrick 's conversion
and following career which it contains ; at the moment,
attention should be called only to the accent of humil-
ity in which the writer describes himself: ". . . I, a
rustic, a fugitive, unlearned, indeed . . ." or again:
"I, Patrick, a sinner, the rudest and least of all the
faithful, and most contemptible to very many. ' '
Similar records, if of less value, are enshrined in
Latin collections. Prosper of Aquitaine 105 is said to
have left a confession markedly personal in tone.
Perpetuus, 106 Bishop of Tours, confided the statement
of his beliefs to a " Testamentum, " about the same
date. Alcuin's lor "Confessio Fidei" is said to be the
work of his disciples, although it makes use of the first
person. A confession in metrical Latin prose, by Paul
of Cordova, 108 is filled with prayer and invocation. A
monk, Gotteschalchus, 109 who was tried for heresy in
the same century, expresses himself both in a "Con-
fessio," and a "Confessio prolixior" (post hceresim
damnatam), supporting his apology with texts from
Scripture.
By the eleventh century, one may easily find full-
formed and highly developed confessions, whose origi-
nal religious purpose has already begun to be modified
from other causes. The famous letter of Peter Dam-
iani 110 in which he terms himself "Petrus peccator,"
CONFESSION AND APOLOGIA 61
shows self-study as well as self-accusation. The tone
of this letter is deeply penitent, and the writer charges
himself with many sins, especially those of scurrility
and laughter. Anselm of Canterbury, 111 according
to his friend and biographer, Eadmer, portrays his
own remorse in his "Oratio meditative," whose out-
burst of anguish is, indeed, piercing. Wholly differ-
ent is its accent from that of a naif chronicler like the
monk Kaoul Glaber, 112 whose narrative contains his
own reformation through the visit of a hideous fiend.
When this visitant perched, with mops and mows,
upon the foot of Glaber 's bed, terror drove him to pray
in the chapel for the rest of the night.
Such examples serve, at least, to show the trend of
the document, its descriptive idea, its personal note,
its apologetic tendency. Heterogeneous forms begin
already to appear; and the twelfth century gives us,
beside the Augustinian confession, the personal
apology, the confession of revelation, the narrative of
visions, or of travels to the unseen world, whether of
heaven or hell. 113 Monkish historical chronicles there
are, not at all religious and but indirectly autobio-
graphical, while the germ of the scientific self -study be-
gins to show itself in descriptions of one's own
education, records of mental development, and the
like.
Abelard's " Letter II," 11 * Guibert de Nogent's
"Life," prefixed to his "History of the Crusades," 115
are documents beginning to mark this differentiation
in tone. The " Metalogicus " of John of Salis-
bury 116 gives a plain account of the course of studies
pursued by that famous scholar. Full of greater de-
62 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
tail is a similar record, the ' ' Euriditionis Didasca-
licae" 117 of the mystic, Hugo of St. Victor, who is also
reported to have left a "Confessio Fidei." Roger
Bacon makes his apology to the Pope, in a letter de-
scribing his labors and struggles. 118 Often religion
enters into such documents as these only when they
come under the fear of the Inquisition ; their nature is,
of course, affected by such fear, and their appeal is
made directly to the authorities of the Holy Office.
The entrance into this field of the mystics and their
records, or revelations, brings us to a final division of
the subject. It was in these centuries that the Via
Mystica opened to the imagination of the Middle Ages.
Along that Way are to pass a great company "Itin-
erarium mentis in Deum," as John of Fidanza 119
named his own progress thereon. The gates of this
Way had been indicated by Augustin, by Plotinus, as
some have thought, and by lamblichus, since undoubt-
edly Neo-Platonism is the source of all later mys-
ticism. 120 The visions and revelations to saints and
contemplatives, such as Hildegarde of Bingen, Eliza-
beth of Schonau, and their like, threw the gates wide.
Some of the more important of these pilgrims will be
considered later in this book.
With the introduction into the apology, of personal
confession, the use of this form as a plain exposition of
doctrine slowly declined. It was no longer needed
in the same way ; the Church was the indisputed mis-
tress of the medieval world. Her votaries were no
longer obliged to explain their views to the crowd,
since the crowd believed as they did. It was no longer
necessary to convince the Stoic, or the dilettante, or
CONFESSION AND APOLOGIA 63
the aristocratic Epicurean of the elder Roman order,
that he must believe and be saved. Much of the
seriousness of self -study had been born of this earlier
necessity, when a man was forced to look very nearly
to his own mind and beliefs, since he wished his family
and friends to share them. He felt he must show how
he had changed for the better ; he must describe what
he was before his conversion as well as what he be-
came after it. Difference of opinion, heresy, in a
word, was always wickedness, and the man who felt
his conduct or his opinions to stand in need of defence
or excuse, kept alive the apologetic attitude, as we
understand it to-day.
Later on, it seems only conduct that evokes apology.
Not Bruno 's 121 heresy, but Lorenzino de ' Medici 's
crime 122 needs an apologia. Still later the tone
lightens ; in the hand of Colley Gibber, 123 for instance,
the apology becomes almost gay. But even in our own
day the examples of this form may be found in all
their original seriousness with only that change in ac-
centuating conduct which we have just noticed. New-
man 124 felt that not his change to Catholicism required
an apology ; but rather the charge of double-dealing in
connection with his submission to the Church. This
he justifies, he excuses, as best he may ; it is not easily
explained. His attitude is curiously non-apologetic
on that side where some apology would seem to have
been demanded by the nature of the acts confessed.
But then the apologetic attitude would seem to be al-
most wholly a question of temperament, not that of
will. Augustin, Eousseau, Oscar Wilde, possess it;
and there exist candid confessions where it never
64 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
seems even to have been felt by the conf essant himself,
and where he merely states the facts without comment.
Cardan is an example of this ; so is his contemporary,
Cellini ; 125 De Quincey is another notable instance ;
and there is a curious example of a non-apologetic
state of mind contained in that confession by Alex-
ander Hamilton which was known as "The Keynolds
Pamphlet." 126 Hamilton had been accused of spec-
ulating with the public funds, such being the general
explanation of his relations with Reynolds. The real
explanation was an intrigue with Mrs. Reynolds, util-
ized by the husband for purposes of blackmail.
Hamilton is forced to make a full statement of the
truth. He writes in this tone: "I proceed ... to
offer a frank and plain solution of the enigma, by giv-
ing a history of the origin and progress of my con-
nection with Mrs. R . . ." And later, "I had noth-
ing to lose as to my reputation for chastity ; concern-
ing which the world had fixed a previous opinion."
After remarking that this opinion was the correct
one, and that "I dreaded extremely a disclosure and
was willing to make large sacrifices to avoid one," he
proceeds energetically to refute the embezzlement
charges, pointing to the truth as to a justification.
The relative importance in his mind of the two sins
is at once characteristic and suggestive. What would
to many minds have appeared to require a sincere
apology (if only to Mrs. Hamilton), is treated as the
insignificant explanation of an unjust accusation.
The literary influence of the body of Christian
apologetics has thus been exerted in unexpected direc-
tions; and has, partially at least, endured until the
CONFESSION AND APOLOGIA 65
present time. From Jerome and Pamphilus to New-
ton and Whiston the difference in their theological
manner is comparatively slight. It is true that one
must not exaggerate their influence, since it was their
ardent faith that counted rather than their intellec-
tual force. 127 Until the nineteenth century, when-
ever the apologist made his appearance, it was to
build his explanation upon the old foundations, and
to raise his defence upon the classic plan. 128 Still, for
him did theology, philosophy, and metaphysics form
the three strands of one cord. But with the latter-day
growth of scientific methods, these strands have been
permanently loosened. The new psychology, the an-
thropology of Tylor, Spencer, and Frazer, the evolu-
tion theories as affecting biology, all these have tended
to separate and divide those various elements which
together form a man's philosophy and religion. Thus
the self-student can no longer approach his apologia
in the same spirit. His candour may produce similar
results, but it has a different motive power. He real-
izes, as Augustin, by reason of his genius, realized,
that the accurate effect of the religious experience
upon himself is better worth analyzing than all the
metaphysics of the Schoolmen. Augustin felt this
when he devoted ten books of the "Confessions" to the
psychological treatment of his subject, and only three
to the theological. Our modern confessant has done
well to observe the same general proportion.
The "Corpus Apologetarum Christianorum" has
maintained its effective position in religious literature
by reason of the vigorous intellectual force originally
responsible for all exposition and defence of doctrine.
66 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
The personal record owes it much beside name and
flexibility of treatment. In modern times, its classic
animosity of tone has been transferred to the contro-
versies of science ; while the milder apology, so-called,
has tended to become the property of that mind which
is anxious to convince itself of its own strength or
weakness. Hence to-day we readily connect the idea
of apology with that of excuse. 129
In the study of any subject by a valid method, classi-
fication and analysis must precede induction. If these
are full and sufficient, then the reader is often able to
foresee the conclusions of his author. When it be un-
derstood how the written confession arose at the in-
spiration of Augustin, just as the practice of public
confession was tending to decline (in the second and
third centuries), then it will be readily comprehended
that its literary style must have been formed by the
explanatory drill in the works of the Christian Apolo-
gist. That its vitality came from yet another source
that subjective trend developing in the world of
thought must not be forgotten, although the discus-
sion of this source is necessarily postponed until the
following chapter. But even without any tendency
to subjectivism being taken into account, history
makes plain certain personal attitudes, which, even
in the time of Rousseau, remained obscure. If the
forces governing thought and controlling literary
movements are noted in their beginnings, their later
progress presents few difficulties to our comprehen-
sion. Science to-day, as never before, aids the task.
Psychology, teaching the relation between idea and
language, together with the power of group- imitation;
CONFESSION AND APOLOGIA fc
anthropology and sociology, unfolding the growth
of peoples and of societies, now throw a clearer light
upon the individual records with which we are about
to deal. The time spent in analysis, therefore, has
not been wasted, since it permits us to approach the
more complex parts of our subject, with confidence
that its historical and literary elements have been dis-
entangled, and are understood.
Ill
INTROSPECTION: THE INTROSPECTIVE TYPE
I. 1. Definition, and attitudes toward introspection.
2. Plato, Christianity, the Sophists, Protagoras, Dem-
ocritus.
3. Animism, metaphysics, the Church.
4. Tendency toward subjectivity; Seneca, Marcus
Aurelius, Epictetus.
5. Self -study and mysticism; Neo-Platonists, Plotinus,
Augustin.
II. 1. Self-consciousness.
2. Mental processes.
3. Psychology.
4. Value of introspection in the past.
5. The Ego.
III. 1. The types in literature and philosophy; Augustin.
2. England and Germany; Al-Ghazzali and Descartes.
3. Kant, Comte, Fichte, Schelling, Schopenhauer,
Nietzsche.
4. Dante, Petrarch, Eneas Sylvius, Montaigne.
5. B-Cowne, Rousseau, Cardan, Byron, and Shelley.
6. Minor examples.
7. Emerson, Amiel, the Gurneys, and Oscar Wilde.
Ill
INTROSPECTION : THE INTROSPECTIVE TYPE
IT is now determined of what main elements the
first religious confessions were composed, how partly
the general drift of thought, and partly the direct im-
pulse given by individual genius, was responsible for
their form and for their content. Nor will it be
found difficult to believe that the training in exegesis
and in dialectic of those earlier apologists, would later,
have a perceptible influence. Thus, gradually, the
records of personal religious experience came to have a
definite character of their own, one, moreover, which
tended to become more and more subjective. But
such influences in themselves do not wholly account for
the increasing development in religion of the mental
habit which we term introspection; they might give
definiteness and direction to the introspective tend-
ency, but they could not of themselves create it. A
new element introduced into thought will of neces-
sity create new literary forms and fresh points of
view. It remains for us to ascertain what were the ele-
ments introduced by introspection into the religious
life, and what new literary forms it has served to pro-
duce.
The word means no more, of course, than "looking
within "; although it is used to describe a familiar
mental state, and one which we are apt to think of
71
72 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
as wholly modern. All that is implied in this moder-
nity is best defined in the words of Mill, when he re-
marked that "the feelings of the modern mind are
more various, more complex and manifold than those
of the ancients ever were. The modern mind is what
the ancient was not, brooding and self-conscious ; and
its meditative self -consciousness has discovered depths
in the human soul which the Greeks and Romans did
not dream of, and would not have understood. ' ' l
That the world has owed much to this power of
1 'meditative self -consciousness/' Mill hardly needs to
remind us; yet no one will deny that it is in general
regarded with distrust. There has come to be attached
to our conception of the introspective state of mind
the idea that it is unwholesome and abnormal; and
this connotation suggests that the world clings to cer-
tain standards of what is normal, long after they have
ceased to be in any sense accurate. The introspec-
tive type of mind has ceased to be a rarity; and one
may well question if it be advisable to thrust it aside
as abnormal without a more valid reason than is fur-
nished by instincts half-vestigiary. No doubt the
presence of a self -analytical tendency in some neurotic
conditions, and the "culte du moi" in certain so-
called decadent literary schools, have had their share
in maintaining this antagonism. Yet it will be
noticed that even when there is no neurosis and no
decadence when the introspective tendency is coin-
cident with a healthy energy and a robust scientific
habit yet the world's antagonism is never lessened.
In fact, it is a sentiment only to be accurately de-
fined by the use of such terms as "instinctive uneasi-
THE INTROSPECTIVE TYPE 73
ness," "instinctive distrust," suggesting that it is in
itself a part of our inheritance from the past. Possi-
bly it is to this same instinctive distrust that we owe
the curious silence of some of our greatest critics on
the subject a silence which seems at times, to be
almost deliberate. Arnold, for instance, though he
loved to write of such profoundly introspective na-
tures as Amiel, or the de Guerins, and of such topics
as "Pagan and Mediaeval Religious Sentiment" yet
somehow contrives to avoid any discussion of the
degree and the value of a "looking within." He ac-
cepts the introspection contained in these thoughts
and journals, but it does not appear to hold any sig-
nificance for him. Nor is this true of Arnold only;
it is true of other critics, both English and foreign;
it makes the pathway which we have to tread singu-
larly barren of comment. No authoritative voice
speaks to us concerning this trend of the human mind.
We are unguided when, in our endeavor to look into
the past, we seek for the earliest indications of that
tendency which was to mark the world's maturity.
For to the Greek, to the pagan mind, introspection as
we know it, was practically non-existent; and there
came a time when a joyously objective world beheld
with anxiety the clouding of its sky by the develop-
ment of self-consciousness. It is true that the con-
templative religions of the East had long held another
ideal.
When Manu describes the creation of the universe,
he tells that "From himself [Buddha] drew forth the
mind, which is both real and unreal ; likewise from the
mind egoism which possesses the function of self-con-
74 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
sciousness, and is lordly. " 2 This sentence has a mod-
ern ring ; it bears, indeed, almost a Nietzschean quality.
It would seem to mark the contrast between Eastern
and Western philosophy. Yet even among the Greeks
there are to be found, if one searches, the germs of what
appears to be in the nature of a curiosity about self,
which, later, was to evolve new types of thinkers and of
thoughts. But of what nature is this curiosity ? Is it
properly to be called subjective at all? It is true that
Socrates quoted that ancient Delphian inscription
"Know thyself, " 3 and in a manner suggestive of
modern conceptions: "I must first 'know myself,' as
the Delphian inscription says ; to be curious about that
which is not my concern, while I am still in ignorance
of my own self, would be ridiculous. . . . Am I a
monster more complicated and swollen with passion
than the serpent Typho, or a creature of a gentler and
simpler sort?" * Although Socrates asked such ques-
tions, he did not attempt to answer them by any
method which to-day would be called introspective.
In his mind these queries rather served a disciplinary
purpose; much, indeed, as the modern philosopher
loves to propound anew the ultimate enigmas in order
both to humble his reader and to justify his specula-
tion. Plato's introduction to the "Alcibiades" 5 (the
authenticity of which remains in doubt) contains a
paragraph wherein Socrates recommends his "sweet
friend" to attain self-knowledge through observation
and an open mind. 6
There is small suggestion of any real "looking
within" about this. Yet there are historians who still
insist in placing upon Plato the entire responsibility
THE INTROSPECTIVE TYPE 75
for the modern interest in self. Notwithstanding the
fact that Plato specifically condemns it as a weakness,
and this for reasons to be noted later, this fact of
his depreciation of the Ego has been held by these crit-
ics to constitute the source of the later Christian doc-
trine of self -mortification ! 7
No doubt the conception of a multiple personality,
of an Ego, which was not one but two, or even more ;
of one Self ruling, or watching, or struggling with
another Self, is very, very old. No doubt it is the
first of our conceptions the formation of which was
due to a deliberate effort at introspection, however
rudimentary. There are traditions, for example, that
Pythagoras recommended self-examination to his dis-
ciples, but they remain traditions. 8 Such a conception,
at such a time, must have been a veritable tour-de-
force; and would necessarily have been followed by a
reaction.
Comments are freely made by critics and historians
on the incapacity or the unwillingness of the Greeks
to let us see anything whatever of their thinking and
feeling selves. It was a practice so foreign to their
habit of mind, that when Pater causes Marius "to keep
a register of the movements of his own private
thoughts or humors/' he is obliged to excuse the pro-
ceeding for his hero, by terming it a "modernism."
' ' The ancient writers, * ' Pater continues, ' ' having been
jealous for the most part of affording us so much as a
glimpse of that interior self, which, in many cases,
would have actually doubled the interest of their
objective informations." 9
This incapacity or unwillingness becomes more com-
76 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
prehensible when we turn from the Greek mind itself,
to the nature of the beliefs with which it was filled.
To us, maturity means self-knowledge, and self-knowl-
edge implies the ability to distinguish the subjective
from the objective, the actuality from the illusion.
Our minds have incorporated into such ideas the ex-
periences of many centuries, and so completely, that to
detach our ideas from their fundamental bases is diffi-
cult, if not impossible. Let us try, at least, to conceive
the Greek imagination as filled wholly with the con-
ception of forces possessing a real, objective existence.
The Self, or Spirit, was as real to him, as it is to-day
to the Australian bushman, and in much the same way.
It was no less than a little, tangible image of the man,
winged, elusive, and under the control of powerful in-
visible forces quite outside the natural visible forces
which he understood. Its movements, passions, and
destination were not in the least affected by the will of
the possessor. Naturally, therefore, he did not like
to talk about it, nor indeed to think or write about it ;
since, when he did so, he only felt the more his help-
lessness in the grasp of Destiny. Moreover, to ex-
amine too closely into the habits of this co-dweller,
might be apt to call down upon the inquisitive the
wrath of his gods, whose power lay in their mystery.
No wonder the Greek remained jealous of affording
us any glimpse into that interior self, real dweller
on the threshold of life!
A change, of course, in these semi-savage imagina-
tions came at last. And for this change, and its bear-
ing on the development of the introspective tendency,
one must turn to the histories of philosophy. One
THE INTROSPECTIVE TYPE 77
and all, these unite in attributing to that strange group
of men, known as the Greek Sophists, the first attempt
at a definitely subjective philosophical conception. 10
Yet, if one bears in mind the fact that to the Greek,
his eidolon, his image of himself, which comes near to
what to-day we should call the soul, had a definitely
objective existence, much of his antagonism to the
Sophist teaching is made plain. We understand much
better why he felt it to be destructive.
Turning to inner experience, the Sophists made
what is believed to be the first attempt to study man,
through his mental life. Their doctrine, startling in
its novelty, held that religion lies within our con-
sciousness, and does not reside in the performance of
traditional rites and customs. 11 Protagoras, the first
to avow himself Sophist, 12 stated the formula, "Man
is the measure of all things ; " 13 which, if accepted,
takes for granted a modern attitude, and no small
amount of subjectivism. Tracing his idea to its source,
it will be remembered that tradition assigns to Pro-
tagoras as teacher that Democritus of Abdera, in whose
doctrine a high place was allotted to a distinct con-
ception of soul. This soul, we know must have been
objective; it was the eidolon of the man. Yet, in
itself, such a conception postulates a rudimentary in-
trospection; while there remain to us also fragments
by Democritus of an autobiographical character. 14
Even the developed subjective doctrines of the
Sophists seem to-day elementary from the philosophi-
cal point of view, but their tendency is significant.
That such tendency should have produced little of defi-
nite importance is not surprising when we know that
78 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
most of the facts essential to the formation of a sub-
jective philosophy were lacking at the time, even to
those men who held the soul to be distinct from
the body, and who advocated a study of self. The
entrance into the field of investigation at this point
of the ethnologist and anthropologist, with their com-
parative data, opens a new and fascinating approach
to the study of mental development, nor is it possible
to ignore that striking theory wherein Tylor accounts
by his data upon animism, for the first subjective
tendencies of thought.
Tylor 's arguments are exceedingly interesting, and
we shall have frequent occasion to refer to them in a
later section of this book. "The savage thinker," he
writes, "though occupying himself so much with the
phenomena of life, sleep, disease, and death, seems
to have taken for granted, as a matter of course, the
ordinary operations of his own mind. It hardly oc-
curred to him to think about the machinery of think-
ing. . . . The metaphysical philosophy of thought
taught in our modern European lecture-rooms is his-
torically traced back to the speculative psychology of
ancient Greece. . . . When Democritus propounded
the great problem of metaphysics, 'How do we per-
ceive external things?' ... he put forth, in answer,
... a theory of thought. He explained the fact of
perception by declaring that things are always throw-
ing off images (eidola) of themselves, which images
. . . enter a recipient soul and are thus perceived.
. . . Writers ... are accustomed to treat the doc-
trine as actually made by the philosophical school
which taught it. Yet the evidence here brought for-
THE INTROSPECTIVE TYPE 79
ward shows it to be really the savage doctrine of
object-souls, turned to a new purpose as a method of
explaining the phenomena of thought. ... To say
that Democritus was an ancient Greek is to say that
from his childhood he had looked on at the funeral
ceremonies of his country, beholding the funeral sacri-
fices of garments and jewels and money and food and
drink, rites which his mother and his nurse could tell
him were performed in order that the phantasmal
images of these objects might pass into the possession
of forms shadowy like themselves, the souls of dead
men. Thus ? Democritus, seeking a solution of his
great problem of the nature of thought, found it by
simply decanting into his metaphysics a surviving doc-
trine of primitive savage animism. . . . Lucretius ac-
tually makes the theory of film-like images of things
(simulacra, membrance) account for both the appari-
tions which come to men in dreams and the images
which impress their minds in thinking. So unbroken
is the continuity of philosophic speculation from sav-
age to cultured thought. Such are the debts which
civilized philosophy owes to primitive animism. ' ' 15
These brilliant pages of a brilliant book have a
significance for us in the course of the present enquiry
which they have acquired since they were written ; and
the last two sections of this work must needs return to
them. By connecting the doctrine of object-souls with
the first efforts of the Greek mind in formulating a
coherent metaphysics, Tylor establishes many other
links in that continuity between savage and civilized
thought. Yet one must not allow these ideas wholly to
submerge his mind. The whole significance of Protag-
80 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
oras and his disciples, and of the Sophist teachings,
lies just in the fact that they made the first definite
attempt to get away from the animistic doctrine lin-
gering over from savage times, and that this effort was
one of the results of an elementary introspection. The
endeavor of the Sophist to study mental life, by turn-
ing toward inner experience, led to his first shadowy
perception of subjectivity, and to a differentiation
between that reality and the appearance with which
men so often confounded it. Once men, through
self -observation, began to perceive the illusory nature
of much that had seemed to them real, and imbued
with life, once they had come to grasp the signifi-
cance of their own state of mind, an immense stride
had been made away from savagery. Just the differ-
ence between the beliefs of to-day and those of the
ancient or medieval world, lies in the fact that the
modern mind is introspective enough to perceive the
subjective nature of many of those impulses which,
to the Greek, possessed an objective existence.
Protagoras, therefore, marked an era in more senses
than one. There is an especial suggestiveness in the
fact that the teachings of the Sophists were received
with general distrust. That there was, after all, but
slight reason for holding Protagoras and his followers
to constitute an influence toward public corruption,
is of less interest than the fact that by public opinion
they were so regarded. The antagonism which has been
noted is thus seen to be no new antagonism ; it is a dis-
like and distrust sprung up among that portion of
mankind who are still to be found clinging instinc-
tively to standards of the normal which have long
THE INTROSPECTIVE TYPE 81
ceased to obtain. Unquestionably, the Sophistical doc-
trines tended toward the destructive effects inherent
in any broad, general scepticism ; and apparently they
failed to satisfy the robust mental needs of their
day. 16
The present writer, in a former volume, 17 commented
on the fact that no definitive history of the subjective
trend in literature has been written, and that its ori-
gins remain complex and obscure. What is true of
subjectivity in general, is true of introspection in
particular. The omission is of importance, because,
the more one studies the subject, the more it seems as
though a history of introspection involves the ap-
proach of philosophy from a new direction. For
what, after all, is philosophy, if it be not our intellec-
tual effort to systematize all our conclusions respecting
the phenomena of life and nature, which seem to us
so capricious and inexplicable ? And of these phenom-
ena, those proceeding out of our own consciousness,
and constituting our own personality, will ever be
the most vital.
We know that it is practically impossible for philos-
ophy to do without the consideration of these phenom-
ena for any length of time. Their vitality remains
unimpaired despite the philosophers who claim to ig-
nore them, and to despise that psychology which is
the science created for the purpose of dealing with
them in detail.
Such an one was Auguste Comte, who stated that
' ' after two thousand years of psychology no one prop-
osition is established to the satisfaction of its fol-
io wers." 18 This belief is founded upon the idea that
82 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
psychology is necessarily dependent upon metaphysics,
and metaphysics upon introspection. Comte denies
that the intellect can pause during its activities to ex-
amine its processes. That such processes could come
in the future to be automatically registered by means
of machinery, Comte, of course, had no idea, since his
work antedates the precise experiment of the psycho-
logical laboratory. It may be true that, if we use the
first term in its modern sense, psychology and meta-
physics are no longer interdependent; they have,
indeed, differentiated since the days of the St. Victors.
And it remains equally true, be one's conclusion what
it may, that in the realm of metaphysics every theorist,
from Descartes to Bergson, has been forced to rely
upon introspection as an essential factor. Is Comte
thereby justified in claiming that no progress has been
made on this account ? 19
The nature of any philosophical advance is two-
fold ; it may be an advance in idea, it may be an ad-
vance in method. Comte may be right in denying
that introspection, in se, has been the means of fur-
nishing any ideas to philosophy; but without the use
of introspective methods, few of those ideas could have
obtained a hearing. In metaphysics, for instance, it
is practically impossible to make any proposition clear,
without a decided degree of "looking within/' in order
to force one's hearer to "look within" also. The
metaphysician must tell his reader what passes in his
own mind, and the reader must "look within" and see
if this be true. Explanations do not explain unless
one's inner observation confirms them. A writer's
statement of what he has found to be true in him-
THE INTROSPECTIVE TYPE 83
self has no vitality, no significance for the reader,
until this reader pauses and looks inward to see if it
be equally true in his own case. If it be not, he
shakes his head and throws aside his book; if it be,
the philosopher has gained an adherent. In any
case, upon this faculty of introspection, the meta-
physician is bound to rely and it therefore follows
as a corollary, that the degree of introspection prev-
alent among certain societies and at certain times has
had a powerful influence upon the spread of certain
doctrines. Kealizing this necessary reliance, the Ger-
man school of philosophy has for more than a century
made copious use of the first person, of the introspec-
tive demand upon the reader, and of the argument
by direct personal experience. Self-examination and
introspection have been the very foundation stones of
the German metaphysical philosophies. 20
The connection between introspection and meta-
physics is not closer than the connection of intro-
spection with religion. The earliest possible exercise
of this faculty in half-civilized man must have been
to heighten any religious sentiment. So soon as any
introspection is possible to a man, there springs up in
his imagination the resultant conception of a dual or
multiple personality. This is his way of defining
what happens when he " looks inward" and perforce
decides that there exists in himself a something which
looks, and a something which is being looked at.
The appreciation of this dual state is by no means
confined to the metaphysician; it is a world-wide and
common possession of our humanity. Colloquial
speech is full of idioms, phrases, and imagery which
84 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
show its realization. In English, such sentences as,
"It lies between me and my conscience," or, "You
were more frightened than you realized," give ex-
pression to this conception of the many in the one.
Now this very conception must necessarily have some
religious significance. It is inextricably interwoven
with ideas of good and evil, and with the perpetual
struggle between darkness and light. Our selves were
felt by the Church to hide innumerable puzzling and
dangerous entities which could be routed only when
we turned the light of self -observation into our darker
corners.
Hence the insistence early laid by the Church on
the daily exercise of a stringent self-examination. It
is commended as a discipline and as a means of
perfection. 21 The great abbot, Eichard of St. Victor,
whose doctrines had such vogue during the Renais-
sance, gave word to the cumulative thought of many
centuries, when he wrote his reasons for introspection.
"Who thirsts to see his God," he cried, "let him
cleanse his mirror and purify his spirit. After he
hath thus cleared his mirror, long and diligently
gazed into it, a certain clarity of divine light begins
to shine through upon him, and a certain immense ray
of unwonted vision to appear before his eyes. From
this vision the mind is wondrously inflamed." Here
are the introspective practices advocated as a means of
contemplation, which has always been their first use to
the mystical mind; but Eichard goes somewhat fur-
ther. ' ' If the mind would fain ascend to the height of
science, let its first and principal study be to know
itself, " 22 he says ; thus showing in his proper person
THE INTROSPECTIVE TYPE 85
that the effect of the earlier, rudimentary self -study
leads to mysticism.
In Jeremy Taylor 's ' ' Holy Living and Dying, ' ' the
diligent and frequent scrutiny of self is recommended,
as the fit preparation for each night's rest; "when we
compose ourselves," as the good bishop quaintly puts
it, "to the little images of death." 23 But by his
reference to Seneca throughout this chapter, the reader
gathers that the influences traceable in Taylor's
thought were stoical and pagan rather than Chris-
tian and Catholic. In any case, it will be enough to
show that the practice of self-examination is every-
where not only generally preached, but was fol-
lowed from earliest times. Ephraim Syrus is quoted
as practicing it twice daily and as comparing him-
self to the merchant who keeps a daily balance. 24
Basil, Gregory the Great, and Bernard commend it. 25
Origen held that self-knowledge through self-contem-
plation was a part of the Divine "Wisdom. 26 What
Augustin felt we know. Jerome may not have
preached a doctrine of self -study, but that he prac-
ticed it his letters and treatises testify. 27
The question of the immediate effect of Christian-
ity and its teachings upon any latent introspective
tendency, is one of great interest. Existence of this
tendency at all must necessarily imply that man is no
longer that savage "who took for granted the ordinary
operations of his own mind." 28 It must, therefore,
have made its appearance comparatively late in his
evolution, and it rather belongs to his equipment
of maturity. Once it be assumed that a stage in
mental growth was reached at which man's intellectual
86 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
curiosity turned inward for its satisfaction, then not
only the influence, but the acceptance of Christianity
as a religion, becomes clear. Not only did the Chris-
tian doctrine give impetus to all introspective prac-
tices; but the latent tendency toward greater sub-
jectivity of thought itself made for the success of the
Christian faith. The rite of confession, with which
we have just dealt in the preceding chapter, must
have both heightened and directed such tendency.
This idea of the importance of self was compara-
tively new, for at least it had not been advocated in
any coherent system among the ancients. The learned
world of the first and second centuries, therefore, was
without classical guide in the presence of this new
force. Plato had depreciated the Ego, which he
taught also it was healthy to ignore. The Christian
philosopher, while he might believe with Pascal that
"Le Moi est haissable," yet constantly magnified the
Ego by discussing and cataloguing its iniquities. 29
When to save his own soul became man's first busi-
ness, he must needs know that soul, must study, must
examine it. Prescribed as a duty, introspection be-
came at once a main characteristic of religious life.
Those great contemplatives and saints, upon whose
guidance the whole of early Christianity depended,
established the cult of introspection and introspective
practices. It seems as though they must have recog-
nized as a truth the generalization "that the senti-
ment of religion is in its origin and nature purely
personal and subjective. ' ' 30
That the tendency toward subjectivity was present
THE INTROSPECTIVE TYPE 87
to assist the spread of Christianity, we know by its
appearance under other shapes during the same cen-
turies, and chiefly by its government of certain
markedly non-Christian philosophies and philosophers.
A favorite assumption on the part of some Church
historians holds that the introspective tendency in the
work of Seneca or of Marcus Aurelius is accounted for
by their real but concealed sympathy with certain
Christian doctrines. The world's general intellectual
disposition to "look within/' which disposition had its
religious as well as its philosophical side, would ap-
pear to be the more accurate explanation. Nor must
it be forgotten that the Stoic doctrines by which these
writers were influenced, were informed by a deep sense
of moral responsibility which augmented the tend-
ency. 31 To a serious nature, any introspective prac-
tice intensifies the importance of conduct, independ-
ently of the religious rite to which he may be accus-
tomed. Seneca 32 advocates self -study as a personal
duty. "I use this power," he declares, "and daily
examine myself when the light is out and my wife is
silent. I examine the whole day that is past . . .
and consider both my actions and words. I hide
nothing from myself; I let nothing slip, for why
should I fear any of mine errors?" This last phrase
is in the key of Rousseau a valid justification for any
self-analysis. More familiar to the reader, perhaps,
are the passages in which Marcus Aurelius expresses
the same influence at work upon his mental life. 33 The
Greek Epictetus, 34 in the second century, held also,
"The beginning of philosophy to him at least who
88 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
enters on it in the right way ... is a consciousness of
his own weakness, ' ' thus more or less predicating self -
study.
One evidence of the growth of subjective thought at
this time, will be found when we turn to that group of
philosophical writers, who, gathered in Alexandria,
made the last definite, intellectual stand against the
Christian doctrine. The Neo-Platonists have certain
characteristics which later were to become loosely
identified with Christianity; but which in reality are
but another manifestation of similar tendencies.
Their mysticism is due less to the influence of Chris-
tian mystics, than to the fact that it is sprung from
a similar source. The reader will not forget it is
of even greater importance later in this discussion
that the first effect of all elementary or imperfect
self-study is mysticism. The first emotion raised by
any " looking inward" is wonder, and a sense that
a new world has been opened to the traveller. Upon
the path through this world the via only the mys-
tically inclined sets forth only the genuine mystic
arrives at the goal. From the third to the fifth cen-
turies, the Neo-Platonists, markedly influenced by
their efforts at introspection, practically anticipated,
in the person of Plotinus, the Christian mediaeval
mysticism. For instance, it is recorded that four
times in six years Plotinus attained to that ecstatic
moment of union with God, which, first in the Mid-
dle Ages, was called unification. 36 The doctrines of
this philosophical school show introspective tenden-
cies not unlike those of the Christian philosophy.
The Enneads of Plotinus, by an analysis of the
THE INTROSPECTIVE TYPE 89
senses, by the thesis that to know the Divine is the
property of a higher faculty, and one in which the
subject becomes identified with its object, show the re-
sult of a systematic attempt at psychological intro-
spection. Once this fact is clear, Neo-Platonism
ceases to seem fantastic or bizarre ; it becomes rather
the logical effect from a cause. Any elementary
introspection undertaken without scientific knowl-
edge or guidance, is apt to lead the mind in the
direction of transcendentalism. The mind's eye
" looking inward" is confused by what it sees, by
the action and interaction of the intellect, the senses,
the emotions, and the will. How is the ignorant
and inexperienced self -observer to differentiate?
Since all is mystery, only mystery accounts for all.
Thus we see in the fifth century that Proclus, 36 analyz-
ing Plato's "Know Thyself," appears to take for
granted that to look truly within is to provide the
only means of looking truly without. Thus follow
his ideas of Divine revelation, since the inward eye
alone may catch the flash of divinely directed inspira-
tion. By another route, the same conclusion is reached
by the mediaeval mystic, when he, too, looking within,
confuses and misinterprets the phenomena he beholds.
Porphyry, in his letter to Anebo, and lamblichus in the
answer thereto, had already begun to formulate a sys-
tematic demonology ; 37 but these ideas were succeeded
by the more abstract ones of Proclus, that last flame
in the flickering Alexandrian lamp.
Christianity, while embodying many of the inherent
principles of Neo-Platonism, had an anchor in the form
of its ethical conceptions, which were of the most
90 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
objective and definite type. Among other advantages
over Neo-Platonism, was that of the practical applica-
bility of its philosophy to the various minds around
it. Neo-Platonism held an introspection merely specu-
lative, and as incapable of evolving any scientific
method as it was of using any scientific material. As
a philosophy it was necessarily sterile and perishable,
but it holds interest for us as a landmark in the history
of the subjective and introspective tendency.
It has been noted that Augustin's mastery in the
portrayal of psychical states "formed a new starting-
point for philosophy/' 38 The metaphysics of inner
experience took their rise in his ability to use, with a
fresh meaning, the suggestions of Plotinus. His in-
tense consciousness of self, of personality, lifts him
above the mists of his time ; while by his doubts and
fears, he repeats the "Cogito; ergo sum" of Descartes.
Augustin, the first great Christian psychologist, uses
with the vitality of genius the tentative or ill-defined
ideas prevalent in his day; and through him Chris-
tianity came to absorb the suggestions of Neo-Plato-
nism. Moreover, it must not be forgotten that the di-
rect effect of the introspective tendency upon Chris-
tianity is as marked as the effect, a little later, of
Christian teaching upon introspection. In showing
man how to preserve "the reverent relation to his own
past/' 39 there is added to the need of "looking
within" that other need of looking backward, of sur-
veying the whole of one's life as a process, divinely
guided, and with salvation for an object. Thus, from
the Christian standpoint, no duty is more religious
than introspection; and no practices testify more
THE INTROSPECTIVE TYPE 91
deeply to the religious import of life than do self-
study and self-examination.
Before proceeding further, it would seem necessary
to look a little more closely into the nature of that
self-consciousness from which, according to Schopen-
hauer, 40 we proceed. No longer is Schopenhauer held
to be our guide, yet it is important that we should
know something more of our self -consciousness. How
has it been observed and how determined? Until the
last century, all theories on the subject must have
been necessarily a priori. There is hardly a portion
of the body, from the spine to the pineal gland, which
has not in turn been named as the seat of self-con-
sciousness, or the Ego. 41 When one reads some of
these theories, one is not amazed at Comte's estimate
of psychology; and even to-day, in the face of more
precise experiment, one is constantly confronted by
expressions which show how little has really been ac-
complished.
"Man by the very constitution of his mind," says
Caird 42 ". . . can look outwards . . . inwards, and
upwards. He is essentially self-conscious"; and
again: "Man looks outward before he looks inward,
and looks inward before he looks upward." This is
more antithetical than accurate. Tylor and others
would seem to show beyond dispute that man looks up-
ward before he looks inward ; and scientific observation
adds in her turn that once he begins to look inward,
then he rarely comes again to look upward in the same
way. Introspection and introspective habits have a
way of absorbing a man's religious energies, caus-
ing him to watch and follow the religious life wholly as
92 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
within himself. Fascinated by the inward stir and
tumult, he lifts his eyes from it no more, but passes
through the world listening only to the inward voice,
seeing only the inward vision. The outer world, the
world outside of self, is very dim and insubstantial
to such an one, who to many of us has represented our
so-called highest religious type the mystic or con-
templative. Such were the two St. Victors, the Ab-
bots Hugh and Kichard, in whose ideas mysticism and
philosophy were blended. 43 Now the highest type of
metaphysical philosopher resembles the religious mys-
tic so much in his method, that we are apt to call him
mystical, when we really do not mean mystical but
rather introspective. Both of them are attempting the
same thing, to obtain truth by watching their own
processes and seeing what particular truth sought is
thereby revealed to the watcher; and either one may
succeed in proportion as he is able to recognize the
different elements constituting his self -consciousness.
How is he able to do this ?
The study of mental processes is a recent one, for it
is practically only since the experiments of the modern
psychological laboratory that science has even been
willing to declare what is truth and what illusion, what
is fact and what fallacy in the region of mind. For
centuries men worked perforce in the dark, since by
its very constitution the brain cannot explain itself,
and, when passive, no organ gives less hint of its meth-
ods. 44 Hence, the world failed to connect the brain
with feeling at all (which was supposed to be seated in
the bowels, or, later, in the heart), until a compara-
tively recent date. When Paul Broca 45 gave to the
THE INTROSPECTIVE TYPE 93
world, in 1861, his discovery of the activities in that
convolution which now bears his name, he did much
more than merely to determine which region of the
brain governed our speech. He gave a starting-point
for other investigations into the various brain-regions,
ideas regarding which had remained in confusion
since the phrenological fallacies of Gall.
It is not for us to lead the student through the
fascinating by-paths of mental physiology, to the con-
flicts which still rage upon the subjects of Personality
and Self-Consciousness. Space and authority are lack-
ing here for any proper treatment of themes so per-
plexing. Bather will we ask of him to give his atten-
tion to some of the views expressed by the psychologist
regarding the results obtained by the use of introspec-
tion in this field. It is true that a purely introspective
method has been held to resemble that of ' l a man who
tries to raise himself by his own boot-straps"; 48 but
it is also true that but for an original faculty and
desire of " looking within," we should never know we
had any self-consciousness or personality at all. The
savage is unaware of any self, until his first pause of
elementary introspection brings that fact to his atten-
tion. One observes, moreover, that until he attains to
that point of self -consciousness, any deliberate progress
in any given intellectual direction is impossible to him.
The first introspection, therefore, with its concom-
itant first self-consciousness, is a crucial moment in the
history of mind. During that moment the human in-
tellect crossed at one leap the major part of the dis-
tance which lies between ourselves and such a creature
as the Neanderthal man.
94 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
The existence of which we are the best assured and
which we know the best," says a recent philosopher,
"is incontestably our own, since of all other objects we
have notions which one might judge exterior and
superficial, while we perceive ourselves interiorly and
profoundly." 47
This consciousness of self has been given concrete
illustration by a number of self -students, whose obser-
vations have been noted in a previous book. 48 The
profundity and power of their interior realization has
been found to produce a species of terror, an emotion
both individual and indescribable, whose roots strike
into primal depths. The boy who cried out at one in-
stant, "I am a Me"! 49 was experiencing a crisis not
only individual, but racial and primitive; and it is a
crisis brought about by the first attempt at introspec-
tion.
Since the result of this first introspection is ac-
companied by decided and characteristic emotion, the
act remains significant in the history of individual
mental development. To many natures it points a
crisis, and such natures come to it as the traveller
stumbles upon a forgotten sign-board, half -obliterated
by a thicket of newer growth. Philosophy, imperson-
ating the surveyor of this strange country, must take
account of such crucial impulses. And there are other
reasons why the philosopher still clings to the intro-
spective method, despite the continually narrowing
limitations prescribed by science. The reader will find
in the history of philosophy something of the struggle
to escape from introspection and to provide other
means, because of the realization that interior phe-
THE INTROSPECTIVE TYPE 95
nomena are so much less susceptible of direct observa-
tion than are exterior phenomena. 50
Yet this realization was long in coming, and there
was a period in the world's history when the interior
phenomena must have seemed the clearer of the two.
Scholars now unite in thinking that the first attempts
at what we call modern psychology, took their rise in
the abbey of St. Victor, under the efforts of those great
mystics known as the Victorines. The first of these
men, Hugh of St. Victor, was held by the Middle Ages
so high as an authority, that he received the name
of the "second Augustin." His works are quoted by
every great writer and doctor of the time, since his
attempt to formulate a system of mystical philosophy
appealed at once to the intellect and to the piety
around him. Even to-day, if the mysticism of Hugh
seems naif, his accent is still that of a spiritual force.
"All the world," he wrote, "is a place of exile to
philosophers," and to live content in this exile, he
believes should be man's aim. Undoubtedly, his gen-
eral transcendental doctrine has had more listeners
than his purely philosophical doctrine. Naturally a
delicate, an exalted temperament, he made the strong-
est effort to combine the floating mystical ideas of the
day into a working system. Hugh took from Dionysius
and applied to the mystical life, the idea of "spiritual
grades or steps, ' ' by whose aid the soul was to mount
up to that ineffable union with God which is conceived
as the final stage in the mystical way. By such means,
he endeavored to intellectualize the entire scheme of
mysticism, substituting for the three usual steps of
purgation, illumination, and union, three other steps of
96 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
cogitation, meditation, and contemplation. Any at-
tempt to systematize the indefinable is foredoomed to
failure, but Hugh and his successors reached a primary
consciousness of inner experience. 51 "With constant
delicate perception and feeling, through constant self-
study and self-analysis, this introspective habit de-
veloped powers of self -observation till then unknown.
The history of one's soul became the most important
of all histories, and through the need of salvation
there arose a need of psychology.
The successor and nephew of Hugh of St. Victor, the
abbot Richard, carried out the psychological work of
his master in a manner yet more detailed, and with
results even more far-reaching. Taking for his great
book a text from Psalms, LXVH, 28 (in the Vulgate),
"There is Benjamin, a youth in ecstasy of mind,"
Richard of St. Victor takes the type of an ecstatic as
being the highest possible to humanity. He thus laid
himself open to all that rational criticism of the mys-
tical life, which later ages cannot forbear. Such criti-
cism will be given expression in another section of this
book, for our purpose is to consider him at the moment
merely in the character of an embryonic psychologist.
"Full knowledge of the rational spirit is a great and
high mountain, " is Richard's teaching; and the study
of self becomes a prerequisite to an entrance upon the
Via Mystica. Moreover, he developed the system of
his predecessor into a still more minute elaboration
of grades and steps, by which very definition real psy-
chology was considerably advanced. The symbols, the
analogies used by Richard of St. Victor, such as his
comparison of the thoughts in the contemplative mind
THE INTROSPECTIVE TYPE 97
to a flock of little birds, ever wheeling and returning,
all have suggestiveness from a psychological point
of view. 52
That psychology made such strides in the work of
the Victorines was possible only because of their con-
tinued introspection, applied steadily in the direc-
tion of religious experience. The use of the intro-
spective methods continued until the advance of the
exact sciences began to impose on them certain nec-
essary limitations. Then arose a conflict out of which
at the beginning of the last century developed a
reaction, not only against the methods, but against
psychology itself.
It has been noted how Comte's theory regarded the
psychology of his day. Kant 5S expressed similar
doubt, if less formally, while yet the very habit of his
mind was profoundly subjective. The French phi-
losopher characteristically suggested substituting for
introspection the classification and analysis of human
phenomena, which is, in truth, much according to the
modern plan. Herbart, 54 by his effort scientifically to
reduce consciousness to its simplest elements, opened
the door for the experimental psychology of to-day.
The feeling among philosophers seems to be that
to achieve valid results by introspective methods,
we should regard ourselves first of all in the nature
of automata, and then, having registered the effects of
our automatic behavior, bring those effects under the
observation of our conscious intellect. Once its defi-
nite limitations be understood, true introspection re-
tains its value as a means of securing data. For even
if a man really believes with Taine, 55 that "Nul ceil
98 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
ne pent se voir soi-meme," yet he cannot deny that
there are moments in his life when the veil between
him and himself is lifted. If every person now living
were to contribute one single fact about himself, the
total result would be heterogeneous, indeed, but it
would still be data. Our tendency, therefore, should
be not to disdain introspection in psychology as value-
less, but rather to limit its observation to pre-deter-
mined fields ; remembering that "no interpretation can
be arrived at without the direct cognition of the facts
of consciousness obtained by means of introspection,
aided by experiment. ' ' 56
Training, of course, is of the utmost importance in
this regard. As introspection grows less fortuitous,
and, being trained, becomes more accurate, as the
mind, ''looking within," knows when to look and for
what objects, then will science be aided and not merely
hampered by the contribution. Meanwhile, the reader
will have recognized: First, the presence of the sub-
jective and introspective trend as indicating a certain
stage in the evolution of human thought. Second, the
developing and heightening influence of introspection
itself on all religious sentiment. And when these two
ideas shall have been confirmed by the third and most
important, namely, that an elementary introspection
will lead the subject inevitably toward mysticism and
toward transcendentalism, the purpose of this exami-
nation will have been, in the main, accomplished.
Aided by these conclusions, the reader should at least
be better able to understand his own nature in the
different stages of its growth and to see in the history
of introspection, scientifically considered, nothing less
THE INTROSPECTIVE TYPE 99
than the movement of the human intellect toward ma-
turity.
It may be well to ask what facts can the introspec-
tion of the past be said to have contributed? If it
has done nothing else, it has at least furnished a
starting-point for all our modern conceptions of self-
consciousness and identity. Every self-student is
aware that his looking within has given him a number
of new ideas, together with the power to differentiate
his old ideas. For instance, he was probably unaware
of the difference between consciousness and self -con-
sciousness until absorbed in the effort of mental con-
centration which continuous introspection involves.
Then he notes * ' a succession of ideas which adjust and
readjust themselves/' 57 which he had not before no-
ticed and in which there is very little actual self -con-
sciousness. In ordinary objective life, the one state
practically includes the other. Another contribution
to thought which we owe to introspection alone, is the
better definition of all our simple concepts; and the
discrimination between the various parts of our more
complex concepts. Without a systematic introspection
this discrimination would have been impossible; and
Fichte notes it as present even in the most fleeting
self -observation. 58
Moreover, without the introspection of the past we
should never have been able to see and to differentiate
between the various elements of the Ego. Observing
the Self of another person does not readily aid one in
such differentiation, because, seen from our own sphere
of identity, his sphere of identity appears to be far
more homogeneous and unified than it really is.
100 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
Without looking within, the psychologist 59 would never
have been able to observe the Ego divided into the
several social, material, and spiritual selves, with their
differing constituents and qualities. The theories de-
scribing these Selves and accounting for their fission,
change too fast for the average reader to keep pace
with them; but his own "looking within" is sufficient
to convince him that there are many selves in one. He
perforce returns again and again to this conception,
however he may try to get away from it, and he is just
as dependent upon it to explain himself to himself and
others to himself, as he was in the days of Augustin.
Moreover, this is quite as true of the most vividly
objective person among us, as of a Cardan or a Maine
de Biran. ' ' A psychological sense of identity, ' ' to use
James's phrase, is common to all of us, and in all ages.
Placed as such a sense is, just beyond the easy reach
of our minds during the daily round, yet it is within
the grasp of any and all of us, once interest or need
has made it plain.
Metaphysicians are constantly reminding us that
however imperfect the instruments at hand may be,
yet we can hardly afford to discard them, while there
remains any likelihood of their becoming more valu-
able through evolution or by training. As an instru-
ment, introspection has undoubtedly so become.
"The empirical conception of consciousness," says
Villa, 60 "is that of the consciousness of self. It is
characterized by the fact that its content is very re-
stricted, though vivid, consisting of organic sensations,
together with a particular feeling of activity owing
to which we 'feel' that we are a spontaneously acting
THE INTROSPECTIVE TYPE 101
personality. ... As the complexity of our mental
processes increases, the consciousness of our personality
becomes clearer and extends itself to a greater num-
ber of phenomena."
This excellent definition is of interest here from the
fact that its conclusions could have been reached only
through means provided by the introspective observer
and his introspections. It gives us a warrant for ex-
amining in detail that type of document from which
science has heretofore derived much of the mate-
rial respecting ourselves. This material has been
cast into various moulds ; it is sometimes in the shape
of fact, sometimes in the shape of theory. The pres-
ence in the world of the subjective philosopher, seems
to be the manifestation of an introspective tendency
in our intellectual life ; and has, moreover, an impor-
tance for this study, from its close connection with the
religious tendency. Types of an introspective cast
have always preserved an influence over the world of
thought, and a consideration of them has all the value
of a concrete example.
In dealing with those individual cases of intro-
spective writing, whose influence has been so marked
at different times, upon literature, art, and philosophy,
some selection must needs be made, if only to avoid
repetition. Many of the names considered are more
accurately to be analyzed on another account. Au-
gustin, for instance, is not the less introspective be-
cause he is the more religious; but citations from his
"Confessions" are used so constantly in the body of
this work, that it were superfluous to repeat them.
The same is true of one or two other cases, who are
102 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
to be dealt with more fully under separate heads.
Our endeavor in this section should rather be to clas-
sify and to analyze, for purposes of comparison, those
self-students whose work, while exhibiting equal sin-
cerity and candour, is yet not directed by a purely
religious impulse, nor strictly affiliated with religious
tenets. Such analysis and comparison will aid us to
compute the sum of the purely religious impulse in
the introspective document and the amount and force
of the purely introspective tendency in the religious
confession. Some confusion has attended opinion on
these points, and critics therefore have come to discuss
them largely according to personal likes and dislikes.
Thus we find Caird terming that important element of
self-examination in religion (without which, as we
have seen, the religious idea could hardly have devel-
oped to meet our latter-day spiritual uses) as "the
great plague of our spiritual life" ; 61 and this opinion
is shared by many a devout theologian. Study there-
fore of introspection as introspection, may be of value
in clarifying our ideas.
The use of this element in philosophy when it does
not take the direct and formal shape of autobiography
usually takes that of personal explanation. Much
of the material respecting ourselves which has been
yielded through introspective methods, has been over-
looked by the student in his concentration on theory.
He reads the "Discours" of Descartes for its central
theme rather than for the light which it may cast on
the author's mind and personality. Therefore, much
significant matter lies buried under the drifting sands
THE INTROSPECTIVE TYPE 103
of controversy, or is lost like the Neo-Platonists be-
neath some abandoned philosophic structure.
Present-day English science shows the marked effect
of the introspective tendency. Guided by the idea 62
that a natural history of one's self is a proper comple-
ment to one's system of thought, the group of writers
clustering around the crisis of 1850 have practically
without exception left definite personal records. One
type of mind, such as G. J. Romanes, expresses similar
ideas in an intimate " Diary/' 63 while yet another,
following Descartes, 64 will incorporate the result of
his introspection into the body of his thesis. An
Italian critic 65 has commented with penetration on
this instinct of the robust intelligence to observe itself
and study the secret of its being. This tendency is
plainly traceable throughout the philosophical sys-
tems of Locke, Hume, Berkeley, Reid, and Hartley,
where it forms part of their method of reaching and
impressing other minds. 66
It is not, however, in England that the subjective
and introspective philosophy is to be found in its typi-
cal completeness. German metaphysicians may dif-
fer widely as to conclusions, but they are practically
of one mind as to their method. In German thought,
the subjective tendency seemed to become even more
the property of philosophical doctrine than of re-
ligious doctrine, since the number of these documents
outweighs the number of religious confessions. Most
of the former display the same motives which under-
lie the latter, such as dissatisfaction with self, and the
effort to comprehend the basic principles of conscious-
104. RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
ness. German subjective philosophy, together with
all modern philosophy, dates from the sixteenth cen-
tury and the work of Descartes. 67 Certain earlier
names shine out from the vast epoch of the Middle
Ages, but they do not dim that of the great French-
man. One of these Al-Ghazzali, 68 the Arabian has
left us a philosophical introspective record which de-
serves to be compared with the "Diseours de la
Methode." Neither must we forget the sceptic monk,
Giordano Bruno, 69 who, in his various replies made
during his trial before the Inquisition, developed, if
somewhat baldly, the theme and outline of an intro-
spective philosophy. He is "entirely ready to give
an account of myself, " 70 as he puts it ; and does de-
scribe his change of view; how "alone retaining the
crucifix " he tried to turn his religion into a philos-
ophy. But in respect of our present investigation,
the ideas of Bruno are not of sufficient weight to
detain us longer.
The similarity which has been noticed between the
"Discours" of Descartes and the "Confession" of
Al-Ghazzali, 71 suggests at once a possible debt of the
Western to the Eastern mind. Did the introspec-
tive philosophy take its rise among those peoples,
naturally meditative, naturally prone to abstract con-
ceptions? The question is not one to be lightly an-
swered. Unquestionably, the habit of certain highly
introspective practices had been developed in India,
in Persia, and in Arabia, for centuries past. One
might expect, therefore, to find elaborate systems
of subjective philosophy permeating the arid and
eager Western world from this ancient source.
THE INTROSPECTIVE TYPE 105
The reason why such has not been the case would
seem to lie in the predominance, over East and
West alike, of the huge and objective intellect of
Aristotle, whose systems dwarfed for centuries any
independent thought, while they absorbed, in exege-
sis and elucidation, the best minds of Arabia as of
Europe.
The work of Al-Ghazzali, in the twelfth century, is
an indication of a fresh effort at mental independ-
ence. The Aristotelians, the Platonists, and the Neo-
Platonists seem to have absorbed the world's stock
of ideas, as, later, the Schoolmen seem to have ab-
sorbed its stock of mental energy. All the world
over, men were but entombing their minds in those
huge and futile folios, which stand to-day, like for-
gotten sarcophagi, the objects of our curious and
reverent pity. In such a record as this Arabian
sage's, may be read the attempt to come out from un-
der the shadow of those traditions into the light of
reality and experience.
"Tu m'as prie, 6 mon frere en religion, de te faire
connaitre les secrets et le but des sciences reli-
gieuses . . ." he begins, and adds, further, that he
will depict his own sufferings in his search for truth. 72
His was suffering, indeed, because it led in the di-
rection of a general scepticism and negation, a state
even harder to bear during the twelfth century than
in our own. "I have interrogated the beliefs of each
sect," proceeds the Arabian, "and scrutinized the
mysteries of each doctrine. . . . There is no philoso-
pher whose system I have not fathomed, nor theologian
the intricacies of whose doctrine I have not followed
106 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
out. . . . The thirst for knowledge was innate in me
from an early age; it was like a second nature im-
planted by God. . . . Having noticed how easily the
children of Christians become Christians, and the
children of Moslem embrace Islam ... I was moved
by a keen desire to learn what was this innate disposi-
tion in the child, the nature of the accidental be-
liefs imposed on him by the authority of his par-
ents . . . and finally the unreasoned conviction which
he derives from their instructions. ' ' 73
The idea with which Al-Ghazzali followed this sur-
vey of conditions is simply to ascertain ' * what are the
bases of certitude." Misled by false appearance, by
the illusions attendant on observing the action of the
senses, he finds every doctrine around him in every
direction untrustworthy, and so falls into the deepest
doubt. During this state, which lasted: about two
months, he presents to our view all the familiar phe-
nomena of so-called religious depression, terminating
in a complete nervous prostration with aphasia.
"But God," he fervently exclaims, "at last deigned to
heal me of this mental malady; my mind recovered
sanity and equilibrium." 74 And, turning his ener-
gies toward a careful introspection, Al-Ghazzali found
that it led him directly toward the mysticism of the
Sufis.
It will not be forgotten that the effect of all ele-
mentary and untrained introspection, whether in reli-
gion or philosophy, is inevitably in the direction of
mysticism, and nothing so clearly shows that four
hundred years have passed between Al-Ghazzali and
Descartes as the comparison of their conclusions in
THE INTROSPECTIVE TYPE 107
this regard. Without insisting too closely thereon,
it will be admitted that the aim of both philosophers
was identical in their search for Truth. 75 Each be-
gins his work with a personal statement of his fitness
for this search, his position at the present stage, and
the further aims of his mind. That there existed a
strong similarity in their mental situations, a glance
will show. "J'ai ete nourri aux lettres des mon en-
fance," writes Descartes. ". . . Mais sitot que j'eus
acheve tout ce cours d 'etudes . . . je me trouvais
embarrasse de taut de doutes et erreurs, qu'il me
semblait n 'avoir fait aucun profit." 76 And again,
on the study of philosophy, he observes that "con-
siderant combien il peut y avoir de diverses opinions
touchant une meme matiere, qui soient soutenues par
des gens doctes, sans qu'il en puisse avoir jamais plus
d 'un seul qui soit vraie, je reputais presque pour faux
tout ce qui n'etait que vraisemblable." 77
Here stand these two young men, each in his early
twenties, side by side on the same path of enquiry.
Here their ways part, led by the vital and significant
influences developed by four hundred intervening
years. The Oriental mind, interrogating each dogma
in turn and finding all false, bends aside in despair to
take refuge in that perpetual mystery which opens be-
fore the inward-looking eye. "To believe in the
Prophet is to admit that there is above intelligence
a sphere in which are revealed to the inner vision
truths beyond the grasp of intelligence, ' ' 78 is the
practical conclusion of the Arabian.
The Occidental mind, interrogating each dogma in
108 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
turn and finding all false, turns aside in hope, and
bends all its energies into the search for method.
The man resolves to study himself and to conduct his
own reason, for the purpose of evolving a method
which will lead him in the direction of the truth.
Let us abandon, he remarks, these problems which
appear so distant and insoluble, and devote our
energy to the best means of reaching them by regular
steps. "Meme je ne voulus point commencer a re-
jeter tout-a-fait aucune des opinions qui s'etaient
pu glisser autrefois en ma connaissance, " he writes,
' ' [mais] chercher la vraie methode pour parvenir a la
connaissance de toutes les choses dont mon esprit
seroit capable." 80 Descartes is thus separated from
Al-Ghazzali by his conception of and his insistence on
the importance of method.
It will be asked in what manner was the soil dur-
ing these four hundred years prepared for the
plough of such a mind as Descartes, and an answer
must be, though all too briefly, suggested. The limi-
tations imposed upon the present essay make it im-
possible to treat at any length of those Renaissance dis-
cussions between the Aristotelians and the Platonists
on such ultimate questions as the nature and immor-
tality of the soul, 81 by and through which our modern
conceptions have been slowly evolved. Those con-
troversies added to the world's stock of definitions at
the same time that their use made flexible various
types and forms of philosophy and metaphysics, in-
cluding the introspective. The scientific self-study
and autobiography also made its appearance to add to
the world's stock of ideas. By the lives of Cellini
THE INTROSPECTIVE TYPE 109
and Cardan, the essays of Montaigne, and other simi-
lar records, psychological introspection was developed
from a rudimentary condition to a state of efficiency
which made it a valuable tool in the hand of the
science of that epoch. No longer elementary in char-
acter, it ceased, as we see in the case of Descartes, to
lead in the direction of mysticism and transcendental-
ism.
At the same time that the psychologist, in the per-
son of Cardan, was endeavoring by close self -analysis
to comprehend something of his own obscure problems,
the idea of the value of such self-knowledge was
slowly growing in the world's mind. The power and
charm of Augustin, exerted during the early Middle
Ages, 82 heightened this estimate of self-knowledge,
while causing it to take its position as a department of
science. Descartes, who, as we have read, had pur-
sued all the philosophical doctrines prevalent during
his youth, could not have failed to draw, from this
development of self-knowledge, one of his greatest ele-
ments of strength. His Augustin he must have read ;
something he must have known of Nicholas Cusanus,
and of Giordano Bruno. 83 Such earlier influences as
the treatises of the Neo- Aristotelian, Pomponazzi, 84 for
example, ' ' the last of the Schoolmen, " as he has been
called, show the rationalistic tendencies at work upon
men's minds, which cannot, either, wholly have es-
caped Descartes. Pomponazzi 85 questioned the doc-
trine of the immortality of the soul, denied that there
are apparitions of the dead; emphasized the study
of the history of religions, and concerned himself
chiefly with the degree of the soul's relation to reason
110 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
or intelligence. 86 Such a sceptical and subjective
treatment of great problems had a widespread effect
upon men's attitude toward them, and prepared the
way for a method based on pure introspection.
These pages are not the place for a complete an-
alysis of the Cartesian philosophy in all its far-reach-
ing effects, nor would such analysis be of any real
service to the present investigation. It were well,
however, to point out that the introspectiveness of
Descartes does not limit itself to the opening pages of
description and examination. 87 On the contrary, it
is interwoven with his thoughts both in the "Dis-
cours" and in the " Meditations. " It is condensed
and expressed in that phrase, "Je pense, done je
suis," 88 by which his philosophy is identified; it is
employed on every page by way of definition, and in
one of his responses, 89 he avers that it is not possi-
ble for him to separate his thought from himself.
The one thing of which he is entirely conscious, as
Augustin was, is himself: and thus, both in manner
and in matter, he remains the distinguished example
of the philosophical introspective type.
It is natural that such intense introspection as re-
sides in the manner of Descartes should be followed
by a reaction, and this reaction came in Spinoza and
in Leibnitz. Nevertheless, so deep and far-reaching
was the Cartesian philosophy, that it ushered in what
has been called ' ' The Age of Enlightenment, ' ' 90 when
man became interested above all things in himself,
and in the workings of his own mind. Reaction,
therefore, could not carry men very far from an atti-
tude which still maintained for them its freshness and
THE INTROSPECTIVE TYPE ill
force. Thus the eighteenth century became an age
of personal affirmation and explanation, when the dis-
covery made by philosophy and expressed in literature
by Rousseau was freshly for each man: "Si je ne
vaux pas mieux, au moins je suis autre." 91
Not in his two great "Critiques" 92 is the intro-
spective tendency of Kant to be noted; but rather in
his "Prolegomena of a Future Metaphysic" wherein
he avows that "Hume interrupted my dogmatic slum-
ber. ' ' 9S Much of his personal introspection is frag-
mentary and incomplete, but the tendency is so
marked as to cause him to compare himself to Rous-
seau. 84
Immediately following Kant, German philosophy
entered upon its great subjective period, when, aided
by the influence of Locke and certain others of the
English school, introspection became generally diffused
throughout the whole realm of metaphysics. Its re-
sults, in a sense, are assumed, and the separate de-
velopment of that branch of science which we call
psychology, is not the least of them. 95 Prom this
time, the psychologists became a separate group of in-
vestigators, and the value of introspection in psy-
chology fluctuates, as we have seen, according to the
opinions generally prevailing amongst the different
groups.
Philosophically speaking, the introspective tendency
reached its height in Fichte, who, in his "Science of
Knowledge," bases his entire doctrine on subjective
idealism. "If I abstract myself from thought," he
writes, "and look simply upon myself, then I myself
become the object of a particular representation. ' V96
112 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
Thus making himself his own object, Fichte takes
what he considers to be the first important step.
"The question has been asked, " he proceeds, "what
was I before I became self-conscious? The answer
is, I was not at all, for I was not I. The Ego is, only
in so far as it is conscious of itself. ' ' 87 Here is in-
trospective doctrine of the type of Augustin carried to
a higher degree of development. In the "Destina-
tion of Man," Fichte still further elaborates the re-
sults, direct and indirect, of his systematic looking-
inward. "There was a time, so others tell me ...
in which I was not, and a moment in which I began
to be. I then only existed for others, not yet for
myself. Since then, myself, my conscious being, has
gradually developed itself, and I have discovered in
myself certain faculties, capacities . . . and natural
desires." 98 "My existence must necessarily be aware
of itself for therefore do I call it mine. . . . By
the limitations of my own being I perceive other
existences which are not me. . . . The foundation of
my belief in the existence of an external world lies
in myself and not in it ... but in the limitations of
my own being. In this manner I obtain the idea of
other thinking beings like myself. ' ' "
Fichte thus finds in self -examination the beginning
of all philosophy, and in his work it touches the
highest fruitfulness. Generalized later in the work
of Schelling, 100 it became much less significant. Still
later, Schopenhauer 101 displays the introspective
tendency in scattered, incoherent paragraphs, ca-
pricious, and lacking in constructive power.
Nietzsche, 102 in our own day, made an attempt to
THE INTROSPECTIVE TYPE 113
return to scientific introspection; but the mental
conditions were untoward, and his efforts ended in
a mere insane shouting of "I am this" and "I am
that."
Sporadic minor examples such as that Novalis
[Friedrich von Hardenberg] to whom Carlyle con-
secrates an essay exist here and there in Germany
and in Scandinavia ; 103 but the influence of Comte,
which, as we remember, was antagonistic, caused a
second reaction from introspective methods in psy-
chology. That this reaction has reached its limits
there are several indications at present, among which
is the vogue attendant on the metaphysics of Henri
Bergson.
In literature as in philosophy, the forces underly-
ing the Renaissance gave an impetus to all forms of
expression, subjective as well as objective. The
Italians first indicate this movement ; among them are
to be found the earliest examples of what later was to
become a familiar literary type. Such Florentine
domestic chronicles as that of Lapo da Castiglionchio,
for instance (to name one of many during the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries), display qualities speedily
to be developed and popularized into regular auto-
biography. Italy resembled a youth but half-awak-
ened, who looked eagerly around him upon a new
and vigorous world. A passionate interest in general
observation and description embraced the inner as
well as the outer phenomena of life. Again men
turned back to the great introspective leaders of
Christian doctrine, striving through their eyes to
look higher and lower and deeper than ever before.
114 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
This newly aroused desire for knowledge led men far,
and in directions as yet undreamt-of.
"In the Middle Ages," writes one historian, "both
aspects of consciousness that which faces the world
and that which looks toward man's own inner life,
lay dreaming, or but half -awake, under a veil which
shrouded them. ... In Italy first this veil was
lifted . . . the things of this world generally began
to be treated objectively; but at the same time the
subjective asserted its rights ; man becomes a spiritual
individuality and knows that he is such. ' ' 104
These pages have already noticed how this spiritual
individuality began to be evolved; how its growing
introspective tendency led it to mysticism; and how,
in turn, this mysticism heightened the introspection.
The St. Victors show in a striking manner the inter-
relation of these two influences on the religious mind,
together with an intellectual attempt to formalize
their results into a system. On the side purely sec-
ular and profane, the introspective type was neces-
sarily slower in its development, nor can it be de-
tached from the study of religion until a period later
in the history of literature.
Dante has frequently been cited in this connection,
but Dante, notwithstanding certain passages in the
"Convito," must have been always an outward-look-
ing, rather than an inward-looking, mind. The letter
to Can Grande, for instance, is written on a personal
subject, one near to religious experience, yet its tone
remains impersonal and even abstract. 105 The "Vita
Nuova" 106 is throughout handled in a manner curi-
ously outward, it is a setting for poetic jewels, a dec-
THE INTROSPECTIVE TYPE 115
orative framework for sonnet or ballata, rather than a
spiritual self -study. The flame-color of the garment of
Beatrice, the winged Love in a blaze of fire, these
are the images which dominated the imagination of
its writer. True, Dante tells how his passion affected
his health, and how his grief undermined it, but he is
nowhere definitely personal ; he writes poetically, and
he withholds the key to his conduct so effectually, that
the whole tone has remained artificial.
The mind of Dante was not made of modern stuff.
However different his attitude from your true intro-
spective, he yet belongs to the same spiritual family
as that Francis who preached to the birds, as that
Ubertino da Casale, whose meditations made
him a member of the Holy Family, sitting at table
with them. Even in the personal portions of the
"Commedia," Dante's direct, concrete imagination
displays the power of a mind turned outward. Not
upon himself, but upon the world without, his gaze
is fixed. His heaven and hell are distinct with the
imagery of real things; they have the classes and
circles and divisions of the visible universe; the
empyrean itself shows a decorative plan. Their vivid-
ness is due to this; it is the vividness of the Italian
painters; while both belong to the unself -conscious
and objective past. There are many to whom the
sombre figure of the Florentine, in its fierce gloom
and faith, serves to personify the Middle Ages. The
chasm that separates Dante from Petrarch is wider
than the width of years; it is the gulf between the
ancient and the modern world. Boccaccio accused
Petrarch of indifference toward the elder poet, and
116 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
although Petrarch, defends himself with skill in a
long letter, yet the very terms of this defence show
plainly that Dante's attitude of mind is as far from
him as it is from ourselves. It has been said of
Petrarch that he was not content to live unquestion-
ingly, but must be constantly preoccupied with his own
aims and motives. 107 His passion for the works of
Augustin, and especially for the "Confessions,"
roused in him a desire for self-understanding which
he enriched by a matured power of psychological
analysis.
We have seen him already upon Mont Yentoux,
smitten with wonder, not only at the wide sunny
stretch of country, but also at the miracle of his be-
holding self; and none of the thoughts and emotions
roused in him by the sight are alien to our own ideas.
He stands ever as an immortal Youth upon a mountain-
top, to whom life opens a wider and wider prospect,
while the centuries, rolling by, reveal shining peaks
perpetually to be climbed.
The introspective tone of Petrarch has throughout
a literary quality. At no time does he show any an-
ticipation of scientific self-study, of which Cardan,
only two hundred years later, was to give so remark-
able an example. The tone of the poet's "Epistle to
Posterity, ' ' 108 is ceremonious and condescending, the
facts are furnished to an admiring public by a cele-
brated personage. "As to my disposition, I was not
naturally perverse nor wanting in modesty, ' ' he says,
noting also, "my youth was gone before I realized
it ... but riper age brought me to my senses. ' ' He
tells of his quickness, comeliness, and activity ; how his
THE INTROSPECTIVE TYPE 117
health endured until old age brought ' ' the usual train
of discomforts"; and of his deep conviction that only
"by a tardy consciousness of our sins we shall learn
to know ourselves." One feels that this man wished
posterity to remember the esteem in which he was held
by the great of his own day ; and how, without regret,
he had relinquished that popularity.
Less formal are his letters, yet they, too, echo this
successful assurance. So highly were they valued by
the writer, that he spent six years editing them for
publication, with the result that, however interesting,
they lack spontaneity. 109 Not only are they intro-
spective, they are often self-conscious. When he
writes of, "my inexorable passion for work/' or com-
ments, "my mind is as hard as a rock," 110 the tone is
that of the literary man, satisfying the curiosity of
an eager and respectful public.
The work which particularly concerns us here, is
contained in a group of three dialogues to which he
gave the title, "De Contemptu Mundi," while allud-
ing to them also as his secret "Secretum Suum." 1U
Both from a religious and an introspective aspect they
have much importance for the present enquiry. They
form indeed a confession, wherein the figure of Augus-
tin plays the part of spiritual director. Composed in
Petrarch's thirty-eighth year, they picture a man
in conflict with his youthful errors and passions. In
these dialogues, the poet, the lover, the courtier, give
place to the student whose quenchless love of letters
is the only mundane interest which a newly aroused
religious feeling will allow him to indulge.
"May God lead me," is his cry, "safe and sound
118 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
out of so many crooked ways ; that I may follow the
Voice that calls me; that I may raise up no cloud of
dust before my eyes; and, with my mind calmed
and at peace, I may hear the world grow still and
silent, and the winds of adversity die away ! " 112
This, surely, is another man from him who told
us with complacency that his intimacy was desired
by noble persons ! And, moreover, it is in these very
dialogues that we see the change accomplished. Truth
herself, a dazzling angel, led Augustin to the per-
plexed poet, saying that his sacred voice would surely
bring peace to one so tossed, so troubled. And
Petrarch warns us that this little book is not to be
regarded critically, as are his other compositions, for it
is written chiefly that he himself may renew, as often
as need be, the salutary effects of the interview. The
attack on himself is opened by an arraignment (placed
in Augustin 's mouth) of his own worldliness and
vanity. To this accusation he is depicted as listening
in all humility. 113 By comparison with the younger
Augustin drawn in the ' ' Confessions, ' ' his repentance
seems less deep, his tears are less bitter, his clinging
is closer to the world. Yet he avows: "I am made
partaker of your conflict ... I seem to be hearing the
story of myself . . . not of another's wandering, but
my own. . . ," 114
His defence of himself against the saint's accusa-
tion appears of more strength to us to-day than it
could to himself ; it prevails far more than he realized
against the Augustinian asceticism. To our ideas,
the great, busy, material world, and men's achieve-
ments therein, possess a hold over the moral sense
THE INTROSPECTIVE TYPE 119
which they had not in the fourteenth century. In
words spoken by Augustin, Petrarch draws an accu-
rate picture of the ascetic system of the Middle Ages,
as it appears to modern eyes. All unwittingly, he
places the ethics of the past in antagonism to the
ethics of the present. He argues for the life of
moderation, reason, and energy, as against the life
of fanaticism, superstition, and quiescence. He
pleads for the mental images of life and light; while
his Augustin, in all sternness, dwells on the power of
those images of darkness and of death. If Petrarch
makes the saint carry the day in this discussion, it is
because Augustin, after all, expressed both the reli-
gious and the moral ideals of the time. "I will not
deny," Petrarch cries, "that you have terrified me
greatly by putting so huge a mass of suffering before
my eyes. But may God give me such .plenteous
mercy that I may steep my thoughts in meditations
like these!" 115
Dialogue second analyzes Petrarch's love of wealth
and fame; while again the part he bears against
Augustin represents the modern ideal. Doctrines of
industry, activity, and study, are advanced against
the saint's plea for passive renunciation. His figure
of Augustin here is not wholly consistent; for, when
he describes himself as suffering from a causeless and
poetic melancholy, in which he morbidly took a false
delight, 116 he suddenly changes the exhortations of
the saint, from advising a constant meditation on
the grave, to the urging of courageous cheerfulness.
This very inconsistency has a lifelike quality ; though
it is true that Petrarch's Augustin seems harsher than
120 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
the Augustin we love. The progress of the composi-
tion as a whole marks a growing absorption in its
self -analysis, which tends to weaken the part borne
therein by the saint. At the end, Petrarch even al-
lows himself the last word, for, although he is buffeted
by the wind of argument, and stung by the arrows
of Scripture, yet he stoutly declares that he can never
relinquish his love of study.
In this little work, introspection takes a large stride,
and enters into possession of literature. It shows
as no other book could show how the grasp of Augus-
tin was on the very fibre of men's hearts and minds;
how, like religion and like philosophy, literary ideas
lay helpless in that grasp for centuries. But then
Augustin is identified with the greater moments of
life; he voiced its crucial struggles. Men like
Petrarch turned his pages with tears and prayer;
they could no more have read them from the
coldly literary point of view than they could have
read their Bibles. Moreover, the style of Augustin 's
"Confessions" throughout is wonderfully delicate and
colored, and the whole of that marvellous Tenth Book
is written as though it were to be sung to the music
of a harp.
Life is seldom, after all, in the lyric mood; and as
self -observation grew more frequent, the "looking-
within" extended itself to the mere daily round of
common thoughts and feelings. The Renaissance re-
vived the sceptical spirit, it became the spectator, half-
cynical, half-amused, of itself. Man was interested
in man, going to and fro about his ordinary business.
Until the fifteenth century, the disposition to look in-
THE INTROSPECTIVE TYPE 121
ward had been connected with religious discipline;
and was associated with the practice of auricular con-
fession, at that time firmly established in the Church.
Once the introspective tendency transferred itself to
the field of secular writing, it developed with such
rapidity that by the sixteenth century there existed
classic self -studies 117 with no religious feeling what-
ever as their basis. 118 The rise of this tendency dur-
ing the Renaissance may be noted in such writings as
those of Eneas Sylvius Piccolomini, who afterward
became Pope Pius II. He left much self-study in his
"Commentary," in his letters, and in a "Retracta-
tion," imitating Augustin. His temperament was
primarily literary, cool, and sceptical, the latter to
such an extent, indeed, that even when he was Pope,
he observed that "a miracle should always be re-
garded with mistrust." 119 In the personal parts of
his "Commentary," as in his letters, he is extremely
candid; especially concerning that period in his life,
when, although neither a pious nor a fervent person,
he desired to abandon his youthful errors. This
change is expressed in words of sincere doubt and
contrition. "I cannot trust myself," he sorrowfully
writes, "to take a vow of continence." And again:
"I have been a great wanderer from what is right,
but I know it, and I hope the knowledge has not come
too late." 120
Papal responsibilities educated Eneas Sylvius into
deeper seriousness than was his by nature. His ' * Re-
tractation" testifies to a sense of his own worldliness;
and he asks that posterity remember him as Pius,
rather than as Eneas. Throughout, he shows the crit-
122 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
ical habit of mind; and forms a significant link be-
tween the ardent nature of such as Petrarch and that
later introspective type, that smiling spectator of
self, -Montaigne.
After the Renaissance, a nature like Montaigne's
seems an embodied reaction. So much piety, so much
fervor, so much intensity, so much art and color, and
passion and energy and heat, and then, Montaigne.
He meets the mood of satiety for the first time in
literature ; in him we see that the world has put forth
too much force and is tired; it is beginning to ask
"Cui bono?" and to be amused by its own activ-
ity. This is his charm, his friendliness for us when
we are weary of ardor. With pipe and by the chim-
ney-corner, a man longs most for the society of him
called by Sainte-Beuve "I'Homine sans Grace," 121
while the self-study of this man without grace, has
evoked much similar study from other graceless men.
"C'est moy que je peinds," he writes, ". . . tout
entier et tout nu . . . . Ainsi, lecteur, je suis moy-
meme la matiere de mon livre."
It has been suggested that Montaigne's sceptical
attitude was due to his sympathy with the Pyrrhonis-
tic philosophy. 122 Beading him to-day, it appears
rather as an affair of temperament than of intellect,
as an instinctive scepticism of the literary man, rather
than as the reasoned scepticism of the doctrinaire.
His avowals of orthodoxy are joined to the tran-
quillity of a fundamental materialism. He seems to
be asking, with Emerson, "So hot, my little sir?"
His self -observation partakes of this character; it is
THE INTROSPECTIVE TYPE 123
formless and scattered, though Cardan himself could
hardly be more minute. From literature he sought
amusement, as well as from that science "qui traite
de la connaissance de moy-meme." Like the Italian
physician, he gives his likes and dislikes, his habits,
his food and drink ; but his reason for so doing differs
vastly. To Cardan, there seemed about his own per-
sonality a something vital and significant which it
behooved other men to know, while Montaigne appears
to regard himself largely as a means of pleasant com-
munication with other men of the same kind. He
offers himself to the reader in a friendly fashion ; the
result of his introspection brings no surprise nor
shock, and his final estimate is, "pour moy doncques,
j'aime la vie et la cultive."
The absence of all serious fervor, of "la Grace," in
Montaigne, strikes us sympathetically in our worldly
moments; but it has had one ill effect. Using self-
study, while yet, as it were, disregarding it, Montaigne
could not fail to be imitated by the incoherent mind.
There may be little excuse for egotism in any form,
but there is none whatever for such loose and vague
methods of self-observation. Thus, any mind which
is naturally inclined to wander from the subject,
hastens to take refuge in an imitation of the ' ' Essais. ' '
Contemporary literature acknowledges Montaigne as
a type of introspection, but the direct effect of his
influence is to deprive us of a great deal of valuable
personal matter.
Among the typical records of the seventeenth cen-
tury, the "Keligio Medici " 123 must not be forgotten,
124 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
for the quaint elevation of its style added much weight
to the force of its opinions. It is meditative, but not
detailed, self -study, with something of Montaigne's
influence showing in the crabbed phrases. The author
tells us that he read Cardan, and he shows the same
feeling for the vastness of this great universe of which
one reads in the life of the Italian physician. " Every
man is a Microcosm and carries the whole "World about
with him, ' ' he writes ; also telling us, ' ' the world that
I regard is myself." Browne is as sceptical as Mon-
taigne, but with this difference : he hesitates to believe
because the question of religion interests him so much,
rather than because it interests him so little. His
looking-within is a looking upon still greater miracles.
Browne's open mind and intellectual curiosity, his
lack of prejudice and of superstition, place him among
the forerunners of that later type of philosopher
whose high seriousness constitutes, in itself, a reli-
gion.
The documents of an introspective kind are few
during this period, and they are not to be found
where one would expect to find them. For instance,
the ponderous " Diary " of the scholar, Isaac Casau-
bon, is detailed but non-introspective, concerning it-
self little with the inner life of the writer. Our
modern standards for this sort of record, both as to
candour and fulness go back no further than to
Rousseau. 124 His type of introspection is the type
which has influenced the world to-day. His emotional
power, his feeling for style and for nature, struck a
chord so responsive in eighteenth-century minds, as to
THE INTROSPECTIVE TYPE 125
evoke a large group of similar confessions, frankly
imitative in their nature. Eousseau's feeling that he
was different from other men held also, as did Car-
dan's, the belief that this difference was, in se, pro-
found and important. In a manner somewhat cloudy,
yet as a result of methodical observation, Rousseau
comprehended that the forces which produced him
were sociological and economical; while to himself he
typified the great individual struggle with these
forces. He knew that he was neurotic and saw what
early conditions had caused the neurosis ; he knew that
he was frail of physique, and yet industrious. He felt
within himself the presence of a high creative imagina-
tion, and he had faith in the power of its ideas. His
faith was justified, for he beheld the nations shaken
by the wind of his words, and he felt it necessary
that men should know something of what he was and
whence his spirit. 125
It is much the fashion to decry Jean Jacques, to
sneer at and to despise him, to shudder at his premises
and to cavil at his conclusions. Morley, for instance,
finds that "The exaltation of the opening page . . .
is shocking. No monk or saint ever wrote anything
more revolting in its barbarous self -feeling. " 126
There is a virtuous indignation expressed here which
savors a thought too much of Mrs. Grundy to be
convincing to the critical mind. For, if we look upon
the "Confessions" from one point of view, we find
ourselves infinitely in their debt. True, Cardan is the
first to suggest that by the study of abnormal man,
much might be learned about normal man. Cardan
126 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
passed with the passing of the sixteenth century ; and
suspected as he was, both of heresy and of madness,
his work has been left locked within its Latin tomb. 127
Rousseau attempted the same task in a living
tongue. Through him, through his appeal, the ex-
ceptional person, the atypical child, the individual
with the intense sensibilities or emotions, have come
to be more sympathetically understood. His looking-
within, it is true, revealed much that was unbalanced
and ugly, but it also revealed what was human nature,
and common to all humanity. The part borne in his
life by the pressure of monstrous social injustices is
differentiated and made plain, and this constitutes no
small part of our indebtedness. In fact, the rising
humanitarianism of the present day has been in-
fluenced greatly, if not wholly produced, by Rousseau.
Modern child-study and child-training, the endeavor
to help the atypical person generally, have been aided
by his showing us himself. The facts are placed
vividly before us, when he purges his soul in all sin-
cerity. His introspections are properly balanced by
the historical method and made constructive by the
autobiographical intention. 128
The imitators of Rousseau follow most often his
attention to nature, and its reaction upon his own
sensibilities. A number of dreamers, led by his ex-
ample to note their dreams, follow his footsteps in a
rapturous, feminized manner. Ecstatic over moun-
tains and waterfalls, these dreamers lament and be-
moan their misfortunes without displaying any of
the robuster qualities of Rousseau's naked candour.
Lavater, Richter, and Kotzebue in Germany; Ugo
THE INTROSPECTIVE TYPE 127
Foscolo and Giusti in Italy, are instances of this type.
Closer to Rousseau's sense of style is that of De
Senancour, of whose "Obermann" 128 George Sand
has written an exquisite appreciation. The founda-
tion of De Senancour 's book is fictitious; its descrip-
tive passages resemble, and at moments equal, Rous-
seau, and by its introspection it is the forerunner of
Amiel. "Je m' interrogerai, " writes Obermann, "je
m' observerai, je sonderai ce coeur . . . je determin-
erai ce que je suis." 130 The result in this instance
upon the self-analyst is particularly destructive; his
lack of mental vitality renders him incapable of ac-
tion. Years slip by filled with a sense of infinite
illusion; this feeling extends even to his nearest
friends. Withal, he is unquiet and sad, yet, in the
manner of the neurasthenic, even the sadness has but
little meaning, while everything in life seems vague
and trivial. The book's vogue was taken as an indi-
cation of that malacbie du siecle, which was echoed by
Alfred de Musset, 131 Baudelaire, and the lesser
Byronists.
The twentieth-century mind looking back over the
nineteenth, is at times inclined to wonder how much of
the so-called Byronism was due to Byron. 132 The
Byronic attitude is supposed to include all possible
introspective egotism, yet Lord Morley is at hand to
point out the fundamentally objective character of the
poet and his activities. 133 Study of his journals and
memoranda which are all that remain of the de-
stroyed memoir display an introspection generally
constructive and well balanced. Of his work, he
writes that it will be "a kind of guide-post ... to
128 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
prevent some of the lies which will be told and de-
stroy some which have been told already." 134 No
doubt his expressed wish that Lady Byron should be
his reader, is responsible for his intention to be faith-
ful and sincere. 135
The "Detached Thoughts" display a remarkable
keenness and justice in their self -observation. "My
passions were developed very early, ' ' he writes, * ' per-
haps this was one of the reasons which caused the an-
ticipated melancholy of my thoughts. ' ' 188 The
"Journal," however, is more melodramatic, more
typically Byronic. One catches the morbid mood,
one feels the scribbler at work. Nightmares are made
much of; there are such phrases as "Ugh, how my
blood chilled!" and the "Heighos" of the blood-and-
thunder school.
The contrast between Byron and Shelley in this
regard is curious and illuminating. With all his
melodrama, Byron's self -study makes an attempt at
candour, fulness, and method. Shelley, on the con-
trary (whose opinion of Rousseau's "Confessions"
has not been forgotten), found the truth during all
his life to be an unpleasant surprise, because things
as they are were such an ugly contrast to things as
Shelley thought they ought to be. His nature seemed
incapable of self-understanding, just as we read in
his letters that it was incapable also of understanding
others. He was vividly mistaken in his estimates of
the character of almost every one with whom he came
into close contact, Harriet and Eliza "Westbrook, Miss
Kitchener, Hogg, Claire Clairmont, Byron himself. 137 "
To the end, he retains his "colossal power of self-
THE INTROSPECTIVE TYPE 129
deception, ' ' as Arnold calls it ; he remains the supreme
example of a man untouched by the modern wave of
subjective and introspective philosophy.
"The subjective movement," says Caird, "indicates
a relative advance in man's consciousness of him-
self . . . for although the mind turned back upon
itself may become troubled and unhealthy, yet its pain
and disease are necessary steps in the way of a higher
life." 138
This relative advance Shelley never made; with
the result that he caused quite as much suffering as
though he had been an unthinking sensualist of the
Cellini type. One cannot forget poor, silly, little
Harriet writing, in a gust of admiration, how Mrs.
Nugent was there, "talking with Percy about virtue !"
And one notes how his total lack of self-study and
self -understanding caused Shelley to dash himself to
pieces against the disapproval of a world, not so much
more moral as more subjective, and thus unable to
see why Shelley could not see what Shelley really was.
With what different and deepened feelings do we read
the letters of that sheltered recluse and poet, Mrs.
Browning, filled, as they are, with the most delicate
and just self -observation ! "I have lived only in-
wardly," she says, "or with sorrow for a strong emo-
tion . . . my heart in books and in poetry . . . my
experience in reveries. ' ' 139
If this modern subjectivity be an advance in the
gain of truth, we owe it to Kousseau. But the
twentieth-century mind under modern science has car-
ried the faculty of introspection far beyond that of
the eighteenth, and into details which escaped Jean
130 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
Jacques. Moreover, the mutual interchange of lan-
guages and literatures has developed a type of
greater sensitiveness to all moods and to all shades of
thought.
The recently published notebooks of Emerson fore-
shadow many of the newer preoccupations, by means
of an intellect possessing the fresh classic quality,
though in novel surroundings. His tendency toward
philosophical mysticism has more importance for the
reader when a perusal of these journals indicates its
source. Over and over again the young Emerson
makes note of the influence upon his mind of the Neo-
Platonists, especially Proclus, by whom his thought
and style were colored. Those passages entitled "My-
self," display some of the acuteness of the modern
scientific self -study, if expressed in an outworn poeti-
cal manner. 140 He records his exaltation under the
stimulus of nature and literature, with the depression
arising from his wavering health. Deep religious
feeling pervades many of the entries. "I am to give
my soul to God, and to withdraw from sin and the
world," 141 he wrote; and we know, kept that resolu-
tion.
An entry made on his nineteenth birthday forms
a valuable aid to an understanding of the man. This
youth writes of "a goading sense of emptiness and
wasted capacity," but grants himself "an intellectual
stature above the common." Of his affections, he
notes: "A blank, my lord. . . . Ungenerous, selfish,
cautious and cold, ... I yet wish to be romantic.
There is not one being to whom I am attached with
THE INTROSPECTIVE TYPE 131
warm and entire devotion." 142 No doubt such
1 'frightful confessions" are exaggerated; yet they de-
fine that lack of human warmth which underlay his
whole philosophy. If he was not to remain the ' ' bar-
ren and desolate soul" 143 he called himself; yet he
knew his weakness. Later, he notes that he lacked
strong reasoning power ; 144 in other respects his in-
tellect seems to have made, in a single year, gigantic
strides toward greatness.
Modern self -study, however, is not typically seen
in a mind like Emerson's, whose calibre and character
are those of the past. The "Journal" of Henri-
Charles Amiel, 145 to certain temperaments, has car-
ried an infinitely greater aid and suggestiveness.
Many see in him a true example of the highest in-
trospection, for, while he paused to watch himself,
he expressed what he saw in words of the most accu-
rately delicate beauty. The effect of the book was im-
mediate ; 146 there are those to whom it has seemed
to voice the very rhythm of life. The style was so
sensitive, so flexible, so full, that one read on in a sort
of bewilderment, as a traveller might behold, on either
side of his path, the strange charms of a new country.
In her admirable "Introduction to the Journal,"
Mrs. "Ward calls Amiel "the brother of Obermann,"
but to our minds there seems little real brotherhood
between the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries.
Amiel himself wrote that he resembled "that eternal
self -chronicler, Maine de Biran," whose introspective
experiments had so little success, at least on the posi-
tive side. What Amiel did not take from French
132 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
psychology, he drew from the German subjective phi-
losophers, and the combination served to heighten far
beyond the average his power of "looking within."
While he is "the spectator of his life-drama," he, too,
like Cardan, like Obermann, or any other neuras-
thenic, brings with him, into the world-theatre, that
strained sense of universal illusion.
Nor did his tendency to constant personal analysis
fail of destructive effect. Confidence he always
lacked. "That energetic subjectivity which has faith
in itself," he observes, "is unknown to me." "I
have never felt any inward assurance of genius . . .
what dreams I have are all vague and indefinite."
How different the note struck by that Italian doctor
struggling against a host of difficulties unknown to
modern lives! "I have lived to myself," cried Car-
dan, "so far as has been permitted to me, and in
the hope of the future I have despised the present." 147
The self-distrust of Amiel was based on his self-
knowledge. He was undecided and overscrupulous:
discouragement and ennui early laid hold on him.
Moreover, he was one of those unfortunate beings
whom nature has so stinted of vitality that the mere
demands of daily life draw too heavily upon them, and
they shrink fearfully from the greater demands of
emotion, or of ambition. To such an one, any creative
work is undertaken at a heavy price. Thought alone,
to Amiel, was immense and satisfying; practical life
seemed but to terrify him. He was perpetually pre-
paring for a work which he had never the energy to
begin. "I play scales as it were," he writes; "I run
THE INTROSPECTIVE TYPE 133
up and down my instrument, I train my hand . . .
but the work itself remains unachieved . . . and my
energy is swallowed up in a kind of barren curiosity. ' '
Such a nature, like Balzac's artist, 148 has spent its
force in experiment, and has none left for the ap-
pointed task. Hence Amiel's languor and ennui,
the sense of emptiness which caused him to lose him-
self in the mists of philosophical speculation. "What
interested me most in myself," he notes, "has been
the pleasure of having under my hand a person in
whom, as an authentic specimen of human nature,
I could follow ... all the metamorphoses, the se-
cret thoughts, the heart-beats, the temptations of
humanity." To himself, he is continually as "a win-
dow open upon the mystery of the world." At mo-
ments there flutters across his page one of those deli-
cate moods, whose description defies our grosser analy-
sis, but which Amiel beholds in all its tenuous irides-
cence: "I can find no words for what I feel. My
consciousness is withdrawn into myself. I hear my
heart beating and my life passing." And again: "My
sensible consciousness is concentrated upon this ideal
standing-point . . . whence one hears the impetuous
passage of time, rushing and foaming as it flows out
into the changeless ocean of eternity."
Amiel has served us here as an example of pure and
heightened introspection, but his journal is also a
record of his religious feeling. This feeling links him
with the mystics of the past notably Richard of St.
Victor, with whom he has many points of likeness.
His religion is of the metaphysical, mystical type,
134 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
tinged by his German heritage, and is nowhere so in-
tense, emotionally, as the introspection by which it
was accompanied.
Minor types of the modern developed self -observer
are many, and fall under various classifications.
Those who watch their own processes should be con-
sidered at the moment rather than the scientific self-
students who merely survey themselves as they would
study a crystal of definite character and fixed shape.
The great latter-day autobiographers, Harriet Mar-
tineau, Mill, Spencer, and others, are among these
last, and have furnished us with the best means of
examining the modern scientific movement. Yet .the
smaller group of the purely introspective must not be
overlooked. Their observations form at least a solid
basis "in a world most of whose other facts have at
some time tottered in the breath of philosophic
doubt. ' ' 149 The reader is referred to such books as the
" Journals " of Eugenie and Maurice de Guerin, to
that of Marie Bashkirtsev, and to such collections of
letters as MerimeVs, Balzac's, and the Brownings, if
he is interested in the further manifestations of this
tendency.
As we turn to review the names in this section, we
feel the justice of that view by which the introspective
nature has, since the day of Protagoras, been linked
with morbid conditions. Certainly, Montaigne, Car-
dan, Rousseau, De Senancour, Amiel, are not the types
of health. Yet there are very striking exceptions to
this rule. Take that extraordinary family of English
Quakers, the Gurneys of Earlham, 150 and note how
THE INTROSPECTIVE TYPE 135
the connection between introspection and sickliness is
contradicted by the facts of their lives. Both descrip-
tions and portraits of the members of this family show
them to have possessed an unusual degree of physical
beauty and vigor, health and intelligence. The gal-
lery of miniatures shows one lovely young face after
another. Their family history radiates cheerfulness,
activity, and high spirits. They went fox-hunting,
a cluster of pretty girls, in "pink" coats, which at
that time no tenet of the Society of Friends forbade
them to wear. They were never idle, they were much
outdoors; they danced and gave dinners and were as
gay as their neighbors. With all this, the deepest,
the most introspective and intense religious life
formed the primary occupation of that family. Each
member kept an introspective journal, and one of
these (Rachel's) runs to seventeen quarto volumes.
As each grew to maturity, this religious sentiment
shaped itself variously, retaining a uniform stand-
ard of goodness and zeal. The unique condition ex-
isted among them, in that their individual changes of
creed caused no break in their family harmony. All
show balance and self-control. Mrs. Fry records the
death of her beloved sister, Priscilla Gurney, as "a
sweet time," and her account reads with the calm
solemnity of a church service.
From childhood, the Gurneys were in the habit of
noting every passing mood. Meditation and journaliz-
ing were two family dogmas ; a part of each day was
set aside, and absolute truthfulness was exacted, even
although the elders did not demand to read the result.
One is tempted to linger over the naivete and charm
136 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
of these entries. "I feel this evening," writes
Richenda, " in a most comfortable mind. ... I really
felt true pleasure while I was eating an excellent apple
pudding. ... I walked by myself about the fields,
with the most melancholy, delightful feelings, re-
flecting on a future state." "As I went down the
dance yesterday," writes her sister Louisa, "I
thought of Heaven and of God." One of the broth-
ers, John James, enters in his diary a series of ques-
tions for the purpose of systematic self-examination;
while the elder sister Catherine, who left the So-
ciety to join the English Church, analyzes at length
the effect which Butler's "Analogy" had on her re-
ligious views. This useful, happy, and amiable fam-
ily serves to remind us that the introspective habit
is by no means necessarily destructive. When the
inner life of an individual is full of vitality, the in-
trospection is often a natural means of preserving
that vitality. As a group, the Friends have always
possessed it; nor can it be shown to have interfered
with their output of practical achievement. Worldly
interests rarely suffered at their hands ; and their tend-
ency to self -observation was, in most cases, a construc-
tive factor in their lives.
There is another sense in which an introspective
nature may be at its best during its introspections;
since the light will be cast into any morbid shadows by
any honest effort at self -understanding. The name of
the late Oscar Wilde, during his lifetime and before
the tragedy which closed it, was linked in men 's mind
with the world's poseurs. The cleverness of his work
and its esthetic finish hardly atoned for its insincerity,
THE INTROSPECTIVE TYPE 137
its perversity, and its exaggerated pose. Had death
but overtaken him in time, he might easily have gone
down into the ages along with George Brummell, or
William Beckford, or the Count de St. Germain,
and little would have remained but a poem or two, a
Tdon-mot, the tradition of a sunflower in a velvet coat.
But life is a ruthless dramatist, who startles us without
compunction. From this figure cast into the torture-
chamber of her grimmest forces, crime and shame and
judgment, there rises a poignant cry "out of the
depths." Strange, that the most sincere piece of
self -study of our day should have come from the least
sincere writer, that this most religious of modern soul-
studies should be the work of the most pagan of mod-
ern souls !
The "De Profundis" was written in prison during
the last years of the nineteenth century. Mention of
it should fitly bring this long survey to a close. Its
style is not always free from phrase and paradox,
("I went down the primrose path to the sound of
flutes" 151 ), and the author exaggerates his position
in contemporary letters by comparing himself to
Byron. But his work is much more than an exposi-
tion of personal vanity; and it is in no sense an apol-
ogy. The absence of weak excuse helps to make it the
most inspiring study of the effects of suffering upon
character that we possess in English. ' l In the begin-
ning God made a world for each separate man, and in
that world, which is within us, we should seek to live.
... I must say to myself that I ruined myself and
that nobody great or small can be ruined except by
his own hand. ' ' 1B2 These words express a truth which
188 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
cannot be reached save through the bitterest experi-
ences, while to have realized it is almost to have freed
one's self from their worst bitterness.
* * There is only one thing left for me now, absolute
humility. ' ' 153 This realization is the saving grace of
the man who wrote ; nor is there anything in literature
closer to truth than his own analysis of the reasons
for his fall. He was, indeed, * ' that man, who, wishing
to write about everything, must know everything, ' ' 154
of Balzac. His belief in reconstruction through suf-
fering is reiterated in a noble music of language; for
he, who began life by turning his back on all sorrow,
had now come to feel "that sorrow is the most sensi-
tive of all created things. ' ' 155 * ' Nothing seems to
me," he writes, "of the smallest value except what
one gets out of one's self. ... I have got to make
everything that has happened to me good for me. ' ' In
the crucible of humility and suffering some of the
shame has been purged away; the sketch ends in the
renewal of hope, of life, of beauty, if upon other
terms. The mere composition has been an aid to the
spirit of hope, "since it is by utterance that we live."
A communication such as the "De Profundis"
brings nearer the sense of human dependence. Each
one of us is forced by inexorable law to pass on to the
race the result of his experience. An identical im-
pulse moved Augustin or Descartes, as it moved
Abelard or Wilde. For many centuries, introspec-
tion has been the instrument in the hand of this im-
pulse; and as an instrument, it has not been found
more imperfect than the other means through which
humanity strives continually to attain the truth.
IV
THE DOCUMENTS
I. Change of belief.
II. Genius.
III. Groups.
IV. Methodists.
V. Quakers.
VI. Mormons.
VII. Identity of emotion.
VIII. Candour.
IX. Scientific self -observation.
IV
THE DOCUMENTS
As we approach the self -study more nearly, it be-
comes evident that some adequate plan for its survey
must be formulated. The documents themselves are
various as the personalities responsible for them;
while the matter they contain is so scattered and so
heterogeneous, that the task of sifting it seems at first
sight to be as hopeless as the task which Venus set
before Psyche. 1 The temptation, to which many
workers in this field have yielded, is to make use of
separate records as instances, to cull here and there
the striking example, omitting the commonplace; to
select, in a word, only those cases which serve to
support their special theory. Such method is quite
impossible in the case of the present volume. If this
is to be an inductive study from all the obtainable
facts, then a classification under different heads is
naturally the first step. Ere we set to work to make
this classification, let us glance at the main charac-
teristics of the records, in the light of those funda-
mental causes which have just been discussed.
That all religious self-studies have been produced
by the confession-motive working along with the
tendency toward introspection, would seem to have
been the conclusion arrived at by an investigation
141
142 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
into these basic principles. The wish to "tell all
about it" produces a necessary "looking- within" to
see what there is to tell. Upon the web of a fabric
whose warp and woof seem to be always woven from
the same threads, there is a design wonderfully varied
and complex, in colors often strange and new. Just
as the Polynesian tapa, at the first glance, seems to
show in its pattern a purely individual caprice, yet,
when studied, its design will be found to contain ele-
ments tribal, hereditary, even national, and individual
only as they are combined so it is with these narra-
tives. Their individual qualities may readily be dif-
ferentiated, they lie rather in arrangement than in
motif. All come under the sway of the same social
and psychological influences, such as group-contagion,
imitation, social conditions, and changes in belief. In
addition, there are always a few which are purely
the outcome of the creative instinct, the result of
genius. These form the main motifs in the design of
the religious confession; and one must examine them
well if he would understand the often elaborate fig-
ures of which they form an intricate and essential
part.
That human nature does not take an account of
itself when in a state of repose and equipoise, appears
obvious; change therefore is the first law of the re-
ligious confession. Once his poise is disturbed the
subject tends to ask himself : What am I ? and whence
these changes?
The ardently pious mind, having passed through a
crisis caused either by a shifting of his religious point
of view 2 or by the actual birth of a feeling unknown
THE DOCUMENTS 143
before, 3 reaches a pause of comparative calm whence
two impulses arise. If the condition be one of peace
and joy, which, temporarily, it is apt to be, he is
filled with a desire to communicate and to express
his happiness. Using his own phrase, he longs "to
bear testimony to the goodness of God ' ' ; and his con-
fession thereupon becomes the Augustinian "Confes-
sion of praise. ' ' *
More frequently it happens that the storm through
which his soul has just passed has been severe enough
to shake the very foundations of the mind with un-
certainty and terror. To review it upon paper, to
re-trace the circumstances of his conversion and thus
reassure himself of its blessed existence, is a means of
establishing that serenity, of which, even now, he is by
no means certain. 5 If he has friends, family, follow-
ers, he is eagerly desirous that they shall witness his
conflict and appreciate the worth of his victory. 6 It
is more than important to him that the world should
know he is not now what he was before.
Of inspiration, of genius, at this crisis, our mention
may be but brief. Such cases, at best, are all too
few. Nevertheless, it were well to repeat that the
great religious leaders, by the very fact of their
genius, must needs leave behind them some systematic
personal data. As a matter of fact, most of them
have done so; and such material has been left in
various forms, in sermon 7 or parable, 8 diary 9 or reve-
lation. 10 Since they have prevailed as leaders largely
through the force of personality, to impress that
personality as much as possible, becomes an inevi-
table duty of their sacred mission. No religious
144 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
leader has succeeded nor could he hope to succeed
without a plentiful use of the "I." His gen-
ius must make its direct personal appeal. And in
these later days this personal appeal must be printed
if it would reach a wider audience, such as earlier
gathered to hear him when he preached to them
upon a mountain, 11 or under a sacred tree, 12 or in
the market-place of a Grecian city. 13 He may leave
this appeal only in his letters to intimate friends and
disciples ; 14 or in a diary to which, under the seal
of a cypher, he confided his combats and discourage-
ments ; 15 yet often there will be present, even in these
private forms, an autobiographical intention showing
his instinctive desire that the record should survive
him, that it should be read.
But genius is genius, and for one Fox, for one Wes-
ley, there are many Woolmans and Hansons. Of the
asteroids which circle about genius as about a lumi-
nary, some merely reflect his light, while others will be
I'ound to shed a paler light all their own. The forma-
tion of groups in human society differs little from
the group-habit of the cosmos. Laws governing this
formation have received some attention in a former
volume, 16 though in a wider and more general con-
nection, and were therein shown to follow the princi-
ples obtaining in the formation of all crowds. The
confessant, as a matter of fact, is completely subject
to what has been termed "the law of the mental unity
of crowds "; 17 and is much affected by contagion.
The particular groups through which we may study
these typical conditions readily occur to the mind.
Such are the Gottesfreunde, in fourteenth-century
THE DOCUMENTS 145
Germany; the English Quakers grouped around the
leadership of George Fox; the English Methodists
similarly grouped around John Wesley; the Scottish
seventeenth-century Pietists; the French Port-Royal-
ists; the American Mormons. The family likeness
shown by the individual members of these clusters
is sufficiently striking to demonstrate the closeness
of the tie between them. Nor must one forget what
Sainte-Beuve is at some pains to remind us; that
until modern days the influence of Augustin was
manifest not over one, but over all types of the crea-
tive religious mind. 18 Augustin was in fact "a great
empire divided among such distinguished heirs as
Malebranche, Bossuet, and Fenelon." Already have
we noticed in another section the breadth of that king-
dom, which includes him who was named as the first
of the moderns.
A general study of religious movements will serve
to confirm our impression of the part played therein
by group-contagion. Inevitably one returns to the
importance of the personal element; and to the need,
felt by every religious leader, of making that element
prevail. The means lay at hand ever since the print-
ing-press stood ready to carry the Gospel among the
Gentiles. Through this means, the freshness and
force of the original emotion will have all the weight
that the leader can give to it, will create new centres
of that emotion and charge them with new energy.
If this religious leader be a mystic of the ancient
pattern, a Teresa, or a Mme. Guyon she is urged to
expression through the influence of the confessional.
If he be a reformer like Fox or Swedenborg, the motive
146 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
of self-preservation acts as a strong incentive ; for such
a leader must leave an image of himself upon the
printed page, so that his followers may be cheered
when he has left them. If the conditions surround-
ing him have been those of success, this motive may
be weakened, the diary or the day-book may be briefer
and more formal. This is to be seen in the case of
the Wesleys, whose personal success was so overpow-
ering. But such success is, after all, not common ; the
religious reformer is apt to die while still uncertain
as to the accomplishment of his mission.
The exact relation of the confessant to his group
is one not easy to determine ; since he is chary of ma-
terial serviceable to that end. Individuality is ever
jealous; and a confessant dislikes to admit his con-
formity to any existing pattern. He is apt, on the
other hand, to protest loudly his entire originality, and
to cry that the extent of his candour in self -revelation
has never been before attempted. 19 Style is at times
the only link which appears to bind him to the other
members of his group. Usually he will describe the
social conditions surrounding himself and the circum-
stances of his belief, thus displaying the strength of
the religious influence to which he has been exposed.
In the earlier confessions this may only be done in-
directly; we may have lost much because of the si-
lence of Augustin, concerning all these matters.
The force of group-contagion is almost always un-
derestimated. The great religious leader is far too
often treated as an isolated phenomenon, when, as a
matter of fact, he is almost never an isolated phe-
nomenon. There seems to prevail the opinion that
THE DOCUMENTS 147
he would become less important and less worthy if this
truth were known. Actually, this is not the case.
Joan of Arc 20 has not been rendered less extraordi-
nary because she is now shown to have been but one
of many seers of visions and hearers of voices, all eager
to aid in quieting their distracted country. Is Christ
less wonderful because of John the Baptist ? Religion,
as one of the more communicable emotions, postulates
the existence of a leader or leaders and a group of fol-
lowers; some of whom may possess talent and force
enough to become leaders in their turn, and to set up a
further group-contagion. This is as true of later liter-
ary groups, as of the earlier clusters who listened and
followed the man himself.
The main clusters of confessants are thickest dur-
ing and after the upheavals of the Eeformation.
Those documents which exist earlier come from con-
vents and monasteries, and their character is largely
predetermined by their surroundings. Bearing all
the marks of an early simplicity and credulity, they
are of great value, for by means of these records may
be studied the whole of mediaeval mysticism, and in
particular that state known as sanctification, so vehe-
mently discussed to-day. But as nuclei, as definite
groups, these records cannot be considered with any
justice, since the countries and the periods of time
which they cover are too wide for satisfactory classi-
fication.
Let us rather direct our attention, for the moment,
to the typical record-groups of the Protestant sects.
The seventeenth and eighteenth century pietistic re-
vivals furnish an abundance of material toward the
148 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
study of these religious families; not the least impor-
tant of which lies in their strong individuality and
marked communal feeling. The English Quakers, the
later English Methodists, possess striking group-char-
acteristics, and are wholly accessible for the purpose
of comparative study. An examination of them, as
groups, will form a useful background to our further
consideration of their individual examples.
Although John "Wesley left no autobiography and
although his journal is by no means so introspective as
many another, yet he understood in the fullest measure
how important was this method of perpetuating a re-
ligious movement. The lives led by most of his preach-
ers were full of physical as well as spiritual adven-
ture ; and Wesley, when editing the ' ' Arminian Mag-
azine, " appreciated to the full the value of all this
material. We read that: "Mr. Wesley requested
many of the itinerant preachers who were em-
ployed under his sanction to give him in writing an
account of their personal history, including a record of
their conversion to God, of the circumstances under
which they were led to minister the word of life, and
of the principal events connected with their public
labours. " 21
Here it is evident that Wesley's keen perception as-
sured him of the need to cultivate a group-sentiment
around the Methodist revival; and our knowledge of
his mind leads us to suppose that he was well ac-
quainted with similar, earlier groups. Be that as it
may, the result of his request was a collection of testi-
monies which formed an admirable basis for any study
of the tendencies of that period, and which, together
THE DOCUMENTS 149
with the Quaker group, forms a complete record of re-
ligious history during two centuries.
It will be observed that Wesley merely outlined the
plan of these biographies, leaving the widest latitude to
their writers. He seems to have had an unconscious
reliance upon that impulse which we have named * * the
autobiographical intention," and he does not appear
to place the slightest faith in the method known later
as the "questionnaire." And it is amazing how well
he is justified in this opinion. The Methodist testi-
monies, as a whole, are reliable, accurate, well-bal-
anced, full of detail, yet marked with brevity, and
pervaded with a feeling for essentials. Compared to
the confusion, the vagueness, the lack of character in
most "questionnaire" replies, these facts are very
striking. They serve to show beyond possible con-
tradiction that the spontaneous action of the mind
upon any subject is an absolute prerequisite to gaining
the truth; while forcing the mind and memory arbi-
trarily in a given direction, as is done by a set of
questions, inevitably causes the writer to omit, or to
distort the emphasis, or to shift the facts. That vital
element of the unexpected must perforce be lacking;
while an over-zealous desire to furnish an interrogator
with data will oftentimes cause the writer to manufac-
ture it when it is not there. The questionnaire is
intended to be a short-cut, and it has the disadvan-
tages of most short-cuts; together with fundamental
unfitness of its means to its material. Wise John
Wesley, to ask of his ministers only "an account of
their personal history with a record of their con-
version to God"!
150 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
By no stretch of imagination can Wesley be termed
a mystic, yet it is strangely true that there are more
mystics among his followers than among those of
George Fox himself. This impression may be due to
the fact that it is only the leaders of the Methodists
the active preachers of the sect who have left their
testimony ; whereas the feeling among the Friends was
such that the humblest among them has left a record of
God's dealings with him.
More women write their experiences among the
Friends than among the Methodists; yet, although
the Wesleyan movement bears all tokens of its later
development, there still remain striking likenesses be-
tween the two groups. Both are part of that great
revival springing from the people a wave of emotion
sweeping up from the hearts of the poor.
Although we know that the Society of Friends has
been in existence only since the lifetime of George
Fox ; * 2 yet every Philadelphia!!, at least, refers with
assurance to the Quaker face, the Quaker character,
and even to minor Quaker traits and idiosyncrasies.
Many of these characteristics, of course, have nothing
to do with the Society; but are merely indicative of
that type of English person, and that section of Eng-
lish country, from which its votaries were originally
drawn. Yet many traits remain, which in a space
of but two hundred years have stamped themselves
upon human life in such a manner as to produce
a recognizable type. Any one noting an example so
pertinent of human malleability can no longer wonder
at the effect which religious beliefs have produced in
a comparatively short time upon communities, even
THE DOCUMENTS 151
upon nations. To such an one the cruelties of the
Spanish during the time of the Inquisition, the in-
sensibility of the modern Japanese to pain and death,
present no longer any enigma. These are, indeed,
but manifestations of the peculiar susceptibility of
the human race as a whole, and of some nationalities
in particular, to suggestion: and this suggestibility is
thus seen as a great factor in our evolution. So great
a factor, is it indeed, that the disappearance of a spe-
cial suggestion (furnished in many cases by the tenets
of religion) is followed by the disappearance of the
special type, and the rapid subsidence of its particular
idiosyncrasies, under the pressure of fresh suggestions.
Rare to-day, and becoming rapidly rarer, is that con-
trolled, serene personality which was produced and
educated under the influence of the Society of Friends.
The reader of their memoirs, testimonies, and convince-
ments may, if he will, observe the type in the making.
With very few exceptions, it is worth observing
that the Society drew its membership in the be-
ginning from persons who, since childhood, had
been naturally serious and devout. The reader may
be interested, if he will glance over their abstracts
in sequence, to see how few are the conversions to Fox 's
views, of nonreligious persons, or of those previously
steeped in vice or in crime. Such a man as John
Bunyan 23 was not drawn to them in fact, he pro-
claims their abominable errors. There are men among
the Methodists who avow that they had little or no
religious feeling ; who, as soldiers or sailors, were dis-
sipated or vicious, drunkards or seducers; such
are seldom found among the Friends. 24 But the
152 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
religious man who feels he is not religious enough;
the good person tormented by a sense of indwelling
sin; the pious nature dissatisfied with its present be-
lief; to these, the working mysticism offered by
George Fox was a perfect solution of all their troubles.
Their literal interpretation of the text, that he who
humbleth himself shall be exalted, formed their guid-
ing principle. The plain speech, the plain dress, were
expressions of this idea of passing unnoticed by the
world. 25 One man sees the vision of a lowly people ; 26
another dreams concerning a persecuted people ; 2T
both join the Society. Conversions among Friends
on the whole are less emotional and less violent. They
have not to create a new sentiment for God, but only
to change its form and give it freer rein. Hence
the phrases, "under a concern," "weights and exer-
cises fell upon me," "I was moved to go" here and
there; phrases which rather under- than overcharge
their emotional conditions. 28
No doubt the persecution of the first Friends, their
sufferings and imprisonments, ridicule by families
and neighbors, had its effect in heightening their
self-control and strengthening their philosophy. No
doubt, living as they did close to the source of a vital
emotion, they drank deep thereof and found it sus-
taining and pure. Their records, as a whole, are on
a remarkably high ethical level for persons so cir-
cumstanced; their mysticism is under far more con-
trol and is less fanatical than one would have sup-
posed. Much is due to the contagion of the Quaker
meeting, where, by the very conditions of required
passivity, there was induced in these groups a remark-
THE DOCUMENTS 153
able suggestibility. In meeting, fell those " weights
and exercises''; in meeting, the inward voice speaks
and the heart is tendered. Fox, himself, of course,
was a case more definitely mystical ; and to his idea he
joined a fierce vindictiveness which was the very re-
verse of a meek and quiet spirit. 29 . Any analysis of
Fox would give all the particulars of his individuality
in this respect; the reader need only compare him
with other members of the Society. Such natures as
Ellwood, Woolman, Howgill, Chalkley, or the entire
family of the Gurneys of Earlham, appear much more
typical of what we call to-day the Quaker spirit than
does Fox.
But these great qualities of early Quakerism held in
them certain sources of weakness, which became ap-
parent so soon as by a generation or so, its votaries
were removed from the sources of their faith. In the
first place, the tenets of their belief, if logically pur-
sued, endangered self-preservation. Non-resistance
tends to develop inertia; the practical condemnation
of art gave an opportunity for the self-destructive
tendencies of studied mental inferiority. There is no
more striking proof that the vitality of a religious
sentiment is highest at its source, that this vitality
either does not persist, or becomes of little real worth
where it does persist, than is shown by the later his-
tory of the Society of Friends.
When we come to consider Wesley and the eight-
eenth-century Evangelical movement, other particu-
lars are presented to our notice. The most prom-
inent characteristic of the Quaker attitude toward
God is love, the most prominent Methodist characteris-
154 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
tic is fear. The children of Israel under the whip of
Pharaoh's overseer present no more vivid picture of
persecuted terror than do Wesley's followers. The
only questions which seem vital to them are those con-
cerning Hell and Damnation; there is present in
their narratives a perpetual undercurrent of gloomy
excitement. In fact, a large number of these cases
write of their condition before their conversion in
terms suggesting insanity. ' ' I was as one distracted, ' '
says John Haime. "I fell on the ground groaning
and pulling the hairs off of my head," cries Thomas
Walsh. "The sweat poured from off me," write
Whitefield and John Nelson. "I seemed to be hang-
ing over the brink of hell," and so on. 30 Visions of
Christ on the cross 31 or bathed in blood, 32 of a dazzling
light, 33 of a strange animal s * or a strange bird, 35 with
voices whispering of evil 36 or of aid, meet us on every
page. The relapses and reactions are uniformly vio-
lent ; the arc of the pendulum is wide and its swing is
extreme. Whitefield, in this regard, is really more
typical than either of the Wesleys ; for the latter were
by temperament much less emotional than most of
their disciples. Like many great actors, theirs was
the gift of producing a higher degree of excitement
than they were feeling. Whitefield, 37 a dissipated
youth, "froward," as he declares, "from my mother's
womb"; loving cards, "affecting to look rakish";
then suddenly overwhelmed with the inward dark-
ness of terror, the sweat pouring from him in his
agony of prayer, is more typical of Methodism, than
the scholarly John Wesley or the gentle Charles. 38
The cultivated youth, the intellectual attitude of the
THE DOCUMENTS 155
great leader of Methodism, remove him, as a person-
ality, very far from such as Whitefield, or Jaco, 38 or
Joyce. 40 Even in the darkest time preceding his
change of belief, Wesley cannot find that he has been
very sinful; only that he has been unable to reduce
himself to a wholly passive state of obedience to God. 41
By nature he was spiritual in his outlook ; if he grows
fearful, it is because, like Suso, 42 he works himself de-
liberately into a state of depression and alarm. And
when at last he found himself ; when he assumed that
task the magnitude of which one cannot overestimate ;
when, physically frail and always ailing, he travelled,
preaching and evangelizing throughout the length and
breadth of England without rest or pause; then he
obtained a complete and an enduring peace, quieted
and calmed by finding a suitable outlet to his genius.
The fire which burned in his frail body lit a thou-
sand other fires, as is the way with genius. More than
any other modern man, he moved and vitalized the
crowd who listened, and sent them home to new suf-
ferings, to unimagined terrors. In their narratives
they tell us of poignant repentance, of groans
and sleeplessness, fevers and sweats, the howls of fear,
the collapse from exhaustion. Man after man, stand-
ing in those immense crowds, listens and is touched;
we who read, may almost see that great wave of emo-
tion sweep over and carry on with it, these helpless
human atoms.
The wave of Methodism did not spend itself in
Great Britain, but travelled across the ocean to the
United States. Here it found conditions especially
favorable to the spread of such emotion. A people,
156 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
who had succeeded at immense cost in achieving inde-
pendence, during these first years seemed to have
achieved thereby only a fresh isolation. Exhausted by
a war which had been an additional strain on those
pioneers whose very existence was perpetual war,
many families ceased to look hopefully upon the fu-
ture, and relapsed into a sort of listless terror.
Near the growing cities, a fresh and animating cur-
rent of vitality stimulated men to the building of
the new Republic; but only those who are familiar
with the personal writings of pioneer families can
appreciate how little this new hope held for their
solitary lives. The situation was as favorable as that
in the Middle Ages for the revival or recrudescence
of emotional religious experience. The heredity of the
pioneers, their surroundings, their traditions, all pre-
disposed them to a passionate interest in the subject of
religion. There will be later occasion to quote in detail
from Jonathan Edwards' " Narrative of the Great
Revival in New England," 4S which was the most pow-
erful manifestation of this movement. All sects re-
ceived an immense impulse, new communities were
constantly being formed ; and new revelations received
in the wilderness.
The Mormon movement (which we cannot omit to
note as a minor group) was" an offshoot of the Great
Revival. The family of Joseph Smith, senior, after
wandering through Vermont, settled in Ontario
County, near Niagara. 44 This district was still close
enough to the remnants of the Iroquois tribes for
dread of them to be an important psychological factor
in the life of the Smiths. The whole frontier had, in
THE DOCUMENTS 157
truth, been ravaged by the Indians but two years pre-
viously. In addition to the hardships of the
frontier life, the severe winters, the scanty food,
and the incessant labor, there was this active, un-
remitting, vigilant terror of the Indians. Nor were
the Smiths alone under the obsession of this dread,
which entered into and became a part of their reli-
gious fears ; it is noted in many another record. The
Iroquois, painted, bestial, incredibly cruel, incredibly
cunning, is a figure which comes nearer to a realization
of the devil than any other on earth; just as the ex-
perience of his captives must have come near to the
realization of hell. This fear of hell and the Indian,
this linking of these two ideas, beset the imagina-
tions of the pioneer children, stamping them with an
ineffaceable impression. The same combination made
the Salem witch- trials yet more hideous; and it ac-
counts for much beside Joseph Smith's vivid picture
of the * ' Lamanites as the Devil 's children. ' '
Historians of Mormonism emphasize the multiplica-
tion of sects, the general religious ferment, which sur-
round the youth of the founder. 45 Smith himself
calls the place he lived in, "the burnt-over district."
It had been shaken by Methodist, Baptist, and Pres-
byterian agitation; the Restorationists, the Pilgrims,
the Shakers, had wandered through it to disappear in
the West. 48 The "revival-meeting" (that uncon-
sciously accurate phrase!) had come into fashion, con-
fusing and bewildering simple-minded and pious
youth. 47 For Joseph Smith to receive a revelation,
and to found a new sect, was therefore entirely in
order with surrounding circumstances. Our mention
158 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
of his personality and psychology in their proper place
will show that these were likewise entirely in accord.
He was at first, he says, drawn to Methodism; then
swerved toward the Presbyterians ; and his first vision
came as an answer to this uncertainty.
Mormonism serves a definite purpose, and must
not be omitted from a survey of the group, be-
cause of its nearness to our own time; but that
very nearness has deprived it of certain typical
features. The calibre of the Prophet's mind, the
style of his revelations, show a marked deteriora-
tion in the quality of this particular revival.
Smith's biographer comments that "Joseph's first
prophecy, at the age of eighteen, concerned Deacon
Jessup and the widow's cow"; 48 and there were reve-
lations concerning farms, and boarding-houses, Emma
Smith and so forth. There is even sheer nonsense ;
"And they had horses and asses, and there were
elephants, and cureloms and cumoms," 49 which last
beasts, Mr. Eiley scruples not to class with the Jabber-
wock. But because we observe in this outbreak signs
of distinct degeneration, vulgarity, charlatanry, and
cheapness, almost beyond any point yet reached by
human delusion, we must not, therefore, consider it
as something entirely different. It is hard for our
minds not to reject with disgust any possibility which
would link "peep-stone Smith, " and his revelations
concerning boarding-houses, with the elegant mind of
a Wesley, or the splendid fire and penetration of a
Luther, or a Fox. Yet, if we look more closely, we
see that this is wrong. The wave is moving through
particles of muddy water, but it is the same wave.
THE DOCUMENTS 159
The intensity of these narratives, the movement of
these communities under the influence of emotion, are
sufficient to bear witness to their real, if often piteous,
sincerity. By contrast, the concerns and exercises of
the Friends seem certainly less heightened. Yet no
Mormon, and few Methodist confessions have the
literary accent which one may enjoy in the first
Quakers, nor have they that intense, poetic phrase-
ology.
All these groups regarded death in the light of a
spiritual drama, during which the chief actor must
undergo every possible emotional influence in order
to make his ending the culmination of all previous
religious excitements. James Lackington, during a
mood of reaction, writes of his wife, that "she died in
a fit of enthusiastic rant, surrounded by several
Methodistical preachers. ' ' 50 To Mrs. Fry, her sis-
ter 's demise was "a sweet time." 51 Here are op-
posite points of view which yet indicate like
conditions. It will not be forgotten how, at his
mother's passing, Augustin checked all noisy grief.
He writes, "My own childish feeling, which was
through the youthful voice of my heart finding
escape in tears, was restrained and silenced. . . .
For we did not consider it fitting to celebrate that
funeral with tearful plaints and groanings." His
friend Evodius taking up the psalter, the mourners
thereupon joined in the psalm. 52 Modern pietist sects
echo the ideas and practice of the primitive Church be-
fore the dogmatic ritual had chastened and controlled
them.
The student, considering the appended data, will
160 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
no doubt observe that in their composition the Quaker
and Methodist records testify not to fortuitous circum-
stance, nor to individual caprice, but to the operation
of a general human law. According to such law, all
emotions and especially those which are novel to the
subject tend to express themselves and be communi-
cated in writing or speech. The persistence of reli-
gious movements is dependent upon this law; since
but for the relief afforded by self -study and confes-
sion, the original impetus given to the movement by
emotion must soon have died away. These rows of
dun-colored volumes, therefore, shed much light upon
certain complex and obscure processes of the modern
man; so that what before seemed futile as the dust
becomes charged with vital significance. Many of us
have looked upon the Sunday School autobiography
(as we may call it) with wonder that it should exist, or
that, existing, it should differ so little from its fellows.
Few realize that it is this very spontaneous similarity
which makes it so valuable. A conchologist may make
little out of a single shell, but bring him fifty, and he
will describe and classify the species. These memoirs
share in common characteristics that enable the stu-
dent to determine the extent, depth, and quality of
the feeling which inspired them; together with their
difference from similar manifestations, their varia-
tion from other groups.
Heading these documents, the student gains a con-
viction of the identity of religious emotion under all
circumstances, at all times, in all nations and natures.
Each protest of originality, each effort of the subject
to be himself, forms another link in the human chain.
THE DOCUMENTS 161
Each convert, in turn, cries with Rousseau, "au moins,
je suis autre." Each convert is by that very protest
linked to every other convert; while the very repeti-
tion is warrant of the identity of the impulse. The
first effect of these bubbles of individuality, rising and
subsiding again into the whirlpool of life, is to impress
one with the uniformity of their cause.
The confessant, telling of his life and his sins, seek-
ing to kindle others with the fire in his own soul, is
making a passionate effort for individualism. He
does not realize that when you read him with eighty or
more fellow-Methodists or Quakers, his individuality
disappears almost as completely as though he were a
Hebrew chronicler in the earliest days. His actual
religious idea no matter how great will never be
found to stand quite alone. Thus Jesus, Buddha,
Mahomet, Augustin, Calvin, Luther, touch hands
across the globe and across the ages. Each has dipped
his cup in the same spring.
The common identity of the essential human emo-
tions has never been established more forcibly than by
a study of the religious confession. We think always,
as did Sir Thomas Browne, that " 'tis opportune to
look back upon old times and contemplate our fore-
fathers. Great examples grow thin and to be fetched
from the passed world. ' ' 53 Yet these sentences were
written in the seventeenth century; and before some
of the greatest examples in literature, at least, were
born.
The lesser religious cases are linked with the greater,
and the slow processes of evolution cause but slight
changes over the centuries. Lay Augustin side by
162 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
side with Hurrell Froude, or Amiel, and we shall note
the difference. The quality of religious feeling is
higher and more beautiful and more intense in the
Bishop of Hippo. Apart from genius this is natural ;
he is closer to the source of his emotion. The intro-
spection is more developed in the two moderns; in
whom it has become a conscious, no longer an uncon-
scious factor. It affects their composition and it is
systematized by them in a way unknown to Augustin.
These three minds differ widely in idea, in force, and
in intellectual quality; yet all three are recognizably
permeated by the same emotion.
There are qualities in the religious confession, how-
ever, which do not remain stable; which shift with
every age ; and whose presence or absence affects very
greatly the total impression made by the confessant.
The most important of these is candour. Now, stand-
ards of candour have changed very much, and de-
veloped in accordance with the development of
men's powers of introspection. The deeper a self-
observer looks within, the more he tries to see, the
vaster appears to him that cloudy country of self.
He is like the traveller on foot, to whom at every mile
the land of his pilgrimage seems to increase in ex-
tent. According to the ideas of his age, Augustin is
uncommonly candid, but to our minds his candour
is perforce incomplete. It was impossible for Augus-
tin, like Amiel, "to hear his heart beating and his life
passing. ' ' 64 One of the chief reasons for this is that
he was the possessor to a high degree of what Amiel
had not, namely, "that energetic subjectivity which
has faith in itself. ' ' Genius though he was, his intro-
THE DOCUMENTS 163
spective powers were rudimentary in certain respects,
compared to what such powers have since become. He
told truly what he knew, and what he knew is just as
important now as when he told it. Since Augustin,
we have been led to know more and more; until we
know now much that he never dreamed of; and our
candour is greater in proportion.
At all times, candour is a variable and an uncertain
quality in the confessant. Its limitations are also the
limitations of temperament; and in this regard, the
difference among writers is amazing. Intelligences
accustomed to a developed introspection find no diffi-
culty in describing what other minds could not even
think. What A will regard as a simple statement of
fact, may appear to B as an arduous piece of self-
revelation. An enquiry considered by C as scientific
and legitimate, and by him satisfied with the minute-
ness of a medical report, will seem to D an outrageous
public glance into the private chambers of life. New-
man begins the " Apologia" with an accent of solem-
nity, as if about to wrest from his soul a sacredly in-
timate revelation. What he tells us, after this pre-
amble, is his change of creed, his views about guardian-
angels, the Tractarians and the Monophysites. Ob-
viously, such matters are sacredly intimate to him.
His real springs of thought and action are studiously
concealed ; and thus his candour is seen to be as slight
as his introspective power. The reader feels that
Newman would have found it impossible even to un-
derstand such a sentence as Augustin wrote about giv-
ing up his mistress, 55 for he had no such gift of accu-
rate self -observation. "I never work better/' ob-
164 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
serves the candid Martin Luther, "than when I am
inspired by anger ... for then my whole tempera-
ment is quickened, my understanding sharpened. ' ' 56
The ability to make such self -study as this is rare;
and it is of particular value to the confessant.
Cardan, Rousseau, Alline, and even George Miiller,
and John Trevor, gain in use and dignity, easing their
souls by the acknowledgment of vices and habits which
with many persons never even take on the crystalliza-
tion of words. Their candour is a part of the special
discipline of truth.
De Quincey has remarked that some persons have it
not in their power to be confidential; they are really
incapable of piercing the haze which envelops their
secret springs of action. 57 Naturally, therefore, their
lack of introspection limits the extent of their candour.
If a man has the ability to look deep within him-
self, then merely to speak of that which lies near
to the surface, cannot seem unduly frank; whereas,
if he lack this ability, then to lay bare any fact lying
beneath the topmost layer of convention, must seem
unduly frank. The degree of unreserve in a self-
portrayal becomes a question of individual tempera-
ment, and the revelations resulting from this unre-
serve, should in truth be so regarded whenever they
are brought into contact with prevalent standards of
taste. Such standards alter from age to age, if not
from generation to generation ; and yet it is by them
the confessant is apt to be held to a final judgment.
Moreover, standards of taste often prevail in unex-
pected directions, guiding the confessant himself.
What else makes the "Spiritual Diary" of Sweden-
THE DOCUMENTS 165
borg so vile, and the "De Profundis" of Wilde so
beautiful ? Each is perfectly candid ; and the matter
confessed in both is piteous and horrible. But the
emphasis, the balance, the standard of taste, is pre-
served in one and not in the other ; so that the reader
may read one with tears in his eyes, and the other
with a sense of nausea.
Balance in candour is less apt to be maintained in
the religious than in the secular confession. Humil-
ity being to the confessant his first need, he is un-
questionably apt to dwell upon his pre-converted state
of sin. He will thus often be candid only about the
period before conversion. George Miiller's early im-
moralities are peculiarly shocking; 58 his candour
about them is disagreeably complete; but once con-
verted, we hear nothing more from him of a personal
kind. Biographers of Alexander Pope have found
him insincere, 59 but what a beautiful example of well-
balanced candour he gave us, when he declared: "I
writ because it amused me; I corrected because it
was as pleasant to me to correct as to write. ' ' In fine,
the intellectual or scientific impulse to candour is even
greater than the religious or emotional. The intellec-
tual reverence for the fact is as intense as the religious
reverence for the idea. Therefore to many minds,
the great self -studies, the work of Herbert Spencer, of
Cardan, Cellini, Rousseau, and Mill, contain quali-
ties seriously appealing as the work of Augustin,
or Teresa, or George Fox. These readers will be, in
general, thoughtful and unemotional minds, those to
whom the service of the truth means in itself the
service of God. Reading Augustin may lead one to
166 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
prayer and praise; reading Rousseau leads one to
think and tremble. Seriousness and sincerity are
often in themselves religious qualities, and the reader
is awed in the presence of a really elevated candour,
no matter what the cause.
For these, if for no other reasons, an especial in-
terest is attached to those records of self-experiment
written in a particular style and for a particular pur-
pose. Space forbids that all of these should be listed
here, while a lack of human interest in most of them
renders it unnecessary. But there are some instances
which may not be omitted, of men who minutely note
the result in themselves of an illness, or of a cure, or
of a condition, or of a scientific experiment. De Quin-
cey is a case in point. 60 Insanity is noted with care
by B. R. Haydon 61 and Clifford W. Beers. 62 Andre
de Lordes, 63 the author of "Theatre d 'Epouvante, ' '
gives a careful analysis of his early preoccupation with
the emotion of fear. 64 Neurasthenia has lately formed
the subject for similar self -studies, all more or less
unsuccessful. The idea of scientific self-observation
goes well back into the eighteenth century. Hibbert
carefully notes the narrative of Nicolai, 65 a bookseller
of Berlin, who, during an attack of bilious fever, no-
ticed that his dreams grew so vivid as to partake of the
nature of visions. Further illness and anxiety turned
them into visions altogether, which were systematically
studied by himself and his doctor until he was cured.
Nicolai, though very much frightened at times, is on
the whole wonderfully calm. "Had I not been able
to distinguish phantasms," he writes, "I must have
been insane . . . but I considered them what they
THE DOCUMENTS 167
were, namely, the effects of disease and so made them
subservient to my observations." This is a remark-
ably strong-minded person, and one wonders what the
end of his life brought forth. Nicolai had an imita-
tor in a man who, upon an attack of inflammatory
fever, accurately transcribed his hallucinations, which
were supernatural in character. 66
The famous Dr. Pordage, 67 rector of Bradfield,
Berks, on the contrary, had a very mystical and in-
genious theory to explain the visions which worried
him in the night. He believed that the "Gyant with
a great sword in his hand, ' ' and the dragon with fiery
eyes, were especial evidences of God's interest and
favor. They might, he thought, ' ' have caused a great
distemper/' had not angels in person come to his
rescue. The doctor's explanation seems to us to-day
quite as fantastic as his apparitions. Cardan (to
whom one must needs return for all these matters)
had a plentiful experience of visual and auditory
phenomena; and many theories for their explana-
tion. 68 In his turn he is cited by the learned Dr.
John Beaumont, 69 who himself underwent the most
remarkable attention from spirits of all sorts. 70 Their
first visitation followed hard upon an illness; the
second was some years later. There were visions and
lit'tle bells ringing in his ear, which he seems to have
taken calmly and describes carefully. Many scattered
instances of this kind occur in the literature of auto-
biography. 71
The self -experimentalists form another group in this
particular connection. Charles Babbage, 72 the mathe-
matician, roasted himself in an oven. Various per-
168 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
sons note the effects of ether or chloroform. 73 "Tre-
lat cites the author St. Edme, who put himself to
death and who minutely observed the last impressions
of his last night/' 74 There is extant a like narra-
tive from a Corsican named Luc-Antonio Viterbi. 75
No less a person than Sir Humphry Davy 76 wrote a
monograph "on the effects of nitrous-oxide gas" tried
upon his own person. The result was of some value in
showing how his spirits were thereby heightened, and
how images arose and turned into delusions.
The reader will not have failed to remark the seri-
ousness with which these experiments are undertaken.
It is, indeed, their only excuse. * ' Agir et ecrire comme
en la presence perpetuelle d'un spectateur indifferent
et railleur," as Taine wrote of Merimee, "etre soi-
meme ce spectateur"; 77 this defines the danger in
self -observation. This attitude is the sterile Byron-
ism, the "maladie personnelle, " which has been named
as "the great plague of our spiritual life." 78
Undertaken from this cynical point of view, self-
study becomes worse than useless; and is open to all
the objections which have been urged against it. The
service of Truth, whether one be enrolled under the
banner of science or of religion, is the most important
task known to man. The mere cynical self -analyzer
is rarer than many critics would have us believe. He
may, in fact, be left wholly aside, as we proceed in
our attempt to examine and to classify that material
which the sincere servants of truth and confessants
of religious experience place at our disposal.
V
THE DATA ANALYZED: I
I. Parentage: Heredity: Education.
II. Health poor.
III. Health good.
IY. Pathological records.
V. Criminal records.
VI. Witchcraft records possession by devils.
VII. Contagion.
THE DATA ANALYZED: I
FROM the moment that a study of groups has es-
tablished the common identity of their emotional re-
ligious experiences, much is felt to have been gained.
The student is thereby enabled to move upon broader
lines, and to consider the various aspects of the sub-
ject as though they belonged to something homo-
geneous. No longer is it needful to differentiate
between the feelings of the Methodist, the Catholic,
or the Friend. Each believes that he upholds, as a
torch, the flame of Truth; yet to us, on beholding
them all from the same distance, one star differs
little from another star in glory.
There is another point of view, from which the data
appear as more significant than had at first been
anticipated. No one studying the appended cases can
fail to note that they mark the difference between the
emotional process involving revelation and faith, and
the intellectual process involving the formulation of
a dogmatic belief. "Whereas the first experience is
fundamental and universal, the second has ever been
to a large degree factitious and circumstantial. That
feeling which leads a man to seek for a fresh religious
inspiration, does not of necessity entirely govern the
shape which his belief will eventually take. Many
171
172 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
influences combine to determine his choice of a sect,
or of a dogma, which influences have had absolutely
no part in the great initial impulse of his religious
need.
Scientists have, of course, commented long ere now
upon this fact, according to their several investiga-
tions. Delacroix has pertinently noted the identity of
the formulae of mysticism, an identity persisting, what-
ever the variation in the creed of the mystic. "Les
mystiques/' he wrote, "separes par le temps, Tespace,
le milieu historique, forment un groupe, et leur ex-
perience se rattache a un meme type psychologique. ' ' x
But the facts go beyond mysticism ; they include all
religious experience. The form which emotional ex-
perience takes in the human soul, the process which it
must follow, are governed by basic laws of heredity,
physique, and temperament. The form which intellec-
tual belief takes in the human mind, is governed by
much narrower social and artificial conditions. The
age a man dwells in, the society wherein he plays his
part, affect the latter process; often he elects to
join some congenial group less because of religious
interests than because of social interests. The ques-
tion of affiliation with a special group or sect may be
due to environment or to a reaction from environ-
ment. 2 There is a very wide diversity in the articles
of faith subscribed to, let us say, by the Gottesfreund,
the Scots Presbyterian, and the Quaker; yet who
will deny the identity of the feeling in the soul of
Suso and Luther, Haliburton and George Fox? It is
not even necessary to confine the comparison to the
sects of Christianity alone. From Al-Ghazzali the
THE DATA ANALYZED: I 173
Arabian, to Uriel d'Acosta the Portuguese r Jew, the
same process is at work, identical in manifestation,
identical in progressive symptoms.
Differences in creed dwindle to a very unimportant
place in the scheme of any investigation. The subject
may be a Mormon, a Christian Scientist, or a Buddhist ;
either because his parents were, or because they were
not. Once the heat of emotion is passed, social pres-
sure aids in the crystallization of an evolved belief.
The man has undergone certain feelings, and from
them has drawn certain inductions leading in the di-
rection of certain opinions. Human-like, he seeks to
ally these opinions with other similar views, both to
strengthen them and to make them prevail. What
he does not usually recognize, but what we at this dis-
tance recognize for him, is that the emotions which
gave birth to his opinions are not peculiar to him-
self, nor to his sect, nor to his nation, nor to his race.
The subject, in fact, frequently confuses the effect
with the cause. Just as the lover thinks that it is be-
cause his beloved outvies all other women, that he
loves as no man ever loved, so the religious confessant
thinks that it is the importance of what he thinks and
believes that causes him to suffer so intensely or to
rejoice so exceedingly. The fact is he would suffer
and rejoice to the same degree, no matter in what port
his troubled mind finally decided to drop anchor.
The emotion is human, basic, and universal; the par-
ticular dogma is rather its result than its cause.
If there is one good office which the reading of all
these lives may do, it is to eliminate the idea that any-
one creed has a right to hold itself as more religious
174 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
than any other creed. It is not religious feeling
which guides a man in the choice of a Church ; rather
is it his intellectual conception of the relation to con-
duct of the emotion he is undergoing or has just un-
dergone. This is proven by the fact that not one
case of religious inspiration can be found in one sect
which has not its exact parallel in another sect. The
matter of all men's views is as diverse and fluctuating
as the matter of their feelings is constant and stable,
therefore it is with this stable matter of feeling that
we have chiefly to do.
The data provided in these cases are to be con-
sidered as uniform, and to be classified according to
human nature and to psychology. They may be
roughly divided under two main heads, the personal
and the purely religious. The latter is apt to be fur-
nished us in a confusing fulness, so that it is often
hard to sift the trivial from the important features of
the case. The former, on the contrary, is frequently
scanty and is sometimes omitted entirely. The reason
for this will be readily understood.
Even so late as the eighteenth century the pious
and uplifted person regarded his own piety and ex-
altation as a something wholly "not himself," hav-
ing no relation to his daily life and habits, or
to hygiene, or social conditions, or to heredity or
health. Indeed, when we realize how completely this
was true, and frequently is still true, we marvel that
the confessant gives us even so much information.
An historian of the modern scientific spirit, to-day be-
come as dominant a quality as ever was the credulity
of the Middle Ages, will no doubt observe its en-
THE DATA ANALYZED: I 175
trance into the religious narrative, in the modern
tendency to insert therein any material elucidating the
personality or the situation of the author. Unconscious
of its value, unaware, as it would seem, that accuracy
of detail had any bearing on his particular religious
problem, the confessant, about the middle of the six-
teenth century, began to systematize his record to
abandon his medieval vagueness and to open the
work with an account of his parents and his infancy,
his health and his education furnishing us, in a word,
with the data of his case. Should any one desire con-
crete illustrations of the change in manner, let him
compare the writings of Thomas a Kempis, 3 the abbot
Herman, 4 Juliana of Norwich, Angela da Foligno,
Gertrude of Eisleben, Mechtilde, and so on, with
similar confessions by Carlo da Sezze, Teresa, Jeanne
de la Mothe-Guyon, or the memoiristes of Port-Royal.
The difference is not merely literary, for the earlier
records are extremely diffuse, but lies in a new per-
ception of the value of all the facts when presenting
a case.
Single writers, scattered through the Middle Ages,
are not lacking in this perception, which indicates
their distinction of mind. Augustin had it as a part
of his genius. It will be found in the abbot Guibert
de Nogent, slightly in Abelard, and strongly in that
remarkable woman Hildegarde of Bingen, 5 whose can-
dour received as much contemptuous misunderstanding
as ever that of Cardan or Rousseau. Her scientific
tendency is explained by her genuinely scientific mind,
for she was a distinguished botanist and physician.
When we read to-day her conscientious endeavor to
176 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
present and to understand her own case, we are in-
clined to agree with Michelet that she showed ' ' the last
gleam of good sense' ' 6 in her age, and not with the
later critic who dismisses her as ' ' a mad old woman. ' ' 7
Since nothing during the Middle Ages so quickly
brought upon one the stigma of insanity, as scientific
attainments or ambitions of any sort, it is not to be
wondered at that Hildegarde stands sui generis. Re-
ligious dogma, one must not forget, was in those days
a matter not to be examined or questioned, but to be
accepted and adored.
For the bulk of our personal data, therefore, we
are largely dependent upon the documents of later
times. The purely religious data are naturally com-
posed of the mystical and the non-mystical. Whether
the latter, indeed, comes within the purview of this
study is a question for further discussion. Since our
plan is inductive, it follows that definitions should
come last of all; and to separate the mystical data
from the non-mystical appears to be largely an affair
of definition. Should we try to solve the problem
by a change of names, and term our matter normal
and abnormal, our task is no easier, for the criterion
by which we judge the norm shifts with the centuries,
and often with the decades. The non-mystical is not
necessarily always the normal, though our material-
istic age prefers to think so. It seems wiser, there-
fore, for the purpose of present investigation to take
these terms simply at their face value and so to make
use of them. Through these two main doorways all
religious emotion has passed to manifest itself in the
individual.
THE DATA ANALYZED: I 177
For the more convenient purposes of classification,
the personal data have been grouped under three
main heads: Parentage, Education, and Health. Each
of these heads is to be considered in the light of as
many cases as possible, for the sake of the cumulative
effect of the evidence. In the same manner will the
rest of the data be grouped under three main heads :
Beginnings of religious emotion; Conversion; Ter-
mination of religious emotion.
These divisions are, of course, susceptible of minor
subdivisions, while the discussion of conversion-
phenomena and theory will occupy a separate section.
The reader will bear in mind the flexible nature of
much of the evidence, which may cause the omission
of some and the repetition of other instances, in a
way that may at first sight appear capricious and
arbitrary. But with the patient application to each
minor case of those broad principles underlying their
confession, which he has just determined, he cannot
be long impatient or much at fault.
To sift the facts of value in the history of the con-
fessant from the facts of no value, is a task which at
best cannot be complete. In many instances, such
facts are few; in many others, they become sub-
merged by the ideas, feelings, and impressions
which flow abundantly from the writer's pen; in
others still, the character of the document precludes
their use. Journals and diaries, dealing only with
the religious crisis itself, such as that of Sweden-
borg, or of Fox, or of Wesley, omit matter which
they consider extraneous. Therefore, a study is
178 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
limited in large measure to records regularly auto-
biographical in form. Even in these, the seeker after
facts is often disappointed, since the confessant nat-
urally lays stress on the impression which was strong-
est in his imagination, and, therefore, does not readily
discriminate between values. Many names must
needs be passed over in silence for one or the other of
these reasons ; and this silence will include most of the
mediaeval confessants, so enormously significant on
other counts. The confessant usually gives some de-
tails on education and the character of his forebears:
inferences as to his heredity we must of course make
for ourselves.
Thomas Boston 8 of Ettrick was piously reared, of
God-fearing Scots parentage. He was a bookish child
and well- taught, prepared for college at fourteen, but
was held back from entrance for a couple of years.
His career there was brilliant; and he showed much
taste for music. His preoccupation with the religious
life came gradually. Jeanne de St. M. Deleloe was
from infancy vowed to the Blessed Virgin by her fer-
vent parents, and given the education of a religious.
Her subsequent mysticism is shown to be a natural
outcome of her teaching and of her surroundings.
The same direct inheritance of piety is shown by that
Quaker family, the Gurneys of Earlham. Their edu-
cation intensified this spirit and the example of a
deeply fervent, elder sister completed the cycle of in-
fluences. The zeal and ardor of St. Paul's character
was afiirmed by his orthodox Hebrew parentage and
his thorough education. Rolle of Hampole quaintly
says of himself only: "My youth was fond, my
THE DATA ANALYZED: I 179
childhood vain, and my young age unclean." Of his
parents nothing is known.
The father and mother of Thomas Haliburton * ' were
eminently religious. ' ' At school he remained idle and
dissipated and did not do any work until after his
eighteenth year, when he began to study for the min-
istry. Joseph Hairs mother was a woman of rare
sanctity, who filled his young mind with pious dreams
and visions. Her weakly body he seems also to have
inherited. So apt and talented was he, that he was
sent to college, although one of a family of twelve
children. Newman's religious education was thor-
ough ; and while still very young he read such books as
Law's "Serious Call," Milner's " Church History,"
and Newton ' ' On the Prophecies. ' ' At Oxford he fell
under the influence of Keble and of Pusey. Nietzsche,
in the " Ecce Homo, ' ' and in a brief sketch of his child-
hood, mentions his youthful desire for universal knowl-
edge, led thereunto by reading Humboldt. Schopen-
hauer was a great force in his life. He remarks that
his father was delicate and morbid, and died young.
At school, the abbot Othloh was first severely beaten,
but he succeeded by reason of his powerful memory.
Love of books and the classics much preceded his
religious interest ; and like Guibert, he felt them to be
a stumbling-block in the true way. Swedenborg's
parents were pious, believed warmly in spirits, heard
voices and saw visions. His father, Bishop Svedberg,
made note of a personal conversation with an angel.
The son Emanuel had a thorough education of the
scientific kind, and when he began to write, it was
on economics, physiology, and metallurgy. The
180 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
heredity of Joseph Smith, the Mormon prophet, is as
significant as Swedenborg 's. His grandfather, mother,
and father were subject to religious gloom, dreamed
dreams, saw visions and lights. The whole family was
imaginative, lazy, shiftless, and credulous : all showed
certain literary aptitudes. Deep melancholies and
doubts beset this family, together with a fear of In-
dians which is reflected in Joseph 's writings, where he
identifies the savages with the powers of hell. Joseph
had little schooling: and prided himself on his illiter-
acy. His apt memory and ability to pick up and use
a miscellaneous reading are shown in the Book of Mor-
mon. John Wesley's parents were of the conven-
tional, Church of England type, his mother a woman of
strong character, his education that of an English
gentleman destined for the Church. The zeal, the
power, the emotion, were his alone. Uriel d 'Acosta was
gently educated and could ride the ''Great Horse/'
At the proper age he studied law, but religious ideas,
and his changes of view concerning them, soon ex-
cluded all other interests in his mind. "I was edu-
cated, " he writes, "according to the custom of that
country, in the Popish Religion ; and when I was but a
young man the dread of eternal Damnation made me
desirous to keep all its doctrines with the utmost exact-
ness." Henry Alline went early to school and was
forward in learning. Augustin's relations with his
mother, Monica, are too widely known to need com-
ment here. He shows, in truth, very marked traits
inherited from both parents, and his description is
sympathetic. "In this my childhood," he says of
his education, "I had no love of learning and hated
THE DATA ANALYZED: I 181;
to be forced to it. I would not have learned had I
not been compelled." He liked Latin, but disliked
Greek ; loved Euclid, but hated Homer, and was much
beaten because of this. All works of eloquence, "of a
dramatic type," appealed to his mind, and he was
deeply influenced first by a dialogue of Cicero the
"Hortensius" and later by Aristotle. His subse-
quent career of dissipation terminating in the depres-
sion and discontent with self, which were the first
steps toward his conversion, are dealt with under other
heads. The influence of Monica on her son, both direct
and indirect, is marked throughout his life. Another
pious mother had for her son the great Cardinal Bel-
larmin, whom, with his four brothers, she destined to
the priesthood. They were the spectators of her fast-
ing and flagellation ; indeed, all their early influences
turned them to the Church. In addition, however,
to his strong clerical bent, Bellarmin was talented,
very quick, and a lover in boyhood of poetry and of
the classics. He notes his taste for music and sing-
ing, and that he could mend nets very well. A Jesuit
at seventeen, he pursues his education thereafter in
the direction of theology and Hebrew, making a gram-
mar of the latter tongue, for his own use. Another
precocious child, whose education aided a development
first wholly intellectual, but which later became re-
ligious, and mystical, was Pascal.
In her curious record of changes in creed, Annie
Besant describes her father as a sceptic and savant;
and says that her own ardently religious bent, in the
beginning, was spontaneous and individual. Robert
Blair, early left an orphan, was educated at Glasgow
182 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
College, where Augustin's "Confessions" deeply im-
pressed him. He developed the gift of extempore
preaching, and although he had his full share of the
superstition of his day, yet he showed the gradual
and steady evolution of his religious nature. Bun-
yan's schooling amounted to little more than learning
to read and write. In youth he was exceedingly vi-
cious ; and was noted always for a vivid imagination.
Thomas Chalkley is more a man of the world than
most Quakers; he studied hard in his Philadelphia
home; and seems to have had normal youthful influ-
ences. His temporal affairs prospered, showing that
he had business talent and industry. J. F. Clarke
was taught classics and mathematics by his grand-
father; he had much taste for nature and for litera-
ture. His development was normal. Few Quakers
give us any information on matters temporal, but
Eichard Davies, unlike many others, was ' ' brought up
in a little learning. ' ' At birth, John Dunton lost his
mother. He was a sickly child, fanciful and dreamy,
disliking study. A violent love-affair, at thirteen,
caused him still further to neglect his education ; but
a year later he was ready to enter Oxford. C. G.
Finney's parents were not "professors"; but his
friends soon turned him toward religion. James
Fraser of Brae learned well at school, but his temper
was peevish, he says, and he was no "dawty." The
strictness of his rearing caused many violent reactions.
George Fox says little of himself as a child, save that
he had "gravity and stayedness, with innocency and
honesty." He had but little book-learning and that
self-taught. Very different were the cultivated sur-
THE DATA ANALYZED: I 183
roundings of the Arabian Al-Ghazzali, who was a
savant at twenty, yet as perplexed about religious
matters as ever Fox himself. Edmund Gosse con-
tributes an admirable modern study of heredity in his
book entitled ' ' Father and Son. ' ' The intensely pious
parents members of the strict sect of Plymouth
Brothers work on the imagination of their child till
he becomes an elder at ten. But the father was a
man of science, and this inheritance, together with the
crucial intellectual conflict of the fifties, carried the
son to a total change of view. Evangelistic influences
of a certain type, with their inevitable effect upon a
sensitive nature, have never been more admirably de-
scribed than in this volume, which has the rare virtue
of sympathy for outworn ideas.
Unusual in a Quaker, James Gough had "a good
genius and a propensity to learning, " and easily
knew Latin and Greek. He was also given to poetry,
until convinced of its wickedness. Yet he thinks that
his youth was "a complication of ambition, envy, craft,
and deceit, ' ' before his religious interests became dom-
inant.
The abbot Guibert de Nogent is one of the more
direct examples of hereditary mysticism. The ex-
cessive piety of his parents kept them apart for much
of their married life; and when his mother left him
alone at eight years old to enter a convent, she already
spoke of demons and visions as matters of daily occur-
rence. His training was very severe ; he followed his
mother's example and at twelve became a monk. There
ensues between them a correspondence full of their
visions and mystical experiences by which each
184 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
seeks to excite and animate the fervor of the other.
Like the preceding example, and many another, Gui-
bert sacrificed his poetic tastes, and turned, at cost of
many sighs, to the study of theology. The same mys-
tical atmosphere surrounded Madame de la Mothe-
Guyon in her infancy ; her parents, too, were zealots,
although she thinks that in every way but the religious
they neglected her and her education. It is worthy of
note that she accuses practically every one with whom
she comes into contact, of neglect and persecution,
sisters and servants, husband, mother-in-law, and the
world in general, all, according to her narrative,
unite in tormenting this harmless girl. Even her ex-
tremely ostentatious humility, the irritating way in
which she turns the other cheek, and makes gifts to
those who beat her, is not enough to account for such
systematic and continuous persecution; it ends by
making the reader sceptical, as though it were a de-
lusion.
A. J. C. Hare gives an interesting record of a
severely devout education, the fervency of which, how-
ever, did not retain its full effect upon his gentle,
somewhat dilettante character. Frederic Harrison, in
his "Apologia/' draws a picture of the via media, of
a healthy upbringing, simple, cheerful ideas, holding
neither hell nor terror, followed by a gradual evolu-
tion to more scientific views. James Lackington is of
peasant-stock and self-taught. Through many de-
vious wanderings in faith, he returns at the end to his
inherited simplicity. John Livingstone underwent the
customary arduous Scottish education ; he says he was
well-beaten and so became proficient! His religious
THE DATA ANALYZED: I 185
feelings developed slowly and gradually superseded
every other interest. The comte Lomenie de Brienne
evidently drew a certain zeal from his father, the pious
Huguenot minister to Henri IV, but a court-educa-
tion was followed by violent dissipation and mania, so
that much of his later life was spent at St. Lazare.
The parents of Henry More were Calvinists, and he
was severely reared, yet he did not naturally turn to
that faith, being of a speculative mind. Knowledge
and learning were at first the most important objects
of his life ; his religious ideas were slowly evolved and
came to take first place. John Newton, the son of
poor parents, had but two years' regular schooling.
By the aid of a powerful memory, however, he * ' picked
up" French and Latin, and after his conversion he
taught himself both Greek and Hebrew. As a boy,
he is not quite so illiterate as Patrick, the saintly
swineherd, who terms his own writings " drivel. "
Bishop Symon Patrick, that cheerful person, blesses
God for his bookish family and his careful training.
This included short-hand, with which he noted ser-
mons. He went to Cambridge as a sizar, but soon ob-
tained a scholarship, work, and friends. Paulinus (of
Pella) gives an interesting account of his pre-Christian
education. He read Homer and Plato in his fifth
year, but his studies were interrupted by ill-health.
Mark Pattison's uncommonly slow development in-
terfered with the normal course of his college career.
When he does begin to develop in the early twenties,
he says, "I read enormously." Kenan's Breton par-
entage brought the Breton inheritance of dreamy
imagination. He also, he thinks, inherited his "in-
186 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
capacity of being bad. ' ' Placed in a Roman Catholic
seminary, he had in all respects the clerical training,
added to the temperament of a priest. Only his in-
tellect, unfettered, gigantic, turned toward "la
science positive" making all else of no regard. Few
personal studies remain to us of more value and
suggestiveness.
Among the more vivid records, that of M. A.
Schimmelpenninck gives the picture of a pietist
rearing. Delicate and frail, at the side of an ailing
mother, this girl undergoes a strenuously thorough
religious education. Taught by a father who thinks
it his duty to be harsh, she suffers agonies of nervous
dread and misery. The ensuing resentment, reaction,
and shrinking from everything religious, culminating
in melancholy and conversion, seem to be thoroughly
explained by these facts. Teresa's parents were noble
and gave her the upbringing of a woman of the
world. Her entrance into convent-life did not alter
this ideal for some time, until, indeed, she began to
burn with the zeal for reform. She says little of
her early self, but shows in every line she wrote
her executive ability. Leon Tolstoi was also of a noble
family, and brought up as the conventional young
aristocrat. From this life, however, he later turned
in horror, as did another Russian noble, G. Schow-
valoff. Anna van Schurman was trained first in
the arts ; and had done wonders in glass-etching, tap-
estry, and paper flowers, before she turned her at-
tention to Hebrew and the classics. She was chiefly
taught by her father, from whom she had her serious
and scholarly inclinations. Blanco White, like Renan,
THE DATA ANALYZED: I 187
was educated for the priesthood. The piety of his
parents was mingled with other characteristics in his
strange personality. George Whitefield was "fro-
ward," disliked study, and had an impudent temper.
His dramatic tastes developed young and lasted all his
life. At Oxford he set to work in earnest. In the
" Dialogue with Trypho," Justin Martyr outlines a
brief account of his education, of his inborn love of
philosophy, and of how he turned toward Christian
ideas.
Details of education and heredity among the earlier
minor Roman Catholic cases, we have already stated
to be few. Save that she was an "indocta mulier,"
and concealed her revelations from her family, Hilde-
garde of Bingen gives no information. The Mere
Jeanne des Anges had thoroughly upset her family
with her extravagances by her fifteenth year, so in de-
spair they sent her to a convent. She seems to have
been given a good education and was very fond of
reading. Loyola received the training of a Spanish
aristocrat and soldier, " delighting in feats of arms."
In these words he dismisses the matter as trifling.
That " little, prittie Tobie," as Charles I calls Sir
Tobie Matthew, was trained in Protestantism and for
a career of diplomacy. When he began to be inter-
ested in Catholicism, his father's thunderings seemed
to have but hastened his decision. Gertrude More's
father disciplined her severely, yet her girlhood was
wilful and headstrong. De Marsay had Protestant
parents who gave him a devout upbringing. The
young Angelique Arnauld, one of a deeply religious
family, fulfilled her destiny and heritage when she
188 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
became a mystic. Both Sainte-Chantal and M. M.
Alacoque came of devout parents. Paul Lowengard
and Alphonse de Ratisbonne were both of Jewish de-
scent. The former, in temperament being sensitive to
religious ideas, suffered from the mockery of his free-
thinking father; so that his conversion to Catholicism
seemed more or less inevitable. The latter 's family
were deeply fervent in their religious nature, and a
brother preceded him into the Roman Catholic Church.
This is also the case of F. Liebermann. Although
f j. J. Olier had orthodox parents, yet they doubted his
vocation because of his heady temperament, and so
gave him a worldly training. F. Ozanam's devout
nature was shared by every member of his family ; his
sister "was as pious as an angel/' and his college life
was filled with religious struggles and triumphs. An-
other convert, Fanny Pittar, had conventional parents,
a normal education, and a lively disposition. The
famous Antoinette Bourignon suffered much because
her father and mother quarrelled, and jeered at her
infantile devotion. She felt obliged to leave home,
and, later, became a recluse. John Eudes says that
his parents were humble and pious like himself. Mary
of the Angels was vain and fond of dress : the gentle-
ness of a kind priest influenced for good her educa-
tion and nature. Sister Therese, Carmelite, was one
of five sisters, who all took the veil. Religious matters
had always formed the chief occupation of this family.
Carre de Montgeron was spoiled by an indulgent
father and gave himself up to pleasure. His own
wickedness, however, soon alarmed him and he began
to think of reform. The parents of Anne Catherine
THE DATA ANALYZED: I 189
Emmerich encouraged her in practices of excessive
devotion, with the least possible food and sleep. One
does not often find a confessant congratulating her-
self with a pious joy on her complete ignorance.
"Grace a Dieu," she cries, "je n'ai presque jamais
rien lu." Peter Favre, the friend of Loyola, was
brought up "by good, Catholic, and pious parents/'
who saw his ability and sent him to school, instead
of rearing him a Savoyard shepherd like themselves.
Hugo of St. Victor gives an account of his studies
and his progress, much as does John of Salisbury. In
a group of modern Catholic converts, giving brief ac-
counts of their submission, will be found several
Swedenborgians, whose parents were unable to satisfy
them by rearing them in the mystical tenets of that
sect. 9 The nun Osanna Andreasi had parents so ex-
traordinary for the seventeenth century, that when
she began to have divine visions and conversations,
they thought her epileptic and insisted that she con-
sult a physician !
Henry Suso inherited both his mysticism and his
nervous temperament from a devout mother. Frau-
lein Malwida von Meysenbug had a keen natural
piety, but received no training whatever. The cult of
heroes was, for a long time, her childish religion. She
underwent a long struggle with the aristocratic prej-
udices of her family, and finally was obliged to
break with them. John Trevor had a conventional
education in religious matters, and was early im-
pressed by the tragic side of life. H. Fielding writes
that he was piously reared, and by women only. D.
'Jarratt came of poor parents, and was being led into
190 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
vice by his idle, dissipated brothers. By his mind
and memory, however, he gained his schoolmaster's in-
terest, and so was saved to be trained for a teacher.
During boyhood H. Martyn's relations badgered him
with pious exhortations; at college he was irritable
at being unsuccessful. On his father's death he be-
came more thoughtful. J. Lathrop had a devout
mother and was early susceptible to religious con-
tagion. Helen Keller's entire education is of great in-
terest. The religious side of it was conducted by Phil-
lips Brooks, and accepted by her without question.
Though Friedrich Schleiermacher's mother was de-
vout, yet she could not keep her son from a phase of
peculiar scepticism. After some time his college career
at Halle steadied his mind. J. de la Fontaine shared
the piety of his Huguenot family, and, though he
failed in his studies, became a minister. A large num-
ber of Quakers were born to some faith equally rigid ;
and given the severe training in morals which was
common one hundred years or more ago. Education
among this group is represented by but a few years'
schooling. Such instances present very little which
may distinguish the one from the other in this par-
ticular; it is therefore hardly worth our while to
give separate mention to the family influences and
education of J. Hoag, 0. Sansom, E. Stirredge, W.
Williams, B. Follows, C. Marshall, J. Fothergill, B.
Jordan, <T. Croker, Daniel Wheeler, David Hall, J.
Wigham, William Evans, S. Neale, A. Braithwaite, J.
Bichardson, H. Hull, M. Hagger, J. Dickinson, T.
Shillitoe, B. Bangs, J. Hoskins, and Ann Maris.
Christopher Story 's father kept a tavern, by which
THE DATA ANALYZED: I 191
the son was much subjected to temptation. John Grat-
ton was a poor ignorant herd-boy. George White-
head was bred a Presbyterian, and Mary Dudley
educated as a Methodist, but the result upon each
nature is much the same. Few are as healthily reared
as Margaret Lucas, who was taught music and danc-
ing; or allowed to be frivolous and read novels and
plays like William Lewis. Mildred RatcliflPs mother,
seeing the child morbid and depressed, urged her
away from religious subjects; while Stephen Grellet,
born a conventional French Catholic, is later horrified
at his own " worldly " upbringing. He had "scarcely
so much as heard whether there were any Holy
Ghost"! John Banks 's poor, honest parents do not
seem to have worried him much about religion.
If the Friends were in general an humble and un-
learned sect, it will be remembered that their leader,
Fox, was at no time a man of books. John Wesley,
on the contrary, had more than the customary Latinity
and cultivation, and John Calvin had the training
of a scholar. The majority of Methodist examples are
much like the Quakers in the respect that they are
simple and unlettered. Among other Dissenters,
George Miiller, who was an exceedingly vicious youth,
had worldly parents, and was given little or no moral
training. Oliver Heywood fears that he grieved his
good, careful parents; but at college he changed and
came to prefer divinity to the classics. Ashbel
Green, James Melvill, Alexander Gordon, and William
Haslett had pious inheritances and strict care. John
Murray's parents were very strict during his child-
hood, and he suffered from their discipline. William
192 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
Wilson's peasant father and mother were illiterate,
and he was put, like St. Patrick, to be a herd-boy.
Cotton Mather's heredity and education were of the
strictest type: Oliver Taylor's parents, if poor, were
pious; A. H. Francke's education was theological al-
most from the beginning ; and Samuel Hopkins had a
pious ancestry and college training. On the contrary,
J. A. James notes that he had no religious training
whatever, a circumstance which, as the reader has
doubtless already observed, is decidedly rare among
these cases. The Methodists, of devout parentage and
careful early rearing, of whom little else need be said,
are : John Prickard, E. Rodda, R. Roberts, T. Payne,
A. Mather, P. Jaco, J. Young, J. Travis, William
Capers, J. Allen, Ben. Rhodes, T. Rankin, J. Nelson,
Freeborn Garretson, Peard Dickinson, A. Torry, T.
Ware, T. Hanson, T. Tennant, J. Mason, and William
Carvosso. Neither of J. Marsden 's parents was at first
religious, but later his mother had an attack of re-
ligious mania, which made a deep impression on his
mind.
Opposed to these, however, are a number of Metho-
dist examples lacking pious early influences or in-
heritances. Samson Staniforth, one of thirteen chil-
dren, can remember no religious instruction whatever.
J. Pawson's family were disgusted with his zeal, and
used him harshly. T. Hanby lost his mother, had a
drunken father, and lacked all training. B. Hibbard,
the eighth child of a poor shoemaker, was harshly
treated and much beaten ; Duncan Wright had received
no education whatever until nearly twenty, when he
enlisted. Neither had J. Furz much religious in-
THE DATA ANALYZED: I 193
strnction. M. Joyce, born a Catholic, was a sailor and
a very wild youth. T. Rutherford, though his parents
were religious, and he devoted to them, yet was led
away, influenced by vicious comrades. C. Hopper,
the youngest of nine children of a farmer, thinks his
family cold as to religion. T. Walsh, of an Irish
Catholic family, was bred quite indifferent to the
subject. W. Ashman's parents had no religion. Very
interesting in this regard are the cases of the Evan-
gelists Jerry McAuley and Billy Bray. The first, of
a criminal Irish family, was a thief during boyhood
and imprisoned at nineteen. The latter, by seven-
teen, was also a criminal, and a drunkard, but he
had a pious father. Normal upbringing, and natural
childish indifference to the subject of religion, is
noted (in the case of the first with horror) by C. S.
Spurgeon and by Orville Dewey.
Henry Ward Beecher was the child of sensible and
intelligent people, reared in an active-minded New
England household. Granville Moody had normal
family influences and education, though he was still a
boy when he began to worry about the liquor ques-
tion. Interesting, indeed, by comparison with the
foregoing, are the scattered bits of information which
Jerome gives us about his childhood and education:
". . . how I ran about the offices where the slaves
worked . . . how I had to be dragged from my grand-
mother 's lap to my lessons," and so on. Long ere
his conversion, he had cut himself off from this pleas-
ant, cultivated home and dainty food, because of his re-
ligious ideas. Unfortunately for us, he does not con-
tinue the personal part of his famous "Apology."
194 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
The result of this collocation of evidence is seen
to be, after all, by no means negative. A pre-
ponderance of persons whose interest in religious
matters was fostered by parental teaching and ex-
ample, throws into strong relief the few in whom
this was not the case. The effects of direct heredity
are to be seen in more families than it is possible to
recapitulate here. The question of education if that
term be limited to book-learning, is much less im-
portant, if it be important at all. The range of emo-
tional religious experience is wide enough to include
the saint and the savant (Augustin, Bellarmin), the
tinker and the maidservant (Bunyan, Joanna South-
cott).
That the tendency toward emotional religious
processes is hereditary, fostered and heightened by
family atmosphere and family training, is proved, by
the aggregate of these examples, beyond the possibility
of doubt. Cases in which this family tendency is
absent altogether, in which the religious interest is
wholly individual, although they have been made
much of in certain quarters, are seen to be too few to
contribute any substantial weight to any opposite
theory.
Although the facts concerning the subject's parent-
age, heredity, and education are often interesting and
suggestive in regard to his religious development, yet
they have no such significance as have the data of
health. This is, in truth, the most important con-
tributing physical factor to the entire result, and one
given, in one form or another, in practically every case.
THE DATA ANALYZED: I 195
The manner in which it is furnished may vary exceed-
ingly; the data may be dwelt upon at length, or
dropped in passing, may be much over-emphasized in
order to throw some miraculous recovery into relief,
or may be touched upon only as matter of "mis-
interpreted observation." The simplest and most
thorough method for analysis would seem to be that
of grouping together, first, those confessants whose
health has on the whole been poor; second, those
whose health has on the whole been good; and third,
those exhibiting mental derangement or any defined
pathological conditions, which require separate con-
sideration.
The reader will note that an especial reference is
made, wherever possible, to the physical situation of
the subject in childhood and during the period of
puberty; since this is most essential to the proper
understanding of his case.
Discussion of the conclusions to which these data
point, must necessarily, according to our inductive
plan, be made later and be drawn from them. In
the section on "Mysticism," there must needs be a
return upon, and a repetition of, these. The whole
question of religious experience has been clouded for
most of us by a misunderstanding of the health data ;
the student vibrating between the attitude of the medi-
cal materialist, to whom every example is crazy, or
hysterical, or neurasthenic; and that of the ecstatic
pietist, to whom Catherine of Genoa and Catherine of
Siena represent the highest types of health. Aban-
doning for the present all a priori conclusions and all
unscientific and unjustified attitudes and theories, we
196 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
shall give ourselves up for a few pages to the humble
task of finding out what the facts about this matter
really are. Dull though this may be, partaking little
of the exhilaration attached to glittering generalities,
it has the advantage at least of being a task under-
taken austerely, in the service of truth.
The first group the mediaeval records give us no
classified health data, and commonly omit all reference
to childhood. Angela da Foligno gives no physical
facts before she became a mystical recluse. There-
after, however, she mentions intense bodily suffering.
"Never am I without pain, continually am I weak
and frail. ... I am obliged to be always lying
down . . . my members are twisted . . . also am I un-
able to take sufficient food." Margaret Ebnerin, of
the Gottesfreunde, notes her own intolerable sufferings
when meditating on the Passion. Blood poured out
of her mouth and nose ; she remained comatose. Pain
in the head and trembling were other symptoms of
this attack, which was suddenly cured on an Easter
Saturday. The nun Veronique Giuliani had a similar
attack, the pain lasting for over twelve years. The
stigmata and other symptoms followed, and the Church
made them matter of investigation. Another nun,
Osanna Andreasi, was suspected by her parents of
epilepsy. Mary of the Angels, Carmelite, brought
herself into a state of aggravated illness by her aus-
terities. She was subject to attacks which were cured
by a direct command of her confessor. In this case
the exorcism of earlier times is seen in practice. The
mystical abbess, Maria d'Agreda, was as a child sub-
ject to great variations in mood. When she became
THE DATA ANALYZED: I 197
a visionary, she suffered intensely; her body, she
says, ''was weak and broken. " Sister Therese, Car-
melite, at nine years old, had an illness resembling
meningitis. She was never strong thereafter, at thir-
teen suffered acutely because of religious scruples,
and, shortly after taking the veil, died of consump-
tion. An obscure illness afflicted A. C. Emmerich at
the age of fourteen, and she had several visions. As
these grew more frequent, her health steadily declined.
A similar illness increased the piety of Peter Favre.
Joanna Southcott's extraordinary delusion that she
was about to give birth to the Messiah was undoubtedly
due to an illness, and is not uncommon. Of her health
as a child, she says nothing save that her dreams were
intensely vivid. R. Baxter had symptoms of tubercu-
losis in youth, and grew very weak, besides having
' ' difficulties in his concernments. ' ' On recovery these
disappeared. Thomas Boston ailed constantly as a
result of improper nourishment at college. Dyspepsia
and fainting-fits followed him through life. He died
in middle age from a complication of maladies. Dur-
ing the attacks of illness his Calvinism grew more
harsh and his gloom deeper. The Mere Jeanne de St.
M. Deleloe was born nearly dead. After taking
the veil, her health grew increasingly bad. She was
always falling ill, and her religious state became one
of gloom and doubt. Weak from illness and terror of
her condition, she suffers constant pain, can hardly
stand for trembling, and during this time undergoes
frightful temptations to blasphemy; with sleepless-
ness, diabolic persecution, and so forth. She passes
out of this condition and recovers a portion of her
198 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
normal health, but illness recurs at shorter and shorter
intervals, until death comes at fifty-six. Gertrude of
Eisleben's general health appears to have been poor,
but she gives no details of any value. The physique
of Thomas Haliburton was never robust; he dies, in
his thirties, of a pleurisy. Bishop Joseph Hall tells us
of his health only that it did not permit him to over-
study. Hildegarde of Bingen notes many jllnesses,
by which she was beaten and overwhelmed ' ' even from
my mother's breast. " After her fourteenth year she
grew stronger till middle age, when she seems to have
suffered an inflammation followed by catalepsy; dur-
ing ecstasy "her veins and flesh dry up," and she
took to her bed. She had her first visions at three,
at eight had others and took the vows; at fifteen
they became frequent. Her physical and nervous suf-
fering during ecstasy was intense. Jerome writes that
* ' a deep-seated fever fell upon my weakened body . . .
and wasted my unhappy frame. ' ' It was during this
illness his famous dream occurred. No less a saint,
Ignatius Loyola, while gallantly fighting at the siege of
Pampeluna, was severely wounded in both legs, it be-
ing necessary to re-break and reset one. During his
painful and tedious convalescence, thoughts of another
world began to occupy his mind, till then filled by the
love of his lady. On recovery, he went on pilgrim-
age through Spain dressed as a mendicant, and it is in-
teresting to read that here he began to see visions
hanging in the heated air. After such an illness, in-
sufficiently fed and wandering all day under a Spanish
sun, we are not surprised that depression fell upon
him, and that, when entering a monastery and practis-
THE DATA ANALYZED: I 199
iiig all austerities, he should be "violently tempted to
throw himself out of the window of his cell. ' ' Othloh
had a bad fever and delirium, taking the form of a
castigation by demons, and he reluctantly contem-
plated entering the monastery. A second illness, caus-
ing temporary paralysis, was needed to complete his
conversion, and his health thereafter is not noted. Al-
though "Wesley had a trying illness just at the time of
his change in views, and was a slight, small man of
delicate physique, with a chronic bilious catarrh, yet
his later health must have been of iron to permit those
evangelistic feats of preaching, those horseback jour-
neys over all the length and breadth of England.
Henry Alline fell so ill at fourteen that he hardly
cared to live. He kept late hours and lived unwhole-
somely, while his "conscience would roar night
and day." Matters grew worse, and he died of a
decline at thirty-six. Augustin makes note of an
illness from weak lungs, and conditions of nervous ex-
haustion after his Carthage experiences, but he gives
no general health data. Bellarmin's health seems to
have been consistently bad; he was a chronic sufferer
from insomnia and headache; at one time his lungs
were threatened; at another he nearly died of a dys-
entery. Blair owns to severe illnesses. A tertian
fever came, he thinks, because "I was puffed up by
profiting well in my bairnly studies." A poor regi-
men at college helped to injure his health, as well as
encouraged him in seeing visions. Charles Bray had
a delicate childhood and was ever under suspicion of
phthisis. Bunyan's tumults and melancholies are in-
termittent, and he often connects them with "weakness
200 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
in the outer man." Peter Cartwright 's conversion-
crisis took the form of an attack in which "my heart
palpitated and in a few minutes I turned blind. ' ' In
later life he was strong. The reader cannot for-
get what befell Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damas-
cus, whether he believe it to have been an ophthalmia
or no. "The stone" was an especial discipline to the
sedentary person in the past; and Stephen Crisp is
among those who suffered from it. Fraser of Brae
says he was not like to live as an infant, but was whole-
some thereafter in his childhood. At eighteen, re-
ligious torment fell upon him, upset his health and dis-
turbed his mind. Later, an illness is associated with
a very black relapse of melancholy and horror. The
Arabian philosopher Al-Ghazzali was completely pros-
trated nervously by his search for the truth, and for
a time could neither talk, swallow, nor digest. Mme.
Guyon was a fragile infant, frequently ill; at nine,
she nearly died ; and another severe malady beset her
at conversion. A bad attack of smallpox follows later.
Indeed, her ill-health on the mystical way, beset by hor-
rible visions and fiendish manifestations, is continuous.
Alice Hayes was delicate and lame; Joseph Hoag,
"of a weakly make, with gatherings in the ears";
but he improved, till at eighteen, he pined away and
wasted, thinking the Devil was coming for him in
person. Francis Howgill tersely describes himself
during his mental conflict : " I became a perfect fool, I
was as a man distracted," from weakness and sleep-
lessness. Lutfullah, the Mohammedan Pundit, who
was a man at eight years old, has a severe illness there-
after which leaves him weakened. His devotion to the
THE DATA ANALYZED: I 201
faith of Mahomet never wavers, while his natural piety
is extraordinary. Any reader of Macready's diary
will recall how the serious and devout tone heightens
after a severe illness. Bishop Symon Patrick was in
great danger from a fever when twelve years old,
whereupon he took serious resolves. Later, overstudy
brings on a "sore distemper," but he takes warning,
and at eighty, when his narrative closes, seems to
have been hale and hearty. Ill-health interrupted the
studies of Paulinus Pellaeus, whose doctor ordered
him an outdoor life. Mark Pattison, as a boy, was
highly nervous and delicate, tardy in development,
and had trouble with his eyes. During his pious and
Puseyite period and the reaction therefrom, his health
suffered from insomnia, depression, and palpitations;
but he came out of this safely, and does not further
comment on physical conditions. Eenan is another
free-thinker whose early religious phase is strong
enough and minutely enough described, to warrant his
inclusion in the lists. He was a frail infant and feeble
child, and later his back was bent and his health was
injured by incessant study. His conversion to free-
thought bears almost the same symptoms, physical
and nervous, as the more orthodox conversions, and is
compared by him to ' ' une violente encephalite, durant
laquelle toutes les autres fonctions de la vie furent
suspendues en moi." Mrs. Schimmelpenninck was
constantly ill as a young child, and had nervous fears
of the dark, * ' I was by nature timid, I had from my
cradle miserable health, " she says. A spinal weak-
ness developed later, and her gloom increased with the
necessary inaction. Terror rode her like a hag, terror
202 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
of the dark and of her father fear of everything, like
Harriet Martineau. Elizabeth Stirredge is so miser-
able in her tender years, of such a sad heart, weeping
and praying, that her mother feared a decline. Suso
is one of those monastic examples where a naturally
strong person, "full of fire and life," is brought, by
self-torments and the cloistered regimen, into a ruin-
ous and shattered state of morbid mind and nerves.
He notes a catalepsy to our modern ideas it is a
marvel that he survived at all the hideous self-tortures
imposed by his faith. Teresa's is a similar case of
this particular type. She was a healthy child and a
young girl of bounding vitality and love of life. She
had been cloistered for some time, when a long illness
set her to reading Augustin and caused her ideas to
take on a darker hue. When they once fairly begin,
the phenomena of mysticism progress steadily ; but her
case is sui generis in that she retained to the end a
high degree of bodily vigor. Teresa is the rare ex-
ample of the mystic who yet possessed a healthy en-
ergy, efficiency, and executive ability, and for this
reason it is totally misleading to use her as a type.
F. A. von der Kemp, impairing his health at college
by chemical research and overstudy, soon became ex-
cited by religious subjects and began to make an en-
quiry as to truth. J. Blanco White had an illness in
youth which persisted through life and which was fos-
tered by his morbid shyness. Several short fits of
sickness influenced George Whitefield at a time when
Charles Wesley had moved his mind. His depression
was so great that his relatives thought him insane.
A sudden abstinence precipitated an illness of six or
THE DATA ANALYZED: I 203
seven weeks, during which the crisis is overpast. But
Whitefield was of a vigorous physique, whom one
would hardly consider as other than healthy. Illnesses
shake the youth of Isaac Williams, but the conditions
of this case cause it properly to be classed under an-
other heading. Solomon Mack, the grandfather of
Joseph Smith, had his visionary lights when severely
ill with rheumatism. At seventy-six he wrote of
"many sore accidents in his childhood/' and suffered
from the prevalent dread of Indians.
The Quaker group furnishes much significant data
on health matters. James Gough was undersized and
his constitution was weak and tender. M. Lucas's
excessive piety so exhausts her vitality that she is
prostrated. She remarks that at the time she was
"seized with a weakness of the body,' 1 which lasted
the rest of her life. Elizabeth Collins leaves a record
of illness beginning ere she was twelve. On the other
hand, John Churchman seems to have held his con-
sumption in check by his outdoor life and horseback
journeys. A severe illness brought W. Lewis "dread-
fully to feel the state I was in." Catherine Phillips,
whose girlhood was hideous with terror of guilt, re-
marks that she was several times "visited with fevers
which brought me very low." At ten, David Hall
had smallpox which left him with a nervous affection
resembling palsy. He seemed almost idiotic for sev-
eral years. At twenty, he was beset with religious
ardor to exhort others, and with many zealous ex-
travagances. The state of irreligion in France excites
Mildred Ratcliff, a poor widow in delicate health and
with seven children, and she sets out on foot as a
204 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
preacher. The Lord instantly sent her renewed health
and strength for this task, which she never once, of
course, connects with fresh air and exercise. Samuel
Neale was brought very low by smallpox at twelve,
wherefore he covenanted with God. Fever adds to his
depression at conversion. Anna Braithwaite 's friends
send for the doctor during her period of conflict, while
John Richardson allows that he "was weak in body."
Joseph Oxley from accident was dwarfed and de-
formed. Henry Hull was a good boy, but at nine years
old he had an illness, and thereafter took solitary
walks, and at sixteen had serious impressions. His
health remained poor and his spirits low. George
Bewly, a morbid lad, was fearful at twelve of losing
his innocency from contact with rude companions.
During illness the tempter sets upon him and he bar-
gains with God for a return of health. A malady
when she was sixteen brought serious thoughts to Mary
Hagger. Benjamin Bangs has poor health ; and John
Gratton is visited with a grievous illness just before
his conversion. A fit of sickness nigh unto death
seems to Jane Hoskins to signify that she should emi-
grate to Pennsylvania. Patrick Livingstone is at
times subject to "infirmities and sickness," which
bring deep melancholies and heart-searchings. All
John Fothergill tells us is that he had "many afflict-
ing dispensations." He fasts and goes without sleep
for months. A. 'Jaffray falls into "a dull, languid
frame," when worried about religion. Edith Jefferis
and Mary Dudley were tuberculous. The former had
one of those slow cases of consumption oftener met
with in past days than now. The latter, always frail,
THE DATA ANALYZED: I 205
had many bouts of illness when a child, and later
"was affected to trembling. " It is typhus fever
which shakes the guilty soul of Daniel Wheeler.
There are certain cases of which we can note only
that they " en joyed poor health, " as the phrase was,
without learning further particulars. Such were John
Prickard, Thomas Rankin, John Furz, John Pritchard.
Thomas Oliver's severe illness brings him to serious
thoughts, while restless nights, terrifying dreams, and
other nervous symptoms cause Peter Jaco to resolve
upon reform. Jacob Young had a sickness at three
which left him a confirmed asthmatic, and a sickly,
home-kept boy. After his conversion at ten his health
improved, but mental reactions tread hard on the heels
of physical ones throughout his life. Asthma and
bad dreams together at the age of twelve stirred Lor-
enzo Dow to piety and despair; William Capers, a
fragile and puny child, is often ill; but his health
greatly improves later in life, and he is shown to be
a well-balanced, sensible, and unemotional type of
person. Satan attacked John Allen during an illness,
and threw him very low. Like Cardan, E. Wilkinson
was often frighted by dreams and waked shrieking.
Depression after fever affects George Shadford to such
a degree of misery about his future state, that he has
thoughts of suicide. J. W. de la Flechere's self -ob-
servation is more minute than that of most when
he remarks: "I have sometimes observed that when
the body is brought low, Satan gains an advan-
tage over the Soul!" In his case, watching, fast-
ing, and abstinence from meat bring an inevita-
ble consumption. Illness in his early twenties
806 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
brought John Nelson into great fear and dis-
tress. High fever and blood-pressure add to the
hideous terror of John Haime, who laments his sin,
"howling like a wild beast." After being in bad
health as a child for two years, Christopher Hopper
was pronounced incurable, whereat, he says, ' ' I judged
it was high time to prepare for a future state, " and
began to read and pray. On his recovery, his senti-
ments cool. Mary Fletcher was a backward child of
weak understanding, whose conversion was attended
with markedly nervous and pathological symptoms.
She is always ailing or ill, yet is energetic in the work
of the Methodist Society. Many consumptives display
the first indications of their condition during their
period of religious stress. So did Thomas Walsh, who
is dead of his disease, at twenty-eight. The constitu-
tion of Peard Dickinson was weak from birth; fever
marked his religious conflict; but on emerging into
light, he gains some access of strength, although his
health remains poor to the end of his life. Although
exceedingly sensitive and anxious, yet Joshua Mars-
den observed no illness until he reached the age of
twenty. Charles Wesley's conversion followed upon
weak health and palpitations of the heart. He never
had the vigor of his famous brother. Thomas Ware
was so prostrated by disease at about sixteen, during
religious struggles, that he was little better than a
maniac. During a sudden attack attended with vio-
lent delirium and convulsions, Richard Williams, a
surgeon of free-thinking tendencies, was overwhelmed
with terror as to his future. On his recovery he be-
came a believer. Sharp bouts of illness heightened the
THE DATA ANALYZED: I 207
mental conflicts of Andrew Sherburne. Upon George
Miiller, his vices brought a train of ills by which he is
at length warned. When Luther Rice was a little boy,
his excessive and gloomy piety impaired his health.
James Marsh was phthisical, and John Stevenson
scrofulous. Ashbel Green fell into a poor condition
from overstudy, and grew anxious about his soul.
William Neill, as a boy afflicted with a serious disorder,
betook himself to secret prayer. One of David Brain-
erd's worst seasons of gloom befell him during the
measles. T. E. Gates had a pleurisy when fourteen;
he shuddered at the fear of death, and saw a vision of a
black man. He suffered from steadily progressive weak
health, with insomnia, melancholy, and fear of suicide.
John Winthrop, at fourteen, had a fever. Though he
had previously been "lewdly disposed, 77 he now be-
took himself to God. Joseph Thomas, lame from
a tuberculous swelling, and sickly always, yet heard the
call to preach when he was only sixteen years old.
Thomas Scott, being in doubtful health, was much
disquieted, and turned to an arduous search for the
truth which led him through devious ways. Jacob
Knapp's health declined from his mental distress on
the subject of religion. Orville Dewey at first was
strong, and indifferent to his salvation. Overwork
at college brought on "a nervous disorder of the
brain," which injured his general health for the rest
of his life. He began immediately to be worried about
doctrine. Jerry McAuley turned to thoughts of re-
ligion upon imprisonment for theft, during which his
health was affected. C. S. Spurgeon's nerves were
much upset by the crisis of puberty. H. Fielding
208 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
writes that he was delicate and ailing, morbid and
fearful. Fraulein von Meysenbug was delicate; her
morbid speculations led her to a sort of pantheism.
John Trevor describes himself as a frail baby and a
morbid, sensitive child, who suffered tortures from
nightmares. At the crisis of puberty he underwent
much suffering; and his conversion is followed by a
physical collapse. He had poor health all his life and
many fits of nervous illness.
Among the Moravian testimonies, which so moved
Wesley that he copied them into his journal, we read
that David Nitschman fell into a fit of sickness and
turned to despair for a whole year. A long, danger-
ous illness influenced the religious crisis of Christian
David. The other Moravians and the minor Roman
Catholic cases listed under the heading of " Roads to
Rome in America/* contain no health data of any sig-
nificance.
The poor health of mystics has frequently been made
the subject of comment; and the conditions of
life in mediaeval convents and monasteries would seem
fully to account for it. Yet it is odd to note how
slight a difference exists in this regard between the
cloistered nun and the travelling Quaker. The mysti-
cal philosopher de St. Martin was a weakly crea-
ture. De Marsay, a devout youth, who prayed for
days together, was at no time strong of body. The
terrible mental distress into which he fell was soon
aggravated by signs of consumption ; but he improved
in health after a time. The death of his wife in mel-
ancholy and gloom, having ruined her constitution by
her austerities, appeared to have its effect on his mind ;
THE DATA ANALYZED: I 209
he exerted his will upon himself to advantage, and re-
gained his serenity. Angelique Arnauld, the young
abbess of Port-Royal, at fifteen is afflicted by fever, an
illness which transforms the active girl into a mystic
under the touch of "la Grace." It is interesting to
read that it needed a "fievre quarte" with a second
1 1 coup de la Grace ' ' to complete the work. Two mod-
ern cases of converted Jews, A. de Ratisbonne and
Paul Lowengard, mention delicate health; the latter
adds a vicious and unwholesome life, and became a
decadent poet while still a schoolboy. Nervous pros-
tration accompanies his turn toward the Church.
Mother 'Juliana of Norwich calls herself "a simple
creature, living in deadlie flesh, whose pious wish it
is, to have of God 's gift a bodilie sickness. ' ' Becom-
ing a recluse, she is immediately gratified in this re-
gard; fever, delirium, all miseries and heaviness, af-
flicting her thereafter. Like many a convent-bred
baby, M. M. Alacoque was a nun to all intents and pur-
poses, at four years old. But her actual vows fol-
lowed upon an illness from her tenth to her twelfth
year. The gentle Carlo da Sezze was alarmed by a
vision of death, vouchsafed him during a bad fever.
He had no further visions until after he became a
monk. Although Antoinette Bourignon was born
' ' tres disgraciee de la nature, ' ' and displays some very
odd characteristics, yet she never tells about her gen-
eral health, other than to mention visions at the time of
puberty. The nun Baptiste Varani was infirm for
years. The apostle Paul notes many infirmities of
body, and describes one attack of blindness. He al-
ludes also to some chronic ailment which is not, how-
210 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
ever, further defined. Amiel was certainly ill. Ober-
mann (De Senancour) had nervous prostration. Jon-
athan Edwards had an illness at college " which
brought me nigh to the grave and shook me over the
pit of hell." The nun Jeanne des Anges was hys-
terical from an early age: her autobiography de-
scribes minutely an attack of a particular form of
hysteria. Rulman Merswin so chastised his body
"with sore and manifold exercises " that he be-
came so weak he thought he would die. At times
he feared for his reason, and fell into swoons from
terror. Mechtilde observes with particularity her own
constant state of ill-health and suffering from the stone.
Fanny Pittar began as an active girl, but later under-
went many severe attacks of sickness. Charles Simeon
says, "I made myself quite ill" from religious worry,
when at college. Joseph Lathrop is often infirm, but
was aided by an outdoor life. Hurrell Froude was
a youth when he contracted tuberculosis; fasting,
worry, and general pious austerities, served to end his
life while still young. Both William Plumer and N.
S. Shaler started life as weakly children, but gained
in strength and health after puberty. Their religious
experiences passed through an emotional stage and
terminated in a calm agnosticism.
As a final commentary upon this group as a whole,
the student is asked to observe the almost unvarying
presence of an attack of illness preceding or during
a conversion-period, even when the subject is other-
wise healthy. In cases of continuous ill-health this
attack may not be specifically mentioned.
THE DATA ANALYZED: I 211
The cases of those religious confessants whose health
has on the whole been good, are few, indeed, in com-
parison with those we have just reviewed. Yet they
are interesting and suggestive. Marie de 1'Incarna-
tion is a striking instance, for she writes emphatic-
ally that she was ' ' never ill. ' ' John "Wesley, that pow-
erful engine, has been described as weak, yet he did
the work of a strong man. He cannot really be classed
among either group. Patrick of Ireland was vigor-
ous; and Tolstoi, that modern mystic, had robust
health. So had Rolle of Hampole; and Dame Ger-
trude More was full of vitality and strength until the
convent-life depressed her. Henry Ward Beecher had
enlarged tonsils as a boy, and so was dull, but he had
excellent health. Billy Bray, despite the drink, dis-
played the high spirits and joyousness of a well per-
son. Carre de Montgeron was strong and full of ar-
dor for the life of the senses. Abelard appears to
have started life in possession of an admirable con-
stitution. Samuel Hopkins outgrew his fragility and
became strong; while John Murray's naturally good
health suffered only during a period of pious excite-
ment. Eather by way of supplement than illustra-
tion, may be added in this group the names of Sir
Thomas Browne and of Frederic Harrison. The
Quaker Gurneys of Earlham were a really remarka-
ble example of a family whose emotional religious
feeling is coincident with health, beauty, and strong
physique, to say nothing of high spirits and intelli-
gence. Among other confessants, Cardinal Newman
seems to have had good health in the main ; as also did
the Evangelist, C. G. Finney, whose conversion-phe-
RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
nomena were so striking. James Lackington, the book-
seller, was a healthy person. John Livingstone could
ride long distances without fatigue, and had many
years of excellent health. Abuse of his powers, how-
ever, had its effect in sundry illnesses. Among the
Quakers, J. Woolman, though a cripple, was yet
sturdy ; while John Wigham, Richard Davies, William
Evans, and Thomas Shillitoe all showed a normal
physique. The Methodists, William Capers and Rich-
ard Rodda, differ from the majority of their co-reli-
gionists in making mention of good health. And
among others J. G. Paton, Oliver Heywood, and Cal-
vin himself, had excellent health and vigor.
The confessants who exhibit definite abnormal or
pathological characteristics, must needs be placed in
a group apart, as it does not seem quite fair to classify
and compare them with the rank and file. Helen Kel-
ler's case, for instance, develops several facts of inter-
est already mentioned in these pages. The religious
education and growth of this most intelligent young
woman took place under special conditions, and there-
fore cannot with justice be compared with a similar
development in those of us who speak, and see, and
hear.
There should also be classed apart those persons
whose records exhibit signs of mental derangement
in its various forms. John Dunton "was born so
diminutive a creature that a quart-pot could contain
the whole of me." Sickly and precocious as a child,
abnormal as a youth, his record foreshadows in its
matter and style the insanity of his later years.
Count Lomenie de Brienne (fits) is a man who writes
THE DATA ANALYZED: I 213
cheerfully of his pious feelings during lucid intervals.
Isaac Williams 's mind was clouded by a peculiar and
obscure nervous malady, indicated in his record.
Two rare Quaker tracts by John Pennyman and John
Perrot, show their writers to have been unbalanced;
the first by the execution of Charles I, whereat he fell
into a melancholy. The second is mere religious
raving, and is signed "From the prison of Madmen,
in the City of Home." Thomas Laythe is a Friend
who fasted until his friends were alarmed at his al-
tered countenance. David Hall, whose ill-health
has been noticed, had an affection like the palsy, and
ever displayed his pious zeal in a manner highly ex-
travagant. The heredity of Joseph Smith, the Mor-
mon, points to bad health on both sides. Students
of his case suspect epilepsy ; there was certainly great
weakness and exhaustion in his fifteenth year, just
before his first vision. Toward the end of his life,
such remarks as ' 1 1 know more than all the world put
together; and God is my right-hand man!" savor of
dementia. There is no doubt that he drank to excess
and was otherwise vicious. Neither is there any
doubt that he was a man of force and powerful
physique. The cases of Crook and of Fox are yet
more difficult to classify than that of Smith. Un-
doubtedly the former suffered an attack of melan-
cholia with suicidal impulses, but its extent and dura-
tion are not easy to determine. Fox has been sus-
pected of epilepsy; yet the truth in his case will be
found hard to come by. There seems quite as much
reason to suspect Swedenborg, of whom at least one
convulsion is recorded. No one to-day can read the
214. RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
"Spiritual Diary/' without feeling a strong doubt
as to the mental balance of the author. J. H. Lins-
ley died insane; as also did F. Nietzsche and Pascal.
The latter was entirely abnormal from childhood.
Among Methodists, T. Payne, M. Joyce, and W.
Jackson indicate an unbalanced condition by their
narrated extravagances. Jackson had had severe
blows on the head as a child; his document displays
a wandering style. Joanna Southcott had a marked
case of religious mania complicated by dropsy, which
she persisted in considering a divine pregnancy.
John B. Gough 10 was a dipsomaniac, who struggled
with his disease much as if it had been that personal
demon which in truth it seemed to the "Monk of
Evesham," one thousand years before. Morbid fear
is a similar demon to Andre de Lorde. George
Miiller and Frederick Smith were vicious to the
pathological extreme. The "De Profundis" of the
gifted Oscar Wilde, with all its beauty and humility,
cannot save its author from being charitably set
among this group. A passion for sensationalism and
for minor eccentricities is indicative of abnormality.
It is shared by earlier, similar confessions, notably
that of George Psalmanazar, 11 the impostor in the
eighteenth century, and of W. H. Ireland, 12 the forger
in the nineteenth.
The mention of Wilde brings us without further
delay to the whole question of the criminal confession
and its psychology. This is a subject with which, as
a whole, the criminologist alone can deal; and there-
fore in this place it may be touched upon only in its
relation to the religious confession. This relation is
THE DATA ANALYZED: I 215
curious and often suggestive. The paucity of such
serious documents as come within the limitations im-
posed by this study, make it impossible to summon
evidence enough to display this relation convincingly ;
the best one can do is merely to point here and there
to certain material of comparison.
In the first place that extraordinary indifference
and insensibility which is shown by the religious con-
fessant toward his own pain and suffering, toward
family ties and the claims of nature, is paralleled by
the criminal confessant toward the subjects of his
crime. Salimbene's indifference toward his aged
father, Sainte-Chantal's toward her children, Gui-
bert's mother toward her son, is really the same indif-
ference which is displayed toward his victim by the
Indian Thug, 13 to whom murder is religious; or by
Lagenaire, 14 who observes of himself that he never
pitied suffering. Secondly, one would do well to con-
sider the high degree of introspection which the crim-
inal records possess. Lagenaire's self -analysis is com-
plete; so is that of Henri Charles, 15 the murderer
of Mme. Gey at Sidi-Mabrouk ; and that of George
Simon, 16 a youth who killed his mother in Pennsyl-
vania. The introspective qualities of Eugene Aram's 17
narrative interested all England: in it he denies the
guilt he afterwards confessed. The famous widow
Lafarge 1S (Marie Cappelle), whose guilt or innocence
is even to-day a matter of doubt, fills two volumes of
memoirs with introspective matter that proves little
except that she was a neurotic and hysterical person.
Moreover, this degree of introspection is often ac-
companied with mystical and religious phenomena.
216 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
Henri Charles, for instance, after a violent revolu-
tion during puberty, had an upheaval from doubt,
and then became extremely mystical, had visions, and
loved the supernatural. Leave out the crime and
there is much to connect this case with that of John
Crook or John Bunyan. Mme. Lafarge and young
Simon also appear to have had highly developed re-
ligious sentiments. In fact, so mystical and intro-
spective are criminals as a class, that a book has been
recently compiled in France entirely from material
furnished by themselves. 19 Unfortunately, this ma-
terial is not sufficiently accredited for use in these
pages. Nor is it required, if the reader will but bear
the facts just suggested in his mind, when he comes
to the later discussion of the causes of emotional re-
ligious experience.
But there is one important group of records in
which the criminal and the religious impulses seem
to walk actually hand-in-hand, in a way that to
modern ideas seems incredibly hideous and strange.
This group is that of the witchcraft confessions of
the Middle Ages. Nothing serves to show more
significantly how far our ideals have travelled from
those of the past, than the feeling which these trials
and confessions rouse in our minds to-day. Pity
and horror and repulsion are terms all too weak for
its expression, when we see by this malady of the
human mind such a man as Sir Matthew Hale brought
down to the level of the African savage, screaming
and dancing in the rites of Voodoo.
Were it possible to obtain a series of the original
confessions of those unfortunates tried for witchcraft
THE DATA ANALYZED: I 217
during the Middle Ages, a series extending through
the centuries in almost unbroken sequence, it would
be easy to turn what is now matter of suggestion into
matter of proof. Unfortunately, all influences have
united to prevent these records from remaining in
existence. The contagious character of this par-
ticular form of hysteria (which the Church dimly
recognized without knowing the explanation), the re-
volting nature of the crimes confessed, and finally
the arbitrary and often cruel decisions of the ec-
clesiastical courts, have all contributed as causes to
have these records altered, edited, or destroyed.
Thus one reads of confessions having existed of which
no trace remains. Even GO early as 1694, the Church
was making anxious efforts to destroy all testimonies
of non-accredited mystics, or of religious impostors,
or of heretics, or of persons accused of witchcraft. 20
Among such records we read of the confession of
Magdalena de la Cruz, an impostor who avowed her
deceits, but was sentenced with leniency. 21 Dr. Lea
gives a list of similar cases tried and punished by the
Inquisition. A famous confession of sorcery is that
of Jean de Vaux, 22 in 1598, in France; but no com-
plete group of personal narratives belonging to this
class is to be found until one reaches the witchcraft
epidemic of the seventeenth century.
The horror which these confessions of possession
and devil-worship inspired among their contempo-
raries, has hardly vanished on re-reading to-day, al-
though it has shifted its ground. The judge presid-
ing at the trial of the possessed nun, Marie de Sains
(in 1613, at Yssel, in the Low Countries), declared
218J RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
that in all his sixty-five years he had never heard a
more atrocious catalogue of crimes. But an ex-
amination of the confession of Marie de Sains raises
very different feelings to-day. The accused claims to
have received the diabolical stigmata; and to have
sacrificed "hundreds" of young infants at the Devil's
call. Gorres points out that such acts were highly
difficult for a cloistered nun to perform without dis-
covery; and also that there was no evidence that so
many children had disappeared in the neighbor-
hood. 28 It is doubtful if the judges even took the
trouble to verify her statements by sending to see if
such and such children had really been murdered at
all. 24 Here seems more likely a case of perversion
and hysteria, with criminal inclinations. The accused
from the first had shown an evil disposition, and had
not taken the veil of her own choice.
Stripped of all surrounding clouds of superstition,
these cases furnish another witness to the sick nerves
of the ancient world. The personal records of these
hystericals fill us with that pity and horror which
the healthy and sane feel for the sufferings of the
unhealthy and the insane. Yet, when all is said, the
spectacle presented by these court-rooms the digni-
fied judge stricken into horror by the ravings of
mere vanity and hysteria is a repulsive, even an
indecent one. One is in the presence of a topsy-
turvy, devil-ridden world, a world without logic, and
smitten by superstition into an incoherency which
deprives it of the power to reason. The nun 'Jeanne
Fery, of Cambrai, 25 entreated to explain just how the
Devil was to be worshipped, was listened to by learned
THE DATA ANALYZED: I 219
and mature men while she recited the details of a
ritual, puerile and disgusting rather than blasphemous.
The Devil had told her to do exactly the opposite of
what religion commanded : she was to stand when she
had previously been taught to kneel, say the Lord's
Prayer backward, spit upon the Host, and so on.
The horror of her judges, the efforts of priests and
exorcists, drove the poor creature to attempt suicide ;
and thereafter, her mental disease progressing, she
became melancholy and died an idiot. Even more
pitiful was the figure of the nun Madeleine Bavent,
of Louviers, because of her pathetic effort to explain
and limit her own delusions. She insisted that she
was by no means sure of the objective reality of what
she had beheld at the Witches' Sabbat; using such
phrases as "if these things really occurred." 26 Men-
tal distress (she had been seduced by her confessor)
had been the cause of the first attack. In the same
convent at Louviers, the contagion became widespread,
and another sufferer, Marie de Saint Sacrement, has
left a similar, written confession. 27
Contemporaneously with the outbreak of epidemic
hysteria at Louviers, a similar epidemic occurred at the
convent of Loudun, which, by reason of its notoriety
has provided us with much typical material for analy-
sis. We have the complete history of the nine pos-
sesse.d nuns at Loudun, whose ravings that he had be-
witched them, sent to the stake their confessor, Urbain
Grandier. Some years before (in 1610), the priest
Louis Gauffridi had gone to his last account as
the result of his infamous treatment of the twelve-
year-old Magdalena de la Palude. The trial of
220 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
Gauffridi, so vividly recounted by Michelet, 28 does
not, however, provide us with the personal records
necessary to the present study; whereas, at Loudun,
there are extant, not only the full confessions of the
Mere Jeanne des Anges, in whom the malady centred,
but also those of her exorcizer and fellow-sufferer, Pere
Surin. 29 The former autobiography has been edited
by two French alienists, (with a preface by Charcot),
who speak of its wealth of instructive detail; and
who make entirely plain to the reader the cause and
the progress of the writer's disease. 30
The Mere Jeanne was not without strength of char-
acter, although naturally morbid and predisposed to
hysteria. She is forty at the time this document was
composed, but she gives some account of her youth
(in which she does not spare herself) and of her entry
into the religious life. Although intelligent and fac-
ile, she was vain and given to frivolity ; and she men-
tions that from the age of fifteen her extravagances
had worried her family. The vividness of her nar-
rative with its visions of lions and devils, the pell-
mell of good and bad angels, the torment of unholy
whispers in the night, those "desirs dereglees des
choses deshonnestes, " hold an intensity for us even
when read in the light of our modern knowledge.
Her director was the Pere Surin, called the unfortu-
nate "Man of God"; a youth of fragile health and
austere practices, who fell a ready victim to the con-
tagion. By exorcism he drove from the poor woman,
in a series of violent convulsions, several of the de-
mons by whom she believed herself to be possessed.
The worst devil of them all, who called himself Isa-
THE DATA ANALYZED: I 221
caaron, now entered into the exorcizer, who had by this
time become thoroughly unhinged. He in his turn
began to have visions, torments, temptations, and con-
vulsions, and these two unfortunates acted and reacted
upon each other, to the point almost of frenzy.
After several years the Mere Jeanne recovered.
The priest remained in a condition of complete melan-
cholia until but a short time before he died. While
the excitement was at its height, the pair made a sort
of pilgrimage, during which they spread the contagion
of their hysteria far and wide, and they report that in
every town they visited, certain of the more weakly-
minded had hysterical attacks, or convulsions, or were
possessed by devils. The evidence contained in the
Mere Jeanne's confession, even without the comment
and the diagnosis of the modern specialist, is seen to
be full, conclusive, and complete, from its beginning
in sporadic erotic hysteria, to its savage progress and
its contagious development.
The possession of the Mere Jeanne is of especial in-
terest when we contrast its progress and development
with similar conditions present in minds of a more
robust calibre. Belief in devils and in their ability
to attack and control human actions was, it must not
be forgotten, by no means confined to the hysterical. It
was, on the contrary, absolutely universal, the prop-
erty alike of intellectual persons and of the truly and
deeply religious. It was maintained by a judge like
Sir Matthew Hale, by a lawyer like George Sinclar, by
a mathematician like Cardan, and by a learned student
like Meric Casaubon. 31 Luther, than whom no health-
ier mind ever existed, held it fully. He attributed all
222 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
thunderstorms to the direct agency of the Devil ; 32
and he remarks that it was largely through fear of the
Evil One that he became a monk. 33 Yet mark the
situation, as depicted by his attitude and that of the
"possedees ' ' just analyzed ! "On Good Friday last, ' '
remarks Luther, "I being in my chamber in fervent
prayer . . . there suddenly appeared upon the wall a
bright vision of our Saviour, with five wounds, stead-
fastly looking upon me as if it had been Christ himself
corporally. At first sight I thought it had been some
celestial revelation, but I reflected that it must needs
be an illusion and juggling of the Devil, for Christ
appeared to me in his word in a humbler form, there-
fore I spake to the vision thus ''Avoid thee, con-
founded Devil/ whereupon the image vanished,
clearly showing whence it came. ' ' 34
A further anecdote, less well vouched for, is yet
equally characteristic. * ' Another time in the night, ' '
writes Luther, ' * I heard him above my cell walking on
the cloister, but as I knew it ivas the Devil, I paid no
attention to him and went to sleep." However com-
pletely Luther may have believed in that mediaeval gro-
tesque, he had undoubtedly learned the one vital fact
concerning him, namely, that he must be noticed in
order to exist. To ignore the Devil, as Luther
found, was to dispose of him altogether; for so sensi-
tive is the Prince of Darkness, that he was never able
to stand a slight. In the attention paid him by such
confessants as Marie de Sains, or the Mere Jeanne, or
Suso, or Mme. Guyon, he thrived apace, as we
have read ; but under such general contempt as Luther
gave him, he could not have lived an hour. These
THE DATA ANALYZED: I 223
old- wives' tales should bring us more than a merely
curious interest to-day, by teaching us that the vitality
of all superstition lies wholly and solely in that mind
by which it is infected the will alone gives it life.
Interesting is it also to see that what many of our
mystical confessants would have accepted with rap-
ture, as a visionary proof of heavenly favor, Luther
considered an ignoble illusion and so dismissed it.
Never was there a more complete manifestation of the
subjective nature of these phenomena.
When Jonathan Edwards 35 became the historian of
what is known as the " Great Revival" in New Eng-
land, he described it as starting in 1735 from one small
village, and thence spreading, "with fresh and ex-
traordinary incomes of the Spirit," to the neighbor-
ing communities. So plain and vivid is the evidence
of religious contagion in Edwards 's narrative, that it
is well-nigh impossible to believe his powerful mind did
not recognize the fact. Who knows how his views
might have shifted had he been able to read, as have
we, the confessions of the Mere Jeanne, or of the other
"possedees" of Loudun or of Louviers? Yet even
to-day, the presence and the power of this force re-
main often undetermined. It has come to be under-
stood in its extreme forms, where it is allied to hys-
teria or other nervous disorder; but as a factor in
more normal instances, it is too frequently neglected or
obscured.
Analysis of the religious revival and its attendant
phenomena, belongs properly to a later section of this
book, 36 where it will be found to bear an especial
weight and significance. Its general data being his-
224 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
torical and impersonal, it cannot be placed in juxta-
position to the evidence furnished by the individual
confessant. This evidence, furthermore, is not always
easy to recognize. No one likes to think that the most
sacred and moving influences in his life were the result
of contagion; it is not an idea flattering to one's self-
esteem. Therefore, he is apt to overlook such evi-
dence to that effect as may exist, and to concentrate
his attention, as we have seen the truly religious must,
solely upon his individual phenomena. Even if the
confessant acknowledges that the Holy Spirit is no-
tably concerned with the welfare of a certain group of
persons during a revival, yet he invariably believes
that he himself is set apart to be an object of the
Lord's particular solicitude. He never seems, to him-
self, to have fallen under the influence of direct con-
tagion.
Cases where the subject became a member of a re-
ligious community during early childhood, indicate un-
doubtedly their submission to the contagion of sur-
rounding influences. Particularly noticeable are
those whose original character and temperament were
not specially predisposed to a religious life, such as
Dame Gertrude More, Angelique Arnauld, Teresa of
Avila, Hildegarde of Bingen, Mechtilde of Hackeborn,
Gertrude of Eisleben, Jeanne de S. M. Deleloe, Gui-
bert de Nogent, Peter Favre, among Catholics; and
Edmund Gosse among Dissenters. Salimbene, as a
boy of twelve, underwent the contagion of that thir-
teenth-century revival known as the " Great Alleluia,"
and no tears shed by his old father could keep him
from the monastery. The evangelist, Peter Cart-
THE DATA ANALYZED: I 225
wright, precedes the account of his own conversion by
a description of the wave of religious feeling which
swept the community where he lived. He notes, dur-
ing one revival meeting, an epidemic of "the jerks." 37
These epidemics were especially influential upon the
conversion of certain Mormon cases, such as Orson
and Parley Pratt, and Benjamin Brown.
Direct contagion is easily traceable in modern docu-
ments. Peter Jones, an Indian brave, is stirred to
unbecoming tears while attending a Methodist revival
meeting. William Ashman had been unmoved for
some years, until, when eleven years old, he attended a
meeting along with many other children, during a sea-
son of general revival. All are melted and changed.
Similarly, John Pawson is moved much beyond his
wont by the contagion of the group of worshippers,
with whom he joins in meeting and prayer. Christo-
pher Hopper, noting the clamor made about religion
among his friends, observes, "I made my bustle with
the rest." He went to hear Wesley and Reeves, and
was generally roused by the prevalent zeal to see the
light and to preach. E. N. Kirk is worried because
he seems to himself so little touched by a revival at
Princeton, when he is seventeen. But he is so far
affected as to take the Bible and Pilgrim's Progress
and retire to his room, determined (on the advice of a
pious friend) never to leave it, "save as a Chris-
tian or a corpse." In the same way, during a re-
vival at Yale, does Gardiner Spring "wrestle with
God." Camp-meeting contagion moves to swoon-
ing the frail and tuberculous Joseph Thomas. The
modern student of religious psychology has come
226 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
more and more to take into account that important law
which LeBon defines as ' ' the mental unity of crowds. ' '
So recent a writer as Dr. Cutten 38 is careful to note
the contagious nature of all emotional states; and in
particular those of mysticism and of ecstasy.
When the procurable facts concerning the confes-
sants* health, education, and heredity have been gath-
ered together, it must be surely less difficult to eluci-
date his feelings on the subject of his religion. r Just
as the physician, ere he completes his examination,
must needs inform himself of the patient's general
health, habits, and history before the attack, so have
we endeavored to inform ourselves. The advantage of
this method (however tedious it may seem) lies in
our ability to take hold of the mystical data by
the proper end. No longer do these facts seem
isolated or peculiar, but rather do they fit into
a scheme of general history, and become component
parts possessing a definite individuality. Thus we do
not examine merely the visions of Loyola or Teresa,
but also such facts in the history of these two persons
as exist coincident with, and commenting upon, their
mysticism. Not only is the conversion of Bunyan or
Augustin made the subject of our study, but the causes
leading to it, and the character which evolved it. The
religious ideas of Swedenborg have much less sig-
nificance alone than when they are taken in relation to
his family history, education, and physical condition.
Thus, the facts which are to follow, and in which these
confessants believe lie their chief message and main
value, cease to be bizarre and capricious phenomena,
but instead become a part of the coherent miracle of
human nature and human imagination.
VI
THE DATA ANALYZED: U
I. Early piety.
II. Late piety.
III. Conversion.
(a) Methods.
(b) Depression.
IV. The unpardonable sin.
VI
THE DATA ANALYZED: II
THE confessants in whom piety was strongly marked
in childhood are greatly in the majority; and there
is no part of their records so interesting as that which
tells of the sprouting of this seed. Those who under-
went a subsequent relapse into indifference, are apt to
point to these earlier inclinations as to the first mani-
festations of Grace. Others take them merely as proof
of divine heritage ; while there are some in whom the
religious feeling progresses without break or reaction,
from infantile emotion to mature devotion.
The attitude of certain cases toward their own child-
ish sentiments is suggestive. Though Richard Baxter
told lies and stole apples, yet, when "a little Boy in
Coats," if he heard any one among his playmates use
profane words, he would rebuke him. At seven,
Thomas Boston was taking the Bible to bed with him ;
although he thinks this was done largely out of a spirit
of curiosity. "I was of a sober and harmless deport-
ment, ' ' he adds ; ' * at no time vicious or roguish. ' ' He
was a good-sized child when he set "to pray in ear-
nest." It is interesting to read that his little son
Thomas (cet. seven) "was found sensible of the stir-
rings of corruption in his heart," and had to be prayed
over and wrestled with by his parents, in the manner
229
230 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
of those days. The entire family of the Gurneys of
Earlham were religious self-analysts from infancy.
At eleven, Louisa writes in her journal : "I had a cloud
over me. ... I am determined to be religious. "
Bishop Joseph Hall was deeply fervent as a tiny child.
Hildegarde of Bingen, who saw a great light at three,
offered herself to God at eight and took the vows.
J. H. Newman took a childish delight in his Bible,
though he had no formed convictions before he was fif-
teen. He had a firm belief in angels and in demons. His
brother Francis began secret prayer at eleven years
old. The gently pious Henry Alline "was very early
moved upon by the spirit of God," and at eight grew
terribly distressed about hell. Emanuel Swedenborg
we know to have been middle-aged ere he became really
concerned with the subject of religion ; yet he remarks
that from four to ten years his mind was engrossed with
thoughts of God and salvation. John Eudes was early
pious and became a novice at fourteen. J. de la Fon-
taine summoned his family to prayer at four. Augus-
tin makes few comments on his infant piety, though
many on his infant wickedness. "So small a boy, so
great a sinner ! " is his cry. But he avows that on fall-
ing seriously ill, he asked for baptism. At five or six
years old, Bellarmin preached on Jesus' suffering.
Annie Besant, whose shifts of creed are interesting,
notes of her childhood: "I was the stuff of which
fanatics are made, religious to the very finger-tips
... I fasted and occasionally flagellated myself."
Jeanne de St. M. Deleloe loved, when a baby, to play
the nun. The picture of Robert Blair's ardent child-
ish feeling has already been dwelt upon in another
THE DATA ANALYZED: II 231
book. 1 It is one of much beauty and pathos. At six,
"the Lord awed me and began to catechize me"; and
after an early religious crisis, he further says: "I
durst never play upon the Lord's day." Charles
Bray, the friend of George Eliot, turned early toward
religion. However, his conversion was followed by
a reaction which terminated in agnosticism. Says
Thomas Chalkley : " Between eight and ten, the Lord
began to work strongly on my mind, insomuch that
I could not forbear reproving those lads who would
take the name of God in their mouths in vain. ' ' Ste-
phen Crisp, at nine or ten, "sought the power of God
with great diligence and earnestness, with strong cries
and tears." He worried much over "the lost state"
of his playmates, and went to sermons as other chil-
dren to sports and pastime. He was only twelve, when,
in secret fields and unusual places, he poured out his
complaints to the Lord. 'John Crook describes a sim-
ilar state. "I had many exercises in my inward
man," he writes of himself at ten or eleven, "and
often prayed in bye-corners. . . . Strong combatings
remained within me, which continued haunting of me
many months." "In my very young years," George
Fox beautifully writes, "I had a gravity and stayed-
ness of mind and spirit not usual in children . . .
when I came to eleven years of age I knew pureness
and righteousness." He adds, with unusual candour
in a person anxious to represent himself as a miser-
able sinner: "People had generally a love to me for
my innocency and honesty. ' ' Edmund Gosse 's history
of a father and son gives an extraordinarily vivid and
telling picture of exaggerated childish piety. He
232 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
is baptized a Plymouth Brother at ten, and during all
his earlier years is wholly occupied with religious
excitement. The after development of this case is
toward free-thought. The abbot Guibert de Nogent
inherited religious tendencies to mysticism ; and is only,
eleven when he enters a monastery, full of remorse
for his sins. Horrible dreams and visions of despair
beset his youth thereafter, in the mediaeval manner.
Jeanne de la Mothe-Guyon was put in a convent at
two and a half years. It seems more childish than
pious that she loved ' * to hear of God, to be at Church,
and drest in the habit of a little nun." The piety
soon developed into an overcharged infantile fervor;
she confessed at four, and loved, like Teresa, to play
at martyrdom. Her devotion steadily progresses in
fanaticism : at fifteen, she depicts herself as persecuted
by every one for her zeal. This atmosphere of re-
ligious overstrain in childhood brings frequently a
violent relapse long ere conversion : so it did to A. J. C.
Hare. The Friends were almost without exception
infant zealots, and none more so than Joseph Hoag.
"Very early in life I was favored with Divine visita-
tions, ' ' he writes, and from nine to twelve, ' * I had many
clear openings." Another Quaker, Francis Howgill,
from twelve read and meditated, decided that all sports
and pastimes are vain, tried to convert his boy com-
rades. Lutfullah, the Mohammedan, knew his Koran
at six, and by seven he was respected by all as
a little priest. The mind of Dr. Henry More, when he
went to Eton at thirteen, was preoccupied with specu-
lations about hell and God. St. Patrick was a herd-
boy in the fields when God's voice called him. Bishop
THE DATA ANALYZED: II 233
Symon Patrick's account of his childish " godly prin-
ciples" is naif. "I had an early sense of religion
(blessed be God) imprinted on my mind, which was
much increased by my attending to sermons. . . . Hear-
ing a rigid sermon about reprobation of the greatest
part of mankind, I remember well that when I was a
little boy, I resolved if that were true I would never
marry because most, if not all, my children might be
damned. " "Other deliverances I had in my very
young years," he says, on recovering from an illness
at twelve. Jane Pearson had a "godly sorrow" as
a child, with deep sense of privation and emptiness.
Walter Pringle prayed very early, acknowledging the
Lord in lessons and in play. Salimbene's conversion
was at twelve, but he gives no coherent account of
his piety in childhood. M. A. Schimmelpenninck con-
nects her early outbursts of fervent feeling with the
state of her health. The Lord worked very early in
Job Scott's heart; in meeting he had "serious impres-
sions and contemplations"; also the heart of Oliver
Sansom was similarly * ' broken and tendered. ' ' Inward
fear so agitated Elizabeth Stirredge before she was ten,
that she took no delight in the things of this world.
H. Suso gives no details of his childhood, save that its
piety was joyous. It is mostly from others that we
have the charming stories of Teresa's childhood, and
know that she early turned her eyes to divine things.
Anna van Schurman was four when she was penetrated
with joy at the religious instructions of her nurse.
But her interests were chiefly intellectual and artistic
until later. Isaac Williams in childhood was much
affected by the transitory nature of things. Sentences
RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
of Sherlock "On Death " haunted him like strains of
music. Gentle John Woolman was troubled by the ill
language of boy friends, and says: "Before I was
seven, I began to be acquainted with the operations of
Divine love." He is so tender of heart that when he
killed a robin it marked an epoch in his life. Patrick
Livingstone "was frightened out of sleep," and, like
Charles Marshall, notes that he abhorred sin and loved
godliness "at a very tender age." Edith Jefferis
wept and was tendered in meeting at the age of six.
Thomas Wilson and Mary Alexander showed piety
when still extremely young; the last was "visited
with the heart-tendering power of the Lord."
John Conran's first religious experience is as
instructive as Eobert Blair's with the milk-posset.
"At thirteen," he writes, "in company with some
of my school-fellows, I drank some sweet liquor
. . . which overcame me. After I was in bed I felt
close convictions take hold of me and make me sor-
rowful. These were . . . succeeded by great terrors
of death. This dispensation lasted about fifteen min-
utes." These two cases form a suggestive instance
of the way in which the pietist tends to look to
metaphysical causes for the explanation of his facts,
instead of to the physical causes. The readiness
to do this is carried far beyond the mere effects of
milk-punch or shrub, and accounts for many inter-
esting statements of "misinterpreted observation."
The Quaker John Churchman was overcome and ten-
dered in meeting at eight years old; and at the same
age Catherine Phillips was completely overwhelmed
with her sense of guilt and sin toward the Holy
THE DATA ANALYZED: II 235
Ghost. Books on martyrs frightened this poor child
terribly. In the same way was John Griffith fa-
vored with "heart-searching visitations of God's
love," and remembered the effect on "my tender, weak
mind." Mildred Katcliff, at nine, had a dreadful
dream of the Adversary to upset her nerves. Al-
though Stephen Grellet had no instruction, yet he
early showed his religious inclinations. The same
piety, at the age of six to eight, is noted by 'John Wig-
ham, Joseph Pike, Mary Dudley, S. Tucker, D. Stan-
ton, Mary Hagger, and Anna Braithwaite, who con-
sidered meeting a privilege. At six, Henry Hull
thinks his religious views were imperfect, though he
was much impressed at meeting; and George Bewley
was "sensible of inward reproof and sorrow," when
he played too long. Ann Crowley, while yet young in
years, remembered seasons of humiliation; and God
visits John Gratton when he is a shepherd, and
bids him leave his play with rude boy comrades. Sam-
uel Neale wept and was tendered at a very early age,
and all his childhood was grave and sedate. Thomas
Story early inclined toward solitude and pious medi-
tations. Ambrose Rigge was ten or twelve when his
heart was touched "with a sense of my latter end."
John Fothergill loved meeting when a little boy, until
he took "a worldly turn."
Since information on this subject is, of course, the
starting-point of almost every confessant, it neces-
sarily follows that our data should be very abundant.
To pass and re-pass it as we have done, may have the
disadvantage of tediousness, but it is quite essential to
its proper understanding. Only when a typical char-
236 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
acteristic can be as well understood by ten examples
as by a hundred, are we warranted in making any
selection; but where our study is of a condition, we
are obliged to examine all of its component parts,
that the charge of picking and choosing what is most
representative or best fitted to our purpose may not
be brought against us. On the question of childish
piety, the Quakers, as we see, have furnished us with
an enormous number of examples; it being in their
opinion the especial manifestation of God's grace to
that sect, that they should be as so many infant Sam-
uels. These are in nowise so numerous among the
Methodist and Congregational cases, who, on the con-
trary, are rather more apt to record sudden and un-
foreseen religious manifestations. Still, they are to
be found if we look. A sense of death and judgment
with other awful feelings, oppressed David Marks at
four ; and likewise, Luther Rice was a fervent and dis-
tressed infant. * ' From earliest days the Lord worked
powerfully" on the mind of Thomas Lee. Richard
Rodda was four when he felt the stirrings of grace,
while to William Hunter these seemed the " sweet
drawings of love." By Thomas Payne, the stirrings
of God's love were noticed long ere ten, when he wished
to be truly religious. " Awful thoughts of God" and
''strong convictions" came during their infancy both
to Peter Jaco and to Thomas Mitchell. Bird's-nesting
on a Sunday brought an intense remorse to Joseph
Travis, which started him in the way of religious
thoughts. Lorenzo Dow describes a very typical child-
ish state when he says that at three or four he fell into
a muse about God, and asked about heaven and hell.
THE DATA ANALYZED: II 237
By ten years old he had begun to worry about death.
Nor are we surprised to hear from John Allen that
his serious thoughts, in childhood, were produced dur-
ing thunderstorms or from hearing the passing-bell.
Deeply serious children were Richard Whatcoat,
George Shadford, George Story, and James Rogers.
This last poor baby ! at three, ' 'on hearing a passing-
bell or seeing a corpse [ !] ... became very thought-
ful and asked pertinent questions about my future
state. ' ' Both M. Joyce and John Furz chiefly enlarge
upon the terrible consequences of their intense, child-
ish fear. From six to fourteen, John Pritchard could
weep and pray by the hour together, while at the same
age William Black was troubled with the idea of his
sinfulness. William Ashman, a child, heard Wesley
preach and thought the end of the world was at hand.
The Lord strove with him from four to five, but he
was eleven before he was melted. One Sunday, hear-
ing Revelations read, the boy John Nelson nearly had
convulsions from terror. Mary Fletcher was wholly
concerned with religious ideas from her earliest years,
and at four, her mind was occupied with her eternal
welfare. At the age of three to four, Peard Dickinson
"was drawn out in prayer." Terror, as in so many
cases, is the dominant thought of Joshua Marsden's
infancy; while to William Neill, whose parents were
American pioneers, fear of the Indian and of the
Devil was synonymous. (This last case, it should be
noted, however, does not state that this terror de-
noted any early religious stirrings.) Jotham Sewall,
from three to six, is most interested in pious subjects.
While playing in the fields, William Wilson was
238 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
brought into a strange amazement and asked: "How
came I here; who made me?" This was followed
' * by an inward sense of sin, and he did pray much. ' '
Barnes Melvill at eight to nine did pray and rebuke
the profane. Oliver Taylor remembered how at six to
seven "my thoughts were much on God, and my soul."
No one can forget that Sainte-Chantal, an infant,
would not be caressed by a heretic without weeping,
while at five, she rebuked a doubter. J. J. Olier was
a pious and studious boy, who loved the Virgin Mary.
There was never a conscious moment when M. M.
Alacoque was not pious. Sin early horrified her, and
she vowed herself to chastity long ere she knew the
meaning of the word. From her fourth year, she
dwelt in a constant condition of religious fervor and
excitement. Antoinette Bourignon, at four, expressed
a wish to live "where all were good Christians," and
was therefore mocked by her parents. Marie de Tin-
carnation used to kiss the priest's garments as he
passed along the street. She took much delight in
repeating the name of Jesus. Othloh prayed to the
Lord that he might escape the rod at school. Fanny
Pittar was a fervent child; while Paul Lowen-
gard, a sensitive and religious boy in a materialist
family, suffered tortures of misunderstanding. Cath-
erine of Siena we know to have been a little saint at
six; and indeed, in the Middle Ages, the spontaneous
bloom of piety in early childhood filled many a convent
and determined the career of many a great mystic.
Sister Therese, Carmelite, discussed matters of faith
at three ; her games were all taken from religion. She
suffered intensely from scruples at thirteen, was a nun
THE DATA ANALYZED: II 239
at eighteen, and lived on this sinful earth but a few
years thereafter. Mary of the Angels was only eight
when she wept because she might not take the Eucha-
rist; and she became a Carmelite at fifteen. Osanna
Andreasi avows that Jesus appeared to her when she
was six, in the guise of a charming playfellow. A. C.
Emmerich was five or six when she had her first vision.
Peter Favre, at seven, experienced periods of devo-
tion, and at ten, longed for instruction. Jonathan
Edwards writes: "I had a variety of concerns and
exercises about my soul from my childhood . . . with
. . . two remarkable seasons of awakening. ... I used
to pray five times a day in secret and spend much
time in religious talk with the other boys. ' ' He adds :
"I seemed in my element when engaged in religious
duties."
Fraulein von Meysenbug was a devout child. The
prophetess Joanna Southcott early grew in grace and
fear of the Lord. At nine, John Trevor was very
religious, very unsettled, very much afraid. The
Moravians mentioned by Wesley were all in early
childhood troubled and anxious about their souls.
Henry Ward Beecher, though a good boy, fancied him-
self a great sinner ; while the liquor question added to
the religious anxieties of Granville Moody until he
made a covenant with God. Jacob Knapp's mind
"was early impressed with divine truth." He had
seasons of prayer, and his mother 's death when he was
seventeen, was the final influence toward the ministry.
F. Schleiermacher was very young when he worried
about his soul, which gave him sleepless nights. This
is followed at fourteen by a sceptical reaction. In the
240 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
case of William Plumer, 2 both the first feeling and
the reaction therefrom are so intense as to cause a
loathing of the subject for the rest of life. Gardiner
Spring writes that he was a selfish and a wilful boy,
yet not without serious impressions. His conscience
was tender and he had seasons of depression. At ten
he was deeply moved by a sister's death, though he re-
lapsed afterwards. The Mormon Prophet Joseph
Smith had no more childish piety than was aroused by
an intense fear of the Indians. He is fourteen when
he first had "serious reflections " during a time of re-
ligious excitement ; but he held himself aloof from all
parties. He inherited this independence of thought in
regard to sect from his father and grandfather.
In contrast to the foregoing choir of infant angels,
is a group of deeply moved persons whose sensitive-
ness to religion was but tardily awakened or not felt at
all until the actual moment of conversion. Some of
them are as striking as Loyola, whose own words de-
clare that "until his twenty-sixth year he was given
up to the vanities of this world ' ' ; and in this sentence
he dismisses his unconverted youth. We know that
John Wesley, serious and scholarly youth though he
was, gave few signs of religious intensity of feeling
before manhood. The same seems to have been the
case with Swedenborg. Thomas Haliburton goes so
far as to observe that he spent his first ten years with-
out one rational thought! Bunyan "had few equals
for cursing and lying. " Though often terrified by
fear of hell, yet real religious sentiment was lacking
to his childhood. Whitefield's self -denunciation is
even more violent : "I was f reward from my mother 's
THE DATA ANALYZED: II 241
womb. ... If I trace myself from my cradle to my
manhood I can see nothing in me but a fitness to be
damned." At the same time, he imitated a preacher
so well that at ten years old his talent for the pul-
pit was recognized. John Livingstone, the Scots
preacher, was of a slow development in regard to the
religious instinct, which lay dormant during col-
lege life, but gradually came to supersede his other
interests. He never had a conversion, and was al-
ways an unemotional example. John Newton is so
much impressed with his own wickedness that we are
not surprised when he avows no serious feelings at
all, till his change of heart as a young man. In much
the same key, a more noteworthy man, Tolstoi, dwells
rather on his youthful scepticism, and on the awaken-
ing of the sexual instinct, than upon any childish
religious ideas. His disgust with himself begins very
soon: "Je me degoutai des hommes, je me degoutai de
moi-meme"; and his piety is wholly an adult growth,
passing through many crises ere he discovers that "la
foi, c'est la force de la vie." Another Scot, James
Fraser of Brae, says of his childhood: "My disposi-
tion was sullen and I loved not to be dawted . . . nor
had I any wise tales like other children. . . . My
temper was so peevish that I was no dawty," he in-
sists ; ' * only at school I learned well. ' ' He paints his
sins in dark colors, and cannot seem to recall any
childish piety. The only sentiment that Elizabeth
Ashbridge can remember was "an awful regard for
religion and religious people." The subject did not
interest her for a long time, for she grew up "wild and
airy." Count Schouvaloff, who turned Catholic,
242 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
owns that he was sceptical and revolutionary as a boy
at school.
Although so many of our Quaker cases have been
already mentioned upon other counts, yet there are a
number who could look back to no saintly infancy.
Such was Samuel Bownas, who until thirteen ' ' had no
taste of religion." Such also were Daniel Wheeler,
Richard Davies, Richard Jordan, William Lewis (who
was frivolous and read plays and novels), and William
Evans, who as a child was "carnally inclined" and
' 'found the society of religious people irksome."
WTiitefield 's preaching roused the feelings of Joseph
Oxley, who until then had had no pious inclinations
whatever, and had stolen money from a servant. Very
dreadful was the childhood of Frederick Smith, who
at school became "a little monster of iniquity"; by
nine years old knew every childish evil and never had
had a serious impression. Few excelled him in vicious
conduct from his fourteenth year till his conversion.
Thomas Shillitoe's mind was unawakened till his six-
teenth year ; and till the same age, Jane Hoskins was far
too cheerful and too fond of music and dancing ; while
Alexander Jaffray thinks he spent far too much time
"in vanity and looseness." Among the Baptists,
George Miiller, Elias Smith, and J. H. Linsley can
look back upon no serious religious inclinations dur-
ing their childhood. In the Methodist group, the
number who knew no piety until their conversion is
large. It includes the names of John Prickard, John
Pawson, Sampson Staniforth (who "hated religion"
till nearly fourteen), and Thomas Olivers, who ac-
knowledges that he practised when a boy to excel in
THE DATA ANALYZED: II 243
swearing, and was scarcely grown when he had a se-
duction on his conscience. Him also the thunders of
Whitefield first stirred to a sense of guilt. William
Capers was first moved at a camp-meeting, before
which time he had no religious stirrings. Daniel
Young, Duncan Wright, and Thomas Rankin, were in-
different as children. John Haime was a vicious
youth, who cursed and lied, and was most miserable;
while Thomas Walsh felt a marked indifference to re-
ligion, and, at eight, preferred his play and silly pleas-
ures. Two further Methodist cases are those of John
Murlin who, before the age of twenty, was an enemy
to God and his soul ; and Richard Williams, a surgeon,
quite indifferent to religious matters until an illness
with delirium so alarmed him as to precipitate a
conversion.
Quaint Oliver Heywood describes how as a child he
was ' ' backward to good exercises and forward to sinful
practices. " E. N. Kirk is insensible to pious feelings
all through childhood, and even through a revival at
college so late as his eighteenth year. His was an un-
emotional nature. J. A. James notes "no decided re-
ligious feelings ' ' either during boyhood or schooldays.
Joseph Thomas felt no childish piety ; and T. R. Gates,
although his infant conscience remained serene, yet
took no delight in prayer.
It is interesting to find that what the eighteenth cen-
tury looked at askance as the domination of the old
Adam, the nineteenth century calls "a normal childish
indifference" to the subject! True it is that the line
of the norm changes visibly from decade to decade.
Orville Dewey notes this indifference until his college
244 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
years ; while C. S. Spurgeon thinks that a similar lack
in himself is due to a wicked neglect. He feels much
safer when, as a youth, he had nothing before his
eyes but his own guilt and came even to blasphemy and
doubt. Billy Bray and Jerry McAuley, criminals
and drunkards, can recall no uplifted feelings during
their miserable and neglected childhood. Charles
Simeon laments his irreligious boyhood. Thomas Scott
took no interest in his own soul till sixteen, and then
was moved chiefly through fear. Carre de Montgeron
was a boy over-indulged and given to sensual pleasures.
It took a carriage accident to alarm him as to his
course.
The difficulty has already been noted of obtaining
data from any medieval cases, on such a point. They
are apt to remain silent on all matters which appear
trivial to them. Gertrude of Eisleben does remark
that she was in her twenty-sixth year when the light
came to her. Placed in a convent at five, however, she
must have early submitted to the influence of her sur-
roundings. j Certainly Gertrude More, that merry, en-
ergetic, high-spirited, and what her director terms
' ' extroverted, ' ' nature, was not early turned to spirit-
ual matters, and found her convent yoke very grievous
and intolerable. Sir Tobie Matthew was twenty-
seven and on a trip to Italy when his interest in
religion was roused, and he was led to Catholi-
cism. Rulman Merswin, one of the Gottesfreunde, was
a mature banker, whose childlessness caused him to
turn his thoughts toward heaven. Rolle of Hampole
writes that his youth was "fond and carnal my
young age unclean." D. Jarratt, H. Martyn, and
THE DATA ANALYZED: II 245
J. Lathrop awakened late to any marked religious
feelings.
One or two cases remain to be mentioned of a type
which, strictly speaking, lies outside of these forego-
ing examples. Helen Keller, for instance, shows that,
with her, curiosity preceded the awakening of any
special religious instinct. At ten, she asks who made
her, where she came from, and why. Eeverence is
aroused much later. It is unfortunate that we have
not similar cases to compare with this one, in order
that we might see whether the deprivation of certain
senses tends to deprive one also of those supposedly
innate sentiments of reverence and love.
The philosopher Nietzsche should not be omitted,
since he notes an almost unique condition. "Of ac-
tual religious difficulties," he asserts, "I have no ex-
perience, I have never known what it was to feel sin-
ful." A less paradoxical nature, N. S. Shaler, is
equally consistent, in that as a child he was never
religious and after twelve he turned away from the
whole subject. Hudson-Taylor was quite indiffer-
ent as a youth; and describes his sitting to read
a certain tract "in an utterly unconcerned state of
mind." The great rarity of these last two types is
our excuse for mentioning them.
Long ere this, the student will have been satisfied
that the characteristics leading toward the religious
life tend to show themselves in the subject at an early
age. Whether these be indicated by a heightened ca-
pacity for childish fervor, or an intensified suscepti-
bility to childish terrors, they denote the presence in
246 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
that personality, of a peculiar sensitiveness. A few
cases 8 have just been observed of a total aversion to
religion in persons afterwards deeply religious, but
they are so few as merely to accentuate the rule.
A sensitiveness to, and interest in, religious affairs,
indicates to the subject himself that something stirs
within his heart and imagination which is not shared
by the generality of his companions. Once he ob-
serves this, and in his own opinion sets himself apart
from others, he places himself immediately in a mental
and an emotional isolation which allows a free play
to all the succeeding phenomena. Thus freed from
counteractions and retarding influences, the reli-
gious process develops rapidly, and consistently with
those elements which are present in the nature of
the person affected. Taken in conjunction with the
foregoing data of health, heredity, and education, the
persistency and the significance of this process begin
to assume a definite character and a typical evolution.
Step by step, the reader may follow this evolution by
means of the facts and experiences furnished by the
subjects themselves. He has already seen them as chil-
dren, watched the shifts and turns of spiritual growth,
the effect of education, the contagion of meetings and
revivals. He is thus prepared to approach the intri-
cate subject of Conversion.
The psychologists, who have recently begun to deal
with the phenomena of the religious life, have devoted
much space to that crisis known as conversion.
They tend, not unnaturally, to treat it as an isolated
moment in the history of the person, while many of
them give but little space to the conditions preceding
THE DATA ANALYZED: II 247
and following it. The result is to force a wrong
perspective on the reader, in his ideas of the rise and
progress of this emotional crisis ; which error has been
increased by the use chiefly of the more typical and
well-marked cases, many of whom such as Paul, Au-
gustin, or Fox were distinguished by the gift of lit-
erary power.
There have not been wanting protests against this
method. Dr. Watson disagrees with Professor James
on this very matter ; * since the author of the ' ' Va-
rieties of Religious Experience" relies wholly on
the mystical type and on the individual expression.
"We cannot get any fruitful results/' says Dr.
Watson, "by simply describing the experience of this
or that individual in its isolation. To interpret the
experience of the individual, we have to consider the
spiritual medium in which he lives, and the stage in
the progress as a whole, which he represents. For
experience is essentially a process. ' ' 5
Valuable words these, which this study must neces-
sarily confirm, by insisting on the relation of the
individual-experience to the group-experience, in all
matters which come under the influence of the
law of crowds. 6 For this reason, if for no other, so
much of this work has been occupied with brief ab-
stracts of the cases studied, in order that the reader
may relate the conversion-phenomena of Fox to the
Quaker group in general; that he may examine not
Teresa alone, but the group of convent mystics; not
Wesley alone, but the group of Methodists. The com-
mon characteristics of these groups will then become
plain, together with the "spiritual medium" of each'
248 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
case, and "the stage in the progress as a whole which
he represents."
That religious experience is a process, must be stead-
fastly borne in mind in our contemplation of this
body of facts. For how is it possible to study conver-
sion, unless one has immediately before him all the
facts concerning the converted ; all that goes to make
up what M. Anatole France has called "la verite hu-
maine ' ' ? Our purpose, indeed, lies embedded in these
data. Not in theorizing as to what Teresa thought,
nor what Augustin reasoned, nor what Maria d'Agreda
imagined, will the truth be found to lie, but in trying
to collate and to interpret the facts they tell us.
That we to-day have heightened the meaning of the
term "conversion" and have attached emotional sig-
nificance to it, no reader of the ancient records can
doubt. In one of his dialogues Caesarius of Heister-
bach 7 (1225 A.D.) discusses the causes of conversion
or leaving the world for the cloister, in a manner
which shows that it held for him but the physical sense
of "a turning-about." One was turned or converted
to the monastic life, for all sorts of reasons wholly un-
connected with religious emotion. To-day, the word
seems to mean more nearly what the Southern negro
calls "getting 'ligion"; for, beside the turning-away
from the past, the soul of the converted person is sup-
posed to be charged with a fresh and ardent energy
for the future.
The common identity of the various mystical types
has been sufficiently insisted upon in these pages.
Therefore the grouping of our facts is not, as it may
casually appear, capricious or fortuitous. It has
THE DATA ANALYZED: II 249
seemed more nearly accurate to classify them according
to the character of the phenomena displayed, and to
ignore for the moment a divergence of era or of race.
Dr. Pratt 8 uses the classification "normal" and "ab-
normal," meaning by the first term that spontaneous
union with a higher life which is gradually achieved
and which endures; by the second, that sudden and
mystical change which most of us know as conver-
sion.
But, as has already been indicated, a special diffi-
culty attaches to the terms "normal" and "abnormal"
in this application. They are too shifting, and in the
light of the facts even contradictory. Those religious
experiences which are normal to the Guinea negro,
would be highly abnormal to the Englishman of to-
day. The standard, in fact, fluctuates even from
group to group. For instance, if out of ninety
Quaker cases less than twenty belong to Dr. Pratt 's
so-called normal or unemotional class, we are driven to
the inference either that the whole Quaker movement
was abnormal, which is false, or that the normal line
has in this particular sect shifted to the mystical
side. In truth, the idea that the normal is the
self-contained, unemotional, yet serious, elevated,
and ethical type an idea so flattering to the
Anglo-Saxon will not stand the test of investi-
gation. At no time in the world's history has
the deep and quiet nature, coming gradually into
union with the divine idea, been other than exceed-
ingly rare. For such a condition presupposes a har-
mony between a man's idea and his convictions, a
balance between his emotions and his intellect, which
250 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
is perforce but seldom met with among the sons of
men. Never could it be called normal save perhaps in
the sense of ideal. Let us put aside, then, any classi-
fication of the subject's experience as normal or ab-
normal, and turn our attention wholly to an exami-
nation of the facts manifested by the process.
The first indication of approaching change is mani-
fested by a growing dissatisfaction with self, accom-
panied by depression of spirits and fear. That the
subject has been from babyhood strong in a sense of
pious reverence and the love of serious things, does
not appear to mitigate for him the horrors of this de-
pression. His melancholy has no proportion to his
conduct ; it is equally deep if he be sinless as Therese
of the Holy Child, or if he be steeped in vice like
George Miiller or Frederick Smith. This is among the
first symptoms of the dissociation of religious stand-
ards from conduct, which is so marked a characteristic
in the person approaching conversion, and which indi-
cates the completely emotional nature of the change.
Under this strain the subject will excuse, nay, foster
in himself, actions and attitudes the reverse of moral.
He will banish cheerfulness, courage, and hope ; he will
neglect his health, his person, his business, and his
human relations. He will speak of his brother with
reprobation, 9 or regard a mother's 10 or a husband's
death 11 as release from a bond or "impediment."
Not only is he overwhelmed by a flood of selfish fear ;
but he is apparently deprived of any stimulus toward
a return to healthier conditions.
The approach of this depression may be rapid or
slow ; it is characterized by its completeness and by its
THE DATA ANALYZED: II 251
intensity. Never can we forget Bunyan's terror and
distress, wherein, for months, "I was overcome with
despair of life." With Uriel d'Acosta it endured for
several years; with Henry AUine, four years; with
Stephen Crisp, six to eight years; Augustin and
Woolman suffered a long time; and John Crook
for five years was so troubled in mind that he be-
lieved he was possessed by the Devil, while he declares,
"anguish and intolerable tribulation dwelt in my
flesh. " William Edmundson says he was much cast-
down; C. G. Finney was in nervous anguish for
months ; and George Fox dwelt in despair and in soli-
tude. With Al-Ghazzali this melancholy terminated
in a nervous prostration, during which he could
neither speak nor digest his food. Cried poor Mar-
tin Luther, during this period : ' ' I have often need in
my tribulations, to talk even with a child, in order
to expel such thoughts as the Devil possesses me with ! ' '
And, while tortured by doubts on his entering the
cloister, he quieted himself by reading and annotat-
ing Augustin. Joseph Smith, who lived in what he
called "the burnt-over district, " so ravaged was it
by religious epidemic, was fourteen when he became
serious, and felt great uneasiness of mind. He grew
troubled, read his Bible, was deeply moved and de-
pressed, and retired to the woods to pray. His
wretchedness lasted for more than a year. Lucy
Smith, his mother, had an attack of nervous depres-
sion preceding a vision; her father, Solomon Mack,
had been filled with religious gloom for years; and
was seventy-six before he was really eased and con-
verted. Mme. Guyon's depression had at least the one
252 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
amelioration that she did not at any time doubt her
own piety or worthiness, and looked upon the feeling
merely as a chastening from on high. This was also
true in the case of A. C. Emmerich.
Joseph Hoag, at eighteen, was in terrible distress for
months, which terminated in an acute condition of
melancholy lasting fourteen days; F. Howgill fasted,
prayed, and suffered terribly -for four or five years,
dissatisfied with all forms of religious doctrine. The
melancholy conflicts which befell the saintly Henry
More were so intense that they caused him to observe,
"there is nothing more to be dreaded for a man."
Depression followed Patricius for weeks while he
tended cattle in the fields ; Job Scott underwent alter-
nate fits of gloom and dissipation, from puberty until
about nineteen; Suso had no spiritual combats until
after conversion, but his misery lasted with increasing
power to the end, namely, thirty years. Teresa's
period of depression must have been short. When she
was about twenty years old, she speaks of the "cruel
ennui" with which she entered the convent after an
unhappy love-affair. In the curious and typical case
of Tolstoi', the despair must have lasted for several
years. At seventeen, the approach of conversion
brought to Whitefield its load of fear and dread; "an
inward darkness," he says, "overwhelmed my soul";
and for months he remained much terrified. The
acute crisis caused an illness of six or seven weeks.
During college, Thomas Boston had a "heavy time"
of depression and nightmare, which, however, was
brief. Gertrude of Eisleben declares that the trou-
ble in her soul lasted for more than a month. For
THE DATA ANALYZED: II 253
nearly a year, Thomas Haliburton was grievously tor-
mented, feared death, could not sleep, until after this
time the agony died out. It is characteristic of Loyola
that his distress did not begin till he was converted,
and that it endured just so long as he continued his
austerities and his ascetic life. His earlier religious
feelings were all of peace and joy.
During three years, Rulman Merswin, then a man of
forty-five, underwent "the pains of hell," as he calls
them; including violent night-terrors and unspeak-
able melancholy. The admirable Richard Baxter
passed through many a conflict, and owned to having
"difficulties in his concernments" about many doc-
trines. Jeanne de St. M. Deleloe was so much cast
down by her feelings of guilt and misunderstanding
of spiritual things, that it took her a year to recover.
Neither illness, which burnt him up with fever, nor
his renunciation of the life of the intellect, nor his
austerities in his desert hermitage, could quiet Jer-
ome's anguish of heart for a long time. Pascal's
conflict of soul brought on a dreadful insomnia, and
aggravated his already weakened condition.
The curious temperament of Cardinal Newman knew
no depression which is personal ; he is troubled about
the dogmas of the Church, but never as to his own
destination. Swedenborg also appears to have had no
personal depression of any duration. In John Wes-
ley's nature, the energy of goodness is too high for
depression to take a great hold; nevertheless he grew
much worried as to his state, losing his tranquillity
and optimism for some months. Angelique Arnauld, 12
abbess of Port-Royal, is one of those Catholic natures
254 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
for whom naught but gloom follows their first recep-
tion of "La Grace." With her it lasted for years.
The well-known modern conversion of Alphonse de
Ratisbonne is sudden, and absolutely lacking in the
usual preceding symptoms of melancholy. In this, the
reader will note a resemblance to the famous case
of Colonel James Gardiner which, however, is not
strictly autobiographical material. F. M. P. Lieber-
mann notes an uneasiness of but a few weeks.
T. W. Allies, like Newman, is not so much worried
about believing in God, as about the Real Presence and
the Monophysites, yet he notes a frightful depression,
which study and travel for months fail to cure. The
anchoress Juliana of Norwich lived at too early a
date to tell us much about herself, but with what a
vividness of phrase does she describe that "irkness of
myself that unneth I could have patience to live"!
A. F. Ozanam had no rest by day or night for weeks,
from "1'horreur des doutes qui ronge le coeur." The
blessed Carlo da Sezze noticed in himself certain bouts
of gloom and sorrow lasting at different periods in his
life for several months. The Ursuline Marie de Tin-
carnation felt the melancholy of her sinful state, but
was calmed after confession. Baptiste Varani had no
remission of misery upon her conversion ; in fact, one
black period lasted as long as two years. An English-
man, Charles Simeon, searched out his iniquities, re-
maining worried for three months. Catherine
Phillips, a young Quaker, was so much affected by a
sense of guilt that she concluded she had sinned
against the Holy Ghost. "This," she writes, "af-
fected my tender mind with sorrow and unutterable
THE DATA ANALYZED: II 255
distress." Her pillow was often watered with her
tears; and she remained in this condition, "deeply
broken" and mournful, for a space of eight years, or
until she was twenty-two years old.
Among the foregoing examples have been cited cer-
tain of the more vivid and important members of the
societies of Methodists and Friends. The following
belong rather to the rank and file, although their cases
are of significant interest.
From his twelfth to his eighteenth year the Quaker
John Churchman was overcome with wretchedness and
fear. "No tongue can express the anguish I felt,
afraid to lie awake, and afraid to go to sleep." John
Griffith, on the contrary, was not alarmed until about
nineteen years of age, and passed gradually from the
darkness to light, with no actual moment of change
noted. "William Savery is twenty-eight when he be-
gan to be troubled in mind. One evening "sit-
ting . . . alone, great Horror and trouble seized me.
I wept . . . and tasted the misery of fallen
spirits ... a clammy sweat covered me," etc. This
agony was of comparatively short duration. The
frightful melancholy and distress which attacked
Samuel Neale, at seventeen, caused him "to be as one
bereft of understanding," but this also lasted only a
short time. The preaching of Whitefield produced
in Joseph Oxley, hitherto a stranger to such emotions,
an agony so terrible that he "cried and shrieked
aloud." Conversion in this case followed speedily.
Six years of solitary weeping and mourning, in sore
conflicts of the spirit, was the lot of John Banks be-
fore he became "settled in the power of the Lord."
256 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
Great trouble of mind visited Christopher Story at
eighteen, until his marriage brought him a year or two
later under the influence of Friends. In the cases of
P. Livingstone, M. Dudley, and C. Marshall, there is
deep suffering. Thomas Story 's agony preceding con-
version was brief. John Gratton's grief caused him,
while still almost a child, "to cry with strong cries
unto the Lord/' and he felt sorrowful, wept and
mourned for many months. In the intervals he
searched, unsuccessfully, for the truth. From sixteen
to nineteen, Jane Hoskins was under a concern which
caused her to lose much sleep, while she shed many
tears. Myles Halhead, being about the age of thirty-
eight years, sorrowed desperately for many days, took
pleasure in nothing, "and in the Night-Season I could
find no rest." John Pennyman traces the causes of
his gloom to the execution of Charles I. God com-
forted him after about two years of depression. The
darkness and discouragement, of John Fothergill, lasted
four years with some remissions ; in Richard Jordan 's
case it lasted for several years. For experiences of
utter agony and the sufferings of despair, the Metho-
dist records give the most vivid accounts. John Nel-
son, for weeks, felt an awful dread; was hideously
tormented by insomnia and the fear of devils, from
which he would awake sweating and exhausted. 'John
Haime for some days had no rest day or night: "I
was afraid to shut my eyes lest I should awake in
hell." He was pursued by frightful dreams, one
night thought that the Devil was in his room, and
"was as if my very body had been in fire." Mary
Fletcher, at about ten years old, injures her health
THE DATA ANALYZED: II 257
with grieving. From seventeen to nineteen, Thomas
Walsh grew wild and desperate from a sense of sin,
often struck himself against the ground, tearing the
hair from his head. Freeborn Garretson underwent
three years of struggle and misery. Peard Dickinson
at fifteen had an acute attack of depression and re-
morse, was incessantly pursued by guilty and horrible
ideas, could not study, longed to die, had hideous
dreams; but had outgrown the worst of this stage
when at seventeen he fell under Wesley's influence.
William Jackson was pierced by a service in the Meth-
odist Chapel, and aroused to abandon drink. He
wrestled, cried, groaned, and mourned "for a space/'
which he does not further define. Thomas Lee was
despondent for nearly a year in unspeakable anguish.
Kichard Eodda spent two years seeking rest for his
soul. For about five years, off and on, John Pawson
had no peace, wept and cried aloud. William Hunter
lived in terrible distress for many months, after his
conscience had been "pierced as with a sword." In
the cases of Thomas Olivers and Thomas Mitchell, this
wretchedness lasted for six months, and in that of
Peter Jaco for four months. 'Jacob Young and Joseph
Travis, both American Methodists, were cast into the
depths of self-horror for a briefer time and from at-
tending revival meetings. The former was terribly
afraid of Indians. B. Hibbard, a boy of twelve, began
to have thoughts of hell when gazing at the fire. For
three years thereafter he was horribly conscious of sin,
and in great torment which caused insomnia. Lo-
renzo Dow is fourteen when in his despair he attempts
suicide, dreams of devils and hears the screeches of the
258 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
damned ; but the crisis does not seem to have been pro-
longed. On the other hand, we find William Capers
distressed simply because he is not depressed. "I was
conscious of no painful conviction of sin of no godly
sorrow." This lasts until his father, wrestling with
his spirit, reduces him to tears. For some weeks, at
fifteen, Daniel Young wept in solitude, and felt that he
was hanging over the pit of hell. "Darkness and
horror" overwhelm Benjamin Rhodes at nineteen and
he falls into a horrible fit of despair. "At last," he
cries, as if worn out with it, "the Lord heard." The
testimony of Robert Wilkinson contains no dates nor
note of time; it is but a record of horror and dis-
traction. Thomas Ware's spirits were so low "that
I was little better than a maniac !" A Methodist ser-
mon struck Richard Whatcoat with a terrible fear of
death and judgment, from which he obtained no re-
lief day or night. This appears, from the cause of the
narrative, to have endured for some weeks. Duncan
Wright is affected by a fellow-soldier's influence, so
that he was for a time utterly miserable and lost all
taste for his former pleasures. In George Shadf ord 's
case, the misery is intermittent and much increased by
a fever which fell on him. For three months, George
Story felt darkness and horror, after having previously
been so wretched that he was more like "an enraged
wild beast than a rational creature." Between hear-
ing two sermons of Whitefield, Thomas Rankin felt an
inexpressible horror of mind. The friends of the
young John Furz assure him that he is really good,
yet for about two years he is in utter despair. He
slept little because of his fear, wasted away, lost
THE DATA ANALYZED: II 259
appetite, and during one struggle with temptation is
stricken senseless for hours. Matthias Joyce was on
hell's brink for two years. Haunted day and night,
his flesh would creep, and he very nearly went insane
from fear and horror. The state of misery which
affected John de la Flechere is so unbearable that he
declared he would rather go to hell. Peter Jones, an
Indian Methodist, felt that his wretchedness was un-
becoming a brave; it lasted all one night till his con-
version at a dawn revival-meeting. For three weeks,
Thomas Hanson was troubled with horrid suggestions,
and became miserable beyond description. William
Black seems to have felt "softening frames," as he
puts it, during all his youth but at no one crisis. Al-
though he spent his time piously from eleven to six-
teen, yet William Ashman is then beset by gloom,
which lasts for four years more. Neither does John
Mason obtain a lasting peace after hearing Whitefield
preach, until five years later. The immediate effect
of the sermon had been to plunge him into gloom and
to deprive him of appetite and sleep. In the same
way Hanson's preaching upsets William Carvosso,
causing his spirit to suffer inward struggles for many
days. A. H. Francke, a German, was ordained a min-
ister at the time he realized his entire unbelief. With
his first sermon, the distress passed and he obtained
peace. The Evangelist Gates tells of deep misery dur-
ing his childhood and youth ; its chief element seemed
to be a fear of death, which induced despair, insomnia,
horrid dreams, and thoughts of suicide. His recovery
of tone was very gradual. Joseph Thomas, a tuber-
culous boy, praying alone in the woods, was horribly
260 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
afraid of the Devil. But his depression lasted only
during the camp-meeting forty-eight hours of fasting
and excitement. He is far more fortunate than most,
since he is settled in his mind at sixteen. John Mur-
ray, being naturally vivacious and cheerful, considered
himself virtuous only when thoroughly depressed, and
these depressions are but brief. For some weeks,
Samuel Hopkins was overwhelmed with doubt and
gloomy thoughts ; while the Eanter, Joseph Salmon, de-
clares that he was "struck dead to all my wonted en-
joyments."
The Presbyterian records of soul-struggles are few.
Among others, George Brysson thought God had
loosed Satan to assault him, "with dreadful tempta-
tions and blasphemous suggestions, whereby I was al-
most driven to despair." For some years, his state
was lamentable. Gardiner Spring, influenced by a
general revival at Yale, shut himself up (like E. N.
Kirk) to wrestle with God; and was greatly troubled
during the conflict in his unsettled soul. Oliver Hey-
wood says that he was "ready to roar out in the bitter-
ness of my soul." Alexander Gordon for six months
felt his mind in horrible darkness and was thought to
be going mad. David Brainerd underwent the mel-
ancholy and despair suddenly, and it lasted for
months. William Haslett has a horrible experience,
but does not note its length. "It was eleven years,"
says William Wilson, after he "is frightened by a
vision of death . . . until I won assurance of
faith . . . and often I was much tossed with indwell-
ing corruptions." The Baptist, Andrew Sherburne,
compares his mind during two years or more, to a
THE DATA ANALYZED: II 261
troubled sea. L, Kice states that his distress of mind
caused him to wake in extreme agony, and that he
literally wept and wailed. Joanna Turner, from four-
teen to seventeen, thought no greater sinner existed
than herself. The statement of J. H. Linsley de-
scribes a condition of incredible anguish, lasting eleven
months and bearing signs almost of mania. Visions
of devils, horrors, cries of agony, and a dreadful
burning of the soul, unite to overwhelm this unfor-
tunate; who, if he but chanced to sleep, was sure to
awaken, screaming. We know that the saintly John
Tauler's depression beset him for over two years; and
that John Calvin also felt this cloud, and for about
the same period. Charles Bray observes that the time
of religious unrest was "the most miserable years of
my life"; and so wretched did the experience make
William Plumer that he thereafter conceived an aver-
sion, nay, a loathing, for religion. Spurgeon, the
evangelist, having naught before his eyes but his own
sins, felt horribly evil and utterly lost. Jerry Mc-
Auley and Billy Bray had probably more cause to be
alarmed about their state than many others we have
noted. The first was in prison when he underwent
this fierce conflict; the last, distressed by Bunyan's
visions of heaven and hell, believed himself tormented
by an active personal devil, so that he cried for mercy
all night. Thomas Scott found Law's "Serious Call"
"a very uncomfortable book," and was affected by
dread and disquiet for many years. Henry Ward
Beecher thought of God as a sort of policeman lying
in wait for him ; he was very miserable. Hell seemed
to yawn for Jacob Knapp, whose mental trouble af-
262 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
fected his health and generally upset him between
seventeen and nineteen. A little black fiend squat-
ting on the foot of Raoul Glaber's bed, caused that
worldly-minded monk to rush into the chapel chilled
with fear, remembering all his sins. A repetition of
such a visitation led to his full conversion. Gloom
overwhelmed the gentle sister Therese shortly after
taking the veil.
Many austerities practised at the age of sixteen,
soon brought upon Mary of the Angels melancholy,
impure thoughts, and the assault of devils, who an-
noyed her by their cries and howls. The devils fought
pell-mell around the poor Mere Jeanne des Anges, till
Christ Himself spoke from the crucifix to save her.
Maria d'Agreda experienced several attacks of gloom,
and fell into deep horror, lasting for months at a
time. Peter Favre went through a dreadful space
of torment, scruple, and temptation, for four years or
more. "Over and over again," writes John Trevor,
1 l I wished I had never been born. ' ' David Nitschman
fell into a dreadful blackness lasting a year ; while an-
other Moravian, Christian David, suffered so intensely
that for a while he "came to loathe the very name of
Christ."
The deeply religious feeling of Amiel could not
avoid for him a perpetual discouragement and melan-
choly, which no conversion ever came to change. An-
gela da Foligno went through every typical mediaeval
torment. To the mind of Jonathan Edwards, "it
was not proper to express that concern by the name
of terror"; yet it brought him a great misery. Ger-
trude More felt her heart become "more hard to
THE DATA ANALYZED: II 263
good than ever was a stone"; while it took his
wife's illness and death to shake the soul of Count
Sehouvaloff. 13
Whatever may be the effect of this accumulation of
data, it will at least serve to accentuate very sharply
that dissociation of this religious process from usual
standards of conduct, to which reference has just been
made. With a misery so poignant and an absorption
in it so complete, it follows that these cases cease to
be interested in anything except themselves. In
strongly marked attacks, the canons of ordinary be-
havior have no restraining power; while the disap-
proval of others simply adds to the burden and in-
tensifies the egotism by the idea of martyrdom. M. M.
Alacoque and Mme. Guyon did turn the other cheek,
but they did it with an alacrity which must have been
in itself exasperating. The insensibility to ethical
ideas which these cases display has already been noted,
and further examples are easily to be found. 14 Sal-
imbene's abandonment of his old father, Sainte-Chan-
tal's of her children, are instances of this insensibility,
which will extend, at moments, to physical suffering
of one's self or of others. The obligation to one's em-
ployer is felt no longer; the steadying effect of work
is denied to the sufferer. 15 No entreaties, no upbraid-
ings of friends or relatives, can suffice to turn him
from his fixed despair.
Certain among the cases heighten this despair and
give it a peculiarly terrible character by the addition
of that obscure and dreadful idea known to them as
the unpardonable sin. The list of unpardonable sin-
264 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
ners is not large ; its conception required a vividness of
imagination which is fortunately rare, since it seems
to have more power to create suffering than any other
similar idea in the world. The person thus torment-
ing himself often appears to the observer to have
passed the boundaries of sanity, or, at the least, to have
come under the domination of an idee fixe.
The whole conception of an unpardonable sin dis-
plays characteristics which have an especial signifi-
cance for the later chapters of this book. The first is
its entire lack of definiteness, the doubt of what it is
in the mind of the person who yet is quite sure that
he has sinned it. Many confessants express this
doubt in so many words. For instance, John Bunyan
writes: "I wished to sin the sin against the Holy
Ghost"; when he is not at all certain how this is to
be accomplished. A dreadful feeling of guilt and
nothing else caused Robert Wilkinson and Catherine
Phillips to be sure they had committed this particular
sin. J. Travis and J. Trevor are both exceedingly
worried lest they should have sinned it unawares.
Sampson Staniforth becomes convinced that he has
done so ; whereas Whitefield is horribly afraid of being
afraid of this trespass. His undefined terror of the
mere idea, which he saw as a sort of embodiment of
Satan, whereat " great heavings went through me," is
an accurate exemplification of Maudsley's general de-
scription: "The very mystery of that one stupen-
dous sin, its vague and unknown nature, has an awful
fascination for the imagination, which is held by it in
a sort of cataleptic trance." 16 And trance, in truth,
is apt to be the culmination of the attack.
THE DATA ANALYZED: II 265
One of the most vivid accounts of this experience
occurs in Borrow 's novel, * ' Lavengro. ' ' 1T The author
puts it into the mouth of Peter Williams, the farmer ;
yet no one who reads it but will be certain it is
autobiographical, that the experience was Sorrow's
own. Peter, a grown man, tells how at seven years
old, he first heard there was such a sin. Thereafter,
"he felt a strong inclination to commit it"; but
terror restrained him. The impulse is described as
capricious and intermittent ; for weeks together it died
away and left him in peace. Finally, out of childish
bravado, he murmurs horrible words. As no lightning
strikes him after the act, he is, if anything, relieved ;
but this relief is followed by a growing and creeping
terror; an overwhelming despair in the conviction
that the sin is committed beyond recall. Years after-
wards, this despair is still feeding upon his mind ; and
he is freed from it only when his wife, with tears,
implores him to believe that such a sin was impossible
to so young a child.
Peter, of course, does not repeat the words in which
he thinks the sin took shape; but it is most often in
some form of a curse that it is conceived by the illiter-
ate. Says Margaret Lucas, a Friend, aged nineteen:
"One night, as I lay in bed, on a sudden a voice as
I thought audible and like my own, cursed the Lord
and defied heaven, saying, 'Now am I damned, for
I have committed the unpardonable sin/ I fell,
from agony, into a complete perspiration, and the bed
shook with my strong trembling. " In the same way,
Joseph Hoag was frightfully tempted, "to curse Grod,
father, mother, and the Bible' '; while to resist this
266 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
temptation nearly drove him insane. To the poor
little nun Jeanne de St. M. Deleloe came "le penser
de cracher a la Sainte Hostie"; which thought, to a
devout Catholic, would be almost an unpardonable
sin in itself.
Here are examples sufficient to show the nature of
this conception, whose very existence involves contra-
diction. It appears to have been largely a Christian
invention; for Hebrew theology does not admit that
any sin is unpardonable. 18 The doubt in the mind
of the confessant as to the real nature of his tres-
pass, seems less remarkable, however, when one notes
how early such uncertainty existed; for the Fathers
themselves are by no means unanimous as to the ex-
act constitution of this sin. The Church defines it
as "to deny from pure malice the Divine character
of works manifestly Divine." 19 Thomas Aquinas
held it to consist in direct insult to the Holy Ghost;
while Augustin cannot believe it to be aught but
final impenitence. 20 Since the doctrine of redemp-
tion would hardly seem to admit of so notable an ex-
ception, it follows that Augustin 's is practically the
only explanation of this curious dogma which is at
all logically consistent. Interesting it is, therefore,
to find that not this explanation, but something
much more unreasoning and primitive, shows in the
experiences just related. The confessants are all
young some are children when they believe this
sin to have been committed, moreover, not one of
them is finally impenitent. It would seem as if such
an obsession in their case almost denied the funda-
mental doctrine of salvation; nor does it take the
THE DATA ANALYZED: II 267
brain of an Augustin to see that serious complications
would result if the truth of such an idea were to be
admitted. For if a child of seven, by ignorantly in-
sulting the Holy Ghost, were to live his life in peni-
tent expiation, only to be damned eternally, where,
then, lay the value of the Redemption, or the glory of
the Redeemer ? Even the mediaeval mind hesitated to
allow doctrine so dangerous ; particularly when it can
be based only on a chance word of that Christ, whose
law and whose promise was love. 21 The truth is
that the unpardonable sin is not wholly a mediaeval
idea, but should be classed, rather, with that group
of concepts which had lingered over from the past in
the popular mind, to be developed and heightened by
the mediaeval imagination. All human terrors have,
in fact, the deepest root and importance; their an-
tiquity is proclaimed by their vague and unreasoning
character ; and we know that the fear of men belongs
to the oldest part of the race. The confusion existing
in the minds of the Fathers, when they tried to cast
this particular fear into a dogma, testifies that they
felt certain misgivings as to the rigid interpretation
of the texts on which they based it ; at the same time
that they fully recognized the presence in the world
of such an emotion and such a conception.
When a fact in human nature coexists with various
and opposing explanations, it is safe to infer that the
fact is very much older than the explanation. Yet
we know that the unpardonable sin is not to be looked
for among the Jewish origins of Christianity. More-
over, it is certainly striking to find that Dante's In-
ferno holds no circle for these sinners; that to the
268 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
poet, blasphemy is by no means the worst of offences
nor does he mete out to it so heavy a punishment as
to many other transgressions. Dante evidently can-
not conceive of any sin, nor of any sinner, wholly
incapable of pardon and the absence of this sin to the
scheme of the "Divina Commedia," is surely a proof
of its absence to the whole fourteenth-century scheme
of human error and penitence.
Yet the very visage, as it were, of the unpardonable
sin, its bizarrerie, namelessness, and vivid qualities, be-
long to a savage past. What, then, may be our infer-
ence regarding it? Simply, that during the Middle
Ages it had not yet differentiated itself and taken
that particular and individual form with which we
are later accustomed to identify it. Then, such a con-
ception was still part of that group of terrors whose
roots we now know to strike down into primitive and
brute nature; such as the supernatural in all its
shapes, diabolical possession, witchcraft, evil spells,
and so forth. Its separation from and evolution out of
this group, its development into a purely individual
fear, a horror personal and subjective, is a proof
of its relation to the phenomena of religious survival.
The place to discuss this phase of religious experi-
ence and its connection with the subject of survival, is
one belonging properly to the later sections of this
study; nor should the reader's attention be longer
diverted from the main body of facts which he has
just reviewed, and of which the unpardonable sin
data form but part. The impression made by these
facts as a whole, will be found to have been chiefly the
result of their uniformity, their peculiarity, and their
THE DATA ANALYZED: II 269
intensity. It is by means of this very uniformity, in-
tensity, and peculiarity, that these examples of re-
ligious depression have come to assume a significance
which will eventually lead to better understanding of
their origin.
VII
THE DATA ANALYZED: III
I. Conversion
II. Conversion
III. Conversion
IV. Conversion
V. Conversion
VI. Reaction and relapse.
VII. "Covenanters with God."
VIII. Termination of the process
Theory,
suggestion in,
the data of,
note on Paul's,
doubtful examples.
VII
THE DATA ANALYZED: III
BEFORE discussing the actual moment of conversion
and its attendant phenomena, it may be well briefly to
consider some of the more prevalent theories which at-
tempt to explain these phenomena. The change which
conversion causes in the individual has been of deep
interest to psychologists for the past half-century,
since it affords them certain uniform and salient
means of approaching the difficult subject of person-
ality. Conversion be it religious or other seems a
valid instance of a sudden, violent change in the
personality of the converted. What he was before he
appears no longer; a whole new set of energies, of
ideals, wishes, and powers, would seem to have sprung
into existence. Hence the phrase in common use that
he is a "new man." But this "new man" cannot
spring out of nothing ; he must have had some connec-
tion with that "old man" which, by the conversion, is
cast aside. What, then, has actually taken place ?
As is usual in all subjects where students have spent
their energies in drawing conclusions without per-
sonally collecting data, what takes place has been
ingeniously misconstrued. Various hypotheses have
been formulated, much less according to the facts of
the case than according to the preconceived belief of
273
274 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
the theorists. Typical among them is that interpreta-
tion well expressed by Harold Begbie in his vivid
little books, " Souls in Action*' and "Twiceborn Men."
The author recites a number of conversions operated
through the work of the London Mission; and from
them draws the inference that "Christianity" is "the
only force which can change a radically bad man into
a radically good one." Not at all worried by such a
contradiction in terms, this writer frankly looks to-
ward Christianity to furnish an explanation of the
phenomena it appears to cause.
When we turn elsewhere, however, we may find
conversion somewhat metaphysically defined as "a
disturbance of the equilibrium of the self, which re-
sults in the shifting of the field of consciousness from
lower to higher levels . . . and the beginning of trans-
cendence. ' ' * Here is one of those calmly a priori defi-
nitions which are at once the despair and the oppor-
tunity of the simple seeker for the truth. If the levels
to which the field of consciousness shifted, during and
after conversion, were higher levels, then this state-
ment would have more validity; but unfortunately,
except in rare instances, they are not. Such defini-
tions arise naturally from the consideration of cer-
tain very special cases, and they are totally destroyed
by any fair examination of all the facts.
A writer, 2 analyzing the case of Pascal, terms con-
version "the restoration of equilibrium to a mind
hitherto unbalanced"; which definition, if one inserts
the word "temporary" before "restoration," might
perhaps stand. It is not clarified further by this
writer's comparison of the process to that of a snake
THE DATA ANALYZED: III 275
casting its skin; 3 or his talk about the " sudden emer-
gence into consciousness of the subliminal or second-
ary self. ' ' Professor James * avoids definitions ; dis-
cussing the whole subject in his especially felicitous
manner combining good literature and sound psychol-
ogy. Yet he also tends to regard as final', results given
by a few selected cases and supported by the funda-
mentally unsound method of the "questionnaire."
Still another writer suggests that the main factor in
conversion is the religious emotion superseding and
supplanting all emotion before given by sin or pleas-
ure. 5 Thus the convert's energies find a new out-
let, while his worldly interest and his appetite for sin
are lessened. By tracing the whole process to an emo-
tional source, and by showing that it is based on an
integral emotional necessity, Dr. Cutten has furnished
a valuable starting-point, and one which becomes more
significant the deeper goes our investigation. The
limits, however, of such an investigation do not stop
at Christianity, as this writer would seem to think,
if any vital results are to be achieved therein.
The above citations are sufficient to indicate the
trend of modern theory. Such psychological doctrine
as they rely upon for support has been already
glanced at in an earlier section, but it is necessary to
make some further enquiry here, if that question is
to be answered as to what actually takes place dur-
ing conversion. 6 Hoffding defines psychology as a
' ' Science of the Soul, ' ' and this definition, which later
workers regard both as provisional and inadequate,
serves to show what was the starting-point of the
earlier investigator.
276 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
No doubt the reason why the subject failed to come
under the general methods of science for so long a
time, lay in the difficulty of making any progress
through the usual means; namely, by any investiga-
tion into the brain and its functions during their
normal activity. A physician tells us that "nothing
is more undemonstrative to mere inspection than
healthy brain-matter, ' ' 7 and by study of the diseased
brain alone was any progress made possible. But so
soon as investigation into the normal brain processes
had established the great truth that the brain was not
an unit, then immediately a fresh set of difficulties
presented themselves to the psychological investigator.
He was brought face to face with the complex and be-
wildering problem of Personality, and the deeper he
delved into this question, the more he attempted to
solve it by the weapons of his logic and his imagina-
tion, the more quickly he appeared to arrive at what
Sir "William Hamilton terms "the inexplicability of
ultimate facts." If the brain is not "a single organ
working as an unit," then in what portion of it do
those elements reside which make up our personality ;
what is this personality, and how does it account for
the facts? When Mill said that "the phenomena of
self and of memory are merely two sides of the same
fact," he did not add that, whereas the brutes have
memory, they appear to have but the faintest adum-
bration of what we call personality. The "wave-
theory" of Professor James, which considers that each
passing wave of consciousness is a part of that wave
which preceded it, is open to other vital objections. 8
THE DATA ANALYZED: III 277
From this chaotic borderland of theory one obtains
finally two salient ideas:
That the central point of personality is self-con-
sciousness, would seem to be no longer a matter of
doubt; and that this personality, this Ego, whatever
it be, is not an unit, not homogeneous, and not static,
would seem to be equally matter of proof. Whether
the elements which combined to produce it exist in a
state of flux, 9 or whether, according to another theory,
they are incessantly being dispersed and reassembled,
as in sleep and waking, is of lesser importance, once
the fact of the fundamental instability of their com-
bination has been grasped. The laboratory experi-
ment, the use of hypnosis, have provided many pre-
cise means of determining this instability, its degree
and its limitations, other than could possibly be men-
tioned in this study ; the main fact remains that it is
so to be determined. And once this idea is formu-
lated by the mind, it has advanced several paces
nearer the answer to that question of what actually
takes place.
If by an analogy taken from astronomy it could be
brought closer to the imagination, Personality might
be depicted as a nebula; of which the nuclear cen-
tre is Consciousness, while the power holding the
atoms together, is Will. By such analogy it will
readily be understood that should anything occur to
loosen the grip of will, the atoms composing this un-
stable combination will no longer remain unified.
Now, the various elements thus normally under con-
trol, the emotions, the imagination, the reason, and
278 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
so on, are present in different proportions in each in-
dividual. These proportions are the result of many
influences, of which race, evolution, heredity, nutri-
tion, social conditions, are probably the most signifi-
cant ; and the ratio of each to each other varies widely
and is of the utmost importance. Any shifting of pro-
portions must cause a tendency to readjustment in the
entire mass.
This analogy is hardly complete, yet it will serve
by permitting us to visualize what follows. In a full,
normal, healthy personality, these elements are in-
terfused so that they act as an unit upon surrounding
circumstances. Anything which happens to alter the
proportion of these elements, tends to diffuse the
mass, and temporarily to disunite the combination
forming the personality. When, so diffused, the neb-
ula no longer whirls evenly, then the personality is
said to be unbalanced ; and when, through some other
force, this diffused mass is again freshly charged by a
current of will, it coalesces, it integrates, it moves
evenly once more.
This metaphor is not so fantastic as it appears;
for the sober treatises of science make a constant use
of words and phrases based on similar conceptions.
The terms commonly dealing with that portion of the
consciousness which lies outside of the nucleus, show
this. Dr. Pratt, for instance, names it the "feeling
mass" or "the fringe of consciousness." 10 It is
called by others the subconscious or extra-marginal
self. 11 The incoherent character of this primal con-
sciousness, even before it arrived at a stage of de-
velopment whence it was enabled to produce ideas, is
THE DATA ANALYZED: III 279
spoken of as the result of evolution; and is seen at
work in the embryo, the infant. As it draws together,
as it becomes nucleated, definite, and effective, per-
sonality results.
But the primordial stuff of consciousness is not all
used in the formation of this active nucleus. There
is a residuum which lies outside, a loose, diffused
"feeling mass" which serves to envelope, like some
tenuous gas, the periphery of the nebula. Such mat-
ter will remain in this extra-marginal territory, un-
less some influence, acting to widen and agitate the
whirl, will, for the time being, force the fringe with-
in the range of the active nucleated centre of con-
sciousness. Through the medium provided by re-
ligious confessions, the psychological process involved
in such experiences is laid bare to us, so that we may
visualize and understand the actual occurrence.
Personality, then, pictured as a nebula, with all its
elements under the control of will, is thus seen mov-
ing through life, as we express it, "well-balanced"
on its axis. A close study of its constitution would
doubtless reveal (in those cases which come under our
particular observation) that emotions preponderate
in the mass; while its unity is delicately maintained,
and under a certain amount of strain. At a given
stage we mark the entrance of the destructive forces,
placing the entire personality on the rack of intensity,
fear, or doubt. Health is invariably injured, enor-
mously affecting the balance, by causing the instabil-
ity to become greater at one and the same moment
that physical weakness loosens the centripetal force
of the will. Immediately, the nebula is disunited
280 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
and diffused. The various elements are dispersed,
naught moves harmoniously, a man is said to be at
war with himself, and so in truth he is.
This stage has been concretely developed for the
reader in the group of examples just reviewed under
the heading " Depression." There are cases, of
course, in which the dissociation becomes so complete
that insanity or death is its only outcome. But in the
vast majority of persons the condition is but tem-
porary, following the indicated crises, and resulting
from indicated conditions. It is apt to occur during
puberty; for, although, from the ideal standpoint,
youth should unfold symmetrically, harmoniously, and
without crises, yet in actual life the very reverse
is usually the case. After a lapse of time, varying
widely in different instances, the disturbed elements
of personality tend to seek readjustment to meet these
new conditions. The fluctuations involved in this
change, cause a tension exceedingly nervous and pain-
ful to the subject, already clouded by darkness and
despair, and this tension is often depicted as a
struggle, a conflict in which the different forces of
personality are arrayed the one against the other.
It is customary to describe the termination of this
conflict as a yielding-up of the will, but on examina-
tion the expression is found to be far from accurate.
It is not the will which is yielded, but rather the
various morbid obstructions to its harmonious action,
which are overcome by a revival of that central force,
heretofore weakened and ineffectual. It is the will's
fresh assertion; its fresh energy to say, "I come,
Lord!" or "Do as thou wilt"; which brings at length
THE DATA ANALYZED: III 281
peace to the sufferer. At once the jarring mass is
integrated, the elements healthily coalesce; the sub-
ject would tell you he had " found peace"; that he
was a new man ? strengthened for a new life. By this,
he really means that he is at last freed from all sensa-
tions save natural ones ; that he is now no more con-
scious of the processes of his soul than he should
be aware of the processes of his digestion; for, with
the spiritual as with the physical nature, any con-
sciousness of the machinery means that it is not run-
ning as it ought. The man is then "converted"; his
wheel turns a new round. Reconstruction begins,
and, weary of the tension of doubt, he readily sub-
mits to further peace-making influences.
The immediate cause of this healing and benefi-
cent change has been defined by psychologists as a
"yielding to suggestion," and in this phrase lies the
crux of the whole matter. Granting that there is no
objection to the image of personality as a nebula; or
that the reader through this means has better visual-
ized these obscure occurrences, long ere this he has
realized that such an image offers no explanation
of their cause. Informed that the reconstruction of
this disunited mass of elements has been the work of
an outside influence named "suggestion," his next
question will naturally be to enquire what, in a psy-
chological sense, is known about this suggestion?
"By suggestion," he is answered in the words of a
modern investigator, 12 "is meant the intrusion into
the mind of an idea, met with more or less opposition
by the person, accepted uncritically at last; and rea-
lized unreflectively, almost automatically. By sug-
282 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
gestibility is meant that peculiar state of mind which
is favorable to suggestion. ' '
It is unnecessary for the purposes of this volume to
enter deeply into the technique of suggestion, or to
explain the experiments by which the facts have been
attained. As regards the religious experience, the
suggestion-theory has been advanced rather tenta-
tively ; due no doubt to the insufficiency of valid data,
for which the questionnaire method is partially,
at least, responsible. But the reader will have little
difficulty in applying the generalizations just cited to
the data in these pages, if he also bear in mind that
"the first and general condition of normal suggesti-
bility is fixation of the attention"; 13 and that "indi-
rect suggestion is often more effective than direct
suggestion. ' ' 14
Francis Galton, 15 trying some " experiments in the
Human Faculty, " proved the extreme susceptibility of
our mental and nervous centres to suggestion. Among
other experiments he sought "to evoke the commoner
feelings of Insanity by investing everything I met with
the attributes of a spy ! It was long, ' ' he adds, ' ' be-
fore the uncanny feeling thus aroused wore away."
Almost every one of us has in his proper person
undergone some such experience, and has realized the
force on himself of a repeated idea. Books, plays,
newspapers, all the influences of the world at large,
will serve to bring it home to him, and to his daily
life. Every parent makes conscious or unconscious
use of suggestion in training children, in whom psy-
chologists agree to find a degree of suggestibility al-
most equal to that which exists in hypnosis ; 16 and over
THE DATA ANALYZED: III 283
whom the simplest idea may thus have an uncanny
power.
The study of suggestion has been undertaken very
largely through the examination of diseased nervous
functions ; and the French neurologists Charcot, Janet,
and others, have done pioneer work along these lines.
From their writings one may obtain some significant
factSj highly illuminative of the confessant's state of
mind during the conversion-crisis. M. Janet 17 it
should be noted at the outset, has the medical-material-
ist view, which places all religious emotionalism
definitely and finally in the realm of pathology.
He observes the susceptibility of these cases to sug-
gestion, also remarking that incipient hystericals
1 ' come out of the confessional calmed and cheered. ' ' 18
The further parallel between the states of mind in
the subjects of M. Janet 's study and our confessants
of emotional religious experience, is very striking, and
must not be overlooked, even if one does not wish to
follow this medical-materialist reasoning all the way.
For instance, M. Janet's cases also desire to place
themselves under authority, and to have the simplest
matters decided for them. There is complete apathy ;
often combined with that form of insensibility to emo-
tions and to family ties, which is characteristic of cer-
tain confessants, to whom nothing counts beside the
idee fixe. 19 M. Janet also points out that "a tendency
to suggestion and to subconscious acts is the sign . . .
of hysteria; and that the constitutional doubter is
predisposed in this direction. ' ' 20 Such is the person
who is incapable of even small decisions and whose
whole life is rendered useless from his wavering. Com-
284 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
meriting on the various ''provocative agents" in these
cases, among which he classes the period of puberty,
improper nutrition depressing the nervous system,
overwork, anxiety, or emotion, M. Janet 21 lays much
emphasis on hereditary influences which dispose the
mind to such tendencies; and which are frequently
indicated in the records just reviewed.
Such work as this naturally tends to class mysticism
with hysteria ; and not the least of M. Janet 's examples
is Teresa, 22 whose "Autobiography" he regards much
as Charcot that of the Mere Jeanne des Anges. A
recent study of mysticism vigorously combats this at-
titude toward the great contemplatives ; and in truth
it is one which will find many antagonists. 23 The
citations just made are not for the purpose of agree-
ment, but rather to aid the reader in comprehending
that power of suggestion which plays so vital a part
in the drama of religious change.
Bearing these facts in mind, let us for an instant
return to that image of personality, whirling its
incoherent nebula of sensations and ideas through
the universe, and readily susceptible to direct and
indirect suggestions. Somewhat slowly at first, then
more rapidly, the forces already analyzed tend to set
up a disturbance and finally to produce disunion.
The suggestion, which at a crisis serves to reanimate
the weakened will and to reassemble the dispersed ele-
ments, is inevitably swift, sudden, and definite. In
the sincere and full record, it is almost always trace-
able, so that one may put his finger upon it exactly, if
one will. It charges into the melee, as it were, pre-
cisely at that moment 'when high nervous tension has
THE DATA ANALYZED: III 285
predisposed the imagination to abnormal sensitive-
ness and activity, and thus turns the fortunes of the
day.
" Intensity of thought operating on intensity of
feeling may elicit surprising illumination," is the
penetrating remark of Sir Egerton Brydges ; 24 and
one cannot therefore be surprised at the effect which
a powerful suggestion may have upon the mind. Nec-
essarily is the field of consciousness during this period
of tension occupied by the most fantastic and over-
charged ideas. Excitability of the nerve-centres re-
sulting, there may suddenly appear visual and audi-
tory hallucinations of extraordinary vividness. Such
phenomena will be found to bear a marked family like-
ness ; and in most cases they are the media of the sug-
gestion itself.
This is often conveyed to the sufferer by what seems
to him a voice, sometimes issuing a command, such
as "Tolle, lege!" 25 or, "Surrender, or thou shalt
die!' 726 or, "Awake, sinner!" 27 or, "Go to Pennsyl-
vania ! " 28 or, ' ' Take no care for thy business. " 29 It
may be in the form of consolation or reassurance:
"Thy sins are forgiven thee"; 30 or, "Fear not, oh,
thou tossed!" 31 or, "Thou shalt walk with me in
white." 32 It is often a question, " Paul, Paul, why
persecutest thou me?" 33 or, "Oh, sinner, did I suffer
for thee?" 34 and it is at times an ejaculation, like
"Helios!" 35 or, "Eternity, eternity, the endless term
of long eternity ! " 36 Plain, final statements, such as
' ' Life and death consist in loving God, " 87 or, " It is
finished, ' ' 38 are very effective suggestions to a sensi-
tive person. It is not forgotten that to Luther the
286 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
statement was simply, "the just shall live by faith."
If in the nature of a vision, this suggestion usually
takes the form of the figure of Christ ; 39 although often
that of Mary, 40 and sometimes the Holy Child. 41 The
dazzling lights 42 which accompany this crisis have
been variously interpreted by the devout and by the
neurologist ; while monstrous and devilish visions 4S tes-
tify to the vivid imagination of the Middle Ages.
When we remember Dr. Sidis's observation that "a
familiar thing, in a strange abnormal position or
shape, produces the most effective suggestion, ' ' 44
then many of these apparitions, such as Loyola's plec-
trum and the Crucifix of Colonel Gardiner, become
the more readily comprehensible.
In giving this somewhat long introduction to the
analysis of the cases themselves, we have a little de-
parted from our original inductive plan. By so do-
ing, however, we have but followed the injunction of
no less a mind than that of Auguste Comte. " If it be
true/' said Comte, "that every theory must be based
upon observed facts, it is equally true that facts can-
not be observed without the guidance of some theory.
Without such guidance, our facts would be desultory
and fruitless ; we could not retain them, for the most
part we could not even perceive them. ' ' 45 Dealing
with data so chaotic and often so emotionally over-
charged as that concerning conversion, a need of guid-
ance becomes obvious. But the reader need now no
longer be withheld from exercising his logical powers
over the problem presented by the cases themselves.
"I was one night alone," says Henry Alline, 46
4 ' pondering on my lost condition, when all of a sudden
THE DATA ANALYZED: III 287
I was surrounded with an uncommon light like a blaze
of fire ; I was plunged into keen despair, every power
of my mind was strained with terror and surprise. . . . "
Visions of damnation, with tempting by beautiful
fiends, followed: "One midnight I was awaked out
of sleep by a still, small voice. ... I thought I saw
a small body of light as plain as possible before me."
Recurrences of a similar kind are many, and when at
length he picks up his Bible and opens it at random,
he is ' ' inexpressibly ravished. " * ' My whole soul, ' ' he
declares, "seemed filled with the Divine Being."
Elizabeth Ashbridge, Quaker, thus describes "the
peculiar exercise" which befell her at the fateful mo-
ment: "I thought myself sitting by a fire, in com-
pany with several others, when there arose a thunder-
gust, and a voice as loud as from a mighty trumpet
pierced my ears with these words, 'Oh Eternity!
Eternity, the endless term of long eternity!' ! Her
heart is alarmed and melted by this manifestation.
Augustin's account is a world-possession. After
he was "sick and tormented," we hear of the agony,
the storm, the healing outburst of tears, the inward
voice bidding, "Tolle, lege!" of which he says: "Nor
could I ever remember to have heard the like," and
at which "all the gloom of doubt vanished away."
In whatever connection it is regarded, the beauty and
intensity of this record remain unsurpassed. Equally
well known is Bunyan's narrative, wherein, during
a game, "a voice from heaven did suddenly fall into
my soul. ' ' During prayer, he fancied the Devil pulled
his clothes; but the moment which he called conver-
sion, was followed by recurring clouds of darkness.
288 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
Peter Cartwright, the Evangelist, who does not men-
tion any preceding melancholy, has a sudden and aw-
ful experience at the age of sixteen. 47 "It seemed
to me," he writes, "all of a sudden my blood rushed
to my head, my heart palpitated, in a few minutes I
turned blind, an awful impression rested on my mind
that death had come. ' ' The excitement following this
condition was fostered by his pious mother; and he
was not calmed until a voice called to him, ' ' when out
alone in the horse-lot."
The rare tract in which John Crook tells of his
experiences is written in a style of extraordinary
vividness. After his anguish and tribulation, one
morning on a sudden there "sprang in me a voice,
saying, 'Fear not, oh, thou tossed'; whereupon all
was hushed and quieted within me. Here was such
calm and stillness, I was filled with peace and joy, and
there shone such an inward light that for the space of
seven or eight days I walked as one taken from the
earth." The revivalist, C. G. Finney, underwent a
strange and oppressed feeling, as if he were about
to die. On walking to his law office, an inward voice
accosted him ; and later, arising from prayer, and open-
ing the door of his room, Jesus stood before him in
the flesh. Both lights and voices beset George Fox, in
the wilderness during his religious travail, much as the
demons in form and sound beset Guibert de Nogent in
his monastery. Luther was sitting in his cell, several
years after his first depression, when he was struck
by the words, "The just shall live by faith." Mme.
Guyon is turned by hearing a voice which tells
her she is the bride of God. This same idea we find
THE DATA ANALYZED: III 289
in many earlier cases of mystical women. Joseph
Hoag had been in such a state that (he says) "my
eyes looked ghastly/' when his conversion came. "I
laid down in weakness and heard as plain a whisper as
ever I heard from a human heing : ' Surrender or you
shall die and go to the place of everlasting torment ! ' :
He could only whisper the Lord's Prayer, and the
cloud was lifted. The conversion of St. Patrick is
accompanied by the vision of the sun, whereat he cried,
4 'Helios!" but he also hears a voice when asleep in
the wilderness. As Oliver Sansom, a Quaker, "lay in
bed in the morning early, I heard as it were an audi-
ble voice which said unto me, 'Take no care for thy
business.' : Suso has supernatural raptures and is
caught up in ecstasy, during which what he saw and
heard no tongue can tell. He had been a monk for
five years before his conversion; and thereafter his
visions were many, and progressed from those of
beauty to those of horror. Although Teresa's visions
and voices are many, they are not attached to any
conversion in the ordinary sense ; but came afterwards,
and accompanied her progress along the way of mysti-
cism and sanctity. "When I kneeled down," says
Whitefield, "I felt great heavings in my body . . .
sweat came through me"; Satan terrifies him, yet
he observes that he had no visions, only the fear of
them. The physical disturbances are as great as
though the vision of the Lord had occurred.
Gertrude of Eisleben writes very beautifully about
the circumstances of her conversion which began
"sweetly and charmingly," she says, "by appeasing
the trouble which thou hadst excited in my soul for
290 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
more than a month ... on raising my head I beheld
thee . . . under the form of a youth of sixteen years,
beautiful and amiable. ' ' During a severe illness about
this time, Jesus visits and consoles her, while she ob-
serves that he is wearing a necklace of gold and rose-
color. It is interesting to find her declaring that fear
was the first element of her conversion. Like the fore-
going like almost all, indeed, of the mediaeval mys-
tics the conversion-visions of Ignatius Loyola are of
a beautiful and ravishing kind. * ' On a certain night,
as he lay awake, he saw with open face the likeness of
the blessed Mother of God with her holy child
Jesus, " and from that moment felt all carnal desires
vanish. Later on, the character of the phenomena
changes much for the worse; serpents with eyes and
strange demons replace the lovely picture of the
mother and child. It is also the Holy Child in the
mother's arms who smiled on Salimbene in the chapel.
The abbot Othloh of St. Emmeran 48 in Regensburg
was converted without long preliminary agony:
"As he was sitting one day before the gates of the
monastery," says the translator, "reading his favor-
ite author Lucan ... a blast of hot wind . . . smote
him three times," so "violently that he took his book
and retired within the guest-house. ' ' While he mused
upon this circumstance, the account says that "he
felt himself seized by the grasp of a monster . . . and
fell into the delirium of high fever." Othloh does
not connect this occurrence with his soul's welfare
until a week later, when, in the intervals of his malady,
a mysterious form comes to his bedside and belabors
him with a scourge. He needs a third warning, how-
THE DATA ANALYZED: III 291
ever, ere he can bring himself to abandon his Lucan
and complete his conversion. Jerome was similarly
accused in a dream of loving Cicero better than
Christ. 49
The conversion of Emanuel Swedenborg takes place
in his middle age at fifty-five years. It is accom-
panied by so many visions and voices that the exact mo-
ment is a little difficult to determine. The "Spiritual
Diary" notes miraculous lights, words heard in the
early morning, horrors, flames, and talks with spirits.
The mystic, John Tauler, one night in prayer hears
a voice by his bodily ears whereat his senses leave him.
When they return, he finds himself calm and peaceful,
with fresh understanding. 50 In the famous case of
Colonel James Gardiner, the subject saw "a visible
representation of Christ on a cross surrounded by a
glory while a voice cried, ' Oh, sinner, did I suffer for
thee?' ' He sunk down in his armchair, and re-
mained for a long time insensible. All that Ephraim
of Edessa 51 tells us in the metrical account of his
conversion is that he had been quarrelsome and cruel
to animals, but that a spirit came to him and his heart
was touched. No doubt the moment was accompanied
with a mystical manifestation, but we get no details;
the early date alone makes the document worth noting.
It is suggestive to contrast the account given by the
Indian prophetess, Catherine Wabose, during a con-
version prepared for by solitude and fasting. She
saw many points of light, which seemed to approach
and to prick her; she heard the god's voice and re-
ceived a prophecy concerning her future son.
The anchoress Juliana has left a series of chaotic
292 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
revelations, much like Hildegarde 's, which do not
mark an exact conversion. Of this she did not seem to
feel the need. They are mystical revelations from the
beginning, which is so gradual that no moment's crisis
or change is remarked. This is an especial character-
istic of mediaeval religious experience; though not
universal. The visions which turned Carlo da Sezze
was one of the Devil coming from hell. 'Jesus ap-
peared to Baptiste Varani, as a handsome youth with
curling hair and robed in white and gold, beseeching
her to take the vows. God's voice speaking to her
soul moved Antoinette Bourignon, when at eighteen
she wept and prayed for guidance. The account of
Joseph Smith, the Mormon, is as follows : "I kneeled
down and began to offer up the desire of my heart to
God. ... I had scarcely done so when immediately I
was seized upon by some power which utterly over-
came me, and had such an astonishing influence
over me as to blind my tongue so that I could not
speak. Thick darkness gathered round me. . . . But
exciting my powers to call upon God to deliver me ...
just at this moment of great alarm, I saw a pillar of
light exactly over my head, above the brightness of
the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon
me. ... I found myself delivered from the enemy
which held me bound. ' ' He then had a further vision
of two bright personages standing in the air, one of
which pointed to the other, saying: "This is my be-
loved Son, hear him ! " A conversion followed ; after
which Smith fell, unconscious. He adds: "When the
light had departed, I had no strength"; but he went
home exultant and satisfied. The effect of the vision
THE DATA ANALYZED: III 293
was not only to reassure his faith, but it testified to
the Lord's choice of him as Prophet. In his grand-
father's case, the light had been a "fiery point"; and
his aunt had been miraculously cured by a "bright"
vision of the Saviour. Smith's case is thus found to
be analogous to much more famous experiences.
Of Pascal's conversion we know only what was re-
corded upon the paper which he wore ever after about
his neck. He had been in bad health for some years.
One night, unable to sleep, he lay reading the Gospel
of 'John. He writes these words: "Between 10.30
in the evening and 12.30 FIRE." Then he adds:
"Certitude, peace and Joy !" and again, "Joy!"
and "Tears of Joy!" There is no accent more poig-
nant in all religious literature than this brief note
records. 52
To the nun Osanna Andreasi, an angel showed the
universe; while a voice within her heart uttered the
words : ' ' Life and Death consist in loving God. ' ' To
the Banter, Joseph Salmon, the voice said : ' ' Arise and
depart, for this is not your rest ! " He adds, quaintly :
"I was suddenly struck dead to all my wonted enjoy-
ments. . . . When my three dayes or set time was ex-
pired, I begann to feele some quickening comforte
within me ... the gravestone was rolled away and I
set at liberty from these deep and dark retires; out
I came with a most serene and cheerful countenance
into a most heavenly and divine enjoyment."
The words which conveyed a conviction of joy to
J. Hudson-Taylor were, "It is finished"; in which the
power of a suggestion is very plainly indicated. The
Reverend Gardiner Spring, after much wrestling,
294 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
found "the Word precious and refreshing." Uber-
tino da Casale beheld in his sleep an "alarming vision
of God, ' ' just before Angela of Foligno had shown him
the true way; and writes: "All my lukewarmness of
soul as well as my corporal infirmities disappeared."
The famous dream of Jerome has already received our
attention; we have noted that, when he is later ac-
cused by Rufinus of still reading, "my Tully," his
defence is that he cannot be bound by a promise given
in a dream! This conversion, therefore, is unusual
in its effect on the mind of the converted subject.
Rolle of Hampole beautifully describes his conversion
in the chapel where he sat at prayer. He heard strains
of music, and felt "a merry heat and unknown. . . .
Forsooth," he continues, "my thought continually to
mirth of song was changed. ' ' This lovely conjunction
of piety and music was also felt by Jonathan Edwards,
whose own tranquilly- joyful confidence in God's love
is very different from the terror he felt obliged to
preach to others. ' ' To soliloquize in a singing voice, ' '
was his impulse and delight, and this brought about
"a sweet complacency in God." One vision came
to him in the woods. "The person of Christ," he
writes, "appeared ineffably excellent"; and caused
him to weep for joy.
Startling dreams and visions beset Joanna South-
cott, who had one struggle with Satan lasting ten
days, during which she was beaten black and blue
ere she obtained peace. An illness due to meningitis
caused many devils to torment poor little Sister
Therese of the Holy Child ; but a vision of the Virgin
announced her recovery and conversion. A similar 53
THE DATA ANALYZED: III 295
vision, emerging from a black cross in the Church of
Aracoeli, brought about the very rapid conversion of
the young Jew, Alphonse de Eatisbonne. The nun,
Veronique Giuliani, seemed to think that she needed
no conversion; for Christ himself offered her the
chalice of the passion and crowned her with his crown
of thorns. Carre de Montgeron was one of those con-
verted at the tomb of the Archdeacon Paris. There
were so many of these, and so much disturbance re-
sulted, that the authorities were forced to close the
cemetery to the crowds. Carre remained there, kneel-
ing, for four hours. Maria d' Agreda was never con-
verted ; but she obtained relief from despair and temp-
tations by writing down her visions. A. C. Emmerich
also took the veil after a vision during which she, too,
was crowned with thorns.
Rulman Merswin before conversion suffered "the
pains of hell" for all of three years. "A great and
superhuman joy" followed for a brief space. With
Gertrude More, the struggle to renounce was long and
bitter, until, as she writes, she was "almost desper-
ate ' ' ; and it was made the harder for her by the un-
sympathetic and harsh treatment of her director.
Under another guidance, "more by quietness than
force," she found herself so calmed that she wondered.
The influence of the director in these Catholic cases
can hardly be overestimated, since the isolation and
sensitiveness of these cloistered persons renders it of
particular importance. We know the tragedy to which
it led in the story of the priest Urbain Grandier and
the nuns of Loudun ; and it is a marked factor in the
example of Jeanne de St. Mathieu Deleloe. Vowed to
296 HELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
the Blessed Virgin from her infancy, this girl of six-
teen entered joyously upon her convent-life. Her
happiness brings her a keen sense of God's love and
favor; she sees the Holy Mother blessing her with a
smile, and the mystery of the Trinity is revealed to her
in a vision. But the convent-superior and her director
both told her that she was presumptuous and tempted
by the Devil ; and at once the visions turned horrible,
painful, and perverse. Assailed by temptations both
carnal and blasphemous, she undergoes every emotion
of horror and agony; is converted, and reconverted,
amid relapses and diabolic visitations of a cruelly tor-
menting kind.
. The reader has already observed that in the me-
diaeval cases, the mystical and visionary manifesta-
tions are nearer to the normal life; and the conver-
sion-crisis itself is less easily denned. How should
Gertrude or Hildegarde or Mechtilde, come to re-
gard the sights and sounds, with which their ec-
stasies were rewarded, as indicating any especial crisis ?
Most of their companions were similarly favored. The
Holy Child himself gaily awoke the inmates of Mech-
tilde 's convent at dawn ; while seraphim waving lights
preceded them into the chapel. Such frequent mani-
festation brought no feeling of crucial significance;
and thus conversion in the meaning of new life there
was not all these emotions and their attendant phe-
nomena were but stages in the via mystica.
Not so the conversions of the group next to be con-
sidered. To them, this mystical moment possessed
every element of fear and of crisis, heightened by un-
expectedness and bizarrerie. The seventeenth and
THE DATA ANALYZED: III 297
eighteenth century pietists were many degrees away
from the mediaeval mystics ; upon the former already
an active, material world impressed its complete ob-
jectivity, so that for them voices and visions and devils
possessed additional horror beside the supernatural.
They voice this horror by their intensity. One hears
of Billy Bray shouting, "Come on, thou devil!" and
afterwards dancing and leaping in praise of his vic-
tory. Equally vehement was Jerry McAuley when he
seemed to feel a hand laid on his shoulder, and a voice
assuring him of forgiveness. The evangelist Jacob
Knapp felt himself actually to be sinking into hell
when Jesus descended to save him. The visual and
auditory manifestations of the Friends and Methodists
partake in character of the stern sense of sin, pre-
vailing among these groups. Thus, Margaret Lucas's
account states that the truth seized upon her in a
"lively" manner; after she had "cursed the Lord
and defied Heaven" by a Voice which rung in her
soul. Mildred Ratcliff was in meeting when she felt
a hand laid on her shoulder, while a voice said:
"Thou hast no business here." This marks the turn-
ing-point to a mind much exercised about the state
of irreligion in France! To young Stephen Grellet,
at twenty-two, "walking in the fields, my mind being
under no sort of religious concern nor excitement,
there came suddenly an awful voice proclaiming,
'Eternity, Eternity!'" The empty fields were the
scene of many a conflict. Here Anna Braithwaite ob-
served that "a flood of light seemed to shine on my
understanding, . . . my heart was humbled."
Samuel Neale combated with the Devil until his shirt
298 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
was wringing wet. Two ploughmen, 'James Naylor
and Myles Halhead, heard the voice, just as did Tol-
stoi's Levin, while at their work. The first says: "I
rejoyced and obeyed." The other speaks of "this
voice this heavenly voice did make my heart leap
with Joy ! ' ' Similarly, it is an intelligible voice, which
causes Mary Hagger to kneel down under "a contrit-
ing impression." Thomas Story, a man who notes
minutely every operation of mind and change of mood,
is plunged in darkness, when he hears a voice within
say, "Thy will be done," and immediately is calmed
and relieved. Much more explicit is the voice to Jane
Hoskins, for, during a sore fit of sickness, it says to
her: "If I restore thee, go to Pennsylvania." Later
on, after spending a penitential season with godly sor-
row, it directs her to be obedient and she is once again
eased. But when the voice bids her to speak in meet-
ing, she resists, and is overwhelmed with horror until
she yields.
A vision of a black man at the crisis, followed
by dreams of him, directly caused the conversion of
T. R. Gates. Dazzling lights add their warning.
David Brainerd describes the warning influence as
"a glory unspeakable!" On the contrary, Luther
Rice feels as if descending into hell, and is quieted
only by signing his name to a blank sheet of paper for
God to fill up with his destiny. David Marks and
Elias Smith were both stunned by bad falls in the
woods, and immediately were possessed by the fear of
hell. In both cases this is succeeded by a beautiful
serenity; the latter felt it to so great an extent that
he sang aloud. We have already mentioned the
THE DATA ANALYZED: III 299
visionary terrors which beset James H. Linsley just
before conversion, in which infernal spirits and devil-
tigers take part. The conversion itself was brought
about by his cry, "Lord, I believe " at which, in the
twinkling of an eye, he is perfectly calm and joyful.
The visions in many Methodist cases are fantastic.
That of John Haime names a "creature'' flying over
his head. Another, Thomas Payne, sees two beasts;
one a large bear-like animal ; when he called it Satan,
and bade it go, it disappeared. The light which Mary
Fletcher beholds, she describes rather as steady than
dazzling; a voice whispers: "Thou shalt walk with
me in white." John Furz feels a freezing cold run
through his every vein, while he is kneeling in the
garden overwhelmed with agonies of terror. It is a
still, small voice which assures him of pardon, and im-
mediately darkness turns to light and he obtains per-
manent relief.
The crucial suggestion may take various shapes.
Although Richard Whatcoat was overwhelmed with
darkness and could take no rest by day or night, yet
one day, while reading, he fixes his attention on a
certain verse, and the cloud rolls away. He then gets
sleep, which he much needed. Upon B. Hibbard,
Jesus appeared to look down compassionately, and he
cried out: "Glory! Glory!" Light shone suddenly
at midnight on Jacob Young, and he says: "I arose
from the floor praising God." To Thomas Taylor,
Christ appeared as if on the cross, with his vesture
dipped in blood. Thomas Hanson writes that during
prayer, "my heart, with a kind sweet struggle melted
into the hand of God." It is in meeting that Thomas
300 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
"Walsh was " pierced as with darts and arrows"; and
there he is finally delivered and breaks out into tears
of joy and love. John Prickard feels heaven in his
heart; while Peter Jaco, during a solitary walk, was
impressed with the suggestion that Jesus died for the
vilest sinner, and at once his soul was filled with light
and love.
The burden of Thomas Olivers falls from him upon
the shining of a star. Thomas Lee says that "God
broke in on my' soul in a wonderful manner. ' ' Mat-
thias Joyce has ever more horrors than peace ; yet once
during prayer he thinks that he is sanctified. While
poor John Gratton was alone on the moor pulling
heath, he felt something "swift and precious and
knows it is the spirit." Thereupon, he has a vision
of a people, "poor and despised, the Lord's own";
and at once joins the Quakers. "William Williams was
converted in meeting; and writes that it was indeed
* * an awfully solemn time. ' '
An assurance of pardon is often the only suggestion
that is needed to bring harmony once more to what
Hamlet calls "this distracted globe"; but it is not
always so. Fear is sometimes more powerful than for-
giveness ; and suggestion takes the form of a command.
To Richard Rodda, it was declared, ' ' Thy sins are for-
given thee." But the voice which comforted John
Pawson was not so encouraging to Freeborn Garret-
son it was an awful voice and cried : "Awake, sinner,
for you are not prepared to die ! ' ' Such a voice also
bids William Jackson give up everything but Christ.
Matthew Arnold has made the vision of Sampson
Staniforth the property of all literature. He is on
THE DATA ANALYZED: III 301
sentry-duty, when he kneels and prays, clouds open
exceedingly bright, and he sees Christ upon the Cross.
Lorenzo Dow avows that his manifestations have come
to him in dreams; though these are dreams of hell,
and so hideous that they caused him to cry out : ' ' Lord,
I give up, I submit, I yield ! " So also Richard Wil-
liams, a surgeon, during a sudden delirium, suddenly
screams : ' ' Lord, I come ! ' ' and is immediately calmed.
On the other hand, David Nitschman has only to say
to himself: "I will suppose there be a God," whence
he is immediately filled with a strange sweetness.
Henry Ward Beecher's peace comes to his soul "like
the bursting-forth of Spring." The Divine voice in
"emphatic" accents moves Granville Moody. A con-
version following the Holy Sacrament, is the experi-
ence of the modern nun, Mary of the Divine Heart,
who, however, carefully specifies that the voice nam-
ing her "Spouse" was wholly "interior."
The uniformity of effect in these cases will not have
escaped the reader. Confirmation of their evidence is
to be found in those lives and legends whose non-auto-
biographical character does not bring them, strictly
speaking, within the scope of this book. Among these
is that of Catherine of Genoa's conversion, as told in
her "Vita" on familiar lines. 54 After intense dis-
tress for months, she told her sister that she felt dis-
inclined to confession ; but yielded to the other's advice
and knelt before the priest. While in this position,
she was penetrated by a feeling of all-purifying love,
and in a transport, cried out to herself: "No more
sins no more sins!" Her health throughout all her
life was subject to strange fluctuations; she felt con-
302 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
stantly as though she were burning up, and absorbed
her food so rapidly that she could not get sufficient
sustenance therefrom.
Long ere this, the reader will have commented upon
a seeming omission; and in truth we must delay no
further to examine what is probably the most impor-
tant of all conversions the conversion of Paul. 55
His experience, in the three accounts which remain
to us, offers an apparent contradiction to the law which
psychology has formulated for the government of such
cases. For this reason, if for no other, Paul's case is
the mainstay of those writers and preachers who hold
that conversion is, in itself, proof of the existence of
the supernatural. They point also in support of this
belief to one or two other cases to Augustin, for
instance; but they rely on none with so much confi-
dence as on that of Paul. Here is a case, they repeat,
for which reason cannot account, nor can comparison
explain. The subject is a young man of practical
energy, neither humble nor illiterate, familiar with
Greek philosophy, and already bestirring himself in
the world of affairs. Moreover, his mind is filled with
antagonism to Christianity ; he is on his way from per-
secuting the Christians in one place to persecute
them in another. His conversion occurs at midday;
with no premonitory doubts or darkness. He is smit-
ten without warning to the earth ; God 's voice in ac-
cusing question thunders in his ears ; he rises a Chris-
tian, perhaps the greatest of Christians.
Now, the isolation of any fact in his experience from
comparison with other facts, is enough at once for
the subject to infer a miracle. To the savage, the first
THE DATA ANALYZED: III 303
white man he sees is a god ; the first gun he hears fired
is due to supernatural force. He has only to behold
other white men, to hear other guns, and what was
miraculous becomes without delay both natural and
hostile. The system of scrupulous isolation has been
applied for centuries to all events and persons men-
tioned in the Bible ; and nowhere to more purpose than
in the example of Paul. As an influence, it extends to
modern times, to higher criticism, and to rationalistic
interpretation. Thus, even Renan 56 is to be found at-
tributing Paul's vision and the blinding light, to a
thunderstorm and a simultaneous attack of ophthal-
mia. Any superficial comparison of Paul's conversion
with other conversions, makes a thunderstorm hypoth-
esis wholly superfluous. The vision of Jesus, the voice,
the dazzling light, are characteristic of this type of con-
version, indoors or out, storm or calm. Yet the great
French critic is surely right when he insists that in the
history of an epoch where only an ensemble can be
certain, 57 where details must be more or less doubtful
following the legendary nature of the documents,
then hypothesis becomes indispensable. In this par-
ticular instance, there is extant a sufficient body of ma-
terial on which needful hypothesis may be based.
Paul was an essentially personal religious leader.
From his speeches repeated in Acts, 58 from his letters,
we obtain personal matter of incontestable authenticity.
Omitting any references to the disputed Epistles, 59
there yet remains ample material for a picture of this
man. Tradition describes Paul as slight and insignifi-
cant in appearance. 60 His constitution, though evi-
dently wiry, was yet not healthy. On this fact he
304 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
dwells repeatedly, even alluding to chronic infirmity. 61
No doubt the reader will have suggested to him the
physique and the endurance of "Wesley; yet it must
not be forgotten that "Wesley's from the first was a
nature distinctly non-mystical. Paul very positively
assures us, on the contrary, that he was subject to
visionary and mystical experiences. 62
These facts show that there was nothing in Paul's
character or constitution to remove him beyond the
pale of comparison with other cases. That he was
a zealous persecutor of Christians does not indicate
any condition of mind unique in the history of conver-
sion. 63 Alphonse de Batisbonne, if not a persecutor
of Catholics, was at least violently anti-Catholic at the
moment when he was converted: Paul Lowengard
was violently pro-Jewish at the moment he was turned
from Judaism: Uriel d'Acosta experienced successive
conversions always in a state of extreme antagonism
to the faith he was about to adopt: and James Lack-
ington, Richard "Williams, and others, display similar
attitudes. The essential condition is, not that a man
shall be favorably inclined toward any form of reli-
gion, but simply that the subject of religion, in se, shall
be uppermost in his mind, that his thoughts and actions
shall be chiefly occupied with it. And this essential
condition we see Paul eminently fulfils. It is the mass
of emotion generated in a man which converts him,
rather than the special form which that emotion causes
his ideas to assume; since action and reaction follow
one another in human thoughts as inevitably as they
do in human affairs.
Paul, by his own account, was ripe for a reaction. 64
THE DATA ANALYZED: III 305
His letters indicate that he was a man of warm heart
and tender sympathies; and it is impossible that the
misery caused by his own bigotry should not at mo-
ments have weighed upon him. If he does not dis-
tinctly say so, it is perhaps because, like many another
convert and confessant, he allows his pre-converted
state to loom very black, that his converted state may
shine by comparison. 65
But it is by no means certain that he does not in-
directly say so; that he is so sure of himself as his
commentators would have us believe. They have made
very much of Paul 's confidence ; his certainty that he
was right in his persecution of the Christians. This
is their entire foundation for the assumption that his
conversion was sui generis, because there was no pre-
vious state of doubt, no darkness to be dispelled, no
melancholy to be lifted. None of your predisposing
causes existed in this case, they argue; only the hand
of God could smite the scoffer, in his mid-career, as
Paul was smitten.
Well, there is probably no need to repeat that the
character of Paul, as it is revealed to us in his letters,
is that of a zealot, a fanatic, if one will, but one with
a warm and tender heart. The evidence of character,
therefore, is strong for a reaction, ere yet he started
on his memorable journey to Damascus. Moreover,
what are we to understand by that phrase which the
voice uttered immediately after the accusing ques-
tion ? ' ' It is hard for thee, ' ' so the text runs, * ' to kick
against the pricks. ' ' 66
Renan 67 explains the phrase as meaning Paul's un-
willingness; he is an ox forced forward, willy-nilly,
306 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
by his Master's goad. Students have found that the
words ''to kick against the goad," came from a
proverb then in common use. But in this connection
they surely have also a metaphorical significance;
what can they mean if not the "goad" of conscience?
"It is hard for thee to kick against thy conscience
thy struggle is over " says the voice, just as it said,
"Surrender!" to Joseph Hoag; or, "Thy will be
done ! " to Thomas Story, or to another, ' ' I have given
thee the victory." In more general terms, the strain-
ing doubt of self, which filled Paul's mind when he
set forth upon a task which moved him with increas-
ing distaste and horror, suddenly resolved into a defi-
nite shape, with the appeal and the suggestion of a
turn to Christianity. The first suggestion puts him
definitely in the wrong by a question he cannot answer,
for he knew not why he persecuted Jesus. The second
suggestion sweeps away forever all obstructions to the
new current of energy, to the new faith, by showing
him that he cannot resist, that he must go forward
upon a new path, spurred by that force within of
which he knows not, the power of his own character, of
his own genius. As for the other phenomena of this
conversion; comparison, as we have seen, does away
with the need of any naturalistic explanation, such as
Kenan's, of the ophthalmia and the thunderstorm. 68
Similar cases are to be found in our list where the
subject was not in an Arabian desert at noon. Paul 's
after experiences, the healing visit of Ananias, all
link him to that group to whom the vision and the
voice bring conversion, but a complete peace and as-
surance do not come till a few days later.
THE DATA ANALYZED: III 307
The subsequent progress of Paul's religious feeling,
the development of his character, follow the leading
of his energetic will. He is one of those in whom the
newly generated force becomes at once objective. His
organizing genius seeks a suitable outlet ; and like Au-
gustin, like Wesley, his personal problem once settled,
it does not rise again, and he turns his mind to other
things. Thus, one reads little further about his per-
sonal experiences ; his letters draw upon the past only
during his concern to make his belief prevail. 69 It is
interesting to find that from repetition his account of
the heavenly voice and its command grows elaborate
and detailed. He believes that it commands him to
do this and that; and, as he tells Agrippa, he was
"not disobedient unto the heavenly vision." Very
shortly after his conversion, indeed, Paul ceased to
tread any longer upon the "mystical way"; and that
he began to concern himself more with the welfare of
the souls of others than with his own soul, is a fact
to which we owe the establishment of Christianity.
Comparative study thus destroys the theory that
Paul's experience was unique. He is linked by it to
many an ardent and devout soul. Analysis of his nar-
rative disposes also of the idea that the vision operated
upon a sceptical mind. "La condition du miracle,"
says Renan, "c'est la credulite du temoin." 70 True
it is in every sense that no miracle is possible with-
out faith; and the case of Paul is no exception. His
mind may not have been prepared, yet his emo-
tions were. He may not himself have been conscious
how much the fortitude of Christian victims had af-
fected him toward their leader ; yet he was so affected.
308 BELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
Full of doubt, of wonder, of dismay, of self-loathing,
these conflicting sensations pricked his soul until he
could resist no longer; the voice spoke; he listened
and obeyed.
Paul's value as a character is not lessened when
he is found to be one of a group. As a human being
he is subject to human law; and nothing can be gained
by trying to place his case beyond that law. To a
broad mind, the beauty of human achievement is not
clouded when it is found to be the result of order and
of nature. Paul's work stands out as great, and as
loyal a work, as though it were just what he believed it
to be. If one of a group, then they are, indeed, a
steadfast and a splendid band who lead humanity,
having him at their head.
The present writer's view of the meaning of the
words, "It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks,"
is not without support from Pauline scholars. Ren-
dall 71 says of the phrase : * ' This throws an interesting
light on the state of Saul's mind before conversion: it
seems he was already stifling conscientious doubts and
scruples." The same explanation is furnished by
Sadler, 72 and by Campbell, 73 who adds: "Conscience
was at work ... he was kicking against conviction. ' '
Pfleiderer 74 declares plainly that the goad was the
painful doubt which Paul felt as to this persecution of
the Christians. In "St. Paul," 75 by the Reverend J.
R. Cohn, the writer thinks that a purely psychological
explanation of Paul's change will ever remain unsatis-
factory, but that the "goad" 76 doubtless referred to
the influence of God upon Paul's pre-converted mind,
the urging him forward, as it were, against his will.
THE DATA ANALYZED: III 309
On the other hand, Meyer 77 says, very positively:
"The conversion of Saul does not appear, on an ac-
curate consideration of the three narratives," which
agree in their main points, to have had "the way
psychologically prepared for it by scruples of con-
science as to his persecuting proceedings"; and this
startling assertion is capped by the additional re-
mark that in view of Paul's entirely pure character
such scruples are extremely improbable !
Doubt of one's own conduct would not seem to our
ethical ideas, to interfere with essential purity of mo-
tive; but this view of Meyer's is shared by Wrede, 78
and substantially by Dr. Lumby, 79 the editor of the
Cambridge Bible. The latter will not allow the
"pricks" to have been those of conscience. Both
Cloag 80 and Conybeare and Howson, 81 interpret the
"goad" expression as in the nature of a threat or
warning, * t Take care, Paul ! lest worse befall thee ' '
and so forth.
Neither McGiffert 82 nor Sabatier 83 in treating of
Paul's experience, make any especial reference to the
phrase in question. Neither does Harnack, 84 although
he adds the powerful weight of his assurance to the
trustworthiness and authenticity of the entire narra-
tive. He says 85 that Paul was really blind, but gave
the incident a religious significance. Harnack omits
any account of the conversion proper, which is treated
fully by McGiffert and by Sabatier. The former re-
marks that Paul saw his own conversion as a sudden,
abrupt, and unheralded event; which state, adds Dr.
McGiffert, 86 is psychologically inconceivable. That
this commentator should ignore the very words
310 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
which furnish the key-note to the riddle, is perhaps
less surprising when we find him observing "that
Paul gives no detailed account of his conversion ! ' '
In very truth, the tendency of the human intellect
to look for the complex, the tortuous, and the artificial
explanation, in place of the simple and natural expla-
nation, of human words or experiences, is nowhere so
marked as in Biblical exegesis. It is to be found on
all sides, among the orthodox and the heterodox, the
emotionalist and the rationalist. McGiffert can say
in face of Acts ix, xxi, xxvi, that Paul gave no
detailed account of his conversion; Cloag can say
that the vision near Damascus was "a strong proof
of the divinity of Christianity"; from the oppo-
site viewpoint, Renan offers us an extraordinarily
apt conjunction of ophthalmia, with a thunder-
storm ; Binet-Sangle formulates for Paul an elaborate
diagnosis of epilepsy, and Sabatier actually doubts
whether Paul ever took the vision itself other than
symbolically! With the theories of the medical-
materialist in general we have to do more fully else-
where, in their extreme form they jump at con-
clusions even more wildly than do the early Fathers,
'but an attitude of mind, such as is shown by Saba-
tier, simply causes in the reader a paralysis of won-
der. That any one could so misread the character of
Paul essentially direct, forceful, energetic, and ob-
jective is even more remarkable than the deliberate
ignoring of his plain, reiterated statement: "Have
I not seen Jesus Christ, our Lord?" 87 This is the
same influence which we have seen at work upon Au-
gustin, declaring that he did not do what he expressly
THE DATA ANALYZED: III 311'
states he did. To take as symbolism Paul's simple
convincing narrative of what he saw and felt and did,
is to accomplish a feat of mental gymnastics even
greater than would be required to believe that Bacon
wrote Shakspere: it is to make riddles where none
exist. There is to Sabatier an " obscure enigma'* in
the whole of Paul's experience, caused by the slight
variations in the three accounts; but what in truth
is more natural, more simple, more human and con-
vincing, than just such variations ? 88 Far more
suspicious would it seem were these three accounts
found to be, word for word, identical, when we know
Paul described his experiences more than once, and to
more than one audience. What is more natural than
his introduction into it, as an explanation, of the
ancient Hebrew proverb of the ox and the goad, to
describe his own bitter attempt to escape the perpetual
challenge of his conscience?
It is natural that the more striking mystical phe-
nomena of the religious life should be recorded with
more detail than is given to the non-mystical. For a
certain number of persons the readjustment is grad-
ual, the clouds slowly disperse. There is another
group among whom the actual moment of their con-
version is hardly to be distinguished from among a
series of similar slight crises no one especially
marked or noteworthy. There are men like Wesley,
to whom the process is fulfilled in a space of calm;
men like Calvin, who obtain peace gradually, but after
a conflict "non sine gemitu ac lacrymis." The thun-
ders of many a sermon have served to precipitate
312 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
the crucial instant for the attentive hearer. The
stillness of meeting has brought it upon as many
others. The glories of sunset, the pure emptiness of
dawn, the rage of a storm at sea, has each in turn been
the scene of a crisis. Books, and not always great
books, have had their effect. A pamphlet in a work-
ingman's cottage called "The Plain Man's Pathway to
Heaven" eased the torment of poor John Bunyan.
A little volume called "The Flowers of the Saints"
turned the thoughts of the wounded Loyola from
knightly deeds to heaven. The influence of Law's
"Serious Call" upon eighteenth century England, is
incalculable; it stands behind the whole Evangelical
movement, and many an one beside Thomas Scott
found it "a very uncomfortable book." An emo-
tional and creative imagination, on the other hand,
may be so possessed by the spectacle of life itself as
to find men's problems much more poignant than
men's creations. Upon reading Tolstoi's "Confes-
sions," no one can fail to be struck with the fact
that books meant comparatively little to him. Simi-
larly, in the world of religious thoughts, tremendous as
was the effect of Augustin and of a Kempis, of Law
and of Bunyan, yet we find religious movements and
religious bodies unaffected as a whole by any reading.
Out of the journals of fifty-three members of the
Society of Friends, not five owed their conversion, or
backsliding, or change of thought, to the direct in-
fluence of any book whatever. It was rather the
voice of Fox or of Whitefield, or the personal exhorta-
tion of those "ancient servants of Christ," John Aud-
land, Stephen Crisp, or John Woolman. Although in
THE DATA ANALYZED: III 313
the religious struggle it is often a book which first
turns the confessant to the way of peace, yet we look
in vain among the Quaker records for any such ac-
knowledgment. The phrases they use are wholly
other; solitude tells upon this one, a friend's sudden
illness or sudden death on that ; 89 in the pregnant
stillness of meeting, God's voice is heard to speak;
discussion and prayer with devout companions fol-
low; then, perhaps by means of a "lively preacher,"
the heart is "broken and tendered" and the impres-
sion completed. The circumstance is more noteworthy
in regard to Friends than it is with the other bodies
of which it is also characteristic, since they are the
nearer to our day, and to the day of print. More-
over, they do not lack literature, they have their
apologists; but Barclay's "Apology" seems to have
been read after the turning-point oftener than before
it was reached. The conversion itself is almost never
accompanied by the reading of any religious volume
save the Bible, and, curiously enough, the latter seems
rather to perplex than to calm the travailing spirit
until the full conversion is accomplished. Some per-
sons acknowledge frankly that they cannot tell just
when they were converted ; they know only that they
have been. And this brings us at once to the point
of questioning their belief.
The subject of reaction and relapse, of the dura-
tion of the emotional process and its final termi-
nation, has received little attention at the hands
of the student. Whatfollows a/^gr__eonversion_l.
We know what should follow if the result is all
that the subject expects if it be a veritable crisisc
314 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
Peace, permanent and helpful, new activities, the
world wearing a new face, the life of the spirit
vigorous and benign, these are what one should look
for. Perhaps the ideal result is well expressed by
Luther, who writes of his religious feeling very
simply, but very deeply. "I," he says, "out of my
own experience am able to witness that Jesus Christ
is the true God. I know full well what the name of
Jesus has done for me. I have often been so near
death that I thought verily now must I die because
I taught His word . . . but always He mercifully put
life into me and refreshed and comforted me. ' ' 90
These words are all that the convert could ask for;
and yet how few can, after their "turning-about,"
truly repeat them ! If this conversion means all that
the suffering subject expects from it, if the misery,
the torment, the hellish sights and sounds, the dread,
the sleeplessness, the wasting-away, are but his pay-
ment for peace or security, then the record should
read of durable benefit and health.
The advocates of mysticism make much out of the
tokens of ecstasy and joy belonging to that state ; and
never tire of quoting the raptures of the saint. If we
would be fair, we must not ignore them. The real
beauty of Jonathan Edwards 's exaltation; Suso's
"flame of fire which made his heart all burning with
intense love"; the "inexpressible ravishment of
Henry Alline"; the "merry heat and unknown" of
Bolle, and his prayer turning into music ; Salimbene 's
and David Nitschman's sense of great sweetness all
these feelings are very real, and in true contrast with
the pre-converted state of gloom and sin. 91
THE DATA ANALYZED: III 315
Another type of joy is furnished by such cases of
misinterpreted observation as Robert Blair's "joy
that was unspeakable and glorious" after partaking
of the milk-posset. Nor is modern science willing to
accept as due to spiritual causes that outbreak of
sexual feeling among the cloistered women of the
Middle Ages, which led so often to their speaking of
their Lord in the most extraordinary terms. Christ's
"familiar interviews" with Marie de 1'Incarnation,
his "incredible intimacy" with Gertrude of Eisleben;
his various "espousals" with Teresa, Mary of the
Angels, Maria d'Agreda, Angela da Foligno, Mary
of the Divine Heart, Antoinette Bourignon are not
nowadays to be attributed to mere symbolistic ex-
travagances of phrase. In the cases of A. C. Em-
merich, "qui osa lutter avec Dieu," writes her nai'f
director, * ' dans un langage dont la sainte et amoureuse
folie aurait pu blesser les oreilles profanes"; or Bap-
tista Vernazza, who longed "to devour God"; or
Antoinette Bourignon, who felt that her soul had be-
come entirely a part of the Divine; the sexual idea
has assumed a character of such excessive egotism as
to become wholly unbalanced. Knowing what we
know, can a mystical advocate confidently uphold to-
day, as advisable or praiseworthy, such raptures as
these ?
But of course it is never the mystic who doubts
his own extreme favor with the higher powers ; 92 and
it is not for the converted to doubt the fact of the
conversion. Yet Augustin himself wrote "that the
love of God is acquired by knowledge of the senses,
and by the exercise of reason. ' ' Jonathan Edwards, 93
316 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
with all his credulity, expressed the same doubt.
" There have, indeed," he writes, "been some few
instances of impressions on persons' imaginations that
have been something mysterious to me ... for,
though it has been exceeding evident . . . that they
had indeed a great sense of the spiritual excellency
of divine things, yet I have not been able to satisfy
myself whether these imaginary ideas have been more
than could naturally arise from their spiritual sense
of things. "
Certain cases record this phase of feeling. James
Fraser of Brae observes that he was constantly ex-
pecting more extraordinary effects and influences from
his conversion than actually happened to him. James
Lackington comments on his several conversions in the
words: "Nothing is more common than to see man-
kind run from one extreme to the other, which was
my case." The saintly John Livingstone does not
remember that he had any especial moment of con-
version, "or that I was much cast down or lift up."
It is interesting that his worst attack of terror at the
wrath of God should be in his sleep, and that, though
it seemed unbearable, he did not awaken: "I sleeped
'til the morning." The soul of Thomas Mitchell, he
writes, was "simply set at liberty." Thomas Ruther-
ford says that the divine power which moved him had
about it "nothing terrible or alarming . . . but . . .
at once solemnized, composed and elevated the fac-
ulties of my soul." There are a number of persons
among the Friends, who, after a struggle, simply
observe that they became "settled in the power of the
Lord." 94 Unquestionably, Martin Luther was also
THE DATA ANALYZED: III 317
thus ''settled"; he laid claim to no revelations, but
once certain of his path, pursued it, putting the
whole weight of his robust and powerful personality
against existing abuse. He is careful to the very
end to say that he was "not an heretic but a schis-
matic." 'John Wesley cannot note any actual mo-
ment of victory. "His heart is warmed" during a
certain prayer-meeting, and the crisis seems over. It
took David Marks eighteen months to be sure of con-
version; Bishop Ashbel Green is doubtful whether
his own sanctification was ever complete. E. N. Kirk
remarks that the phenomena attending his crisis in-
cluded a light which, he thinks, superstition would
have made more of than he does. John Angell James
had "no pungent conviction ... no great and rapid
transitions of feeling." The "saving change" which
overtook Samuel Hopkins he was long in recognizing
as conversion ; yet finally concludes it must have been.
B. Hibbard doubts if the experience through which
he passed really was conversion ; and so does William
Capers. It was during an illness that Christian
David became convinced his sins were forgiven, but
he does not know any more than just the fact. In
the same manner Count Schouvaloff changes his faith ;
and Samuel Neale, a Quaker, believes firmly in a
gradual process of conversion.
These instances are sufficient to show that in many
cases the security attained by conversion is but a
relative term. Spiritual, like worldly, crises may
diffuse themselves over a long period of time, so that
only upon looking back can one estimate the distance
he has travelled.
318 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
From the confessants' own accounts many of the
reactions following conversion are as violent as
though no conversion had ever taken place. To re-
peat here the names of all who fall back into despair,
after they believe their peace and pardon have been
won, would be to reprint practically the entire case-
list so universal is the experience. Jacob Knapp,
the Baptist preacher, insisted for this reason on fre-
quent re-conversion. Full examination into this ques-
tion of relapse tends to throw a new light upon the
whole subjectT
In the first place, it will be noticed that among
most of the earlier mystics, conversion is rather the
starting-point of their agony than its culmination.
"With Teresa, Suso, Kulman Merswin, Angela da
Foligno, Jeanne de St. Mathieu Deleloe, Mesdames
Guyon and Chantal, Mary of the Divine Heart, An-
toinette Bourignon, Ubertino da Casale, Jerome
the progress is steady, after their conversion, toward
periods of darkness, horror, and despair. Some of
these examples (or at least so many of them as are
cloistered, or recluse) seem in their proper persons
to bear out that penetrating observation of Luther
that "The human heart is like a mill-stone in a mill,
when you put wheat under it, it turns and grinds
and bruises the wheat to flour; if you put no wheat,
it still grinds on, but then 'tis itself it grinds and
wears away ! " 95
It is after she received the "coup de la Grace"
that the young abbess Angelique Arnauld was plunged
into terror. ' ' How many woes, ' ' cries Bishop Anselm
THE DATA ANALYZED: III 319
in his "Oratio Meditativo," "and woes on the heel of
woes ! . . . Shudder, oh, my soul, and faint, my mind,
and break, my heart! Whither dost thou thrust me,
oh, my sin, whither dost thou drive me, oh, my God?"
J. J. Olier, during the latter part of his life, had a
dark period of shame and depression, quite as though
conversion were not. John Newton passed from "an
awfully mad career" into exaggerated asceticism, not
once but many times. Carlo da Sezze, long after
his saintly convictions had received assurance from
on high, had violent reactions. One attack of mel-
ancholy and doubt lasted for months. Many such
dark times fell upon Marie de 1'Incarnation. Bap-
tiste Varani had demoniac temptations producing
black horrors of despair for as long as two years on a
stretch; and Jeanne de St. M. Deleloe for more than
a year. Abbot Othloh has many relapses. On the
other hand, M. M. Alacoque, like A. C. Emmerich,
has no reactions, no doubts; her assurance is so com-
plete that it gives the effect of complacency, and, in-
deed, her attitude toward her Lord is that of chief
sultana.
Later instances of reaction are as striking. James
Fraser of Brae has one very black relapse, during
which he almost doubts God's existence. Thomas
Haliburton's revulsion of feeling brings him very
low. The clouds which hang over the spirits of Fox
and Bunyan are thick, indeed, and last longer than
do the bursts of sunshine. Joseph Hoag observes
that he was all his life subject to frightful reaction
and depression. James Lackington's and Lomenie de
Brienne's relapses followed regularly upon their con-
320 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
versions. Thomas Boston has as many relapses as
moments of peace. M. A. Schimmelpenninck, in a
violent relapse, shrank from all religious thoughts
and ideas, both with distaste and from exhaustion.
'Job Scott underwent many "discouragements and
heavy exercises." E. Stirredge remained a deeply
sorrowful woman, who never seems to have felt any
happiness from her conversion. J. Blanco White is
another person whose peace is but brief, whose de-
jection is constant; so also is Isaac Williams, the
friend of Newman and Keble. John Haime and John
Nelson backslide into frightful, maniacal periods of
gloom and horror. In fact, nearly all of the early
Methodist cases have reactions of peculiar violence.
Therese of the Holy Child, although even her di-
rector termed her sinless, experienced dreadful aridity
and gloom after taking the veil, until her early death.
Charles Marshall experienced violent reactions and
struggles with the enemy. Peter Favre notes heavy
relapses and was much afflicted, until "divers pious
motions" revived him. John Trevor, like Uriel
d'Acosta, constantly turns hither and yon, eager to
obtain the peace which his conversion did not bring.
Jerry McAuley experienced several conversions with
relapses between. David Nitschman's recurrences of
doubt were cured only by his delivering himself
"formally," as he put it, into God's hands, whence
he knew peace. Much the same experience befell
Samuel Neale. Dame Gertrude More's relapse was
far harder for her to bear than her pre-converted
ignorance had been, and Hildegarde of Bingen writes
poignantly of the shadows in her saintly life. Uber-
THE DATA ANALYZED: III 321
tino da Casale (who identified himself so closely
with the Holy Family, that he writes he dined with
them every Wednesday, and spent the night!) yet
backslides dreadfully during a visit to Paris, and
is only recalled to Grace by the influence of Angela
da Foligno. Joseph Salmon, the Ranter, thinks that
the Lord purposely sent Satan to assault and test him
after his conversion-vision of heaven. Hudson-Tay-
lor experienced painful deadness of soul, after
obtaining his first assurance of salvation. Black
reactions troubled Gardiner Spring; while George
Brysson was often worried by the enemy. A greater
man than all, Jerome, describes his desert sufferings
as a series of perpetual relapses into sin, and re-
conquerings of grace. To John Croker (Friend) re-
action came like "a cloud of thick darkness"; and
Joseph Pike was "plunged in inexpressible sorrow
by the Lord's withdrawal" after his first conversion.
Joseph Smith's reaction took the form of drunken-
ness and other vices ; which did not prevent his having
a second dazzling white vision of a personage, ' ' whose
visage," he writes, "was truly like lightning"; and
from whom he received the revelation of the Sacred
Books, the breast-plate, etc. His vices of sensuality,
his coarseness, and his egotism, follow him to the end
of his life ; yet never shook the faith of his followers.
Another form in the development of this emotion
after conversion is shown by that group who became
"covenanters with God." Their reaction-periods are
dissolved by this practice, by which the needed sug-
gestion may be repeated as often as necessary.
Thomas Boston makes his first "solemn covenant" un-
322 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
der a tree in the orchard, but on his ordination he
draws up a regular instrument in which he terms
himself "an heir of hell and wrath, " to which he
signs his name. Similarly, Thomas Haliburton makes
a covenant at eighteen, which tranquillizes him for the
time; he repeats it after a period of scientific doubt
and wretchedness; but the peace which it procures
him is not final. Luther Rice underwent a falling-
back so intense that he felt as if he were descending
into hell. This frightened him with the fear of
losing his mind, so he signed his name to a blank
sheet of paper, that God might fill it up with his
destiny. The submission of this act brought happi-
ness and peace. An attack of smallpox caused Samuel
Neale to enter into a covenant of this kind, and, that
he broke it, caused him great agony of mind a few
years later. A chance sermon impressed Joanna
Turner with the idea that Christ had died for her
and was her Saviour; so she made a covenant with
him, and signed it. Though this idea quieted her,
it was only for a time. William Wilson during his
conflict makes several different covenants with God.
A covenant with God, which is frequently renewed,
is the means taken by Dr. Theophilus Lobb, to preserve
himself from the assaults of some "horrid and
violent temptations, " the nature of which, however,
he does not tell us. Joseph Lathrop, on ordination,
solemnly covenants with and dedicates himself to
God. Sometimes these instruments are in the nature
of regular contracts, in which Christ is the party of
the second part. We find this in the case of George
Bewly, who, after an illness during which the tempter
THE DATA ANALYZED: III 323
fearfully attacked him, "covenanted with God for a
return of health, ' ' and was tranquillized by this idea.
This last name is that of a Friend the only one in
this group, for the more subjective character of the
Quaker religious tenets made these objective methods
distasteful to them on the whole. They frequently
dedicate their lives and thoughts to Heaven, but they
do not usually sign covenants any more than they
would take oaths. It is scarcely fair to include
among these examples of ' ' covenanters with God ' ' that
of John B. Gough, whose act of signing the total
abstinence pledge caused him to break off the habit
of drink, but his is an interesting case. The effect of
a contract on these minds is steady and helpful. In
Gough 's case, it aided him to break the evil habit;
and, despite relapses, had the beneficial result of show-
ing him that it could be broken; in the other cases it
seems to clarify their relations with the Deity and to
make their new life more definite. Neither the cove-
nant nor its formal delivery has ever prevented the
reaction.
In the light of these after conditions, undoubtedly
the significance of conversion becomes minimized.
Its exterior effect cannot be denied: a man turns
Christian and becomes Bishop of Hippo ; 96 or be-
comes a Friend 97 and preaches Quakerism; or from
a quiet Church of England vicar, 98 sets forth as a
travelling evangelist. But the progress of the emo-
tion in his soul is not greatly different in respect
of ebb and flow, of action and reaction. Growing
older, the subject's feeling upon all matters must be-
come less keen; his life will run in a more regular
324 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
groove. Yet neither the elderly nor the secure, nor the
successful person, can always look forward to tranquil-
lity of religious feeling, without oscillation. There
are cases in which Satan appears to triumph at the
very deathbed of the converted. J. H. Linsley un-
derwent thick spiritual darkness at his life's end.
The Devil sorely tempted John Prickard at the last.
Upon J. J. Olier falls such a period of gloom and
misery, as also on the saintly nuns Marie de 1'Incar-
nation and Baptiste Yarani. During her last illness
Catherine of Siena is seized by the Devil ; and writes :
"I circled around the chapel like a person in spasms."
Margaret Lucas and C. Marshall, both Friends, are
deeply wretched and anxious just before death.
On the other hand, M. M. Alacoque never seems to
have felt a reaction. Swedenborg grew wonderfully
calm after several frenzied conversion-crises. The
change in John Newton was absolute; he felt no
temptations thereafter. M. de Marsay grew serene;
the hysterical Pere Surin recovered his balance and
died in peace. G-. Miiller is so very sure of grace
that he hardly left off sinning himself ere he started
to teach others the true way. Thomas Lee, Sampson
Staniforth, and Thomas Olivers remain quiet and
happy. So does Alexander Mather, once he leaves
off baking on a Sunday. A permanent peace comes
to George Story ; no doubtful seasons trouble Thomas
Kutherford; and Thomas Tennant remains tranquil.
Gentle Charles Wesley lived in peace and fervor and
died without excitement or anxiety.
The constitution of the nebula to return for an
THE DATA ANALYZED: III 325
instant to our earlier metaphor remains the princi-
pal factor in the termination of the religious process.
Its elements may have been so much disturbed that
they never wholly coalesce again. Or they may find,
by rearrangement and readjustment, new and perma-
nent stability. The rise and development of emo-
tional religious experience as a process, is surely in-
dicated in either outcome.
Somewhat has our investigation been hampered by
the purpose underlying most of these documents.
Since they are intended to depict only one stage in
the life of the writer, they are apt to come to an end
after conversion, changing merely into journals of
work. The Quaker records practically all terminate
at the point when the writers decide to become
preachers of that faith. Wesley asked of the Meth-
odists that they conduct their narratives to the mo-
ment of their joining the Society. Only from those
rare and scattered eases, where the autobiographical
intention causes the writer to trace for us the whole
progress of his experience, are we able to obtain
glimpses of its final manifestations.
To many persons the need for telling all these
things, ceases the very moment they can point to au-
thority accepted, a standard unfurled. Converts
like Paul, like Newman; or in lesser instances, like
Thomas W. Allies, Alphonse de Ratisbonne, Paul
Lowengard, have no interior history once they have
parti pris. They are content to become part of a sys-
tem and to be absorbed, like single drops, into an
ocean of similar histories. Therefore they tell less of
their gloom and reaction, their doubt and despair.
326 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
since these appear to them no longer so important.
Their narratives cease on that moment when they see,
as it were, the New Jerusalem secure within their
grasp; and we are not always able to learn whether
that glory remains attainable till the end, or whether,
like the mirage, it vanishes, leaving them once more
alone in the desert of despair.
VIII
MYSTICISM AND ITS INTERPRETATION
I. Introductory.
II. Theories and theorists.
III. Mysticism, genius, and egotism,
IV. "Divine union."
V. Phenomena.
VI. Documents and data.
VII. Revelations.
VIII. Analysis of the data.
IX. Problems of interpretation.
X. Job and Paul.
XL Medical-materialist reasoning.
XII. Mysticism as a process.
VIII
MYSTICISM AND ITS INTERPRETATION
BUT what of those who believe that they have passed
the gates, who, for one ineffable moment, if for
one only have become inmates of that heavenly city f
The situation in which they find themselves is one
of the most complex in human experience, and
presents one of the oldest and the least understood of
all human problems. Mysticism as a subject is full
of difficulties, and difficulties relate to its every part,
to the documents, to the data, and to the theories
which obtain in regard to both of these. Around the
figures of those men and women, who, in Dante's
phrase, "approached the end of all desires/' 1 there
has grown up a confusing and obscuring cloud of
conjecture, which to the Middle Ages took the place
of poetry. "Every one of these saints, " writes Mil-
man, "had his life of wonder . . . the legend of his
virtues ... to his votaries a sort of secondary gospel
wrought into belief by the constant iteration of names
and events. " 2
Such legendary narrative often usurped the place
of folk- or fairy-tale ; it fed the fancy of a world which
had lost the dryad and the dragon, from which the
centaur and the winged horse had fled. Miracle and
329
330 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
marvel, the essential food of human imagination, thus
took on a new form and became associated with the
rapid growth of individualism. It is this which the
colder mind of to-day, seeking for explanations, must
not forget that here in the lives and legends of the
earlier mystics fancy and religion interplay, as in
the imagination of a child, and that of such, in sober-
est truth, is the kingdom of heaven.
So long as mankind accepted the saint without
question, or at least set him aside in a separate
mental compartment, water-tight from any scientific
criticism or investigation, then his religion, "self-
wrought-out, self -disciplined, self -matured, with noth-
ing necessarily intermediate between the grace of
God and the soul of man, ' * 8 seemed both natural and
adequate. It was as much and as fitting a part of his
legendary equipment as the fairy's wings, or the
magician's wand. Only when he came to be consid-
ered in the light of a real man, when this delicate and
decorative figure, glowing as with all the lovely hues
of Italian painting, was lifted down from his carved
and gilded triptych to be set beside other men, did
the ideas he stood for seem also to be part of
legend. Examined nearly, they had the thinness of
legend, and the color of legend, and the vagueness
of legend. With infinite sadness and care, it has been
the task of science to unwrap these glittering, cloudy
tissues of poetry and myth, to lay bare the hearts
and bodies of men and women like ourselves. Where
the mystic stood in ecstasy, crying out that he saw
heights and depths vouchsafed to no other eyes, sci-
ence is now at hand to chill him with a generalization.
MYSTICISM: ITS INTERPRETATION 331
It is forced to remind him of the truth *'that every
emotion attracts those ideas and images which nour-
ish it, and repels those which do not"; ^ and that all
emotion tends rather to obscurity than to clearness of
mental vision. While at the same time, it has turned
to ask of this human being, called mystic, certain
definite, vital, and far-reaching questions.
Science enquires, for instance, What manner of man
is this, who claims to stand at the gates of the un-
known? What warrant does he give for the cer-
tainty of his dream? For this sureness, this cer-
tainty, is the mystic's predominant characteristic;
however timid before, once his feet are on the mystical
way, his confidence in himself becomes absolute. The
manifestations of grace in his case may take forms
wholly new, but that it is grace, he is entirely sure.
He knows that for him, individually, the secret places
have been opened; to him, individually, the hidden
truths have been revealed.
"O world invisible," he sings, "we view thee,
O world intangible, we touch thee,
O world unknowable, we know thee,
Inapprehensible, we clutch thee! "6
It is chiefly this certitude of the mystic that
has caused the attention of science to be directed
upon him. Science is necessarily doubtful of all cer-
tainty and suspicious of the certain. But the mystic's
conviction, his fixity of gaze, his unwavering accept-
ance of his own position toward the unknown, has
served to overawe the world for centuries, and in
itself has caused the whole subject to be placed be-
yond the sphere of criticism. Is it still so placed?
332 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
What, in fact, is our attitude toward the saint to-
day ? A survey of his position is proper at the outset
of this enquiry.
The mystic is most often the religious confessant,
and it is moreover upon the religious confession that
our knowledge of mysticism as a state practically
rests. A survey of the whole field of records would
seem, therefore, to be prerequisite to any compre-
hension of the subject. Yet up to the present time
such a survey has not been attempted ; and the means
of studying mysticism, from whatever standpoint, has
been from quintessential types alone. It does not
need the student familiar with modern methods of
comparative study to see the difficulties to which the
older plan gives rise. Chief among them is the neces-
sarily theoretical and a priori attitude, taken by a
writer whenever he cannot work from the facts.
Books written according to this method are by no
means old books, for all important work on the sub-
ject is recent. Much of it, indeed, is so recent, that it
escapes the austere limitations laid upon such in-
vestigation by the scientific tendencies of the nine-
teenth century, and partakes of the reactionary, emo-
tional influences of the twentieth. These influences
are to be observed permeating a work so well known as
Professor James's widely read " Varieties of Religious
Experience," as well as the books following it. 6 Prac-
tically all of these studies have their foundation
in Gorres's "La Mystique Divine, Naturelle et Dia-
bolique ' ' ; which, though sprung from a devout mind >
yet shows by its care and method the influences of
the earlier scientific tendency.
MYSTICISM: ITS INTERPRETATION 333
A glance at some of the theories contained in these
works is essential to our purpose (which, the reader
has not forgotten, is a study of the facts), because the
ideas they propagate are widely disseminated, and are
frequently accepted and quoted without any reference
to these same inconvenient facts, or to the assertions
of the mystics themselves. The volumes to which we
allude do not by any means confine themselves to per-
sonal statements of the mystics, nor to their personal
phenomena; and it must be clearly understood that
into their writers' more general and abstract theories,
this work cannot follow them. The relation of mys-
ticism to self -study, with the personal revelations of
the mystic, are our sole concern at present; our
appeal must needs be in, through, and by the facts
themselves. Practically all works on theoretical mys-
ticism display a tendency on the part of their authors
to turn in thought from the simple to the complex,
from the concrete to the abstract, from the physical
to the metaphysical. Such manner they appear to
take for granted; to wrench, as it were, the natural
point of view violently over to the side of the philo-
sophical abstraction, and to expect their reader to do
the same. It is extraordinary, that no one seems
able to handle this topic, and yet remain intelligible.
The approach of this angel is enough to trouble the
waters of many ' * a well of English undefiled. ' ' When
it even affects Emerson, one will surely feel less anger
than pity for the verbal contortions of the Baron von
Hiigel. Even so graceful a writer as Mr. Edmund
Gardner 7 defines mysticism as "the love-illumined
quest of the soul to unite herself ( ! ) with the supra-
334 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
sensible with the absolute with that which is"!
speaks of "seeing Eternity, " and uses, as final, the
citation, "the flight of the alone to the Alone"! 8
Now, it is never easy to force one's self into an
abstract view of matters which, after all, are mostly
concrete. Nor is the difficulty eased in regard to such
specimens of logic as Miss Underbill's reference to
the fasting of Catherine of Genoa 9 (of which more
anon) ; or that of von Hiigel, who, while he writes in
English, yet never ceases to think in German. The
mists close thick about the student, helplessly befogged
in a land, where, after all, he should be able to take
hold of particular statements, and acts, and events.
For there is no necessary obscurity in the study of a
person's withdrawal "from the outward to the inner
world, from God in the works of nature to God in
his workings on the soul of man. " 10 It is not a
question of the matter of men's speculation and the
method of men's thought, but simply of what certain
persons have felt and stated, have said and done.
There is evidence to summon, to sift, and to classify ;
all we have known or can know about the subject lies
in this evidence. The validity of such evidence is,
therefore, the starting-point of the whole investiga-
tion; not the transcendental theories which have
been used to shroud and becloud the subject. What
care we whether sanctification precedes unification or
follows it, until we know on what actual occurrences
these terms are founded? How can we define the
"awareness of a relation with God" u unless we know
the mystic's reason for believing that he is conscious
of such a relation? How do we know that such and
MYSTICISM: ITS INTERPRETATION 335
such a saint experienced such and such feelings, until
we have examined his own statements? Mysticism
may be cleared of vagueness if one wishes, but only by
reducing it to the simplest comprehensible terms.
What we do know is that, for centuries past, per-
sons have lived, called mystics by reason of their
supposed hold on hidden things; who have laid
claim to special truths vouchsafed to them, indi-
vidually, and in a particular manner. The exist-
ence of these persons and of this assumption on their
part is, strictly speaking, all that we really know,
outside of what they themselves have communicated
in writing or to their disciples. The manner in which
truth is communicated to these subjects has been de-
scribed, both by themselves and others, as entirely
outside, and independent of, the normal, natural
manner of its communication and it is, therefore,
properly designated as abnormal or as supernatural,
and has been so called by the world at large.
The student to-day is surely entitled to ask further
questions, before he can accept these assumptions.
What sort of persons are these? What sort of truth
has been so revealed to them? WTiat is the evidence
that they have been so distinguished, and in what
ways do they differ from himself?
Any creed claiming a mystical foundation must
base itself on the assumption that the founder thereof,
be he Paul or Mahomet, Fox or Swedenborg, received
in some manner a truth which the rest of the world
had not, and which, therefore, he was to preach and
reveal. This idea forms a comparatively simple ap-
proach to any enquiry into the personal elements of
336 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
mysticism. "When a man refers to inward feelings
and experiences/' says Coleridge, 12 "of which man-
kind at large are not conscious, as evidences of the
truth of any opinion, such a man I call a mystic : and
the grounding of any theory or belief on accidents
and anomalies of individual sensations or fancies . . .
I name mysticism."
The usual way of studying these "anomalies of
individual sensations " is, first, to assume that they
exist; second, to assume that this existence is "a sort
of undifferentiated consciousness, ' ' 13 only to be de-
scribed in abstract terms; and third, to assume that
such sensations necessarily involve "the perception
of higher reality. " 14 To this chain of assumptions
the modern investigator generally adds some refer-
ences to the better-known psychological phenomena, as
emphasized in the cases of the greater contemplatives ;
cites Teresa, Loyola, Mme. Guyon, and Suso ; and then
readily launches upon a thoroughly abstract discus-
sion of his thoroughly a priori theories. Most of these
discussions appear to require but the thinnest pos-
sible substratum of fact. Von Hiigel's two stout vol-
umes on the subject of Catherine of Genoa, have for
their entire foundation but the "Vita" and a few
letters of her own and her disciples.
The present section is but a sincere attempt to
examine into the foundation of these elaborate theo-
ries; with reference to what the mystics have really
said, and what they have really done. It is evident
at the outset that one must approach them from a
point of view removed as far as possible from their
MYSTICISM: ITS INTERPRETATION 337
own. To this end the classification of the data they
give concerning themselves, must be accompanied by
a rigid elimination of their own terms in describing
it. The terminology of mysticism has been largely
responsible for the prevailing confusion about the sub-
ject ; for the average reader may watch the saint pass
from the via purgativa and the via passiva, to the via
illuminativa and be lost in the ecstasies of the via uni-
tiva, 15 yet never be a whit the wiser. Translate the
mystic's premises into simpler terms, and it appears
to be that he feels he has attained truth through
means other than those provided by the senses. More-
over, the fact that truth is to be so attained, consti-
tutes to him a sufficient proof of the existence of a
transcendental state, and thus of the transcendental
world. "And if any have been so happy," remarks
Sir Thomas Browne, not without irony, "as truly to
understand Christian annihilation, ecstasies, exolution,
liquefaction, transformation, the kiss of the spouse,
gustation of God and ingression into the divine
shadow, they have already had a handsome anticipa-
tion of heaven !" 16
One does not wish to fall into the attitude which
Professor James deprecates in the medical mate-
rialist, "that of discrediting states of mind, for
which we have an antipathy. ' ' 17 Our endeavor
should rather be to understand them. Yet surely
it is always permissible to question any assumption,
nor can it be wrong to subject a claim so vital
to the same rigid scrutiny which one would feel in
honor bound obliged to accord any other claim equally
338 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
wide in its effect on human life and ideals. Science
has an inalienable right of examination into this as
into all other evidence of truth.
The first principle of such an examination must be
to reach back to the words and statements of the mys-
tics themselves; since the instant these reach the hand
of the theorist, they tend to undergo the most unfore-
seen and extraordinary transformations. As an ex-
ample, let us turn to the question of the fasting
of Catherine of Genoa, of which mention has al-
ready been made. Says Miss Underbill : 18 * ' It is
an historical fact, unusually well-attested by con-
temporary evidence and quite outside the sphere of
hagiographic romance that . . . Catherine of Genoa
lived . . . for constantly repeated periods of many
weeks without any other food than the consecrated
Host received at Holy Communion"; during which
periods she conducted the management of her hospital
with every evidence of health. This would seem to
be a sober yet striking statement of fact. The hyper-
critical might perhaps question the value of any con-
temporary evidence upon such a subject; but most
of us would accept it without demur. The writer
founds it upon Von Hiigel's elaborate analysis of
Catherine's "Vita"; with which it may be profit-
ably compared. And what does such comparison re-
veal? In the first place, that the very "Vita" which
is used as a warrant for this statement is considered,
even by its editor, as lying well within rather than
without "the sphere of hagiographic romance." 19
Secondly, that Catherine's fasts were not absolute,
since the saint drank often of salt-water and of wine ;
MYSTICISM: ITS INTERPRETATION 339
while she also partook "a small amount of solid food
which at times she was able to retain " ! 20
The reader has scarcely recovered from the shock
of this decided modification of Miss Underbill's sen-
tence about "constantly repeated periods of many
weeks without any other food" than the Host, when
he reads further in the "Vita" that Catherine's health,
even through this limited fasting, was so much affected,
that in the year 1496 she abandoned the practice
altogether, and even took food on the regular fast-
days! Is it any wonder that a rooted and grounded
distrust is the first sentiment aroused by any study of
works on mysticism? Is it any wonder that one finds
it necessary to refer only to the facts furnished by
the mystic himself? Cases might be multiplied in-
definitely in which the whole superstructure of theory
has been raised on a similar foundation of misunder-
standing. The reader will not have forgotten the
literature of Paul's conversion. 21 Wherever the sub-
ject opens into the unknown, there will be found pres-
ent an apparent tendency in the human mind to dis-
tort, to qualify, or to misinterpret the phenomena it
observes.
Therefore, however limited, however scanty, the
data yielded by authentic first-hand records, give at
least some solid ground beneath the worker's feet.
True, the field is greatly narrowed whenever such lim-
itations are imposed upon it. Very many great mys-
tics have left no such material: the world has relied
wholly upon others for its knowledge of them. 22 Who
can pass to-day upon the correctness of such knowl-
edge ? To this essential nature of the facts, what they
340 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
are and what they indicate, we shall, of course, return.
Our concern at the moment lies with certain prevalent
theories of mysticism, which, it is evident, occupy
themselves far less with fact than might be wished.
These theories try to substantiate the mystic's claim
to the extra-sensual reception of truth; and offer
various metaphysical or philosophical explanations.
In contradistinction to this view, will be found the
group of rationalists, mostly French, who place the
whole matter sweepingly in the realm of pathology. 23
Their claims require a separate discussion; but the
influence of William James, who had as harsh an esti-
mate of their ideas as Gorres himself, writing before
1836, could have had, has caused them to give way,
temporarily at least, before the metaphysical battal-
ions. Miss Underbill's book 24 stands well in the fore-
front of these latter, and gives, perhaps, as clear an
exposition of their point of view as is possible in the
nature of things, and in the style of the writer.
1 1 That which our religious and ethical teachers were
wont to call mere emotion," says this writer, "is now
acknowledged to be of the primal stuff of conscious-
ness. . . . Thought is but its servant. ' ' She develops
Pascal's observation: ". . . 'The heart has its rea-
sons which the mind knows not of .' ... At the touch
of passion doors fly open which logic has battered on
in vain." Although this author thus places re-
ligion beyond the realm of the intellect, yet she para-
doxically desires to formulate an intellectual system
of mysticism. At the same time she holds the terms
and symbols of psychology quite insufficient to handle
the mystic life. Theories of the subconscious are
MYSTICISM: ITS INTERPRETATION 341
to her mind but shadowy and tentative in contrast
with the certainty of the saints. "They, too, were
aware that in normal men the spiritual sense lies
below the threshold of consciousness. " 25 / An insist-
ence that the mystical way is the way of reality and
truth ; that the mystic, like genius, is beyond the law ;
that mysticism is the more direct method of reach-
ing toward ' ' the ideally normal state of man 's develop-
ment ' ' forms the main thesis of her argument. ' ' The
mystic belongs," she further remarks, "to the un-
solved problems of humanity" ; 26 and for our full and
proper comprehension "the mystics need to be removed
both from the sphere of marvel and that of disease."
In treating the mystic as a genius, Miss Underbill,
of course, is not alone. In his introduction, Dr.
Jones 27 repeats the same idea when he prefers "to
dwell on the tremendous service of the mystics. ' ' He
does not define these services, nor specify the attained
truths, beyond likening their effect to that of great
poetry or great music ; but to his mind apparently they
form a "vital and dynamic religion."
Putting aside for the moment any considera-
tion of the psychical phenomena of this state and
their effect on the mystic, in order to regard the ques-
tion of results, the honest and untranscendental mind
is at once struck by their amazing paucity. If we
were asked to define genius as broadly as may be, most
of us undoubtedly would insist on the idea of creative-
ness: it is the creative power of a genius which is pre-
requisite to our placing him in that class. What-
ever be our theory of genius, we have no doubt what-
ever that its result is creation. In the light of re-
342 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
suit, in the light of creation, how scanty is the achieve-
ment of the mystic, compared with the poet, the artist,
or the musician! If he does receive truth, as we do
not, how little has he contributed to the world's stock
of ideas! Moreover, if we regard him more nearly,
will it not be often found that the mystic has accom-
plished his task rather in spite of, than by reason of,
his mysticism? The work of Paul, for instance, was
done well after his mystical period was ended; he
speaks of it as past. 28 It is his power of organization,
his eloquence, his dogmatic intellect, which dissemi-
nated Christianity, not the fact that he beheld a vision.
All Loyola's great constructive task was started well
after his mystical experiences were over. So was it
likewise with Luther, who believed he had had these
experiences, if to us he seems hardly the mystic at all.
When George Fox began to preach, his visions and
voices grew far less marked than when he wan-
dered on the lonely moors. While religious experi-
ence, while mysticism, may be purely emotional, yet
the creative faculty must needs involve the intel-
lect, which will immediately act as a solvent to any
state of pure emotionalism. The great mystic may
not, of course, be aware of the fact, but the process
which in his soul was started at the touch of intense
emotion, tends to decline the moment he summons his
intellect to act on the suggestion. It has been seen
how Catherine of Genoa found that her trances, in-
duced by fasting, interfered with her labors in the hos-
pital. Although Delacroix acknowledges in Teresa, 29
'Tetat de nevrosisme grave, " yet he notes that her
life was by no means wholly absorbed in the condi-
MYSTICISM: ITS INTERPRETATION 343
tions superinduced by ecstasy. Another writer
observes of the same case, that she "has a marvellous
way of keeping separate the various actions of the
soul and of observing their effects . . . her autobiog-
raphy is one of the chief authorities upon which re-
ligious sentiment is based . . . while her self -analysis
is well on the way to becoming actual psychology. ' ' 30
And yet the mystical system, evolved as the result of
all this, has for its aim but "quiescence, emptiness
of soul, darkened consciousness, and the suspension
of the natural understanding!" 30 Surely, genius is
not quiescence but activity; it is not emptiness but
fulness; the consciousness not darkened but bright-
ened, the understanding not suspended but vivified
and heightened.
The names just mentioned are important names,
their owners would have been personages in any walk
of life. When one regards the cluster of the lesser
mystics, then the facts grow more and more sug-
gestive, and what they suggest is not genius. Dela-
croix 81 comments on Mme. Guyon 's mysticism having
caused her "une singuliere impuissance intellec-
tuelle," and cites her words, "Je deviens toute stu-
pide." "Grace a Dieu," remarks A. C. Emmerich,
" je n 'ai presque jamais rien lu. ' ' One cannot forget
the automatic stupidity of M. M. Alacoque, who con-
tinued to stand at the convent gate to keep the pigs
out of the garden, long after the same animals had
been made into sausages. 32 Maria d'Agreda blessed
God that she was considered mentally weak; and
'Joanna Southcott is humbly proud of her own dulness
in affairs worldly. Such incidents and attitudes as
344 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
these do not indicate the presence of genius, with its
rich creative activity, its rich energy, its rich sym-
pathy with all forms of life. 33 Of course, it is not
for one instant denied that many types of genius are
accompanied by a certain degree of mysticism; it is
only questioned whether this mysticism is a vital
factor. In literature, for instance, there is a tendency
to attribute to mysticism much that is properly due
only to forces literary and personal. Without the
literary gift, what influence can the mystic leave be-
hind him? Who, nowadays, reads Maria d'Agreda?
Is it not those portions of the work of Augustin, or
of Teresa, which breathe of human sympathy and
human ideals, which have survived their mystical out-
pourings ?
Literature is not, many will reply, a fair test;
the writer is essentially self-conscious, and the need
of expression stands in his path, forcing him to
crystallize those emotions which are intended to re-
main delicately floating and evanescent. Perhaps;
certainly the true mystic regarded literature often in
the nature of a snare. 34 Great contemplatives have
died wholly sterile, and their heritage of truth has
died with them.
That the truth seems so to die, is contradictory to
the idea that mysticism is a form of genius; if gen-
ius be the means of preserving truth to mankind. If
that truth be closely examined which the mystic claims
to have received in a special and individual manner,
it will invariably be found to refer only to the mys-
tic himself. It is he, no other, who experienced
ecstasy or unification, or who espouses Christ, or who
MYSTICISM: ITS INTERPRETATION 345
beholds heaven or hell. The whole mystical scheme
is profoundly, nay, even necessarily, egotistical, as
Dean Milman says of "The Imitation of Christ": 35
"It begins in self . . . terminates in self." As such
it must be regarded rather as an artificial, abnormal
condition, than, as Miss Underhill would have it, "an
ideally normal state of man's development."
So much for the question of results due to mysti-
cism. Our theorists greatly object, as we have already
seen, to the pathological view of this state taken by
the medical-materialist. The great contemplatives, in
their opinion, "are almost always persons of robust
intelligence and marked practical and intellectual
ability." 36 Miss Underhill admits they suffer often
from bad physical health ; and that this characteristic
does produce * ' inexplicable modifications of the physi-
cal organism"; but she refuses to connect it with hys-
teria, because "the mono-ideism of the mystic is ra-
tional, while that of the hysteric patient is invariably
irrational. ' ' 87
In that debatable land, where science still struggles
to define for us the limits of mental health and dis-
ease, the question of rationality and irrationality be-
comes one of those fluctuating problems which are apt
to be settled by each person according to his personal
temperament and training. The sentence just cited
gives it shape in its most perplexing form. Why is
one and the same idee fixe to be termed rational in one
case and irrational in another ? Why is the hysterical
patient who refuses to take a bath irrational, while
Juliana of Norwich and Lyduine of Schiedam, in their
saintly filth, are rational? Can any unbiased mind
346 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
call rational the "mono-ideism" of A. C. Emmerich,
of M. M. Alacoque, of Suso, of Baptista Vernazza,
of Antoinette Bourignon ? Even contemporary judg-
ments spoke of the "ravings" of Hildegarde, of
Joanna Southcott, and of Maria d'Agreda. The phys-
ical condition is not, as Miss Underhill seems to think,
mere accident or mere coincidence; our examples col-
lected under that head will be found to point fixedly
in one direction.
Von Hiigel, 38 discussing this question, goes even
further than Professor James's somewhat tentative
suggestion, and thus warns the reader: " Never forget
that physical health is not the true end of human life
. . . the true question here is not whether such a type
of life as we are considering exacts a serious physical
tribute or not, but whether the specifically human ef-
fects and fruits of that life are worth the cost." No
doubt this were well to remember in an age which
tends to make mere health somewhat of a fetich; but
the very query brings us once more face to face with
the unanswerable request for results. Where in the
mystic life do we find "those specifically human ef-
fects and fruits"? The genius has always his mes-
sage, be he Christ or Caesar, but what truth has the
minor mystic learned to teach his kind?
The truth most often claimed, which most com-
mentators and historians accept without cavil, or ques-
tion, or even investigation, relates to what is known
as unification; i.e., the union of the soul with the
Divine. That such an union is possible has been the
primary assumption of all mystics. On this assump-
tion has been founded in the past such systems as those
MYSTICISM: ITS INTERPRETATION 347
of Bonaventura and the Victorines; in the present,
such compromises as that of Professor William James.
It is used, moreover, to explain a great many phe-
nomena; it has never received serious criticism even
at materialist hands. That Man is in essence Divine ;
that he can at moments return to and become one
with Divinity, is an idea deeply rooted in the human
imagination.
Were this book to be a history of mysticism (and the
subject still awaits some rational and sympathetic
mind), it would be interesting to trace this idea of
Divine union, from its primitive sources. We see it
first in those days when half -savage man conceived his
own deification during his lifetime as quite possible,
and his immediate deification after his death as the
only rational theory of immortality. Those were the
days when God walked with Adam in the cool of the
evening, and their souls were not so far apart as our
conceptions make them appear to-day. Christianity
would seem to have taken the idea chiefly from Plo-
tinus, who laid definite claim to having achieved such
union more than once. 89 Elaborated in the system of
Dionysius the Areopagite, this initial conception of
the soul's return to, and absorption in, the Divine,
became connected with those complicated theories of
the celestial hierarchy, which served to bring heaven
so near to the Middle Ages. The classical ethnologists
now regard this conception simply as the attempt of
minds of a higher development to account for the prev-
alent beliefs, carried on from their stage of earlier
savagery. "Spiritual beings swarming through the
atmosphere we breathe," 40 is the theory by which a
348 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
mind like that of Dionysius would fain explain the
shreds and patches of earlier animistic beliefs, still
clinging alike to the imaginations of the unlettered
and the lettered. Similar ideas prevail to-day in the
South Sea Islands, where the native holds the world
to be crowded with spirits. That characteristic effort
to formulate, to systematize those mystical ideas which
men found hanging, as it were, in the air beside them
during the first Christian centuries, is repeated by
Dionysius. From the Divine union of Plotinus to the
conception of an angelic host, was but a step, and a
step which made it fairly easy to hold that any human
soul, under certain conditions, might attain to a species
of deification. Men thus gradually came to believe in
the flattering notion of their own (if momentary)
divinity ; and they continued to hold it despite the pro-
tests of common sense. Martin Luther cried out in his
vehement way, "that the mystical divinity of Dionys-
ius is a fable and a lie!" 41 but he stood well-nigh
alone in this opinion. The mediaeval world clung
closely to the idea of an ineffable moment, during
which the soul cast off all earthly trammels and be-
came absolutely a part of the essence of God.
Now, when we try to discover to-day exactly what
this idea meant to the mystic himself how it affected
him how he knew, to put it bluntly, that he had
attained to such an union, a clamor of voices arises
from the past, and no clear utterance save one. With-
out the voice of Augustin, indeed, it would be almost
impossible for us to conceive how the mediaeval mind
was ever able even to try to systematize the indescrib-
able. Dante, 42 it is true, insisted on the reality of
MYSTICISM: ITS INTERPRETATION 349
the intellect's ll passing beyond human measure";
and adds, that if the ' ' Scripture suffice not the invidi-
ous, let them read Richard of St. Victor, Bernard
and Augustin, and they will not grudge assent."
Personally, however, Dante seems to have confused
the idea of religious ecstasy with that of poetic in-
spiration, which he naturally felt to be for him the
true expression of the Divine idea. The mystical at-
titude is displayed more typically by Richard of St.
Victor, in whose effort to explain it may be noted
the germ of many a modern theoretical weakness.
"When by excess of mind," he writes, 43 "we are
rapt above or within ourselves into the contempla-
tion of divine things, not only are we straightway
oblivious of things external but also of all that passes
in us. ... And therefore when we return to ourselves
from that state of exaltation we cannot by any means
recall to our memory those things which we have
erst seen above ourselves. We see, as it were, in a
veil and in the midst of a cloud. ... In wondrous
fashion, remembering we do not remember, . . . see-
ing we do not behold . . . and understanding we do
not penetrate."
This is the type of mystical writing whose influ-
ence in the past over a certain kind of mind, was al-
most hypnotic. It appears to tell so much; and, of
course, realizing the date of its composition, it must
be acknowledged as an admirable attempt at the de-
scriptive psychology of inner experience. Yet, when
examined by the quiet eye of common sense, Richard 's
statement is merely that, during ecstasy, the mind
neither formulates any thoughts, nor the memory
350 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
recalls any experiences. The contemplator, really,
neither perceives aught, nor understands aught, nor
remembers aught, of his experiences; he knows only
that he has been "away." Surely this conception is
more elastic than that of Hugh of St. Victor, who had
defined it as spiritual marriage, in which "the Bride-
groom is God and the Bride is the Soul. ' ' ** The
various systems of "grades and steps" by which the
mediaeval formalist tried to satisfy his intellect, leads
the modern student no nearer truth than this sim-
ple statement of the mystic that his soul had been
"away."
Let the reader carry in his mind, for a little, this
one idea, that the mediaeval mind believed the soul
might be away, and might return. It will be found
to have a significance for him to-day, which it did
not possess for the Victorines. Let him add to it, if
he will, a paragraph from the "Confessions," in
which Augustin, at the height of his genius, laid the
foundation for ten centuries of mysticism, and he
will possess in his own memory, the key to this en-
tire kingdom. Charged with poetry, Augustin 's
words are lucidity itself ; and they convey a deep per-
ception of an important psychological truth, qualified,
limited, defined, as truth must be.
Says the saint : 45 " If to any the tumult of the flesh
were hushed, hushed the images of earth, and waters
and air, hushed also the poles of heaven, yea, the very
soul be hushed to herself, and by not thinking on self,
surmount self, hushed all dreams and imaginary reve-
lations, every tongue and every sign, ... if then, . . .
He alone speak . . . not through any tongue of flesh,
MYSTICISM: ITS INTERPRETATION 351
nor angel's voice, nor sound of thunder, nor in the
dark riddle of a similitude, . . . but we might hear
His very self without these (as we two now strained
ourselves and in swift thought touched on that Eter-
nal Wisdom which abide th over all) ; could this be
continued on, and other visions of a kind far unlike
be withdrawn, and this one ravish, and absorb, and
wrap up its beholder amid these inward joys, so that
life might be forever like that one moment of under-
standing which now we sighed after; were not this:
'Enter into the joy of thy Lord'?"
After all the frantic jargon of the transcendental-
ist, what an accent, what words, are these! The
accurate self-observation which led Augustin to for-
mulate such questions is the result of his peculiarly
introspective genius; but he never forgets that they
are questions, and that he asks them of himself. The
mediaeval world forgot that Augustin said "//," and
"Were not this?"; but, seizing upon the suggestion
that described so profound a truth of human feeling,
it omitted the limitations which Augustin had been
so careful to retain. In another work, 46 he observes,
with equal caution, that "Certain great and incom-
parable souls whom we believe to have seen and to
see these things, have told as much as they judge
meet to be told." Here are sentences which stand
close to our modern point of view in their careful
moderation; and the interpretation, which for cen-
turies the world of transcendental thought chose to
make of them, are only another warrant for a return
to the original statement.
Upon these paragraphs, supplemented by the half-
852 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
legendary experiences of the Neo-Platonist Plotinus,
elaborated and confused by the Areopagite, the en-
tire structure of mediaeval mysticism is founded;
they are the real gates to the Via Mystica. Upon
these great "ifs" of Augustin, if the tumult of the
flesh were hushed, and if we could hear God 's voice, -
and if his word continued on and blotted out all else,
and if all life might be like that one "moment of
understanding, " the imagination of the Middle Ages
built a new heaven and a new hell. The effect of this
idea on the simple mind was no deeper than on the
powerful mind. Systematized by Bonaventura and
the St. Victors, carried to extravagant excess by Mech-
tilde or Catherine of Siena, this initial "if" of Au-
gustin contains the real phenomenon of mysticism.
It is the world's ready response to this somewhat
complex suggestion that holds the real miracle. If
Plotinus felt the characteristic certitude of the mys-
tical subject, surely we see here that Augustin did
not! Yet he is made by most writers to father the
whole body of mystical phenomena, visions, voices,
ecstasies, with never so much as a hint of an "if."
The experiences of the mystics, as a body, did not
come under observation till less than a century ago.
One would naturally have supposed that the first step
would be the examination of the evidence at hand.
But even to-day, and by the writers under pres-
ent discussion, the primary assumption of the mys-
tic is not so much as questioned. It is taken for
granted that the mystical experience is, for instance,
productive of truth ; yet we have seen that, when un-
wrapped from its verbal tissues, Richard of St. Vic-
MYSTICISM: ITS INTERPRETATION 853
tor's statement is only that his soul at moments was
"away." This is no very striking result, when com-
pared to the inferences drawn by Victorine commenta-
tors, but it is exceedingly typical. That quiet eye of
common sense, before whose gaze many theories must
needs evaporate, when turned upon the mystic, will see
a monstrous heap of such theories, piled upon a very
small substratum of fact. What results will it dis-
cover in other mystical phenomena ? Our modern the-
orists accept the visions and voices, but find them hard
to explain. Miss Underbill, calling the subject "the
eternal battleground, " 4T thinks both sides extreme,
and favors a symbolistic interpretation. 48 At times,
according to her view, the visionary experiences may
become pathological, or neurotic, and when this oc-
curs, then they express "merely exhaustion or tem-
porary loss of balance." To the latter condition be-
long the personal self-glorification of Angela da Fo-
ligno ; 49 while Loyola 's vision of the plectrum was of
the high symbolic type. 50
It has ever been characteristic of a certain type of
theorist, that he starts by ignoring the proposition that
things which are equal to the same thing are equal to
each other. How is the adherent of pure symbolism
to differentiate between those manifestations by visions
and voices which came from the mystic's higher
power; and those which proceed from his loss of bal-
ance ? Naturally, they become classified according to
the critic's own beliefs and imagination, just as Luther
classified his vision as from the Devil. One may de-
cide, for instance, that the "spiritual marriage" of
Gertrude of Eisleben was symbolistic; another, that
354 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
that of Angela da Foligno proceeded from hysteria.
As the mystical subject herself is never in the least
doubtful as to the source of her experiences, and as
these experiences, when compared, will be found to re-
semble one another to the smallest particular, no desire
for compromise can make it a reasonable proceeding to
exalt the one and to condemn the other, while we have
the identical evidence or lack of evidence in regard
to both.
1 ' In persons of mystical genius, ' y explains Miss Un-
derbill, "the qualities which the stress of normal life
tends to keep below the threshold of consciousness, are
of enormous strength. . . . They develop unchecked
until a point is reached ... at which they break their
bonds and emerge into the conscious field ; either tem-
porarily dominating the subject, as in ecstasy, or per-
manently transmuting the old self, as in the unitive
life/' 51
Our comment upon this passage is but to return once
again to that collection of facts relating to relapse and
reaction, which occupy so many pages of this volume.
These will be seen to have an especial bearing on the
progressive states of emotion of the mystic; and to
throw a new light on that permanent transmutation
of the self, of which Miss Underbill speaks so con-
fidently. Is there any actual record of even one such
permanent transmutation? Are there not, even
among those souls whose essential spirituality is ex-
alted to the highest point, whose general plane seems
to differ from our own, are there not always periods
of relapse, of reaction, of aridity, of withdrawal from
God ? So keenly are these states of reaction felt by the
MYSTICISM: ITS INTERPRETATION 355
greater mystics, that it is of them John of the Cross
would speak when he uses the phrase ' ' the Dark Night
of the Soul. ' ' If the mystical way be, indeed, a way of
ascent, then the language used by the pilgrims them-
selves to describe the oscillation of their state is of ex-
traordinary vividness, and by no means confident or
assured. This oscillation is described as an unspeak-
able agony of pain mental and physical; Canon
Vaughan 52 gives a series of cited phrases to denote it,
which are in themselves very striking. Teresa's is the
most moderate; she calls it simply the "gran pena"
which accompanied and preceded the mystical state.
''This pain is the 'pressura interna' of Tauler; the
'horribile et indicibile tormentum' of Catherine of
Genoa; the 'purgatory' of Thomas a Jesu; the 'lan-
guor infernalis' of Harphius; the 'terribile martyr-
ium' of Maria Vela the Cistercian; the 'divisio naturae
ac spiritus' of Barbanson; the 'privation worse than
hell' of Angela da Foligno." Some of these epithets,
notably that of Barbanson, are most suggestive, and
we shall have cause to remember them later. But the
whole question of the soul's ascent to higher levels as-
sumes a very different aspect when these periods of
conflict and relapse are examined. That moment of
unity with God, which is the highest pinnacle of this
condition, is very transient compared with the oscil-
lations which may reach up to it, and whether one
can reasonably I do not say logically term such a
moment a permanent transmutation, is a matter of
serious doubt. Delacroix 53 points out the need of
differentiating between the passive mystic and him
who conquers souls; and gives an interesting defini-
356 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
tion of mysticism as "un certain etat d 'exaltation,
qui abroge le sentiment du Moi ordinaire." 54 Al-
though he does not ignore the presence of the "peine
extatique" 55 of Teresa, or the "mort mystique" of
Mme. Guyon, yet he does not lend them any especial
emphasis by criticism. That ecstatic moment, which is
the mystic's highest aim and achievement, plays so
small a part, in time, in his whole progress, that there
is no evidence whatever it can possibly " abroge le
sentiment du Moi ordinaire." On the contrary, the
words and actions of the mystic during every age show
that the necessary occupation with his own feelings
and ideas has served to increase and to enlarge the
Ego, to make the "Moi" wholly disproportionate.
In fact, the extent and profundity of the mystical
egotism is another argument for refusing to class
it with genius. Genius is frequently egotistic, but
egotism is not its end and aim, as it is always the end
and aim of mysticism. The mystic may scourge and
trample on the physical self, but it is always for the
purpose of exalting and indulging what he holds to be
his higher self.
The self-importance aroused by this attitude is limit-
less. Ubertino da Casale regarded himself as on the
most intimate terms with the Holy Family, and often
as the "brother" of Christ. Angela da Foligno says
that Christ told her he loved her better than any
woman in the vale of Spoleto. The words of this
passage are fatuous almost beyond belief : ' ' Then He
began to say to me the words that follow, to provoke
me to love Him; my sweet daughter! my
daughter, my temple! my daughter, my delight!
MYSTICISM: ITS INTERPRETATION 357
Love me, because thou art much loved by Me. And
often did He say to me: my daughter, My sweet
Spouse! And He added in an underbreath, I love
thee more than any other woman in the valley of
Spoleto. ' ' B6 To amuse and to delight Gertrude of
Eisleben, He sang duets with her "in a tender and
harmonious voice." The same saint writes of their
"incredible intimacy"; and here, as in later passages
of Angela da Foligno, the reader is revolted by their
sensuality. When Sister Therese of the Holy Child, 57
learned the name which had been given her in re-
ligion, she took it for "a delicate attention of the
adorable Child!" Jesus told Osanna Andreasi that
he would himself teach her to be a little saint. In the
diary of Marie de Tlncarnation there is such an en-
try as "entretien familier avec J. C."; and during
such interviews she makes use of a sort of pious baby-
talk, like a saintly Tillie Slowboy. The famous Beata
di Piedrahita, Dr. Lea tells us, upheld her claim to
Divine powers by declaring that Christ was often with
her, and even that she herself was Christ. 58 Mary
of the Divine Heart (who died in 1899) heard the
voice saying: "You will be the Spouse of my heart."
It is needless once more to single out those persons
who were regarded, as they thought, by the Devil in
the light of almost equal foes; nor to repeat that the
attitude toward God of M. M. Alacoque, Baptiste
Varani, A. C. Emmerich, was that of a favorite
sultana. Moreover, that ineffable instant of union
with the Divine, is usually expressed in terms exalt-
ing the mystic rather than his Deity. "I ate and
drank of God," observes Baptista Vernazzaj and
358 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
again, ' ' God wished to devour Me entirely ! ' ' He as-
sured Angela da Foligno: "All the Saints of Paradise
have for thee a special love, and I shall join thee to
their company." B9 "There was nothing between God
and my soul," remarks the complacent Antoinette
Bourignon; and just in this same manner boasts
Joseph Smith, the Mormon: "God is my right-hand
man!" 60
All this may be, and has been, variously regarded ; it
may be considered as mediaeval naivete; or as sexual
excitement ; or as megalomania from paresis ; but what-
ever the explanation, such attitudes cannot be held to
imply any abrogation of the Ego. Such an idea was
not present in the minds of any of the great ascetics ;
for their self-importance was carried much further
than simply into accidental practice ; it was a dogma ;
so preached and taught. We, who read these instances
with mingled feelings of incredulity and disgust, must
not forget that occupation with one's own soul was
the essential duty, the only possible means of salva-
tion. Thomas a Kempis insists on it ; 61 Luis of
Granada, that saintly youth too pure-minded to gaze
upon his own mother, warns the neophyte of the
dangers in wishing to do good to others. 62 The honest
mind finds it hard to accept a scheme so supremely
selfish in the light of "an ideally-normal state of man's
development"; and ere the world as a whole can ever
so accept it, there needs full justification through the
achievement of the highest creative truth.
Objection to mysticism as an "ideally-normal state, "
and questioning of the truth so acquired, is nearly as
old as Christianity. Under certain circumstances, this
MYSTICISM: ITS INTERPRETATION 359
objection has at times taken so definite a form, that
even the great leader and whilom mystic, Loyola, ex-
pressed very vigorous doubts ; and sought to substitute
the rule of obedience to defined authority. Dr. Lea, 63
with that simple appeal to historical facts which he
can make so distinguished, has pointed out some of
the dangers which beset "the perilous paths of super-
human ecstasy " in the past, and which it were well
not wholly to forget in the latitudinarianism of the
present. Spain was long free from mystical tendencies,
and, when they began to appear, the Church made
systematic efforts to uproot them. This was necessary
for self-preservation, as has already been noted; but
Dr. Lea 64 makes it very striking when he shows that
for one Teresa, one John of the Cross, there existed
hundreds of self-deluded illuminati, who differed from
them only as failure differs from success. These were
regarded as a direct menace to the Church, and came
under the jurisdiction of the Inquisition.
As early as 1616, 65 theologians decided that special
revelations from on high were no proof of sanctity;
and the trials of the mystics F. Ortiz and Maria
Cazalla, settled in the negative their claims to be un-
der special guidance, and exempt from the general
rules laid down for the use of sinners. The persecu-
tion and torture of these unfortunates came as the
result of their assertions. Epidemics of a mystical
character, such as that in the convent of Placido in
1630, 66 and at Louviers and Loudun, 67 some years later,
were handled with like severity. They concern us
here only as they prove the existence of contemporary
doubt. Even in the ages of credulity, the human in-
360 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
tellect raised itself at moments above the level of
superstition to ask these illuminati, as we ask them,
for results. Where, asked the Church, are the crea-
tions of your genius, what are the truths of your rev-
elation ? When the claimant chanced to be a creature
of convincing mental powers joined to a magnetic per-
sonality, his superiority was immediately accepted as
proof of his Divine favor. If he displayed no such
qualities, then the reverence due a saint turned speed-
ily into the horror due an heretic. "The Church,"
says Dr. Lea, "was in the unfortunate position of be-
ing committed to the belief in special manifestations
of supernatural power, while it was confessedly unable
to determine whether they came from heaven or hell.
This had long been recognized as one of the most
treacherous pit-falls. ... As early as the twelfth
century, Richard of St. Victor warns his disciples to
beware of it, and Aquinas points out that trances may
come from God, from the demon, or from bodily affec-
tions. " John Gerson endeavored to meet this danger
by forming a set of diagnostic rules; John of Avila
added his warning against delusion; while the histo-
rian comments that all this confusion was "merely an-
other instance of the failure of humanity in its efforts
to interpret the Infinite." 68 It is only to-day that
scholars seem confident of their interpretation, that
they accord the mystics a complete credulity and ac-
ceptation such as they never received in the past. For
all of ten centuries, the mind of the Church is seen
to fluctuate between the state of credulity and the
struggle against it; between fear and knowledge.
MYSTICISM: ITS INTERPRETATION 361
Fluctuations between these opposite points of view
often lasted long after the subject was in his grave.
The revelations of Maria d'Agreda, which had for ti-
tle "The Mystic City of God/' were placed on the
Index in 1681, taken off in 1686, condemned in France
by the Sorbonne in 1696, and finally allowed to cir-
culate among the faithful in 1716, "thus furnish-
ing/ ' comments Dr. Lea, "another example of the
difficulty of differentiating between sanctity and
heresy. ' ' 69 Even the Inquisition itself grew, to use
the same historian's phrase, "rationalistic in its treat-
ment of these cases"; 70 for in the eighteenth cen-
tury, it sent one case to an insane asylum, and in
1817, ordered yet another to obtain medical advice.
The Middle Ages, in the person of St. Bonaventura,
may even be found commenting on a certain passage
from Eichard of St. Victor where he describes the
highest grade of Divine love as producing an apparent
idiocy. 71 The very conjunction of these terms denotes
that the mediaeval mind had not lost the power of
judgment by comparison. And if this be true, surely
the mind of the twentieth century has an equal right
to ask for definite results before rendering a final ver-
dict.
The modern theorist, therefore, has not aided us to
understand this complex and delicate subject ; he has
rather confused than cleared it. On the one hand, his
reverence, on the other, his contempt, for what he finds
incomprehensible, places him at a disadvantage toward
his subject and thus toward his reader. The latter, if
he would know anything of the mystic, must shut his
362 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
ears to the clamor of theory and open them only to the
voices from the past, as contained in the documents of
spiritual history and autobiography.
That the Church was originally rich in the docu-
ments of mystical confession particularly those ad-
dressed to the spiritual director and bequeathed to
him after death admits of no possible doubt: the
marvel is that so few, comparatively speaking, are ex-
tant in their integrity. For this result, it would seem
that the standard of biography the Church has chosen
to adopt must be responsible ; otherwise weeks of care-
ful search among the wonderful indices of the great
and lesser Bollandists, must have yielded a larger
number of valid examples.
The feeling that it is necessary to publish a reli-
gious confession intact, is extremely modern. More-
over, it is a scientific feeling, and springs from a
sense of scientific obligation. The Church has never
felt it; by the nature of things never could feel it.
Even to-day she rather prefers that the devout should
peruse his Augustin in a carefully edited little volume
with most of its frank humanity omitted. The faith-
ful are not forbidden to read the full edition of the
confessions of any saint ; but the book which is placed
within their easy reach is not the full edition. The
Church's authority, in this regard as in others, exerts
itself to suppress individualism and to maintain a due
attitude of reverence. The mystic is the supreme in-
dividualist, and for this reason the Church has for
centuries looked upon him askance. Her attitude
resembles that of the colonel of a regiment who should
MYSTICISM: ITS INTERPRETATION 363
find that one of his privates claimed to be in re-
ceipt of special orders from the commander-in-chief,
transmitted to him individually, and outside of the
ordinary channels. Such presumptuous zeal comes
near to mutiny; thus the Church has tended to treat
as mutineers such bodies as the Jansenists, such indi-
viduals as Mme. Guyon. For every mystic she has
canonized, she has silenced ten. 72
In the preface to the Works of John of the Cross,
the learned translator remarks that he has altered the
words of the saint ' f en adoucissant les propositions un
peu dures, en temperant celles qui sont trop sub tiles
et trop metaphysiques " ; 73 and this same idea is car-
ried further in an approbatory letter from the Uni-
versity of Alcala, which declares that in the works
of this saint * ' naught has been found contrary to the
Catholic Faith. " ' * In fact, ' ' proceeds the letter, ' ' all
these works are valuable both for good morals, and to
govern spiritually inclined persons, and to disengage
them from any illusions which they may suffer if they
make too much of their state of visions and revela-
tions. ' ' 74 John of Avila warns his pious reader in
positive terms against dangerous illusions, or the
desire of things singular and supernatural, as
denoting a spirit of wicked pride and curiosity.
Many passages of a similar kind might be cited to
show that the Church felt herself fully justified in
editing, excising, and freely altering the works of all
mystics, whether great or small, which came into her
possession. 75
This custom has naturally increased the difficulties
of the lay investigator. True, some of the saints have
364 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
been great figures, whose records meant so much to the
world at large that they outlived and escaped this dis-
cipline, but these are few. Pious exhortation and
pious comparison being the ideal of these biographers,
the facts about the subject are considered of relatively
small importance. No attempt is made to verify
legend, or to substantiate miracle; the narratives of
contemporary witnesses are not questioned; and
usually the bull of canonization will be printed as the
single "piece justificative." Where an actual auto-
biography exists, it has been so transposed, or so in-
corporated into the text, as to nullify its value. 76
Even the Bollandists, the splendor of whose biographi-
cal achievement dazzles the humble-minded, even
these great historians seem to have no feeling what-
ever for the necessity of shifting the legend from the
facts.
Many of the earlier French and Italians suffer
editing at the most incompetent hands. When the
editor is more capable, his insistence on his sub-
ject's sanctity under all circumstances may stand
wholly in the way of accuracy. Augustin 77 suffers
from this attitude, when his plain statement of his sins
is blandly misinterpreted as the exaggeration due to
his saintly humility. It is even more irritating in the
biographer of Mme. de Chantal, 78 when that saintly
lady abandoned the duties of her houseful of children
for the more exciting transports of the cloister.
Moreover, this method or rather this lack of
method has worked a more serious injury still, by
depriving history of the elucidation possible only
through the study of defined groups. Isolated and
MYSTICISM: ITS INTERPRETATION 365
edited in the manner we have just described, these rec-
ords cease to reflect each other. No group-sentiment
is preserved, no group-characteristics are manifested.
' * Sans doute, ' ' observes a recent biographer, ' ' rien ne
ressemble a une vie de saint comme une autre vie de
saint " ; 79 yet there are diversities caused by race and
by development which it would have been worth our
while to determine. To be deprived of this matter
over so long a period is a misfortune, and one which
has served to narrow the field of investigation in a
very hampering manner. This is probably the cause
why the psychologists of whatever camp base their
conclusions on the data obtained from three or four
cases only, Teresa oftenest, or Suso, or Mme. Guyon.
Comparison by means of groups is denied them.
Yet, however the lives of the saints resemble one
another, it grows more and more evident that one can-
not fairly estimate sanctity by considering one or two
great individuals. The documents remaining may be
all too few, but they are at least enough to demon-
strate the futility of any such attempt. Take the cases
of Teresa and Loyola, for example. Teresa had an
organizing mind, she was an efficient, vigorous, and
intelligent woman. Loyola had an organizing mind,
he was a soldier, a courtier, and a practical man.
Yet if one were to use these two cases on which to
build a general theory of sanctity, how far would he
wander from the truth! One critic of this subject
lays emphasis on the presence in the mystic's heart of
what he names " vital sanctity" 80 rather than on any
manifestations of special phenomena. This term is
rather too vague to be convincing. On the other
366 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
hand, Delacroix appears to think that mysticism may
be adequately studied only from the examples of the
great mystics, just because their constructive genius
separates them definitely from all cases suffering a
neuropathical stigma. Theory here, as elsewhere on
this question, is decidedly a priori.
It were well to pause and consider the docu-
ment itself, rather than its critics. The general im-
pression it has left upon the mind has been accu-
rately drawn by Delacroix. 81 "Les mystiques/' he
writes, "n 'ecrivent leur vie qu'a une epoque ou ils
sont deja avances dans les voies interieures. . . . Les
documents qu'ils nous donnent ont le caractere de
souvenirs et de memoires, beaucoup plus que celui de
journal ou de notes. ... Si disposees que soient les
mystiques a 1 'observation interieure et a 1 'analyse per-
sonnelle, 1'idee du document scientifique leur est tout-
a-fait etrangere. Ils ecrivent, soit sur un ordre in-
terieur, soit sur 1 'ordre d'un directeur. Du plus, au
moment qu'ils ecrivent ... ils ont deja 1'idee du
caractere de ces etats, . . . 1'idee d'une suite, d'un
progres." 82 The significance of this conception of a
progressive state to the mystic, has already been men-
tioned and will be later dealt with. As an idea it had
much influence upon their presentation of their ma-
terial, as upon their interpretation of it. From the
mediaeval cases we cannot expect to gain such classi-
fied and detailed information as the Quakers, under
very different influences, felt it necessary to leave in
their testimonies ; and the lack of all group-character-
istics is more serious still. From the scanty and
cloudy records of the early Middle Ages, much of
MYSTICISM: ITS INTERPRETATION 367
value may yet be drawn ; and it is possible therein to
trace the beginning of certain tendencies, which were
to have no small share in the development of men's
thought.
The earliest important personal documents of the
mystical type are the revelations to saints and
cloistered persons in the Middle Ages, which precede,
by several centuries, those confessions of the Gottes-
freunde, whose fragments form what is probably the
earliest mystical group. These revelations, although
submitting to all the influences of contagion and much
affecting one another's style, lack that central idea
which is necessary to bind a group together. They
concern matters of varying importance, and are scat-
tered throughout the countries and cloisters of Europe.
In most cases they are dictated by the seer to a scribe,
or monastic clerk, or a director, who writes down in
labored Latin their prophecies and visions of heaven
and of hell. 83
Such are the records left by Gertrude of Eisleben
and Mechtilde, by Hildegarde of Bingen and her
friend Elizabeth of Schonau; by Brigitte of Sweden,
Catherine of Bologna, and Franchise Eomaine; by
Gerlac Petersen, the anchoress Juliana of Norwich,
and the anonymous monk of Evesham.
Among these, that of Hildegarde is the only record
which contributes detailed personal matter of any real
value. This extraordinary woman includes much of
her youthful history, and is particular about such de-
tails as her age at different crises, in a manner un-
known to the others. Of the Gottesfreunde records
which follow and are intimately connected with the
368 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
revelations, we possess but few full documents, the
autobiographies of Merswin and Suso, Tauler's let-
ters and sermons, the journals of Margaret and Chris-
tina Ebnerin. These are sufficient to give a vivid
picture of their quaint and sensitive piety ; but what-
ever introspective tendency they display is overborne
by the desire to speak of things revealed.
1 The vividness with which these long-ago mystics
describe their religious experiences, is to us, to-day, the
most striking feature of their records. The other
world appears to them with all the details of color and
form that may be suggested by their mediaeval feel-
ing for decoration. Thus Baptiste Varani describes
Christ as a handsome youth, dressed in white and gold,
and with curly hair, and Angela da Foligno saw
him a handsome boy, magnificently adorned. 84 Jesus
seemed like his "own brother " to Ubertino da Casale,
who likewise identified himself with the persons and
events of the New Testament. Their visions are per-
sonal, objective, and picturesque, to a degree amazing
and naif ; they are also, as Tylor 85 observes, strikingly
wanting in originality: "The stiff Madonnas, with
their crowns and petticoats, still transfer themselves
from the pictures on cottage walls to appear in spirit-
ual personality to peasant visionaries, as the saints
who stood in vision before the ecstatic monks of old
were to be known by their conventional pictorial at-
tributes. ' ' 86 \ The reader has already sufficient war-
rant for the application of the above passage, in the
sections of this book devoted to the description of
those phenomena. Some of the more vivid strikingly
confirm the imitative tendencies here noticed. Says
MYSTICISM: ITS INTERPRETATION 369
Mechtilde, for example: "On Esto Mihi Sunday she
heard the beloved of her soul, Jesus, saying to her in
the sweet whisper of love, ' Wilt thou abide with me on
the mountain, these forty days and nights ? ' And the
soul, ' Oh, gladly, my Lord ! ' . . . Then he showed her
a high mountain, of wondrous greatness . . . having
seven steps by which it was ascended, and seven foun-
tains. And, taking her up, He came to the first step,
which was the step of humility " ; 8r and so on, through
a long vision describing the ascent.
Mr. Edmund Gardner (from whose sympathetic
translation the above is condensed) remarks on its
resemblance to the Dantean hill of Purgatory ; but in
truth this analogy of a mountain, with steps up
thereto, is made use of by the mystics with zealous and
untiring banality. The steps whether three, or
seven, or nine are to be read of in Dionysius, 88 in the
St. Victors, and in St. Bonaventura, while they are re-
iterated, with but trifling variations, in the revelations
of later visionaries, like Angela da Foligno, Juliana of
Norwich, Teresa, and Maria d'Agreda. This sheer,
mechanical repetition of an idea, or, more accurately,
of a metaphor, is surely unlike the fertility of genius,
whose touch revivifies the outworn. The mechanical
reiteration, moreover, is not confined to style and
image, for it extends to the things seen, as well as to
the manner of telling about them. Moreover, the con-
tents of these revelations differ little indeed, surpris-
ingly little from the later Methodist or Quaker
examples. The sense of personality is hardly keener,
although the details are more picturesque. A me-
diaeval Catholic case is not apt to undergo the
370 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
same pre-converted progress, his whole religious life
dates rather from that day on which he takes the
vows. His attitude toward fundamental questions
holds an assurance which the Dissenter could never
hope to feel. Yet, on the whole, the similarity of
these instances is far more remarkable than the diver-
sity. The fourteenth-century nun is emotionally
stirred and troubled by certain symbols of her faith,
exactly as the Quaker is moved by and toward the
figures of his. M. M. Alacoque felt a piercing flame
at the thought of the order of the Visitation; while
Thomas Laythe fasted for a fortnight on account of
11 weights and exercises" which the idea of the Quakers
brought upon him. John Gratton is moved " toward
a people poor and despised, the Lord's own"; Carlo
da Sezze was especially stirred by the idea of the
Sacred Heart; and so on. 89
What differences here exist result largely from a
totally different attitude in the audiences which sur-
round the actors in the drama. The entire problem
of the action and reaction of the writer and his pub-
lic, of the actor and his audience, has an especial
significance in regard to the situation of the mediaeval
religious. However one may estimate this attitude, he
cannot ignore it: whether it be regarded in the light
of faith or in the light of credulity, it becomes an im-
portant factor in all secluded communities. What-
ever the feeling of the Church at large, and we have
seen it was by no means always one of sympathy,
yet the mediaeval mystic played his part before an au-
dience generally predisposed to belief. To what ex-
tent this belief stimulated the chief performer and
MYSTICISM: ITS INTERPRETATION 371
excited him to further efforts, can be judged when it
is compared with the very different attitude existing
to-day. Kenan's observation that miracle is condi-
tioned on the credulity of the witness, 90 would seem to
be confirmed whatever the conditions.
A recent writer comments on this fact in a few
sentences relating to instances of conversion in
prison ; 91 and it is true of the entire world to-day.
Where the audience used to be benign, now, it is hos-
tile ; where it was reverent, now, it is charged with sus-
picion. The line of the norm meanwhile has so shifted
that what seemed health to the thirteenth century, ap-
pears disease to the twentieth.
Personal opinion as to the value of this change may
differ, but whether one believes it to be for good or
ill, one cannot deny that it is responsible for an altera-
tion of tone in the literature of religious experience,
and also, no doubt, for a certain loss in authority and
in distinction. 92 Whereas he once looked down upon
an awestricken world, the mystic now must look ask-
ance, often defiantly, upon a jeering and a sceptical
world. This lack of sympathy has survived even the
emotional reactions of the last quarter-century, and
is now common to the majority of people, irrespec-
tive of creed. Whether to-day a man's belief be
Catholic, Protestant, or rationalistic, he will agree
to regard with extreme suspicion any person laying
claim to supernatural revelations or experiences. It
thus becomes all the more necessary to handle the data
of mysticism with caution and with sympathy, since
the easiest manner to dispose of it, is thought by
many to be the medical-materialistic. At no time is
372 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
it possible without strain to hold the mind open to
what these mystics think; indeed, as was said at the
outset of this enquiry, the difficulties in respect to
theory and in respect to documents, are not less when
we come to the data. Yet these data must be ex-
amined if the reader is to lay any foundation in his
own mind for a conclusion on the subject. Most of
the psychological phenomena attendant upon the via
mystica, have already received attention in the sec-
tion upon conversion, where they are grouped in order
to elucidate that crisis. It has been made plain that
in an ardent and sensitive person, such a crisis is in-
variably, if but temporarily, mystical. In the life
of ' the true mystic, however, these phenomena de-
velop, showing a progression which must be taken
into account, and which has a typical and effective
result upon the personality of the subject. Most
studies of mysticism, whatever their theory, have con-
fined themselves to the higher examples of this type,
using them, as Von Hiigel does Catherine of Genoa,
both as a text and as a commentary. For this reason
they have failed to draw certain highly obvious in-
ferences.
It is impossible, of course, even for these writers to
overlook the more striking conclusions reached by
modern science ; and thus Miss Underhill 93 makes note
of the self-hypnotization of Jacob Boehme " gazing
fixedly at the pewter dish reflected in the sunshine,"
and Loyola, seated in meditation before running
water ; but she makes no real study, no thorough in-
vestigation of the instances of "misinterpreted ob-
servation." In truth, any such study would serve to
MYSTICISM: ITS INTERPRETATION 373
create insuperable difficulties in the way of founding
and maintaining any philosophical theory of mysti-
cism.
There is nothing in the entire field of religious in-
vestigation more startling than the comparisons which
are furnished by savages, in regard to mystical phe-
nomena. They will give pause even to the most con-
ventional mind. If he reads that "the Zulu convert
in a mood of heightened religious excitement will be-
hold a snake with great eyes and very fearful; a
leopard creeping stealthily; an enemy approaching
with his long assegai"; 94 what comparisons are sug-
gested by the testimony of Loyola, or Dr. Pordage, or
Mme. Guyon, or the Mere Jeanne des Anges ? ' ' Thus
the visionary temptations of the Hindu ascetic and the
mediaeval saint are happening in our own day." 93
We read that the North American Indian fasts to
produce a similar effect, whether by vision or dream;
and according to the character of the vision makes his
various decisions. Some of these decisions relate to
his private affairs, and some to the ceremonies then
in. progress and which the fast has preceded. 96 / The
case of Catherine "Wabose, the Indian already noted,
is a vivid confirmation of these instances. She says
particularly that during her fast and vigil she kept ex-
pecting visions, and it was not long ere she was grati-
fied^" Any state of the body," observes the physiolo-
gist Miiller, 97 "expected with a certain confidence, is
prone to ensue"; and this follows not only in cases of
savage religion, but even where religion itself is not
the superinducing cause.
John Beaumont 98 quotes from Dion Cassius who
374 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
avows that lie had been divinely commanded to write
his history. Beaumont himself had visions and heard
tinkling bells, but no religious ideas attached to them.
Herbert of Cherbury" received a sign, on the occa-
sion of completing a book whose tenets were considered
dangerous to Christianity. Philo Judaeus similarly
alludes to his Daemon; and Cardan is equally plain.
Louis Claude de St. Martin associated his phenomenal
revelations with philosophy. Less harmless a person,
Henri Charles, the murderer of Mme. Gey, at Sidi-
Mabrouk, in Algeria, observes that, after certain up-
heavals in his faith, he turned extremely mystical and
had visions of trees and of peasants ' cottages. * ' I had
begun/' he writes in his "Memorial," "to love the su-
pernatural." 10 These cases are merely mentioned by
way of corrective to the general impression, fostered
by so many of the theories now in vogue, that mysti-
cism and mystical phenomena in themselves argue a
high degree of religious or of moral development. As
a matter of fact, nothing could be further from the
truth, as is shown by such narratives as that of Marie
de Sains, or the Mere Jeanne des Anges, or any others
among the confessions of diabolical possession. Here
the whole range of mystical experiences is seen dis-
played, but with a contrary significance. Visions,
voices, conversations with the demon, "diabolical" in-
stead of "divine" espousals; such a duplication wor-
ried the mediaeval conscience exceedingly. It might
worry ours if the student to-day were really disposed,
as the theorists desire, to look upon this condition as
an "ideally normal" state.
Instead, the facts dispose him to look upon it as a
MYSTICISM: ITS INTERPRETATION 375
very artificial and abnormal condition. The facts
show that a predisposition to mysticism does not in-
volve either mental ability, normal excellence, or even
religious motives. Religious emotion may, indeed, be
the most frequent starting-point for the mystical phe-
nomena ; but it is by no means a necessary antecedent,
and the state takes its rise, in some cases, from purely
physical and nervous conditions (such as occur during
puberty), and may receive no religious color until
later. It may be primarily religious; and it may be
secondarily religious ; but there is no valid burden of
proof, if one examines the facts in toto, that it is
necessarily religious at all.
"When the body is systematically weakened by fast-
ings and vigils/' remarks Dr. Lea, 101 "spiritual ex-
altation is readily induced in certain natures by con-
tinued mental concentration." And the cause may
be what the human imagination wills.
The section on "Conversion" furnishes a large num-
ber of examples of the forms which this spiritual ex-
altation may assume. These forms do not differ
among mystics, but the progression of the mystical
state is important and must not be forgotten. The
sudden and transient outbreak of psychological phe-
nomena superinduced in most persons by the excite-
ment and strain of conversion, is very different from
that progress along the way, which distinguishes the
saints and the great contemplatives. Moreover, this
progression presents some suggestive features. For
instance, Hildegarde of Bingen, who began to see
visions and great lights at three years old, and con-
tinued to do so until she was seventy, penetratingly;
376 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
observes the difference between the mild beauty of the
earlier visions, concealed by her and taken symbolic-
ally, and the bizarre prophecies which, an old woman,
she writes to Bernard of Clairvaux. With Suso, the
progression is even more strikingly and vividly de-
picted; and it was also in the experience of Jerome.
This passing from visionary experiences of a helpful
to those of a horrible kind, may be noted also in
Ghiibert, Othloh, Antoinette Bourignon, Angelique
Arnauld, de Marsay and Mme. Guyon it is an espe-
cial characteristic of the earlier mysticism. Angela
da Foligno became a recluse after the death of her
husband and sons. At the "Fourteenth Spiritual
Step," her visions, sparing before, grew frequent, and
were supplemented by dreams. Her bodily suffer-
ings and soul-torments were incessant thereafter. 102
Jeanne de St. M. Deleloe at first revolted against con-
vent-rule. Soon, however, she came to love solitude
'and silence ; and then began to hear interior words, to
be comforted by the Lord, who showed her the mys-
teries of the Faith. Her health, never strong, suffered
from the seclusion ; yet she thinks she would have re-
mained humbly happy in the favor of God, but for the
doubts of her superior, who tries to mortify and humil-
iate her in every way. Up to this time, her visions
had been of a gentle and reassuring character, but un-
der the suspicion of presumption they became painful,
horrible, and perverse. This influence of suggestion
by others upon the character of the psychological
phenomena of the mystics, has rarely been pointed out
by students of these manifestations. The same effect
is to be noted in the "Apology" of Dame Gertrude
MYSTICISM: ITS INTERPRETATION 377
More, who was "perplexed and tossed with a thou-
sand imaginations and overwhelmed with miseries
yea, almost desperate" from the unwise advice of
her director. She went to another priest, ' ' and found
myself in fifteen days so quieted that I wondered."
The effect of the hysterical Pere Surin upon the
hysterical Soeur Jeanne des Anges, is a striking ex-
ample of this personal influence. It is strongly sug-
gested, also, in the documents left by the Gottes-
freunde, in Germany, who vitally affected one an-
other. 103 According to the doubt, however, as to
whether the mysterious Friend of God in the Ober-
land, who in turn harrowed the souls of John Tauler,
Eulman Merswin, Margaret Ebnerin, and others, was
a real person or a symbolical figure, this case cannot
be given as conclusive. Richard Rolle, the hermit of
Hampole, says of the spiritual life, ' ' the process truly,
as I will show, solitary life behooves me to preach."
Maligned by slanderers after his conversion, he wan-
dered from cell to cell in search of peace, always hear-
ing heavenly music and saying quaintly: "Forsooth
my thought continually to mirth of song was changed. ' '
This expression by E-olle of the mystical life in terms
of music, is original with him and very lovely : it seems
to have lasted all his days and to have been the main
form in which the love of God took meaning to his
mind. Rolle gives us no further details ; but a similar
progressive spiritual experience befell Jonathan Ed-
wards. The nun Veronique Giuliani does not give the
starting-point of her progressive mysticism. Christ
crowned her with thorns during prayer, and the pain
remained about her brows, more or less, for twelve
378 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
years. In another vision the Child pierces her with a
golden staff, and, touching the place with her handker-
chief, she sees it spotted with blood. Mary of the
Angels, Carmelite, had a deep sense of piety, but again
personal influence, in the shape of a kind, sensible
priest, curbed her childish morbidity. It is unfortu-
nately suggested to her that the grief which she felt on
parting with her family to take the veil (she is only
fifteen), is the Devil's work; thus leading her to begin
the practice of dreadful austerities, which plunge her
into gloom and despair. The reader's attention has
already been called to an idiosyncrasy of the Evil
One that the more one noticed his attacks, the more
furious they grew ; and that in the few painfully few
cases in which they were ignored altogether, they
vanished with a remarkable rapidity. 104 Mary of the
Angels noticed them even at their tentative stage ; the
assaults grew violent and well-nigh physical, tak-
ing chiefly the form of giving her hideous, impure
thoughts, while devils annoyed her when at prayer
by their cries and howls. In the more modern case of
another Carmelite, Therese of the Holy Child, the
confessant was one of five sisters who all became nuns.
Her innocence was so great that on taking the veil at
eighteen, her director told her she had never mortally
sinned. Yet a terrible reaction of gloom at once be-
set her. Her death, at twenty-five, of consumption,
put a period to what was a nearly perfect type of the
mystical progress. A longer development in A. C.
Emmerich carries us through all the childish visions
(at six she beheld the Creation and the fall of man)
into the later periods of horror, when she could not eat,
MYSTICISM: ITS INTERPRETATION 379
and during which she developed the stigmata. Her
visions and ecstasies were frequent, much resembling
those of Maria d'Agreda. In her last illness we have
read how her complacency passed the bounds, so that
even her director had his doubts. The famous abbess
whom she resembled gives full account of her own mys-
tical progress, describing how phantoms beset her in the
shape of wild beasts ; how she suffered during prayer,
and how horror drove her nearly into open blasphemy.
"A light soft and clear " she declared accompanied
her visions, wherein she beheld the life of the Virgin
Mary. She especially observes that writing calmed
her. The nun Osanna Andreasi (who, by the way,
was thought by her parents to be epileptic) tells us
that at six years old the Child Jesus appeared to her,
and, describing to her his love for children, avowed
that he would teach her how to become a saint. Later,
an angel led her to behold the universe under the law
of God. A modern case, Mary of the Divine Heart,
began by holding intimate talks with Christ, "all
interior"; but these were soon followed by the cus-
tomary dreadful glooms and violent periods of de-
spair. Illustrations drawn from English dissenters
further elucidate the progressive nature of the mysti-
cal process. Joanna Southcott, who began with start-
ling dreams and visions, rapidly came to closer grips
with Satan ; and in one conflict, lasting for ten days,
she was beaten black and blue. The same progres-
sion is found in the Mormon examples. Joseph Smith,
at the first, claimed only to be a mouthpiece, a mere
receiver of revelations; but he is soon a seer, and a
crystal-gazer, an occultist, faith-healer, and a caster-out
380 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
of devils. Those fights with the Devil told by Mormon
elders, read much like Joanna Southcott's, Guibert de
Nogent's mother's, or the abbot Othloh's. In Joan-
na 's case ill-health and hysteria seem a definite cause ;
while the example of "misinterpreted observation,"
i. e., dropsy instead of divine pregnancy which ended
both her Divine claims and her life, would be gro-
tesque were it not so pathetic.
Alice Hayes, Quaker, resembles Mme. Guyon in her
interior progress and her outward persecutions; and
Joseph Hoag, also a Friend, experienced as many
visions, reactions, and progressive mystical phenomena
as ever did Suso or Teresa. Other marked instances
of Quaker mysticism may be found in the cases of
Margaret Lucas and of Samuel Neale. The custom
of the Friends, to turn immediately upon conversion
to a career of active ministry and service, makes the
mystical examples rarer than among the mediaeval her-
mits or the monastic cases. Yet no one can read
their testimonies without being convinced that the
progressive condition is identical, though it is one
which needs the seclusion, the asceticism, and the
regimen of the cloister, to develop fully and charac-
teristically.
To pass final judgment upon the facts, may be
wisely left to the open-minded student of human
nature. The review of these testimonies should give
him at least a foundation for his decision. He may
not be able to formulate any explanation of the state
of mystical progression, whose votaries have for so
many centuries played their parts before the audi-
ence of the world. Mysticism may speak to him of
MYSTICISM: ITS INTERPRETATION 381
various influences ; being a term so wide that he may
not desire to restrict it to the narrow field of per-
sonal experience. It may mean to him more what it
meant to Augustin or to Amiel the delicate response
of human emotion to the appeal of the vastness and
mystery of the universe. "I will pass then beyond
this power of my nature also, rising by degrees unto
Him who made me. . . . See, I am mounting up
through my mind towards thee who abidest above
me . . . ' ' 105 is the cry of the genius-mystic.
To-day, one is apt to forget that it is genius which
feels this exultation. The judgment of the reader here
is asked simply on the one limited and much-misun-
derstood field of personal experience, and upon the
theorists thereof. It is for him to say, when he looks
at A. C. Emmerich, M. de Marsay, Antoinette Bourig-
non, whether "the mono-ideism of the mystic is ra-
tional. ' ' Such examples as Pere Surin, Joanna South-
cott, Joseph Smith, Maria d'Agreda, Osanna Andreasi,
M. M. Alacoque, Mere Jeanne des Anges, Therese of
the Holy Child, may assist him to decide whether it is
true that "the mystics are almost always persons of
robust intelligence and marked practical and intellec-
tual ability." Survey of the records as they stand
may lead him to question further whether the mys-
tical way is, truly, the way of higher life, and if that
state be in truth a state of ideally normal develop-
ment. To readjust his attitude, he has only to con-
sider such undeniable facts as the lack of creation
from these so-called creators; the paucity of truth
obtained for the world by those who claim that they
reach it at its Divine source; and the dissociation
382 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
of ethical standards from religious standards which
is the fundamental characteristic of mysticism.
Further, it is made plain that the world's reverence
for these mystics has been due primarily to centuries
of misinterpreted observation of the phenomena of
mysticism. Once understood, how changed perforce
would be the conclusions of the very subject himself !
Would Robert Blair, 106 saintly man, have considered
himself divinely converted if he had realized the
strength of that wine in the milk-posset ? Reason has
caused from time to time strong reactions in favor of
such understanding; but the natural inclination to
consider a thing important in proportion as it appears
obscure, has prevented such reaction from being car-
ried sufficiently far. At the moment, the "will to be-
lieve ' ' that this state, since it exists, is one of value and
meaning, is very strong. A mystical wind is just now
sweeping over the fields of thought. Many follow the
example of the director of Mary of the Angels and
cure by command. It were well, in view of prevalent
ideas, that we examine and reexamine not the gener-
alizations, but the facts, the specific, particular, and
concrete facts, on which all valid theory must neces-
sarily be based. The verdict, then, when soberly and
thoughtfully rendered, will have the weight of an in-
duction.
It is time to speak a word of warning in the ears of
those to whom criticism and history afford unfamiliar
methods by which to achieve results. This book is
not one of philosophical speculation, nor of metaphysi-
cal theory. Neither is it a psychological study of re-
MYSTICISM: ITS INTERPRETATION 3S3
ligious experience, so much as an examination of the
material available for such a study. Rather it is an
attempt, through classification and analysis, to de-
termine what the data in the case of individual reli-
gious experience really are, and what, if any, conclu-
sions may be logically drawn from them. For, if no
logical conclusions may be so drawn, it is at least a
gain in honesty to face and acknowledge the fact.
This acknowledgment in itself will have a quality of
novelty, since it has been almost a tradition to take
conclusions on this subject for granted. Very modern,
indeed, is the student who pauses to ask if a valid
induction can be made on the subject of religion.
More recent still is he who endeavors to bring the
chaotic and heterogeneous material furnished by
antiquity, by history, and by literature within the
reach of scientific method. Rightly or wrongly, men
have pointed to these instances, and made use of them
in order to reach certain conclusions, ever since Job's
friends gathered to condole with him on his many
misfortunes. The experiences themselves have re-
mained little altered by the centuries; but our inter-
pretation of them changes almost with each generation.
Maudsley 107 has made note of the indisputable fact
that truth obtained through ecstasy always resulted in
confirming the views of the subject. If a Christian,
his " reason-transcending truths" were always Chris-
tian in their significance ; but if a Brahman, they were
Brahman. Thus, an Unitarian's visions differed from
those of a Trinitarian, Teresa's from S wedenborg 's,
and so forth. The process must be limited and gov-
erned by the predisposition of the subject's mind,
384 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
which does not affect the simple essential nature and
identity of these experiences. It is fair to use the
Book of Job as a case in point, even though we know
it to be complex in form, and often theological in
intention. What happened to Eliphaz the Temanite,
seven hundred years before Christ, seems perfectly
familiar to us to-day, yet we do not draw the same
conclusions which he drew from that occurrence.
"In thoughts from the vision of the night, when deep sleep
falleth on men,
Fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my
bones to shake.
Then a spirit passed before my face; and the hair of my
flesh stood up;
It stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof;
An image was before mine eyes, there was silence, and I
heard a voice, saying,
Shall mortal man be more just than God?
Shall a man be more pure than his maker?" ios
This revelation forms the starting-point of a doc-
trine of consolation, placed by the speaker in the
mouth of the vision for the sake of its greater au-
thority. It is nearly twenty-five hundred years since
the words were written which are put into the mouth
of this character, yet their accent of vivid personal
experience is the accent of yesterday. Keen and
full of terror was that moment to the writer, were
he really Eliphaz or another. But the instant he
turns from describing the vision, and his feelings when
it befell, to repeating the words he thinks it said, and
the doctrinal conclusion he believes it reached, that
instant our conviction ceases. We perceive an intel-
MYSTICISM: ITS INTERPRETATION 385
lectual idea superimposed on an emotional experience ;
and we recognize therein a common fallacy of human
reasoning. For, to rely on that fundamental law, the
identity of our common nature, and on all the valid
records of psychological experience, does not mean
that we are to accept the conclusions of the subjects as
we accept their data. It means, in fact, just the con-
trary; for their conclusions tend to be wrong, if for
no other reason than because the experience is their
own. We find them, for instance, attributing to the
revelation their own ideas of intellectual quality subtly
elaborated. The mind of Eliphaz conceived a certain
doctrine, the imagination of Eliphaz beheld a vision
and the two are by him linked together without hesita-
tion. A similar elaboration is to be observed in the
case of Paul ; 109 who asked, in his first narrative,
"What shall I do, Lord? And the Lord said unto
me, Arise, and go into Damascus ; and there it shall be
told thee of all things which are appointed for thee to
do." This is a simple and direct command; but in
the second narrative observe how it becomes elabo-
rated and detailed.
"But rise, and stand upon thy feet: for I have
appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a
minister and a witness both of these things which
thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will
appear unto thee ;
"Delivering thee from the people, and from the
Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee,
"To open their eyes, and to turn them from dark-
ness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God,
that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inherit-
386 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
ance among them which are sanctified by faith that
is in me." 110
In this speech the Lord not only seems to tell Paul
why he appeared to him and that he will reappear,
but also describes what Paul must do, and what the
Gentiles are going to do, along the line of certain doc-
trines notably Pauline. Far easier were it to accept
Kenan's explanation of the ophthalmia and the thun-
derstorm, than to accept Paul's inference as to the
full, doctrinal meaning of his vision. We feel that
he simply places his own doctrines in the vision's
mouth, just as did Eliphaz, and drew similar quite
unwarranted conclusions from the experience. A
cruder case of this tendency is shown by Joseph Smith,
whose visionary revelations, first wholly general and
spiritual, become progressively detailed according to
his particular needs. 111
Misinterpreted observation is frequently responsible
for erroneous inferences of this kind. It surprises us
to-day to read Jonathan Edwards's naif remark, that,
during the Great Awakening, "God has in many re-
spects gone much beyond his usual and ordinary
way. ' ' 112 Edwards gives also an instance of Satan 's
raging, and God's withdrawal, in the suicide of a
worthy person, "who," he then adds, "was of a fam-
ily that are exceedingly prone to the disease of mel-
ancholy, and his mother was killed with it. ' ' 113 The
pages of this book have already been crowded with
similar minor misinterpretations. Blair's ecstasy fol-
lowing the milk-posset, 114 and John Conran's conver-
sion after the "sweet liquor called shrub" 11B are sin-
cere examples. Colonel Gardiner's vision, following
MYSTICISM: ITS INTERPRETATION 387
the fall from his horse, is evidently another. Various
saintly and cloistered women draw what seems to our
minds unwarranted conclusions on the subject of their
relations toward God; and the reader's own experi-
ence will furnish him with other instances. It must
not be forgotten that Luther thought his " bright vi-
sion" to be the Devil's work.
To suspect the conclusion, while respecting the in-
formation of the subject, becomes a necessary canon
for this study. Man is never more egotistical than
when under the stress of a religious upheaval. The
disorganized Ego tends to force itself perpetually
upon the attention, just as a disorganized digestion
would. A man cannot forget himself ; and in propor-
tion as he becomes important to himself, he becomes
important (in his own mind) to the powers of Good
and Evil, to Satan and to God. Each narrative must
be sifted of this element and the bare occurrences sub-
tracted, before they can be profitably used as mat-
ter of comparison. In the proper interpretation of
these experiences lies all their validity for us. Then,
if we are not to accept the subject's inference as to
his own magnitude in the sight of God, if the facts
seem not to warrant us in accepting the verdict of
the critic who would class him with genius, what
conclusion are we to reach? Must we be forced to
take the attitude of the medical-materialist and
finally dispose of the whole matter by shifting it to
the realm of pathology? Must we hereafter think of
Paul as an epileptoid, and of Teresa as an hysterical ?
Must we set them in the same class as Joseph Smith
and Joanna Southcott?
388 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
It were useless to deny that the French school has
much weight on its side and to many the solution
of disease appears the simplest solution. 116 The ar-
guments from hysteria, the arguments from insanity,
tend to develop striking analogies in certain directions,
and some of our cases would seem to come very close
to them. But here again it must not be forgotten,
that things which are equal to the same thing are equal
to each other. "Were our cases all Pere Surins or
Jeannes des Anges, or Sainte-Chantals, or John
Crooks, or M. M. Alacoques or Joseph Smiths, we
could hardly escape the reasoning of the medical-
materialist. The point is that they are not. The same
differences and difficulties of degree obtain here.
Just so long as one can point to Augustin, to Paul, to
Teresa, to Wesley, to Loyola, one cannot in justice
nor in common sense set down the forces which under-
lay their religious experience to the manifestation of
disease. On the contrary, just so long as one can
point to the many contemplatives of the type of Maria
d'Agreda, or Joanna Southcott, one cannot in jus-
tice nor in common sense set down the forces which
underlay their religious experience to the manifes-
tation of genius, or to an " ideally normal" develop-
ment. The one link which binds these dissimilar
personalities is the presence of this religious mani-
festation. That they hold this experience in common
over the centuries, should, of course, be a vitally sug-
gestive fact for the theorist, yet it must not cause him
to rush into too-hasty generalization.
The tendency of the modern student to use only the
more striking instances and individualities in support
MYSTICISM: ITS INTERPRETATION 389
of his special tenets, has been largely responsible for
his attitude. Such an one founds a whole theory of
mysticism, for instance, in two volumes, upon the
single case of Catherine of Genoa ; 117 and it is, to
our thinking, exactly as if he wrote of the elephant,
and confined his observations to the King of Burmah's
celebrated cream-colored specimen; or as if he based
his study of twins exclusively upon the pair known as
the Siamese. It is in the study of the mean, rather
than in that of the extremes, that the truth will be
found to lie ; and this is even more exactly the case in
regard to an investigation which deals with human
beings.
Yet the reader is standing ready to remind us that
what is not health must be disease, and vice versa.
Perhaps; so long as we insist on applying terms of
this character to the subject rather than those more
flexible. There are conditions in our lives which can-
not be accurately described either as health or as
disease. Pregnancy, for instance, properly to be de-
nned only by the term process, may become normal
or pathological according to the heredity and consti-
tution of the subject, her nutrition, and the accidents
which may affect its course. It is suggestive to us
here, simply because of the conjunction of this process
with a result.
Thus are we again confronted with that question
of result, which we persist in thinking is the very heart
of the matter. All the pathological theories of genius
collapse utterly when they reach this same point
the result. All the " ideally normal" theories of
mysticism collapse utterly when they reach this point
390 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
the result. The discussion of Shelley's degeneracy,
and the possible epilepsy of Caesar and Richelieu, come
to nothing, when one faces the irrefragable result of
their creative intellectual power. That exultant cry
of the mystic that he he only has grasped the divine
truth fails wholly when one asks him for a result,
which is but Nothingness. The medical-materialist
has not been able to produce from his sanatorium or
maison de sante, any work of creative genius ; nor can
the mystical theorist show to our satisfaction that
the saint has made any plainer to us a single one of
life's great mysteries. "No psychological meaning,"
asserts Dr. Hirsch, "can be attached to the word
genius. . . . All men of genius possess common
traits, ~but they are not traits characteristic of gen-
ius." 118 When this is remembered, and also that "in
psychology, every man is species sui generis/' a great
point will have been gained for our better interpreta-
tion of the phenomena under consideration.
It is evident that, by reason of their fixed char-
acter, the terms "health" and "disease" should be
finally eliminated from this discussion. Too long
has the reader been held within the limitations they
impose upon his mind. Bather would one substitute
the idea of process, and define the emotional religious
experience as a process which develops in many of us
and to which all of us are more or less innately sub-
ject. This development has been seen to be various,
changing with the character of the person and with
the influences surrounding him. At the beginning, it
is governed by certain fixed conditions, which have
been found to vary practically not at all in different
MYSTICISM: ITS INTERPRETATION 391
countries and races, nor during the progress of the
ages. By means of these fixed conditions alone has it
been possible to study the process, as one may study
anything that is stable and defined. They are classi-
fied for the purpose of this work under one head,
whereas the manifestations of the process, when in be-
ing, fall properly under another classification. The
object of such classification is merely to separate the
inducing conditions surrounding the process, from the
process itself, a differentiation which is almost never
made by the subject, nor by those immediately in touch
with him. Their tendency to ignore the favoring,
antecedent conditions of his experience, has been per-
petuated in the work even of serious scientific ana-
lysts, who fail for this reason to see the saint and
his situation as they really are. Thus, the Church's
interpretation of Augustin's religious experience has
been fluctuating and fallacious for centuries; thus,
Mme. Guyon has never been properly understood;
thus, Guibert's heredity so striking an influence!
is ignored ; and the suggestive development of natures
like Loyola and Teresa is passed over, or treated as
if it were wholly homogeneous.
When we have determined that this form of experi-
ence is in the nature of a process, we would seem
merely to have shifted the difficulty, and not to have
done it away ; to have changed the terms, yet not have
explained their meaning. The ordinary person may
not be obliged to have what actually occurs pointed
out to him but he will yet ask why and wherefore.
Why does the nature of this or that person change so
entirely that for the time being it is unrecognizable?
392 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
Wherefore these exaggerated terrors, this unbalanced
sensitiveness, this exaltation, this uplifted passion?
Something has set up a disuniting force within what
we have chosen in these pages to call the nebula of
Personality, and Something, after a troublous lapse
of time, causes it healthily to integrate once more.
Such, in brief, is the process with which most of us
are familiar under the title of emotional religious ex-
perience. To what is this process due ? "What causes
it? The world has had but one coherent answer to
these questions: "It is due to the spontaneous up-
springing of our religious instinct."
We have said that this is not a work of speculation
yet speculation of a sort there must be in every work
which attempts to relate the facts it has analyzed to
universal underlying conditions. The particular con-
crete example must be governed by broad and gen-
eral conditions of evolution. Speculation, therefore,
in the classic sense, forms a necessary part of every
historical and scientific theory. Fortunately, in this
case, the pathway appears to emerge on one of the
highways of the intellect, whereon it has trodden with-
out ceasing, almost from the first moment that it
walked alone. Religion, however studied, has been a
subject contemplated from the dawn of intellectual
life. And from the very dawn, this same answer
about religious instinct, under its varying forms, has
been made without ceasing to the dissatisfied investi-
gator.
Moreover, it has been made from very different
points of view, it has tended to be the common and
universal assumption underlying every species of
MYSTICISM: ITS INTERPRETATION 393
argument. That a religious instinct exists, that its
presence in the nature of the savage accounts for
his primitive fears, and for his primitive worship,
this has been the theory alike of the divine and the lay-
man, of the metaphysician and of the scientist. Until
the middle of the nineteenth century, this assumption
was the meeting-ground of minds totally dissimilar
here the Deist joined with the Catholic, here a Rous-
seau could meet in agreement both with a Bossuet
and a Voltaire. However variously these opposing
views may have accounted for the presence of this
religious instinct or sentiment, they all unite in taking
its existence for granted. Advancing science, clearing
away in its progress the veils which hung over our
conceptions of fundamental states, seemed to bring us
nearer to an understanding of them. Ethnology
and anthropology, in recent investigations, appeared
to confirm this assumption. Historians of religion,
taking up the work at the point where the anthro-
pologist lets it drop, also appear to add confirmation,
even from antagonistic camps. Psychology, recently
stepping forward with its first pretensions to be an
exact science, does not appear to differ in most of
its conclusions from the conclusions of the anthro-
pologist or of the historian.
The means used by the anthropologist are exact
and complete; their foundation is the firm and rigid
basis of physical law. The means used by the historian
have limits more flexible yet, if he disregards, as he
seems to-day bound to do, the regions of myth and
legend, his foundations are equally solid and in-
controvertible. To the anthropologist, the presence
394 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
of a so-called religious instinct is a sufficient answer
to a certain question, and a sufficient explanation of
a certain stage in the intellectual evolution of Man.
Without it, his chain lacks its strongest links of connec-
tion. The historian, in his turn, beholds people
moving in masses over the face of the globe, construct-
ing, destroying, building, warring, at the touch of
huge forces, among which religious sentiment is ever
one of the most vital.
But modern psychology has had to rely for its in-
vestigations upon the questionnaire; and it may be
permitted us to doubt if this means can ever be suc-
cessfully used to obtain the more stable materials of
science. Reasons have already been cited in these
pages for considering the questionnaire as a method
fundamentally unsound; and thus for our disagree-
ment, in toto, with any results obtained by its use.
William James, evidently feeling this, tried to widen
the field of evidence ; but the physical difficulties in his
way and they are undeniable threw him back upon
it at the last, with the result of minimizing the effect
of his otherwise striking volume. In his hand and in
that of his followers, the questionnaire appeared to
fall into confirmation with theories assuming a priori
the existence of a primal religious instinct. Does
the spontaneous religious confession a document ow-
ing its very existence to the influences making for
sincerity does it confirm the results of the question-
naire?
This task must be ours, and the student will surely
not be impatient with such discussions as are neces-
sary fully to accomplish that object.
IX
THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: I
I. The Document as literature; subjectivity; the Book
of Job.
II. Growth of religious sentiment.
III. General comparisons between savage and modern
mystical phenomena.
IV. Fasting; intoxication; wandering of the soul ; ecstasy;
memory and vision; heaven and hell.
V. Sanctity; spirit-world; faery and angel visions;
exorcism.
VI. Vows and covenants.
VII. The saints ; the voice ; size of the soul ; the daemon.
VIII. Magic; stigmata; mystical flight; fetich and fetich-
worship.
IX
THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: I
THE fundamental difference between the spontane-
ous confession and the confession drawn from the
answers to a questionnaire, lies in the fact that the
former is a literary production amenable to the influ-
ences controlling literary movements, and so indicat-
ing the general conditions existing at the time of its
composition, as well as the particular conditions ob-
taining in the mind of its author. Being the result of
a direct impulse to express the more important of
one's ideas and feelings, these ideas and feelings tend
to maintain a natural relation the one to the other;
while the "autobiographical intention" operates to
preserve sincerity and to keep a proper proportion
between the various parts of the narrative. Thus
the very spontaneity of the record lends it value.
If the document be literary, it is manifest that
the broader tendencies of literature must not be over-
looked. The opening chapters of this book endeavored
to trace these underlying tendencies as they affected
the minds from which such records took their rise.
The rite of public confession has been examined in this
connection, while the formal discipline effected by the
body of Christian apologetics was not without impor-
tance. To the generally subjective and introspective
trend of the world's slowly maturing thought, full con-
397
398 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
sideration was accorded before the contents of the
documents in question and the evidence they contained,
claimed the reader's attention. If a return upon the
broad influences for the moment appears necessary, it
is because whatever affects the form and genesis of a
document, obviously shapes the matter thereof ; and no
discussion of evidence is useful without comprehension
of its origin. To understand the origin, to gauge
the validity, of this evidence, to determine its bear-
ing upon the problem before us, let us recall at what
stage in the history of thought the confessant made his
entry into literature, as the foremost exponent of the
subjective movement, and of what is now termed the
personal note.
In a former volume, the writer 1 touched on the his-
torical beginnings of individualism, as affecting the
production of all types of autobiographical writing.
In the religious confession this individualism took its
first and simplest form. So soon as what we call
authorship became possible, and a man was able pub-
licly to claim his own compositions, then at once he
desired a further personal expression and affirma-
tion. Religious feeling went hand-in-hand with liter-
ary feeling to seek this affirmation. Both had risen
from a crowd-sentiment, were made possible by the
existence of a crowd-sentiment. "It is surely suscep-
tible of proof, " says a recent writer, 2 "that institu-
tional religion came before personal piety, and that
the great emotional and consolatory utterances which
spring from individual experiences could not be made
until the community, in choral and ritual, formed its
dialect of worship and supplication and praise. ' ' This
THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: I 399
dialect, then, shaped our present religious concep-
tions; and one may mark the individual rising first
above his group as he came to seek some definition of
the unknown forces about him in the universe.
If no pretence can be made at setting a date for
this event, one of the vital crises in the history of
thought, yet the archives of literature show us where
the personal note was first sounded, long ere the
Christian era. 3 The ancient poetical drama of Job re-
lates a type of experience familiar to-day and startling
in its vividness. The manner of Job's complaint and
the degree of introspection with which it was accom-
panied, show an individuality already marked, an Ego
already emphasized. The single voice is here uplifted
above the chorus, giving words to its personal sense
of protest and revolt.
"Surely, I would speak to the Almighty and I
desire to reason with God," 4 is the demand, and it
denotes a mental state eras beyond the communal
stage. In the words, "Make me to know my trans-
gression and my sin," lies full appreciation of what
the Friends call "bearing testimony," linked with
great wonder at the miracle of Self, a new and in-
tolerable sensation.
"If I justify myself, mine own mouth shall con-
demn me ; if I say I am perfect, it shall also prove me
perverse. Though I were perfect, yet would I not
know my soul : I would despise my life, " 5 he cries,
in a sort of exasperation; while his humility and his
submission both partake of this same bewilderment.
"Therefore have I uttered that I understood not,
things too wonderful for me, which I knew not." 6
400 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
This expressed wonder at life and at self, is the
wonder of a time when natural laws were in no sense
understood, when man was still amazed that cold
was cold, or that hot was hot, or that he should feel
and act as he felt and acted. 7 The first religious
phenomena observed by him were necessarily isolated,
nor would he be apt to relate them to any other set of
phenomena. Comte notes, in this connection, that the
mind "must have attained to a refined state of medi-
tation before it could be astonished at its own acts
reflecting upon itself a speculative activity which
must be at first incited by the external world. ' ' 8
Job's perplexity comes to us from the cloudland
at the beginning of things, and marks an advance in
intellectual growth. There had been dim centuries
when the savage progressed no further than to marvel,
vaguely, at the world around him, and to deify
what he felt to be beyond his grasp. But for a
strange law of intellectual curiosity, which ordains
that no human creature shall rest content with mere
wonder, he might yet have remained ignorant and
marvelling. Man, however, when once he starts to
investigate, is deterred by no peril, even of death.
Like the child in Maeterlinck's fairy-tale, he must
needs open every door in the palace of night ; 9 for
this curiosity is incessantly fed by those forces of
Faith and of Will, which drive him to the task.
Wholly untrained, at the outset he saw little; he
possessed scanty powers of observation and none of
self-observation; unable to comprehend, he could
neither relate nor compare what he actually saw.
These faculties developed slowly, and certainly did
THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: I 401
not keep pace with memory. Hence the lack of
method in early self -study, the omission, the vagueness,
the misinterpretation. Hence the sterile self -observa-
tion of the Neo-Platonists, for instance, leading only to
the fresh wonder of mysticism.
The present study finds an especial significance in
the Book of Job, that landmark in the history of re-
ligion. Here the individual makes his first appear-
ance, lifts his voice to protest the weight of his own
experience. Here the reader may see wonder become
curiosity, and curiosity become investigation. Here
he may observe reaction, pressure of the outside world,
timid friends with their accusation (since grown
classic) of intellectual arrogance; and finally capitu-
lation, with honor, to the Terror of the Unknown. It
is true that Job is an isolated instance, just as Au-
gustin is an isolated instance. Yet any piece of
literature becomes necessarily a focus of tentative
ideas. The self -study in Job indicates the stage that
was reached at the time of its composition, even if
his conclusion does not differ from the submissive
adoration which was murmured all around him. "I
have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now
mine eye seeth thee, wherefore I abhor myself and
repent in dust and ashes. ' ' 10 Nothing novel in this
conclusion, for the tortured soul of the twentieth cen-
tury ! * ' There is only one thing for me now, ' ' writes
Oscar Wilde, " absolute humility." 11
Thus the final conclusion of the confession is the
same after two thousand years ; emotionally, at least,
it has not changed through all the shifting of opinions
and circumstances. But (as has been already sug-
402 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
gested) emotional influences are by no means the
only influences at work upon the evolution of the re-
ligious idea. Intellectual currents may flow with, or
against, the emotional currents, affecting the move-
ment of the whole stream. Self-understanding, in
itself, must have tended to heighten the forces pro-
ductive of the mental condition called, by us Belief.
Bagehot points out that "What we term Belief holds
both an emotional and an intellectual element, Assent
and Conviction. . . . The power of an idea to cause
conviction depends much on its clearness and intensity
first of all. . . . Truth has nothing to do with it, since
men may hold it on opposite sides of the same ques-
tion. . . . The interestingness of the idea counts, but
it loses its power to convict in proportion as it may
lose any of its clearness or its intensity." 12
Bearing these words in mind, the evolution of be-
lief-processes in the intelligence of primitive and semi-
savage man, becomes comprehensible. To him most
ideas were clear, most were intense, all must have
been interesting. His beliefs were based on the simple
operation of natural cause and effect that rain came
from the clouds, that it chilled the body and was dried
by the sunshine ; that to go without food permitted a
man to see the faces and hear the voices of his
gods. Convictions of this nature, derived from means
purely logical, grew intensely strong, and in time this
strong feeling lent itself to convictions whose founda-
tions were decidedly less logical. Habits of convic-
tion, induced by observation of natural laws, developed
a receptive state of mind, and one which tended to
grow receptive without discrimination as to matters
THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: I 403
lying properly outside the sphere of natural law. This
intensity of conviction was readily applied to ideas, to
imaginative and anthropomorphic conceptions, to the
causes which men were obliged to invent as well as to
those of which they knew. In such manner there was
developed the same habit of taking natural logic for
granted, and acting on it, as may be seen to-day in
many intelligent children, whose action thereupon will
so often have disastrous results. For primitive man
there existed no corrective civilization, to tell him that
he must not believe everything he thought he saw.
Not only did he so believe, but he began also to com-
municate this powerful conviction to all those new
images which the fascinating process of self-observa-
tion caused him to behold, rising like delicate and
evanescent bubbles from the depths to the surface of
consciousness. Among these, no doubt the larger
number dealt with the supernatural, and took anthro-
pomorphic shapes. The further operation of this prim-
itive logic was responsible in great measure for the
fetich and fetich- worship, whereby life and vital in-
fluence were attributed to inanimate objects and sym-
bols. Gradually, the ritual of ancient religions grew
up to satisfy primitive man's sense of what was fitting
and reasonable in the way of rite and sacrifice.
Psychologically, at least, we can understand to-day
exactly how the religion of rites and sacrifices was the
natural outcome of primitive logic, the natural and
fitting expression of this rudimentary sense for cause
and effect. Introspection, or self-observation, bore
its share in the evolution of ritual, because every-
thing one noticed about oneself tended at first to
404 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
make one's religious ideas more definitely anthropo-
morphic. No less is it true, however, that continued
self-observation inevitably leads the observer away
from the religion of act and deed alone, it tends
rather toward philosophy and toward mysticism. The
elementary introspection, which at first may have en-
couraged the formal rite, soon began to alter and to
develop men's standards of personal conduct. He
who looked steadfastly within, soon found that for him
it was not enough to offer sacrifice, to keep feast and
fast, to join in ritual and choral dance, what he felt
within himself was not a whit assuaged by these. His
discontent is poignantly and beautifully expressed by
Christ, in passages hungrily seized on by the waiting
world.
"For I say unto you, that except your righteous-
ness shall exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and
Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom
of heaven." 13 And again, "Woe unto you, Scribes
and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint
and anise and cummin and have omitted the weightier
matters of the law, judgment, mercy and faith." 14
The deepening sense that there were "weightier
matters" heightened the emotional need of matur-
ing humanity; while the ancient dissociation be-
tween religion and conduct a dissociation, as we
shall see later, having a real foundation in hu-
man psychology made the ancient cults and prac-
tices comparatively useless to aid that man who had
begun to "look within" and to be ashamed at what
he saw. The world's desire was now for something
more significant than the mere performance of the
THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: I 405
proper act in the proper way. 'Just before the Chris-
tian era this need was crucial, for men's ideas and
ideals had outgrown the standards set by the early
religions of cult. These creeds had long ceased to
satisfy the learned or the cultured, for to such minds
philosophy itself will often furnish both the material
and the motive-power of religion. Therefore, the im-
portant point is, not that Socrates, or Seneca, or
Marcus Aurelius, had outgrown their country's faith,
but that the people as a whole had outgrown it. The
poor, the untaught, the despised, also were beginning
to "look within," in the vague hope that there they
might behold something more divine than those gross
gods who reared their misshapen heads into the East-
ern sunshine. And they did find something more
divine; pity, and charity, the desire to help one an-
other and to pardon one another ; movements, exquisite
and struggling within them, of a something they had
ignored and which now they came to call the Soul.
Self -study will be found to lie at the very root of
the causes making for the swift spread of Christianity.
Historians have failed to dwell upon the influence of
the subjective tendency on Christian origins, probably
because it is hardly capable of proof. It must be felt
as an atmosphere, rather than beheld as a con-
dition. An earlier chapter noted this trend in the
last stand made by paganism, and showed how
in the later Alexandrian school, during the second to
the fourth century, subjectivity will be found at the
bottom of Neo-Platonic and other non-Christian doc-
trines. Plotinus, Porphyry, and later, lamblichus,
made constant use of introspection to express their
406 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
philosophical-mystical system, if without permanent
effect.
The success of Christianity has been variously at-
tributed, but historians are at least united in the
opinion that pagan doctrines had ceased to satisfy the
world. In pre-Christian days, the masses followed
perfunctorily decaying superstitions sprung from
their earlier beliefs. 15 Scholars emphasize the prevail-
ing aridity of these beliefs, the moral unrest which
caused men to seize with enthusiasm upon a fresh,
vital, and subjective faith. In its simpler form,
Christianity appealed directly to the emotions, to the
newly aroused ethical sense of humbler folk, and of
those who wondered at the changes taking place within
themselves.
Here is no place to linger on the fact of those philo-
sophic alterations in structure which were later to
adapt Christian doctrines to the requirements of the
more sophisticated intellects of the age. It is now
generally accepted that Paul is responsible for them,
as for their promulgation. Such changes, however,
were founded upon an emotional condition; and this
fact our present data show to be as true of each in-
dividual case to-day, as it was during the first and
second centuries.
Boissier, 16 discussing this subject, remarks that
every intellectual advance is followed by an emo-
tional reaction. For the Romans, the death of their
barbarous polytheism was a great advance, but it left
them without any emotional faith; hence a natural
relapse into mysticism. Isis and Mithras, and many
THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: I 407
other Eastern gods, had their votaries, and their little
day of fashionable success in Imperial Rome. 17 But
neither Isis nor Mithras could satisfy, as Christ sat-
isfied, the need of the people for higher standards of
conduct. It was the combination he offered of mys-
tical rewards and satisfactions, together with an avail-
able working plan of human brotherhood, and hu-
man interest, which, charged with emotional beauty
and intensity, moved the entire world. Nor must it
be supposed that the first Christian doctrines were
necessarily above the heads of the crowd to whom
they were addressed. Renan comments on the fact
that, side by side with barren cults, human no-
bility was everywhere manifest, that moral ideas
were everywhere in a state of activity and ferment,
and that it was the change in the moral standards of
the peasant which helped to kill the ancient polythe-
ism. 18
The vitality of paganism must not be under-
estimated; its struggle to exist has been the theme
of many an historian. 19 The change was an internal
change; not the doctrine so much as the person was
unfit. Pagan objectivity no longer seemed religious
to a man beginning to study himself ; and this shift in
idea may be observed in numberless ways. The con-
test between Paul and James, called the brother of
Christ, over the significance of the rite of circum-
cision, displays the old and the new forces simul-
taneously contending in the midst of the first small
group of Christians. To James 's mind the rite is still
preeminent the uncircumcised cannot be received
408 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
into the Church. To Paul's mind, though he will
not have his disciples forget their Jewish heritage, 20
faith is still, and ever will be, above the law.
"0 foolish Galatians," he cries in one of his greatest
letters, 21 "received ye the Spirit by the works of the
law, or by the hearing of faith ? ' ' And he reiterates,
throughout the epistle, that those who are once freed
by the spirit, shall not again fall into bondage through
observance. If the reactionary wishes of the elder
Apostle had prevailed in this contest, the spread of
Christ's teaching must have been much retarded.
Humanity, arrived at a new stage of individualism,
had found therein a creed in which themselves, their
needs and aspirations, partook of greater importance
since they held they were in truth the children of
God.
Subjectivity of thought, which both affected and
was affected by the growth of Christian tenets, was not
long in finding expression through literature. A liter-
ary form became, as it were, technically suggested and
supplied by the Church ; the ancient rite of public con-
fession, yielding to the individualistic tendencies of
the times, gave way to private confession. The
classic apologists, exercising every mental and emo-
tional faculty in controversy and exegesis, further in-
fluenced this form by the heat of their personal con-
victions. To describe, to differentiate what we be-
lieve, by making an appeal, first, to the doctrine itself,
second, to authority, third, to individual experience,
is a process perfectly familiar to most of us, both
in its inception and in its order. The child and the
savage follow, almost mechanically, this same order
THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: I 409
in their reasoning : ' ' I believe this first, because it is
good to believe, beautiful and satisfying; second,
because my parents, and the doctors of my tribe so
teach me, third, because it makes me feel such and
such emotions, or because I see and hear such and such
visions and voices. "
The "Corpus Apologetarum Christianorum" had
threshed most vigorously the grain of belief from
the surrounding straw, and thus prepared the way for
that great exemplar of the third stage Augustin to
make his supreme personal appeal. His "Confes-
sions" fused these elements into one flawless and
incomparable crystal for all time. With the achieve-
ment of a single masterpiece, any literary form be-
comes literature. Through Augustin, the confession
takes it proper place, assuming familiar shapes, point-
ing to classical examples, and sheltering diverse types
and schools. Thereafter, the matter changes little ; the
method, with practice, and under the tutelage of sci-
ence, has grown more balanced and detailed. The
self -student is to-day more apt; he understands bet-
ter what he sees; more important still, he misinter-
prets his observations rather less. On the other hand,
he is much further from the sources of that pure emo-
tion, his guiding vision has dimmed. If Christian-
ity were an emotional reaction, then it would seem as
though the first impetus of that emotion, as emotion,
were spent. With the possibility or desirability of
its recrudescence, we have not here to do, since our
present concern is but to determine some of the
problems contained in the evidence it furnishes.
To deal at any length with the different aspects of
410 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
religious origins, would be to lead the reader far
from the theme of the present study. Volumes are
required to discuss any one of the many complex
and disputed questions involved in the study of re-
ligion. Save where they touch the subject in hand,
for us they but becloud the issue. We must not step
aside from the narrow path whereon our feet are set,
to lose our way in that vast wilderness of theory. The
reader must not look for more than a brief mention
of such "august things, " and that only where they
press upon the confines of this essay.
Following hard on the history of these documents,
should be an effort to relate the manifestations of in-
dividual, personal sentiment which they contain, to
the mass-sentiment, and when this is accomplished, it
may perchance be somewhat easier to consider their
evidence in the light of a general theory of religion.
The impulse from which these confessions spring is
individual, spontaneous, and inevitable, and made its
appearance at a comparatively late stage in the his-
tory of human ideas. Slowly this idea had grown out
of the abysmal fear and the propitiation of what was
feared, into a concomitant state of ritual and hier-
archy, bound up with the formation of a national
existence. As the tribe became a nation, as the scat-
tered nomad elements fused and cohered until they
built and fought as one, religion was, of course, among
the most powerful of the formative influences at work
upon them. Yet it is needful to repeat because it is
so often forgotten that this religious sentiment, with
its patriotic connotations, is by no means identical with
THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: I 411
what we now call religious sentiment. Much more has
it the significance of a convention; and it bound men
together by the chain of traditional convention. Says
a recent writer: 22 "With the Romans religion was not
a personal matter . . . because the very concept of
personality was in its infancy. There was no indi-
vidual initiative or volition. . . . The fulfilment of his
duty to his gods was a normal and natural function of
his life. ... If one had spoken to a Roman in the
fourth century, or even in the third century before
Christ, concerning the soul, its sinfulness, and its need
of salvation . . . the person addressed would not have
understood what it was all about. ' ' 2S The Roman, in
Professor Carter's phrase, "had not the consciousness
of an individual soul." One has only to stop and
consider what part this conception of the individual
soul plays in religious ideas to-day, to realize the
difference in this so-called religious sentiment. If
it can be compared to anything in modern life, it
would not be religion at all, but rather our modern
code of manners or our modern standards of civilized
behavior. Infringement of its decrees bore the stigma
of eccentricity along with that of impiety. A man of
a certain class to-day might readily break the Ten
Commandments, when there is no temptation strong
enough to make him wear informal dress on a formal
occasion. It were far easier for such an one to out-
rage the moral code than the conventional, to commit
a sin rather than an act which he would consider as
unfitting, or as not customary. Similar feeling is rep-
resented in the Chinese religion; which has been de-
scribed as a "set of acts properly and exactly done;
412 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
the proper person sacrificing always to the proper ob-
ject in the proper way." 24
Religious feeling to-day is bound up with the con-
sciousness of an individual soul. Its source is the
fresh emotional power roused by Christianity, and
applied to a whole group of emotions which were
primarily concerned with a very different set of ideas.
All those feelings which to-day are wrapt up in mys-
tical conceptions, in the more ancient, abysmal times,
were connected with the idea of magic, and fear of the
unknown. If expressed in any definite form at all,
these experiences and feelings which we consider as
purely individual, were then communal, or, if single,
then the person holding them bore to the rest of his
tribe the relation of priest, or medicine-man. That
this identical attitude lingered over into the Middle
Ages, is to be read in diverse manners; it will
be found permeating the witch-trials, 25 the trials be-
fore the Inquisition, the private letters and journals
of saints and savants.
The creed of convention under many forms suf-
ficed the world until a period relatively late in history.
With the decline in its power came the rise in individ-
ualism, and the demand for a fresh inspiration. No
longer satisfied in the performance of the proper act
in the proper manner, men received from advancing
civilization a stimulus in ideals. A higher sense
of personal responsibility, born of a deeper self-knowl-
edge, both demanded and aroused a more intimate
religious sentiment, and thus religion began to be as-
sociated with conduct. Scholars have suggested that
the stages in the development of religion follow hard
THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: I 413
upon the stages in the evolution of human society,
passing from the savage or material state to a national
or tribe-sentiment, and thence, with the rise of the
individual, differentiating into many heterogeneous
forms. From the national sentiment is formed a
priesthood to aid the preservation of the national life.
This stage is clearly marked in the Pentateuch, where
religion and patriotism seem one. But a priesthood
may mean tyranny, and tyranny breeds revolt. In-
dividual protest not only weakened the power of the
hierarchy, but came to form a new conception of re-
ligion, as a personal affair; and as religion grows
personal and mystical, it tends away from ritual and
cult. This cycle may be seen in India. Out of the
early tenets of the Vedic faith was evolved an elaborate
ritual and a vast and complex hierarchy. This, in
turn, gave way before the rise of mystic and ascetic
practices, which, by their excessive individualism, led
to the rejection of almost all rites, and in some cases
even to the rejection of the gods themselves. 26
With the mystical stage, religious self -study is in-
timately connected. Starting from a mystical im-
pulse, intensified and heightened in all mystical re-
actions, it may be influenced to a marked extent by
scientific knowledge and method, yet its source is
ever that same spring of emotion from which mysti-
cism also takes its rise. Oddly enough, scholars have
practically ignored the inter-relation of mysticism and
introspection, an inter-relation which, in certain ways,
is peculiarly significant. For the data of the intro-
spective record are largely mystical data, the states it
depicts are largely mystical states. 27 Moreover, the
414 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
confession shows a suggestive sympathy for these
states, an inclination to describe them; while, at the
same time, it manifests a significant tendency to iso-
late them from the other operations of the mind, as
sprung from wholly different causes. When these
conditions are weighed and measured, one is roused to
consider what real reason exists, after all, to put these
depicted states in the same class with the opinions con-
cerning God, revelation, and duty, which are quietly
and intelligently formed by the sensible, unemotional
person. Is he really justified in supposing that the
one is an intensification of the other? Have this emo-
tional state and this intellectual state necessarily a
common source? They have always been classed to-
gether, because they concern the same subject. We
use the word " religion " to cover both. Yet the forces
combining in human psychology are infinitely com-
plex and intricate, and tend to differentiate more
widely, the nearer we regard them. All the world has
been struck by the bizarre contrast in manifestations,
which, it was taught, came from one and the same
instinct. Psychologists attribute these variations to
temperament, yet some among them are by no
means convinced that the high seriousness of a Renan
or a Spencer, the dogmatic formalism of a Newman,
the naif anthropomorphism of Mechtilde or Ger-
trude, the energy of Wesley, the passivity of Mme.
Guyon, the joyous exaltation of Suso or Rolle, the
dread and horror of Linsley or Whitefield, are all ex-
hibitions of the same force.
The above examples are selected from within the
confines of Christianity: when one attempts a selec-
THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: I 415
tion from the world at large, the variations appear
even more extraordinary. It is to this religious in-
stinct we have been told to look for an explanation
alike of the Buddhist's tenderness to life, and of the
Thug's indifference to murder; of the war-lust of the
Mohammedan, and of Christ's "Thou shalt not kill."
To the reflective mind these paradoxes constitute,
in Hume's phrase, "a complete enigma"; and one
which is not solved by any study of the individual and
his variations. Indeed, we see much to make us
echo the words of Sir Thomas Browne, that * ' Men have
lost their reason in nothing so much as their reli-
gion. ' ' 28 Paradoxes in human nature, however, are
only the result of our inadequacy in trying to ex-
plain what is not yet fully understood. Hume felt
this paradox to be an insuperable barrier to the mind.
"No theological absurdities so glaring," he writes,
' ' that they have not sometimes been embraced by men
of the greatest and most cultivated understanding.
No religious precepts so rigorous that they have not
been adopted by the most voluptuous and abandoned
of men." 29 Bewilderment is the outcome of any at-
tempt to reconcile these contrasts, and few of us are
able to follow Hume's advice and to make our escape
into the calmer regions of philosophy.
So long as we insist on regarding the so-called reli-
gious instinct as an unit, these fundamental problems
show no signs of solution. Yet the moment one ceases
so to regard them, a fresh group of problems arises out
of the debris. Philosophers have been extremely re-
luctant to decide upon a further differentiation. No
longer is Comte permitted his solution of the three
416 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
stages of humanity, "the theological, or fictitious, the
metaphysical or transitional, and the positive, or scien-
tific," by which, he declared, each one of us became
"a theologian in childhood, a metaphysician in youth,
and a natural philosopher in his manhood. ' ' 30 Comte
laid more stress on the value of the first, or theological
conceptions, since he considered that they afforded a
means of escape from the vicious circle of primitive
philosophy. His utilitarian point of view was con-
firmed by the apparent suitability of these conceptions
to human development, and the stimulus to irksome
labor offered by a system of rewards and punish-
ments. 81 There is yet another explanation offered us
by theorists who place intellectual curiosity at the
root of religious instinct, thus emphasizing the in-
tellectual character of its origin. It is epitomized
simply, "as something that promised to explain the
world to Man, and to explain him to himself." 32
Another group seeks the source of all these feelings
in worship, in adoration of the powers of nature and
the heavenly powers ; 83 again suggesting an emotional
origin. The difficulty of reconciling the phenomena
is, of course, no new difficulty, and so acute a modern
as M. Eeinach warns against confounding such totally
different conceptions as religion and religious senti-
ment, as he distinguishes them. 34 The first is de-
fined as formal religion springing from that mass of
primitive scruples regarding totems and tabus. The
second, or religious sentiment, is rather man 's attitude
toward the unknown supernatural forces in the uni-
verse. 35 Seeing in all religions ' ' the infinitely curious
products of man's imagination and man's reason in
THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: I 417
its infancy/' Reinach concludes by looking toward
ethnological and anthropological research to account
for them.
By accepting the truth that the sources of the re-
ligious instinct are not one, but many, that he who
displays emotional manifestations of its activity has
no necessary kinship with another in whom such man-
ifestations are intellectual, much will have been
gained. Our spontaneous one had almost said
classic intolerance with each other's beliefs, may
be better understood. Risen out of a deep-seated and
innate perception that religious feelings have not al-
ways an identical psychological source, this impa-
tience may at times indicate that these sources are
positively antagonistic. For, if we examine the his-
tory of our mental growth, we cannot fail to note that
the rate at which our various faculties evolve is not
necessarily equal, any more than their material is
necessarily homogeneous. The complexity of our
personal evolution is the raison d'etre of our so-called
inconsistency. A man 's intellect may have reached to
a high degree of evolution, while his emotional equip-
ment yet lags centuries behind. One faculty may
be forced in its unfolding, while another may be
stunted, or warped, or atrophied. Thus men of com-
manding intelligence have acted, at crises, like sav-
ages; and men of the roughest stamp have displayed
the most sensitive perceptions. The dual, or multiple,
sources of the so-called religious instinct, slowly
developing in the individual into faculties both
various and opposing, cause the personal phenomena
with which he is at moments confronted, and which
418 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
at no time has lie been able to understand. The very
fact that he cannot understand them, lends them
potency and dignity, and this potency and dignity
cling around the whole subject from early times. The
modern student is affected by this atmosphere, which
appears to him to furnish warrant for the mystical
point of view.
When we look more nearly at the course of human
ideas, we see that this fallacy of the single religious
instinct lies at the root of many important misunder-
standings. Emotional experiences of any sort are
seldom satisfactorily accounted for to the intellect;
although religion has made the effort to control
and systematize them by the formulation of dog-
ma. The history of sect lies in the result of this
effort. At moments (and crucial moments) it has
been successful to a high degree, but it is a success not
to be sustained, since the vitality of any dogma in-
evitably sets in motion the forces tending toward
its own destruction.
Many volumes cannot suffice to deal adequately with
these complexities; at present our interest must re-
main with the emotional factors. Hume commented
on man's anthropomorphic tendency in such matters;
but it is only since Hume's day that any detailed study
of this tendency has been made possible. 36 Investiga-
tion into the life, customs, folk-lore, and psychology
of savage peoples, by means of the new sciences of
ethnology and anthropology, has provided us with a
better means of understanding our past selves. It has
shown that if evolution has carried us beyond the folk
of the jungle and the wild, our heritage yet remains
THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: I 419
the same as theirs. We are taught to realize not only
that what savages are, we ourselves have been, but
also that under certain influences we may even become
as savages again. Myth, legend, fairy-lore, may all
have importance when pressed into the service of the
anthropologist. His theories have so far been broadly
general, but every day adds to the material at his dis-
posal, and by means of this material his work will be
found to cast much light upon our present problems.
The special relation of anthropological and ethnologi-
cal material, to the material of this study, forms the
final and not the least important section of our task.
We have endeavored to give the student a proper
preparation in order that he may grasp the full
significance of ethnological comparison. Having fol-
lowed the development of the religious self-study
in literature, together with the main psychological
influences controlling it and its data, we are better
able to observe the important parallels and to draw the
requisite conclusions. We look abroad upon the gen-
eral scientific achievements in this field, and connect
those minor fluctuations on which his gaze has been
concentrated with the large movements of univer-
sal law.
During the last half-century, the ethnologist has
provided us with a new means of accomplishing this
end. In his treatise now become classic on "Primi-
tive Culture," Dr. Tylor demonstrates the remain-
ing links between the remote and the visible past.
Custom and folk-lore, which are examined by him with
a masterly fulness, are shown to retain these links
420 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
when any individual development may have hroken
them. Through this mass of material his own theories
on the subject of animism take shape in a manner
deeply convincing. Tylor, of course, does not attempt
to carry them into the ages where they might be con-
firmed from one's own reading or experience. Later
investigation, however, may lead us to this confirma-
tion, by causing us to mark the effect of the data
furnished by the confessant, on the theory of animism.
Laid side by side, the savage and the civilized ex-
amples are, indeed, striking, not because they differ
so much, but because they differ so little.
Dr. Tylor 37 alludes to ''that vast quiet change, "
which has overtaken the educated world ; and in sup-
port of his words points to the disappearance of
Fetichism, Demonology, Idolatry, from the societies of
men. No thoughtful person would willingly dissent
from such authority ; yet the student of the records of
confessions finds it set at naught upon every other
page. A new and startling turn is thereby lent to this
investigation. If the evidence contributed by the
confessant appears to contradict the statement of a
"vast quiet change" in the world's history, by what
means does it do so ? And what is the full import of
such a contradiction?
In making any attempt to answer these questions,
the reader will not have forgotten that the Introduc-
tion to this work warned him of its inductive
plan. The chapters devoted to the analysis of the data,
therefore, must needs provide him with a means of
reply. When he recalls their contents, one fact will
remain clear, namely that among all the mystical phe-
THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: I 421
nomena which they describe, there is none peculiar
to Christianity. It will also be shown that there is
none which may not also be found among men in a
savage and semi-savage state. 38
Such an assertion is not made without due appre-
ciation of what is involved; and thus it is advisable
to go more into detail than at first sight appears pro-
portionate. This is the very crux of our theme;
here are comparisons which must be made under
the reader's own eye. There may be little new in the
idea that Christianity, plus civilization, has literally
brought nothing into man's emotional religious ex-
perience which he did not possess before, yet one has
only to lay the savage examples beside the serried
ranks of confessants, and it will be brought home to
the mind with an overwhelming freshness and force.
The essence of emotional religion (which for the object
of the present enquiry we have just agreed to differ-
entiate from those processes evolving intellectual be-
lief), the stuff of this feeling, has not changed since
man went out from his cave to slay the sabre-toothed
tiger, and to adore the stars of heaven. Terror and
adoration filled him then; and to that same terror
and adoration he now gives alien names.
It is true, that then he was able to observe cause and
effect, with that natural, spontaneous logic, which it
was one of the direct results of Christianity to de-
stroy, and which he has not yet reconquered. Thus,
the North American Indian, noting the result wrought
upon his imagination by fasting, deliberately prac-
tised it with that end in view. 39 Having observed that
the gods revealed themselves to him whose hunt was
422 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
unsuccessful, and whose belt was tightly drawn against
the pangs of hunger, he required that the education
of his tribal seer or medicine-man should be founded
on fasting. 40 This is the statement of Chingwauk,
the Algonquin chief; and also of Catherine Wabose,
the Ojibway prophetess. In North Queensland, the
seer starves himself for three or four days, or until
he sees a spirit. 41 The priests of the Gold-Coast
negroes are well aware that an empty stomach pro-
duces hallucinations. Hence persons who desire to
consult the gods are enjoined to fast, while, at times,
drugs also are administered. 42 If the Mussulman of
Morocco wishes to raise a djinn, he retires for twelve
days into a desert place to fast, purifying himself by
bathing, while he burns perfumes and recites incanta-
tions. After a time, a huge dragon will appear to
him; and if he is not frightened, it will be followed
by other visions. 43 In neighboring localities, the proc-
ess is varied by the neophyte repeating a single
chapter of the Koran one thousand and one times. 44
Similar practices are mentioned by Tylor, who adds
that, as late as the Greeks, the Pythia of Delphi fasted
to obtain inspiration. 45 King Saul, we read, was
weak from fasting during his visit to the Witch of
Endor ; nor are we surprised at the success of her en-
chantments in raising Samuel's spirit, when it is re-
membered that Saul had been subject to a very defi-
nite form of melancholia, with delusions. 46 So early
as the story of Saul, there is thus a manifest attempt
to ignore fasting as the cause of vision. By Chris-
tian times it was ignored altogether, though prac-
tised yet more frequently. When it is stated that
THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: I 423
the Bogomils 47 fasted until they beheld the Trinity,
a modern investigator sees in this observation but
proof of the doubling or tripling effect of hallu-
cination, a stage perfectly familiar to an intoxi-
cated person. The saints and mystics of the Middle
Ages were equally subject to the effects of fasting, but
to them it seemed only a means of subduing the flesh,
of releasing the spirit. Jerome, in his * ' Letters, ' ' re-
marks that excessive fasting impaired the faculties
of many saintly hermits ; 48 and this acknowledg-
ment shows an attitude differing from that he dis-
played when a greater zeal and heat somewhat modi-
fied his natural shrewdness. Teresa, watching and
fasting in her incense-filled chapel, does not attrib-
ute the ensuing visions to either of these circum-
stances. Loyola did not connect his abstinence and
great physical weakness with that apparition "of a
serpent shining with what looked like eyes, hanging
in the air beside him," or with the later vision of "a
triple plectrum." To such as these a fast was simply
one of the means of preparation for such experi-
ences, while to think it the cause would be an in-
finite dishonor to the spirit.
The influence of Christian doctrines in leading the
mind away from logical inference, may also be noticed
when comparing Christian records with savage cus-
toms concerning the production of visions by the use
of drugs or wine. Thus, the Winnebago tribes and
the Celebs of Guyana, 49 were accustomed to undergo
exciting conditions much resembling the camp-meet-
ings described by such participants as Peter Cart-
wright, Billy Bray, Daniel Young, C. G. Finney, and
424 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
several individuals among the Mormons. Two con-
versions on our lists were the direct result of intoxica-
tion ; 50 but, of course, they are not so acknowledged.
Delirium from fever is responsible for several other
examples, who were equally bent upon ascribing them
to a supernatural cause. Various writers upon mys-
tical compromise dwell enthusiastically on what they
consider to be the great and essential differences be-
tween such cases as these and the savage examples;
but an honest mind finds it impossible altogether to
ignore the fundamental proposition that things which
are equal to the same thing are equal to each other.
"The joy that was unspeakable and glorious " which
exalted Robert Blair, after the milk-posset; the "ter-
ror of death" which copious draughts "of a sweet
liquor called shrub" roused in the lad, John Conran,
were paralleled without the slightest hesitation by
the American Indian, by the Parsee, by the Hindu
priest, who used the same means for the deliberate
purpose of exciting just such sensations and their ac-
companying visions. 51 The medieval Christian had
forgotten the practice of inducing religious ecstasy
by swoon, or convulsion, or fever; which belonged
originally to savagery. 52
Those phenomena of ecstasy, to which considera-
tion has been given in other sections of this book, are
supplemented by the data of the anthropologist in a
manner very striking. Particularly do such data
comment on the belief that ecstasy was ' ' a wandering
of the other Self, or Soul," which, upon its return to
the body, could tell of its adventures. 53 The belief
that the soul could leave the body involved the belief
THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: I 425
in its separate existence; and, though the develop-
ment of an individual soul-consciousness is late in
human evolution, 64 yet this special form must have
been influenced, if not fed, by contact with the beliefs
of peoples still in the savage and primitive state.
The Australian natives 55 hold that the soul quits
the body during sleep; while the Arab regards its
absence as a great danger, never awakening a sleeper
without an invocation to God to recall the errant
soul. 56 The Eskimo thinks that his spirit goes a-hunt-
ing while he lies asleep or in a trance. 57 If the soul
of the Solomon Islander fails to return by morning,
the man dies ; but on reaching the mouth of Panoi, or
Hades, the soul may be "hustled back" by the other
ghosts and so returned to the sleeper or sick person. 58
Tylor cited the Dyaks, the Zulu, the Khond, and the
Turanian, as holding similar beliefs; and takes occa-
sion to compare them with the later cases of Socrates
and Jerome Cardan. 59 Noting the popular expres-
sion of "beside one's self " as "crystallizing this idea
in language," he adds, "that the mere evolution of
the idea of the soul from a concrete, substantial image
of the person (eidolon) to the tenuous, spiritualized
abstraction used at present, is the result of gradual
development from the conception of primitive, savage
animism. ' ' 60
That early and deeply rooted conviction that the
soul could leave its owner, has a vital bearing on the
present discussion. In all the words and works of the
mystics its persistence is revealed. Whatever mean-
ings the theorist has attached to these words and
works, whatever transcendental web he has tried to
426 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
spin from them, when all the threads are carefully
unwound, this one fact alone will be found lying at
the heart. The early mystic is impregnated with this
conviction of the wandering soul ; it underlies his ex-
perience; it is the real basis of his belief in mysti-
cism. If we turn to the great passages upon which
mysticism is founded, what do we find? Richard of
St. Victor's famous statement is on close analysis,
seen to be only this, that he believed his soul could
be "away." Augustin's reliance is, after all, but
upon that great "if" the soul might be "away."
The texts cited by Dante, in the letter to Can Grande,
serve to show his appreciation of the fact that the soul
can be "away." "It seems to the ecstatic," writes
Teresa, "that he is transported to a region wholly dif-
ferent from that where we find ourselves ordinar-
ily. ' ' 61 And if we ask them to define, to separate, and
determine this conviction, what is their response ? One
and all, without a single important exception, dwell
on the significant fact that their soul may not
remember what has happened to it during its ab-
sence. Paul, even, "heard unspeakable words which
it is not lawful for a man to utter." 62 Angela da
Foligno says, "I know not how to speak of it, nor to
offer any similitude." 68 This failure of memory is
not capricious and accidental; it is a fundamental
characteristic of the mystical experience, and taken by
the subject to be the confirmation of its Divine nature.
The conclusion is thus forced upon one that the whole
structure of mediaeval mysticism is erected upon this
underlying, primitive, and animistic belief, that the
mystic thus unconsciously repeats and confirms the
THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: I 427
savage idea. The Eskimo, the Zulu, the Dyak priest,
does not expect to remember what happened to his
soul when it went away. But the mystic is naively
astonished that he should not remember, and im-
mediately concludes that this is because of the in-
conceivable splendor of what he beheld in Paradise.
"For the comprehension of these things," writes
Dante, "it must be understood that when the human
intellect is exalted in this life ... it is exalted to
such a degree that after its return the memory waxeth
feeble, because it hath transcended human bounds. ' ' 6 *
Dante was undoubtedly familiar with Richard of St.
Victor, whose remark is, "that we cannot by any
means recall to our memory those things which we
have erst seen above ourselves." Teresa accounted
for this fact by observing that in a state of ecstasy,
God draws the soul to himself, but not the faculties of
memory and understanding. She further compares
the ecstatic condition to that of a person half-awake.
John of the Cross declares that this loss of memory
during ecstasy is a proof of its Divine character, as
well as a warning to men to waste no time on the cul-
tivation of a faculty so little god-like as their useless
memory. 65
One hardly expects the savage to reason respect-
ing his simple, elementary beliefs; but the con-
spicuous failure of men highly developed, to do so, is
one of the reminders of the complexity of our evolu-
tion. To the savage, dreams became confounded with
memories, and if no dream told him what had be-
fallen his absent spirit, then he simply did not look
for any further news of its wanderings. Mediaeval
428 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
Christianity, on the other hand, not satisfied with the
dream-interpretation, yet by no means rejecting it,
proceeded to make for itself fresh mystery out of the
fact of not remembering what had never happened.
To our irreverent and direct logic of to-day, the ex-
planation is so simple that one is almost ashamed to
offer it, as savoring of banality. But to make the
plain inference that one could not recall what had
happened to him when asleep, or entranced, only be-
cause there was really nothing to recall, was an im-
possibility to the mind of the Middle Ages.
The mystic easily supplemented his vague andi
cloudy dream-recollections with inventions, the crea-
tions of a powerful imagination colored by his anthro-
pomorphic inheritance. From Hildegarde of Bingen
to Swedenborg and Joseph Smith, the entire group of
so-called revelations is the literary result of this tend-
ency. All these seers and visionaries felt that the soul
was at times ' ' away, ' ' and so felt because such a belief
has its root in the primeval depths of emotional exist-
ence. Naturally it followed, for them, that since the
soul can leave the body, it has a separate being, a
separate identity. Thus the situation of the mediaeval
or modern visionary becomes closely linked to that of
the savage visionary. Gertrude of Eisleben, Teresa,
Maria d'Agreda, stretched stiff and entranced before
their awestricken followers, were not there in the
rigid body they were "away." They were travers-
ing the height of heaven or the depth of hell ; after a
while they would return, vaguely to hint at what
they had seen. For many centuries the hints have
been identical, and when developed subsequently, the
THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: I 429
details have been similar. 68 This bulk of repeated
experience formed, gradually but surely, a general im-
pression, on which in time was built a resultant
dogma.
"The experience of man/' writes a modern ethnolo-
gist, "is gained from oft-repeated impressions. It is
one of the fundamental laws of psychology that the
repetition of mental processes increases the facility
with which these processes are performed and de-
creases the degree of consciousness that accompanies
them. This law expresses the well-known phenomena
of habit ... If a stimulus has often produced a cer-
tain emotion, it will tend to reproduce it every
time. " 67 No generalization could describe more ac-
curately the progress of the phenomena of ecstasy and
trance. Their subjects found these states occurring
with an ever-increasing facility. Repetition, decreas-
ing the degree of consciousness by which such phe-
nomena were accompanied, assisted to induce that
very disuniting process, which operated upon person-
ality as the result of a new, disintegrating force.
Repetition, developing the power of the association
of ideas, developing the imagination along lines of fear
and horror, elaborated the first and simpler ideas into
images incredibly hideous and terrible. The fiend
became a familiar house-mate to the anchorite ; 68 evil
came to possess a vitality and animation all its own.
That "hell-vision," tormenting the confessant in all
its dreadful imagery of fire and torture, had grown
far more vivid than ever was the savage idea of an
Otherworld. It has been remarked that in Celtic
countries the place after death was one of rest and
430 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
peace, until Christianized into a heaven and a hell. 69
The Huron and the Hindu Otherworld was but a
milder hell, and the legend of descent into it was
revived by Christian dogmatists. 70 Thus did Chris-
tianity, in Tylor's phrase, "borrow details from the
religions it abolished. ' ' 71 Thus did the Christian con-
fessant repeat, with a new accent of intensity, emo-
tions rooted within him, centuries before the Chris-
tian era. Thus, from the simple, savage observation
that the soul apparently left the body in sleep or
trance, there was evolved that vast, cloudy, and per-
plexing structure of mediaeval mysticism.
1 1 To follow the course of animism on from its more
primitive stages," proceeds Tylor, "is to account for
much of mediaeval and modern opinion, whose mean-
ing and reason could hardly be comprehended without
the aid of a development-theory of culture, taking in
the various processes of new formation, abolition, sur-
vival, and revival. ' ' 72 Investigation into the data of
the individual confirms these words, both in general
outline and in particular detail. Much more than
opinion will be found to be accounted for by careful
comparative study. How enlightening to any view
of the mediaeval mystic it is to read that the Moham-
medan distinguishes between the saint and the sor-
cerer, only when the miracles performed by the first
have a moral aim! In other respects, he considers
them the same; and certain Islamic doctors even go
so far as to deny the reality of sorcery, holding it but a
sort of saintship gone wrong. 73 The sanctity of these
medicine-men renders them in a measure fatal ; their
bodies are held to be full of poison and perilous
THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: I 431
forces; "nouvelle preuve," observes the collector of
these superstitions, "du caractere equivoque des
choses sacrees." 74
This likeness between Christian and Mussulman
holy man, between hermit and marabout, vouches for
the persistence in human nature of impulses which
were long antecedent to opinion. There is little need
to repeat those examples which crowd the pages of
the anthropologist, carrying this truth into further
minuteness of detail. Examples are drawn from sav-
age times of beliefs which remained "in fullest vigour
through the classic world," and which to-day are in
full vigor among the natives of the Congo. 75 The
nymph and dryad of the Greek, or the lares of the
Roman, would arouse no surprise in the Eskimo, or
the African negro, who knows that rivers, wells, and
trees have each their "kra," or indwelling spirit. 76
The Pythia of Delphi has abandoned her classic
shrine, but the same god to-day speaks to his votaries
through the foaming and convulsions of the medicine-
man in the African jungles, 77 and the poor savage
is lent a touch of dignity by the mere possibility of
this comparison. The peasant-belief in a cottage-
faery, 78 in a Brownie, or a Kobold, seems to be an
attenuation of the ancient belief in an attendant or
household-spirit. The patron-saints of Peter Favre,
of Therese of the Holy Child, or of Carlo da Sezze,
who watched over them in their daily lives, at once
become figures more comprehensible, imaginatively
complete, and ready to receive the decorative treat-
ment by which the Italian painters gave them a new
immortality. The child-mind of the world delighted
432 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
in delicate picturings of these beloved, sacred figures.
How often do the visions in their decorative qual-
ity remind us of the visions of faery ! Gertrude of
Eisleben makes note of the Saviour's garland, and his
gold-embroidered tunic. The blue robe of the Virgin
is the blue of the sky. To a child, is not a faery-
vision always crystal-clear and glittering? And the
Lord appeared to Teresa, white as snow and clear as
crystal. 79 If only in our imaginations, our child-
hood yet remains with us.
Alas, that it remains with us not only in these
charming ways; for we are often closer to the Gold-
Coast negro than we should like to think. When the
director of Mary of the Angels "commanded" her
disease to disappear, psychologists tell us that he made
use of the power of suggestion upon a highly sensitive
subject. Ethnologists add, that this priest stood in
the same relation to the suffering mystic as the Zulu
medicine-man toward his patient, when he exorcized
the evil spirit believed to cause the disease. 80 The
rite is derived from those cloudy ages when all ills
were ascribed to the action on our bodies of an evil
demon ; 81 nor does the reader need to be reminded
that exorcism is frequently mentioned both in the Old
and the New Testaments. Hysteria and epilepsy
were maladies lending themselves readily to the ex-
planation of demoniacal possession ; and against these
attacks exorcism continued to be constantly and pro-
fessionally practised until late in the seventeenth
century. Comparative study is here peculiarly sug-
gestive. Among the Melanesians, a witch-doctor
will call upon the sufferer by name, and the
THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: I 433
demon, with a strange voice, will answer; "It is not
he, it is I ! " 82 So the Pere Surin unfortunate * ' man
of God" interrogated the possessed Jeanne des
Anges, and the fiend, replying, named himself, Isa-
caaron. The miserable nuns of Loudun and Louviers
are described as undergoing the identical experience
of the Zulu, the Basuto, and the Patagonian.
' ' During the early centuries of Christianity, ' ' com-
ments Tylor, "demoniacal possession becomes pecul-
iarly conspicuous . . . because a period of intense
religious excitement brought it more than usually into
requisition." 83 To this prevalence and its signifi-
cance, we shall again return; at the moment we shall
but emphasize the periodical nature of the possession-
delusion, and the accompanying rite of exorcism.
Says a keen student: "Beliefs change, but rites
persist, as the fossil shell serves to date for us the
geological epoch." 84 Lest we be at any time tempted
to glory in the so-called freedom from these supersti-
tions, let us further examine the history of this espe-
cial delusion.
Lecky observes that "From the time of Justin
Martyr, for about two centuries, there is not a single
Christian writer who does not solemnly and explicitly
assert the reality and frequent employment of this
power. " 85 It was specifically connected with the
entire system of miracles, so influential over the
Christian convert's mind. 86 The letters and trea^
tises of the Fathers are filled with narratives of the
casting-out of devils; while a few centuries later,
Guibert, Othloh, Glaber, Luther, testify to the vivid
existence of such beliefs. Still later come the Salem
434, RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
and the Scottish, witch-trials, through which this gro-
tesque horror is carried into our own country and al-
most to our own day. 87
Nor has our own day escaped this savage phe-
nomenon. The history of the Mormon performances
at Kirtland and in New- York State, is striking when
the surroundings and native characters are con-
sidered. ' ' In April, 1830, ' ' says the official chronicle,
"the devil was cast out of Newell Knight, by Joseph
Smith, Sr. . . . This was the first miracle done in
this church. " 88 Smith's account is detailed, and
unhesitating. "I went, and found him suffering very
much in his mind, and his body acted upon in
a very strange manner, his visage and limbs
distorted and twisted in every shape possible to im-
agine. ... I succeeded in getting hold of him by the
hand, when almost immediately he spoke to me, and
with very great earnestness required of me that I
should cast the devil out of him. ... I rebuked the
devil, and commanded him in the name of Jesus
Christ to depart from him, when immediately Newell
spoke out and said that he saw the devil leave him
and vanish from his sight. " On cross-examination as
to the fiend's appearance, Knight admitted that the
image was hallucinatory; "a spiritual sight, and spir-
itually discerned." 89
Hysterical epidemic soon followed scenes like these.
Delirium, with outbreaks of "the jerks" and the
"shakes," ran riot through these communities. The
point of view of the individual sufferer, under such
influences, relapsed at once to the savage, or semi-
savage, level; and in these hard-headed American
THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: I 435
pioneers, we can find no jot of resemblance to our-
selves. 90 Writes Elder Kimball in his journal:
"I ... could distinctly see the evil spirits, who
foamed and gnashed their teeth upon us. We gazed
upon them about an hour and a half." Elder Hyde
fought a host of demons who nearly choked him to
death, and describes 91 the conflict in terms which
would have been wholly comprehensible to Guibert de
Nogent, or Jeanne des Anges, or poor little Marie de S.
Sacrement, or Jeanne Fery. 92 In 1844, in Virginia,
the Mormon elders contended with a crowd of evil
spirits for the possession of three young girls, alter-
nately exorcising and re-exorcising these demons, un-
til becoming exhausted. In another case, the exor-
cists were themselves attacked, just as Pere Surin had
been. Similar outbreaks of demoniacal possession and
the effort to control it by exorcism, are noted in
Switzerland as late as 1861, 83 and in China even
later. 94
When the confessant "makes vows," offers pro-
pitiatory sacrifice, or concludes a "covenant with God"
by which his agony and distress are relieved, he but
blindly follows in the tread of his savage ancestor, who,
like the Bodo or Congo chieftain, tried to "buy off"
the hostile spirits. 95 A higher form of this practice
will be found among the early Romans and Jews.
Sacrifice was recommended to Job as a means of atone-
ment for his revolt; but the literature of sacrifice is
too full to be dealt with in this place. In Rome,
"A prayer was a vow (votum) in return for cer-
tain specified services to be rendered. Were they
436 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
rendered, man was compos voti bound to perform
what he had promised. Were they not rendered, the
contract was void. Sometimes in a crisis the god was
bound in advance by a devotio, or sacrifice. The priest
held the position of legal intermediary. ' ' 96
The attitude of the Christian confessant toward
his Saviour is less presuming in its form ; we shall see
if it actually lacked presumption. One case "directly
covenanted with God for a return of health." In
several others, the mere expectation of tranquillity
to be secured by such a covenant was sufficient to
secure it; further evidence, if need be, of the power
of suggestion. Although God is not directly stated
to be the party of the second part, yet he was con-
sidered as bound by the contract in question. 97
Any attempt at comparative study of primitive and
modern mystical phenomena, and the beliefs derived
therefrom, will be incomplete without a comparative
examination of the primitive and the modern sacred
personality. The change in attitude toward such
personalities has been fundamental, yet its evolution
is traceable from the primitive to the mediaeval times.
Mediaeval opinion our confessants tell us regarded
the hysterical as divine, the idiot as sacred. To-day
the tendency is exactly opposite; many regard the
divine as only hysterical, and the saint as a harmless
sort of idiot. The Middle Ages set aside for saint-
ship those individuals displaying abnormal mental
signs; just as the Zulu to-day selects his priest. 98
Among the Patagonians, epileptics are immediately
chosen for magicians; while the Siberians destine
THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: I 437
children prone to convulsions to be brought up in the
sacred profession." Nor can the mystic claim a
mental superiority over these cases; whatever their
disciples may claim for them. The blessed M. M.
Alacoque could take care of herself in the world much
less well than any Zulu witch-doctor that we have
ever read of. A former section has already made
note of the complacent mental inferiority of such fa-
mous examples as Mme. Guy on, A. C. Emmerich, Maria
d'Agreda, Joanna Southcott, Joseph Smith, the Mor-
mon prophet; while even Teresa, Loyola, and Richard
of St. Victor, great intellects all three, considered
the ideal state as one much closer to pure idiocy than
they could ever hope to attain. Their views indicate
the still-dominant influence of the old belief in the
sacredness of the fool.
When one reads of certain early hermits, and later
Quakers; of Juliana of Norwich, or of Suso, or of
Angela da Foligno; one knows that the Patagonian
priest, or the Algerian marabout, would not have
found them at all surprising or uncongenial. By
systematically de-rationalizing himself, man produces
pretty much the same results whatever his country,
or his previous degree of civilization. 100 Plotinus's
union with the Divine differs comparatively little, after
all, from the attempt of Amiel to "possess God."
.With the savage, the semi-savage, the mediaeval or the
modern mystic, the abnormal still remains the proof
of the supernatural, still retains its sacred character.
This feeling is carried into various minor phenomena
of the mystical experience. That Voice, sometimes
called of God, sometimes of the departed, the Voice
438 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
which commanded Fox or Augustin or Swedenborg
or Smith, speaks the same messages in the ear of the
Malay, the Algonquin, or the New Zealander; and is
by him described as "a low mutter, a murmur, or a
whistle." 101 Among the Abipones the hissing of little
ducks which fly at night is taken for the voices of the
dead. 102 The Maori priest may hear the voice of the
ghostly visitant, and comprehend its message, though
to another it seems only the low sound of wind pass-
ing through trees. 103 Tylor likens this sound in its
quality to the voices of the dead in Homer, where it
becomes "a thin murmur or twitter." 104 Shakspere
wrote that "the sheeted dead did squeak and gibber in
the Roman streets." 105 "The still, small voice" of
Scripture embodied the experience of the whole listen-
ing world.
Personal testimony heightens for the student the
significant quality and timbre of the Voice. All ears
have heard, all nations have described it. Mahomet
asks to be delivered "from the whisperer who slily
withdraweth." 106 This has further interest in connec-
tion with the idea that "the language of demons is also
a low whistle or a mutter, and that devils generally
speak low and confusedly. ' ' lor Jerome Cardan heard
the sound differently at different times ; on one impor-
tant occasion it came to him muffled, "like one afar off,
confessing to a priest." 108 To express the idea of
tenuity or bird-like quality, the Hebrew term is
"Batkol," or "daughter of a Voice." This well de-
fines the curious attribute of the sound, that "it mur-
mured like a dove. ' ' 109 The American Indian felt it
to resemble a cricket, rather than a bird. 110 Ancient
THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: I 439
Hebrew writings tell that the holy Elisha ben Abuya
heard the Voice <( chirping " behind the temple. Who
can forget the intensity of the prophet's phrase when
he says that "thy Voice shall whisper out of the
dust?" 111 while many examples may be cited from
the Bible and the Talmud, in support of its peculiar
and characteristic timbre. Cardan held the old belief
that this Voice belonged to a personal daemon, and
mentions it frequently. With him it was wont to
grow "to a tumult of voices"; just as among the
Jews it would become a hum or reverberation.
"Seek unto them," says the prophet, "that have
familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep and that
mutter." 112 The Voice is not always low, though it
is always shrill; at times it is very loud. To the
Friend Elizabeth Ashbridge, it came "as from a
trumpet"; while to Henry Alline, it was "still and
small, through my whole soul." To Joseph Smith it
gave a call, from a distance. R. Wilkinson heard "a
dreadful sound in his ears, which he thought was the
adversary." Augustin remarks that he "never re-
membered to have heard anything at all like it."
Joseph Hoag heard "as plain a whisper as ever I
heard from a human being." 118
There would be interesting speculation for the
medical-materialist in linking this typical Voice with
the equally typical noises present in cases of aural
catarrh. 114 These are reported as "ranging from
simple, pulsating murmurs to thundering noises, or
reports like the shot of pistol or cannon. In many
cases they are of a whistling or singing character.
. . . They may be constant, intermittent, or recur-
440 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
rent/' The writer doubts whether they "ever as-
sume the form of spoken language "; suggesting that
" those who seem to hear voices and to receive mes-
sages and revelations, probably have a central lesion
of the cortex." 115 The occurrence would seem too
general and too widespread for this latter explanation
always to prevail; but, perhaps, the medical means
of deciding this fact are not sufficient at the present
time. Cases of cortical lesion would surely present
certain definite, pathological symptoms; whereas the
Voice occurs frequently under conditions fairly nor-
mal, or those but temporarily abnormal. A more
natural condition would be that ignorant humanity,
finding no explanation of his head-noises other than
the anthropomorphic explanation which he was ac-
customed to attach to most things, took them to mean
the flattering attention of his god or spirit. Sooner
or later, this explanation would receive an apparent
ratification from some comrade in the tribe whose
cortical lesion led him to amplify and formulate words
for the Voice. The evolution of the central fact of
interior whispering, into that Voice which has mur-
mured or thundered down the ages, might be therefore
attributable, as so much else in our past, to mere
"misinterpreted observation." That efforts have
been made for a true explanation is shown in a com-
ment made by Burton, in the "Anatomy of Melan-
choly," when he is dealing with the delusions caused
by echoes. "Theophilus (in Galen) thought he
heard musick, from vapours which made his ears
sound ' ' ; 116 writes this trenchant observer. The qual-
ity, the timbre of the Voice, due always, however
THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: I 441
accounted for, to identical causes, would thus remain
characteristic.
The persistence of primitive conceptions, which rest
unchanged throughout the ingenious misinterpreta-
tion of the centuries, is one of the most interesting
of our mental phenomena. Their original connec-
tions are often but dimly grasped by us now, if they
are grasped at all. Who can say if the thinness and
delicacy of the Voice, whose peculiar timbre has just
been emphasized, may not have had an effect by
simple, logical inference on the early conceptions of
the soul, its appearance and characteristics? Tylor
makes no comment on the relation between the primi-
tive idea of the smallness of the soul, and the thin-
ness of its voice ; but the idea of it as a miniature rep-
lica of the body, as a mannikin, is strangely far-
reaching. 117
The Port-Lincoln blacks say the soul is so small it
could pass through a chink, and hover at the tops
of the trees. It was about the size of a small
child. 118 Certain Eskimos hold it to be no larger
than a hand or a finger; while the Angmagsaliks de-
scribe it as ' ' a tiny man, the size of a sparrow. ' ' 119
J. Gr. Frazer notes that it is regarded as a dwarf,
unanimously, by all primitive peoples. In the
Egyptian frescoes, as later, in the Italian (Orcagna),
it is pictured as half life-size, often winged, or bird-
like, floating over the head of its proprietor. 120 What
later generations took for naivete of drawing in these
pictures, is seen to be really the accurate presentation
of a prevailing idea. Careful tracing of this concep-
tion leads to its final connection with that group of
442 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
ideas, sprung from animism, imagining a guardian or
household spirit. Thus, the souls of the dead are,
in their main characteristics, quite indistinguishable
from the beings known to us to-day as fairies. They
are light, flitting, delicate, and capricious, often
malignant ; like the 'banshees of Ireland, or the zombis
of Martinique. 121 This being, protean under the
imaginations of men, is sometimes the attendant spirit,
or daemon, or genius ; while later it becomes the guar-
dian angel of the Middle Ages. Socrates and Philo,
Brutus and Cardan, are holding no strange beliefs,
but merely sharing the popular ideas of their day. 122
No whit does their conception differ from that of the
Carib, or the Mongol, or the Tasmanian native.
Speculation as to the nature of these details is not,
however, merely of a curious interest ; it is with mat-
ter of broader analogy that we have to deal. So rich
is the corroborative evidence among modern exam-
ples, as among savage cases, that it becomes difficult
not to overweight the page. Individual cases demon-
strate the practical identity of savage and civilized
mystical phenomena. To deny it, is to close one 's eyes
to fact; to shut one's mind to logic. The Khonds of
Arissa, the negroes of Guinea, the aborigines of Amer-
ica and Australia, are aided or tormented by crowds of
good or evil spirits, which beset their path precisely as
angels and demons beset the path of Teresa, of Jeanne
des Anges, of Jeanne de St. Mathieu Deleloe, of Oth-
loh, of Raoul Glaber, of Mme. Guyon, of Swedenborg,
of Joseph Smith. Vivid testimony to the belief in
incubi and succubi will be found in the witch-trials
of the seventeenth century, the selfsame belief pre~
THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: I 443
vailing among the natives of Samoa, of the Antilles,
or of New Zealand. 123 Apparitions, whether of per-
sons, white and glittering, of fiery pillars, or clouds, or
points, 124 is no more a Christian belief than the guar-
dian-angel, or the "Voice of God," are Christian be-
liefs. The Christian took them where he found them,
in the hearts and imaginations of the simple and the
humble, of folk yet close to primitive feeling, and
adapted them to his needs and to the needs of his
new faith.
The confessant may have evolved beyond the savage
in the matter of magical rites ; although one no sooner
makes such a statement than he is shaken by reading
in the newspaper that an entire community in the
State of Pennsylvania has been terrorized by the ap-
pearance of a gigantic "hexe" (witch) cat, killed
finally by a silver bullet; or that some railroad has
been disappointed in the results given by certain
"dowsers" or diviners, which it employed to
"dowse" for water. The visual and auditory phe-
nomena which the confessant experiences, is associ-
ated to-day with another set of ideas; these have
grown more complex and are at work, moreover, upon
organizations far more complex and far more sensitive.
Deeper and more profound is the resultant disinte-
gration; but we who read must not forget that it is
this result and not the original cause which has
changed. Is it possible to read, comparatively, the
experiences narrated by Suso, Hoag, Linsley, Grat-
ton, Jaco, Blair, Boston, Swedenborg, Smith, Lobb,
Richard Rolle, Juliana of Norwich, Antoinette Bour-
ignon, Carre de Montgeron, George Fox (to name but
444 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
few), and not feel a deepening conviction of their
essentially savage character?
The hyper-suggestibility among moderns has been
alleged as the special inducing cause of the intensity
of their experience. At ceremonies of initiation a
similar suggestibility governs the Australian, who thus
readily beholds strange visions. 125 His medicine-man
keeps aloof from the tribe, practises asceticism, and
is as wild in speech and look as any Thebaid hermit.
When about to assume his sacred function, he goes
alone to the mouth of a certain cave, where he fasts
and prays, until a spirit comes and pierces his tongue
with a long spear. 126 This wound (it is photographed
as a deep hole in the forepart of the tongue) is
scarcely healed when he returns to the tribe; nor
could the investigator discover that he ever after
acknowledged it to have been made by himself or by a
comrade. On the contrary, he persisted in saying
and in believing it to be the work of a spirit.
Our modern attitude is contemptuous of this cre-
dulity; yet much in this whole experience suggests
the phenomenon of the stigmata. Gorres notes that
both the desire to possess these wounds and the ex-
pectation of possessing them preceded their appear-
ance in the hands and side of the subject, 127 and cites
the instances of Veronique Giuliani, Margaret
Ebnerin, Liduine, Jeanne de Jesu Maria, and others.
Naturally we tend to believe more in our own medi-
cine-men than in those of the Australian bushman, yet
in examining the evidence of saintliness it were well
to remember that things which are equal to the same
thing are equal to each other.
THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: I 445
In his chapters on "Mystical Flight," Gorres re-
cords the sensations of the saint as being rapidly and
dizzily whirled through the air. 128 Several confess-
ants support this description; and it has received
much attention from medical and psychological au-
thorities. This is hardly the place "to enumerate their
theories, which connect it either with reaction from
a state of trance, or with definite epileptic seizure.
The anthropologist succeeds in convincing us that the
so-called mystical flight is not alone the property of
the Christian mystic; for it is claimed also by the
Buddhist, the Brahman, the Neo-Platonist ; and
that, in fact, belief in it is common to ascetics of all
nations. 129
Those fatal and sacred properties which savage
imaginations attached to the fetich, seem to place this
idea as far from the world of the Sistine Madonna as
the custom of eating raw meat. Many confessants
record such belief in full activity, and no farther
than our own times. The book of Mormon refers to
"the stone called Gazelem" (sic) which Joseph Smith
carried in his pocket, and by whose aid he was able
to induce a slightly hypnoid state in the gazer. From
the description of this sacred "peep-stone," it ap-
pears to have been nothing more nor less than the
broken prism of an old-fashioned lustre chandelier ! 13
In other records will be found mention of sacred
medals and pictures ; 1S1 Pascal carried his amulet
around his neck; and so this most savage of all
aboriginal notions manifests, in an hundred different
ways, its extraordinary persistency. To sum up ; not
only the savage and the medieval, but the savage and
446 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
the modern religious experience, are in reality so
close, that the mind trained in the search for truth
will find the differences between them far fewer than
the resemblances.
X
THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: II
I. The Middle Ages; survivals.
II. Revivals; witchcraft.
III. Revival in the individual.
IV. Explanation of phenomena; the "B-region"; Tabu and
the Unpardonable Sin.
V. Religion a collective term.
VI. Recapitulation; conclusion.
X
THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: II
THE comparisons contained in the foregoing section
have been made for a definite purpose and in the in-
terest of a definite aim. That the cited experiences,
one and all, have their origin deep in primal emotion,
would seem indisputable, nor is it unreasonable to
claim for them a distinct, emotional source. True,
religion is more complex to-day, and its influence over
modern life is wider and more various; yet this fact
should not hide for us its emotional origin. If this
sentiment was not always what it is to-day, neither
were we always what we are to-day; the change is
not the result of any one belief, it is the result of a
gradual maturity of the human mind.
"In the life of the rudest savage, religious belief
is associated with intense emotion, with awful rever-
ence, with agonizing terror, with rapt ecstasy, when
sense and thought utterly transcend the common
level of daily life." 1 Thus writes the anthropolo-
gist; and when we read his words, many of us feel
a gentle glow of superiority, so sure we are that our
ideals have grown to a higher stature, to a nobler
beauty. There are many ways in which we have
grown, indeed; and yet the final impression made by
449
450 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
reading any history of morals is, after all, not that
Christianity has had so much influence upon the
world's conduct, but that it has had so little. 2 No
historian can make the Middle Ages other than re-
pulsive; a dark, cruel, sick, savage period, a fruitful
soil for emotional survivals.
As the term " survival" was introduced into the
world of anthropological research by Tylor, in his
"Primitive Culture/ 1 ' his definition thereof shall
serve us here. "These are processes, " he writes,
"customs, opinions, and so forth, which have been
carried on by force of habit into a new state of
society different from that in which they had their
original home, and they thus remain as proofs and
examples of an older condition of culture, out of which
a newer has been evolved. ' ' s When one carries this
definition a little further, out of the sphere of custom
and habit, into that of emotion and feeling, one
will be obliged to modify it considerably. Habit
alone, for instance, is not sufficient to account for sur-
vival in the field of emotion, and does not as a matter
of fact so carry it on. As Tylor 's whole book shows,
emotional survivals are almost always the result of
special conditions, preserving certain feelings or ideas
as it were artificially, and storing them up in the
imaginations and hearts of a community, or a nation.
These surviving feelings or ideas after a time drop
out of active and conscious life ; no longer used, they
become passive, latent in the community; they re-
semble the seeds of certain plants, which lie unsus-
pected in the earth until the time has come for them
to sprout once more. As we shall see later, this re-
THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: II 451
crudescence may be so active and vehement that it
deserves the name "revival"; by which term Tylor
defines the survival sprung to activity, under the in-
fluence and the pressure of special conditions.
When we come to consider religious survivals in
particular, the question of the surrounding conditions
has a vital importance ; and a glance at the first ten
centuries of the Christian era will go far toward ex-
plaining the presence of some characteristic phe-
nomena of survival. The conditions prevalent dur-
ing the Middle Ages are owing to the passing of the
ancient, to the rise of the modern, world. Such con-
ditions united to favor emotional outbreaks by pre-
senting the combination of great unrest and great ex-
citement, acting on the lowered vitality of a world
exhausted by famine and by war. The vigorous
paganism of the past was dead, and the barbarian
invasions swarmed upon those races who were striv-
ing to revive and to re-make life. Fear and Famine
were the nurses of our modern civilization; and the
tales they told made so deep a mark upon men's
minds that fragments of them linger here and there
to this day. The religion of the masses was as ir-
religious as it was possible to be ; 4 as irreligious as
religion sprung from emotional survival seems at first
bound to be. It had little connection with conduct;
it was founded upon terror, upon egotism, upon hys-
teria; it shows mankind at the cry of "Sauve qui
peut!" running pell-mell from the hobgoblins itself
had created. Noting the monstrous growth of super-
stition, the profane and absurd stories which cling
around the worship of the Virgin, Hallam cannot
452 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
refrain from commenting on the irreligious nature
of this so-called religion; and wondering "if an en-
tire absence of all religion might not have been less
harmful, on the whole." 5 This is much from an
historian who fails to see that these manifestations
have sprung from a different source than the mani-
festations which have aided the world in its ethical
advance.
The one thing known about the religious experience,
is that its occurrence is invariably due to a combina-
tion of lowered vitality plus emotional excitement.
Individual cases have shown this condition repeated
over and over again ; and certain religious movements,
near to our own day, convince us yet again of its
efficacy. Lowered vitality plus emotional excitement
had a share of responsibility for the great dissenting
movement of the eighteenth century in England; in
our own land the sectarian agitation, the Great Ke-
vival, 8 the springing-up of all types of extravagant
belief, the Bestorationists, the Shakers, the Latter-Day
Saints, the Dunkards, down to the Christian Scientists,
will all, if their origin be carefully examined, be found
to have similar conditions as their inducing cause.
In the early Middle Ages, such conditions were ful-
filled, not merely for scattered individuals, nor iso-
lated groups, but for humanity at large. Primitive
feeling held an unchecked sway over the masses;
while the effect of Christianity, with its strong emo-
tional appeal, was to heighten and to intensify all
primitive feeling; to act as stimulus to the emotional
side of religion. For many centuries previously,
emotional faith had appeared to weaken and to ebb.
THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: II 453
Philosophy had failed, by reason of its intellectual
demand, to formulate a creed for the humble.
Christianity gave both an impetus and a voice to the
forces slumbering then, as now, in the very being of
the race. It released and directed a body of senti-
ments by whose aid alone man could advance in his
evolution. But at the same time, along with these
primitive emotional forces there were aroused and
set into action other forces just as primitive, but by
no means as beneficent, which are indissolubly bound
up with the life of the emotions. Many of these
forces are present, but are no longer constant in their
operation upon the human mind; they may be sum-
moned into activity only by special influences and
under special conditions. Perhaps they may be best
described by the term "vestigiary."
Working together with active forces, these vestig-
iary forces have helped in furthering the spread
of Christianity. Our examples have shown how
they made their appearance in the doctrines of
Christian belief, and in what ways they have been
incorporated with these doctrines. Much of this
incorporation was done later, when the Fathers made
their ingenious attempt to account for all things
according to a strictly Christian interpretation;
but much also was present at the very beginning,
for which only vestigiary remains can account. Be-
cause we see in the Golden Rule, in Christ's ideal
of brotherhood, a flattering evidence of development
from the abysmal state of cruelty and brute force,
because these divine things are to be found in his
teaching, we must not forget the vestigiary savage
454. RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
conceptions therein, reward and punishment, hell and
heaven, vision, and magical power and exorcism.
Because a new ethical need and a new ideal caused
man to accept this purer faith, does not mean that
he had utterly cast aside his savage emotional tradi-
tions. On the contrary, the first effect of Christianity
was to re-vitalize these.
The anthropologist tells us that this nucleus of ves-
tigiary emotion this terror and worship of the un-
known spirits which is called "animism" had be-
come, in those cloudy ages when it was not vestigiary
but active, the seat and source of the religious senti-
ment. Later formalistic tendencies, the influence of
a priestly hierarchy, intent on "performing the
proper act in the proper way," somewhat suppressed
these animistic feelings, causing them to play less
part than they had played previously in the na-
tional life and religion of men. History is one
long struggle between these tendencies, now the one,
now the other, predominating; now the hierarchy
crushing the people, now the prophet stimulating
them to protest afresh. Under the spur of Christ's
personality, and his sensitive relation of all feeling to
conduct and ideals, this nucleus of ancient, primitive
forces, developed a sudden and overmastering vitality.
In proportion as the Son of Man was real to men, so
his influence revived and strengthened their capacity
for emotion. He taught them the beauty of feeling,
the value of feeling, the essential need of feeling ; and
thus was evolved a whole group of emotions, which
before had been but rudimentary. They spring up
and flower, changing the entire aspect of the earth to
THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: II 455
men; who had not noticed how the seeds had lain
hid in these barren places. When one reads Augus-
tin 's ' t Confessions, ' ' he may behold the unfolding and
the flowering of this garden of the Soul.
Founded upon and rooted in primal emotion, the
religious experiences contained in the documents, of
confession, must be finally dissociated from the pro-
cesses connected with the formation of intellectual
opinion. As their genesis is different, so is their evo-
lution. They are intimately related to, if not actually
a part of, the mystical tendency. Many of these ex-
amples might be best described as depicting a condi-
tion of temporary mysticism accompanying and
following change of belief. This body of experience,
presenting the various phases of Depression, Conver-
sion, and Reaction, is but the repeated individual
expression of forces which were yet more active and
dominating in primitive man. Under the gradual
movement of modern life, many of these forces have,
no doubt, been largely outgrown. Cold and dead in
some persons, in others we find them present, but
latent, and, as it were, vestigiary. These forces thus
remain in most modern individuals only as survivals.
Although all survivals are not religious, yet the
question of survival and revival has an especial bear-
ing on all manifestations of religion. Ritual in itself
has been observed to be a great f ossilizer of survivals ;
the amber which has preserved many early religious
ideas. "La persistance du rite est la raison des sur-
vivances," says Doutte, speaking of the survival in
Mussulman festival and folk-lore. 7
456 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
It is to the outworn custom one must look for traces
of ancient survivals, many of which are, even in this
latter age, deeply embedded in the very foundations
of our complex civilization. The revival, however, is
by no means to be closely compared with a fossil. It
occurs where the survival has received the impulse
of life; it is a nucleus, a centre of energy, whether
benignant or malignant, wholly changing and dom-
inating the subject. This revival most frequently
occurs in crowds, where the stimulus of contagion is
added to the other stimuli, with powerful effect; but
it is not infrequently to be found in sporadic, iso-
lated, and individual cases, cases which often are the
furthest removed from the possibility of contagion.
Tylor mentions, though only in passing, certain in-
stances of this individual revival, and observes that
it follows the same course as does the crowd-revival. 8
Before considering the examples of revival in the
individual, let us pause to survey the course of those
crowd-revivals whose influence on history has made
them more familiar to our minds. So marked is their
trail that even those of us who fail to comprehend
their psychology are willing to accept them as a suf-
ficient excuse for many amazing aberrations, for many
startling events. To enumerate and analyze them
would lead far from the present task, but their origin
must not be forgotten in its direct bearing on our
enquiry.
"As men's minds change in progressing culture,
old customs and opinions fade gradually in the new
and uncongenial atmosphere, or pass into states more
congruous with the new life around them. . . .
THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: II 457
Studying with a wide view the course of human opin-
ion, we may now and then trace on from the very
turning-point the change from passive survival into
active revival. Some well-known belief or custom
has for centuries shown symptoms of decay ... it
hursts forth again with a vigor often as marvellous
as it is unhealthy. " 9 Should the reader desire con-
firmation of this passage, let him return to the chap-
ters on "Data," of this hook, and read once more
the documents relating to witchcraft. He will appre-
ciate that each intellectual advance has been followed
by an emotional reaction of equal sweep, during one
of which, fostered by certain special tendencies latent
in Christianity itself, the savage survival of witch-
craft leapt into vivid and malign activity. As an
epidemic, witchcraft had been chronic among the
lower races and is still chronic among them. To us,
as the anthropologist remarks, "its main interest lies
in the extent and accuracy with which the theory of
survival explains it. ' ' 10 The main idea of witchcraft
is savage; all the rites connected with it are savage,.
Various minor fluctuations of this revival carry down
to our own day its degrading and evil influence.
1 fhe Mormon outbreak, the outbreak of demoniacal
possession in Switzerland in 1861, the outbreak of
Spiritualism in the eighties, 11 all will be found to
exhibit the same typical savage characteristics, symp-
toms, and progress.
Any relation of the individual confessant to these
groups, and his classification among the data of sav-
age survival, are not the work of theory, they are the
work of the confessant himself. As one reads of his
458 EELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
personal conflict, in volume after volume, this con-
clusion is not fortuitous, it is inevitable. Only the
clerical eye could have failed to see where he be-
longed and to place him there years ago. His own
heartrending description of his feelings, his intensity,
particularity, and vividness of imaginative concep-
tion, these lend us the light wherewith to under-
stand him. In every word he utters, he paints for us
the progress of his savage revival. In every word
he utters, he makes plain to us the nature of his mon-
strous and pathetic delusion. For, what seems to him
Divine, what seems to him to be the work of God, or
the Voice of God, or the God-designed means for his
arrival at ultimate security and salvation, we now
know to be in its origins something wholly and gro-
tesquely different, something linked not with the
higher, but with the lower, issues of man's nature;
something connected not with what we human crea-
tures have become, but with what we once were, aeons
since ; something hideously close to that other savage
revival of witchcraft, sprung from brute cruelty and
terror.
Let us examine further into the literature of the
witch-confession, in order both to connect it with the
data of religious confession and to draw comparisons
between these two survivals. By the light of the law
of association of ideas many of the incidents in the
witch-testimonies take on a fresh significance. Cer-
tain among them illuminate, in a striking manner,
much that has seemed hitherto incredibly bizarre to
our civilized intelligence.
The unfortunates on trial for the crime of witch-
THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: II 459
craft make many references to the so-called " Witches'
Sabbat." Whether in Scotland or in France,
whether in the thirteenth or the seventeenth century,
these references are identical, and are equally sug-
gestive of savagery. The dress, indecent and fan-
tastic, of the participants, the drum-beat summoning
the assembly to the woods at night, the devil-worship
and the frantic dance, the cannibal sacrifice, followed
by an indescribable orgy, all these things are read
by the modern student under his quiet lamp, while he
shudders at the perversity of the human imagination.
To his mind, such conceptions bespeak a sort of wicked
lunacy. 12 But let him turn to the sober narrative of
the African traveller, and he will find the same fes-
tival set down therein, in cold print, as an everyday
incident of aboriginal life. Stripped of all connec-
tion with our Occidental Devil (for no savage mind
had ever the genius to create that figure ! ) , the ritual
of this feast is not changed in a single detail. 13 Yes-
terday, to-day, to-morrow, the drums beat, the
Congo villagers, smeared with paint, gather in the
forest for a debauch, to which not one of the most
hideous fancies of the Middle Ages will be found
lacking. There follows the natural question, How
came the Middle Ages to know about such things ?
Ages since, such customs had faded from the lives
of European nations. 14 There are traces of them to
be found in ancient Eastern creeds ; the frenzy of the
Maenads had a similar origin ; but they must long have
been but matter of vestigiary memory. Yet, since
the word " vestige" means a track or footprint, it
may be accurately employed in showing the tracks
460 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
left in men's imaginations by the vanished customs
of their tribal period. Under the spur of sharp ter-
ror, and terror of the Unknown, that faded, but
not obliterated memory of the aboriginal orgy, began
to revive, stimulated into a show of life and color.
Out of the black pit of the past arose these ugly and
tormenting images, crowding to perplex a poor, un-
balanced creature under the menace of death. Per-
haps the tale of some traveller at the village inn had
been enough to start the train of ideas to stir and
animate these latent associations. The folk-lore of
little communities, the stories told by father to son,
by mother to daughter, is the amber which has en-
folded and preserved these survivals; until that
moment, when, under favorable conditions, they were
to burst forth into vigorous and unhealthy activity.
11 There are no pages of European history more
filled with horror, " says Dr. Lea, "than those which
record the witch-madness of three centuries. " 15
This "disease of the imagination " was heightened
and stimulated by persecution; details which had
been but cloudy, became, under cross-examination,
full and horrible ; the torture of the accused produced
fresh material at each step, which each further case
assimilated and amplified. The psychology of the
witch-confessant shows a progressive state of hysteri-
cal fear and of imaginative nervous delusion. The
details gained upon cross-examination of these cases,
became more and more dreadful as the cross-examina-
tion progressed ; 16 as the unfortunate turned, step by
step, back to his aboriginal condition, these vestigiary
THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: II 461
memories, revived and stimulated under the pressure
of terror, soon reduced the poor creature to the level
of the sheer brute. Torture always succeeded in
producing the answers desired by the torturers,
answers apparently confirming their belief. Lead-
ing questions led to uniform replies, and thus "a
tolerably coherent formula was developed to which
all witches were expected to conform." 17 At times,
the confessions were truthful accounts of illusions
really entertained, and thus are comparable to
the visions of the mystics. 18 More often, they were
the mere result of the torture applied to produce
them. Dr. Lea is of the opinion that in some cases
the imaginations of the Witches' Sabbat were evoked
as a relief from the subject's sordid poverty, or
to account to himself for excesses of temperament
which had no other outlet. 19 However this may be,
it is indisputable that many old beliefs and folk-
tales were seized upon and incorporated into these
delusions, forming a repository of elder, half-for-
gotten superstitions. The ancient pagan idea of
night-riders; the Norse "trolla-thing," or nocturnal
gathering of witches, to dance upon the first of May,
becomes, by a slow and portentous growth, connected
with the idea of a pact with Satan, and so grew to the
Witches' Sabbat of the fourteenth century. 20 "Com-
mon to the superstitions of many races," writes Dr.
Lea, "its origin cannot be definitely assigned to any";
and he observes that both the Church and the law
were at a loss to account for the wide prevalence of
the belief, and for the marked similarity in its fea-
462 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
tures. 21 Details varied little ; human sacrifice and can-
nibalism were the main rites asserted, delusions
eagerly confessed, and persisted in to the stake. 22
The account given by Dr. Lea of the witch-trials
under the Inquisition, at the time the epidemic was
at its height, furnishes the most complete and strik-
ing confirmation of its connection with savage re-
vival. The personal influences, the psychological in-
fluences, the physical influences, all made for this re-
vival and its effect upon the mind of the individual.
Confession was to be exacted by torture, mental and
physical, and every possible means was used to entrap
the unfortunate or obstinate subject. His situation,
therefore, was entirely favorable to the florescence of
the revival in his personality. He needed only the
spur of terror for his passive survivals to spring into
active revival. He did not need knowledge of aborig-
inal customs; the knowledge was in his blood; it was
naturally evoked by a certain train of ideas, under a
certain nervous stimulus. With real savages he was
not in contact, unless it should be with Irish tra-
ditions; while of that aboriginal feast which is
the prototype of the Sabbat, he had never even heard.
The Middle Ages could know nothing of the Aus-
tralian bushman, or of the African negro. Books
were few; and most of the people affected by the re-
vival could not read. All the beliefs and customs con-
nected with witchcraft and magic sprang from, and
have remained with, the peasant, part of an inherit-
ance which he has not yet outgrown.
The hysterical on trial for her life must immedi-
ately have become the unconscious focus, for a
THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: II 463
revival of these conceptions. She, her judges, and
her audience were for the time being swayed by a wave
of primordial terror. Such reasoning powers as they
possessed were submerged by a flood of racial feelings
and recollections. The confessants themselves bear
witness to this state, in no uncertain language. Made-
leine Bavent, describing the incidents at the Witches'
Sabbat, repeats that she cannot be sure what she be-
held while there. It is remembered as in a cloud. 23
Like Eichard of St. Victor, she does not plead this
vagueness as evidence in her favor ; she merely makes
note of it; to us, it is a proof that the whole experi-
ence belonged to what James calls so aptly the ' ^-re-
gion " 24 of her consciousness. Neither do the Mor-
mon elders attribute to any psychological influence the
extraordinary behavior of some of their converts dur-
ing the revivals at Kirtland, in Ohio. The young
men and women would imitate the scalping and
whooping of the Indians; would try to speak in the
various Indian dialects; would be, writes one of the
elders, "completely metamorphosed into Indians." 25
The fear and horror of Red Men was not so far, per-
haps, from these unfortunates, as the fear and horror
of devils from the witch-conf essant ; but at Kirtland
it was, at least, just as unnecessary, just as markedly
the result of pure revival; sprung from the "B-
region" of consciousness. "This B-region," writes
the psychologist, ". . . is obviously the larger part
of each of us, for it is the abode of everything
that is latent, and the reservoir of everything that
passes unrecorded or unobserved. It contains, for
example, such things as all our momentarily inac-
464 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
tive memories, and it harbors the springs of all
our obscurely motived passions, impulses, likes, dis-
likes, and prejudices. Our intuitions, hypotheses,
fancies, superstitions, persuasions, convictions, and in
general all our non-rational operations come from it.
It is the source of our dreams and apparently they
may return to it. In it arise whatever mystical ex-
periences we may have, and ... it is also the foun-
tain-head of much that feeds our religion." 26
Although the conclusions of William James are not
those of the present investigation, yet one must not un-
derestimate the service he has rendered by so clear a
definition of this extra-marginal portion of our con-
sciousness. The data of the emotional religious experi-
ence have their origin in this region, from which all
survivals take their rise. Holy saint and hysterical
nun are alike in this, that the disturbance which has
been caused in the "B-region" by the rise and domina-
tion of some survival, has, in them, preoccupied and
possessed the entire personality, to the total exclu-
sion of all those factors which make for the normal
life of human beings. Under pressure, that which
existed in the beginning but as a passive, latent sur-
vival, has become an active revival, has pressed for-
ward upon what James calls "the full, sun-lit con-
sciousness"; until it alters and clouds the latter be-
yond recognition.
Surely, it is natural that human creatures, find-
ing these strange ideas rising out of themselves,
should try to explain them, should try to relate
them to some unknown fact. The more healthy-
minded tend to link them with everything they dis-
THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: II 465
like and cannot understand. Thus, the early Chris-
tians came to be accused of various practices having
their origin in savage survival ; thus, in the Olympian
hand of a Goethe, the Walpurgis-nacht superstition
became a symbol of man's lower nature. To us, these
beliefs furnish clear evidence of their common source,
and more than that, their particular character points
to that source in primitive savage animism.
The individual, as an exponent of the phenomena
of revival, has been little studied up to the present
time. Tylor notes Swedenborg as having been in-
tensely animistic, both in doctrine and personality. 27
"Mrs. Piper, the medium/' writes Andrew Lang,
"exhibits a survival, or recrudescence of savage phe-
nomena. ' ' 28 The data collected in the foregoing
chapter on heredity, health, and early piety, are gath-
ered from many persons predestined, mentally and
nervously, to be the subject for such revival. Many
an one has found himself suddenly quite helpless in
the grip of terrors and agonies risen to confront him
out of the very depths of his nature. These are hor-
rors, hydra-headed, uncontrollable, perverse, made of
the naked stuff of the cave-man. No wonder that
the humble and ignorant the John Bunyans and
John Crooks, the David Halls and Joseph Smiths, and
Joanna Southcotts of this world are smitten by them.
Moreover, there is good reason why such as these are
especially prone to be the subject of revival. "The
primitive Aryan," Dr. Frazer reminds us, "in all
that regards his mental fibre and texture is not ex-
tinct. He is among us to this day. The great in-
tellectual and moral forces which have revolutionized
466 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
the educated world, have scarcely affected the peasant.
In his inmost beliefs he is what his forefathers
were." 29 With the peasant, the belief and practice
based on the higher animism remain existent as an-
cestral relics, as vestigiary, passive survivals.
The startling effect of the whole series of experi-
ences to the individual, is thus in a manner explained.
The confessant reiterates the novelty, the strangeness
of his feeling, the well-nigh indescribable character
of his suffering. It is not matter of his immediate
knowledge, it is something from outside. It is strik-
ing, bizarre, fantastically new, much as to our eyes
those first, fossil shapes of the great saurians seemed
altogether new, and for the same reason. The aver-
age person, living his peaceful, civilized life, and con-
scious of no hoofed satyrs rising to torment him out
of his savage past, will argue that evolution has rid
him of all these barbarities. True it is that many
of them do appear to be on the wane. During the
Middle Ages, the witchcraft revival attacked all per-
sons without discrimination. Such superstitions are
fewer to-day. The power of suggestion in controlling
them is man's most civilizing influence. But so long
as men are men, so long will they be liable, under
given conditions, to recurrence of these revivals, if
often under new forms. The fact that at the moment
the number of individuals undergoing the particular
revival involved in emotional religious experience, is
fewer than in the past, is no argument for its even-
tual disappearance. Almost any one can recall in his
acquaintance some person who has been completely, if
temporarily, altered by some new belief, some one who
THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: II 467
has made an emotional turn to Christian Science, or
some other sect, and who has but given a new name to
this age-long experience.
The average person may look in vain for any tokens
of its existence within himself. But let those given
conditions occur, let the process once start, let the
force of emotion, like a hidden spring, release the
passive survival so that it grows to active revival,
then the mental law of association between ideas may
be counted upon to do the rest. He who began with
mere depression, dissatisfaction, and preoccupation
with self, is like to go on to torments, to horrors, to
abnormalities of thought and behavior, to visions and
voices, to ecstasies and trances; he will be changed
beyond his own power of recognition. "My visage
altered, " says Thomas Lay the, "so that my friends
were alarmed." Myles Halhead's wife remonstrates
with him on his changed appearance and behavior.
Thomas "Ware seemed little better than a maniac.
George Story appeared to himself actually more like
a beast than a rational creature. The friends of Alex-
ander Gordon, and of Mary Fletcher, were much wor-
ried by their looks. On every hand, the families of
the confessants testify to the extraordinary, and in
most cases deteriorating, effect of the experience. For
generations their remonstrance has been made to stand
as persecution by the world or the Devil, and it mat-
tered little if it were the plea of Salimbene's father,
or the impatient protest of some employer of Method-
ist or Quaker, all were set aside in the same category.
Nervous contagion and epidemic hysteria no doubt
aided the development of the conversion-process to-
468 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
ward its typical crisis. Fantastic ideas, before un-
dreamt-of, often take complete hold on the subject's
mind. In the witch-trials one may read accounts of
devil-worship or the Witches' Sabbat, accounts de-
tailed in their brutal obscenity, from the lips of deli-
cate, cloistered women or of innocent girls. No won-
der that diabolical possession was the only rational
explanation to their audiences of such horrors. Be-
lief in a Devil had at least this advantage, it threw
all responsibility for the results of a disturbance into
the "B-region" where it seemed to belong, ridding
poor humanity of the burden. It is well for us
to remember and repeat, in case we should ever come
to grips with these things, that, under normal condi-
tions, these feelings should not be brought into the
light at all, for they belong to those obscurely regis-
tered impressions which are a part of our animal in-
heritance.
An answer may be here suggested to some of the
questions which were asked at the outset of this en-
quiry. That disintegrating force, which we have seen
to operate so disastrously upon personality, is gener-
ated by a spontaneous revival, in the individual, of
vestigiary, savage animism. Sprung into action as
the result of certain given conditions, this revival
starts upon its regular progress that process known as
emotional religious experience, manifested in the three
phases of Depression, Conversion, and Eeaction. For
this process, under whatever variations, the animistic
revival is completely responsible. Different sections
of the present study have been devoted to analyzing
THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: II 469
the predisposing conditions and immediate causes of
such revival; while others show why the merely
pathological or medical-materialist theory is unable to
explain it, and why the mystical-compromise theory is
unable to explain it. Once set in action, this influx
of animistic emotions and impulses, simply founded
on Fear and "Worship of what is unknown operates
as a disrupting agency upon the subject's personality,
and causes an acute distress until its course is run;
or until peace returns through the medium of direct,
psychological suggestion. Why suggestion has this
power at the crisis, science has not yet made clear to
us ; the condition of the subject appears to predispose
him to a high degree of suggestibility at such a time.
There are cases in which the coalescence altogether
fails to take place; when, instead of steady progress
toward a mystical or semi-mystical culmination, fol-
lowed in due course by a return to normal conditions,
the process assumes proportions properly termed path-
ological, and the personality of the subject remains
disrupted (or, as we commonly say, unbalanced) for
the rest of his life. Unquestionably, there is justice
in the observation that this state is in itself prone to
foster any latent nervous or mental disease. This
does not mean, however, that it is in itself to be classed
as disease, any more than our vestigiary physical re-
mains are to be classed as deformities.
When we come to look upon this process as vestig-
iary, it is evident that it must not be looked on
either as an "ideally-normal" condition, or as a
purely pathological condition. It is a process strictly
natural, as natural, let us say, as fear of the dark,
470 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
as natural as little else about us is natural. Be-
longing to that group of primitive instincts which man
has tended but imperceptibly to outgrow, its sudden
development unsettles the balance which civilization
has had such difficulty in maintaining. When these
hidden sluice-gates open in the depths of being, there
are dangers for all our higher qualities in the rise of
that dark and secret flood. The great contemplatives
and mystics, whose lives have presented the seeming
paradox of activity, both mundane and supra-mun-
dane, have been able to hold it in check, so that their
creative and intellectual centres were not thereby sub-
merged. Need we add that such ability belongs only
to the rarest type of genius?
Science is more or less ignorant of the special
causes which unite to produce this outbreak of animism
in the individual; but it shows from the data that a
prerequisite is the lowering of the vital forces. This
lowering results most often from the approach of pu-
berty, with depressing social surroundings, poverty,
vice, infirmity, or ill-health, as contributing causes.
When these conditions have been fulfilled to an extent
affecting society at large (as in the Middle Ages, or in
the United States just after the War of Independ-
ence), there results a general outbreak of animistic re-
vivals of all sorts. Individuals of robust vitality may
be found among our examples, who suddenly, after se-
rious illness or strain, find themselves confronted with
this experience, almost invariably heralded by pre-
liminary depression, restlessness, and fear about self.
Where these individual cases, at this critical moment,
come into contact with crowd-revivals and their conta-
THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: II 471
gion, the process is naturally heightened and hastened.
The savage origin of the savage manifestations prev-
alent in crowd-revivals has been sufficiently insisted
upon in these pages ; to the student of Mormonism, of
the Evangelical movement, of the Great Eevival, their
abysmal source is marked as plainly as that of witch-
craft in the past.
"C'est le prop re des etats de 1'ame," writes Eenan,
"ou naissent 1'extase et les apparitions, d'etre conta-
gieux. L'histoire de toutes les grandes crises reli-
gieuses prouve que ces sortes de visions se
communiquent, dans une assemblee des personnes
remplies de memes croyances. ' ' 30 The history given
by Jonathan Edwards, in his " Narrative," already
mentioned in these pages, becomes a notable con-
firmation of the theory of savage revival. Start-
ing in a small New England village in 1735, the so-
called " Great Revival" spread, "with fresh and ex-
traordinary incomes of the spirit, ' ' to the neighboring
towns, causing widespread religious excitement. The
initial suggestion, according to Edwards, was due to
"an apprehension that the world was near to its end,
which," he naively adds, "was altogether false." 31
Here was evidently another manifestation of that
spontaneous Fear, which has been responsible for
so many an emotional outbreak in human history. 32
Direct nervous contagion had its share, for Edwards
notes the suicide of an unfortunate during this period,
which became the starting-point for an epidemic of
suicide. Conditions are here depicted all the more
striking because of the "misinterpreted observation"
through which they have been preserved. That New
472 EELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
England farmer, urged by the blind forces in his be-
ing to cringe, terror-stricken, before an angry Deity,
seems to fall back many centuries into savagery.
The reader must not infer that only among the
simple and the credulous are these forces to be found
at work. Were this true, they would have far less
importance. On the contrary savage survivals lie
close about the lives of the most fastidious and com-
plex of men. Each one of us, in fact, might exclaim
with the poet:
"Within my blood my ancient kindred spoke,
Grotesque and monstrous voices, heard afar
Down ocean caves when behemoth awoke." 33
And yet how few of us realize that these voices are
1 'grotesque and monstrous" how many of us, with
the pathetic misinterpretation of the past, have con-
nected them
"with that far-off divine event,
To which the whole creation moves!"
If we will but set them in their proper place, much
that seemed uncomfortably fantastic about them will
be explained; much that seemed unreasonable will
seem so no longer. The remains of fetichism in the
churches will seem as natural to us as the re-
mains of fetichism in every nursery. 34 Man will no
longer hold God responsible for that mass of fancies,
lingering over from abysmal days in the "B-region"
of his fellow-creatures. He will understand why re-
ligious concepts are attached to all sorts of material
objects by the imaginations of the devout; why spe-
THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: II 473
cial devotions to special dogmas have served to arouse
and to feed all forms of animistic survival. 35 The
Incarnation and the Passion, the Sacred Heart and
the Holy Sacrament, awakened in the imaginations of
Peter Favre, of Carlo da Sezze, of M. M. Alacoque,
and Baptiste Varani, typical emotions leaving no
doubt as to their animistic origin. A leaden medal
to Alphonse de Ratisbonne, a fragment of prism from
an old-fashioned lustre chandelier to Joseph Smith,
partook of a sacred character, wholly animistic both in
its sources and manifestations.
The theory of animistic revival fully accounts for
all the more perplexing features of the religious ex-
perience. The destructive effect of the process on the
subject's creative energies is thus seen to be the
natural result of its origin. The black despair, the
" rending and tearing/' the "aridity," the paralysis
of the springs of effort, these have appeared inex-
plicable and contradictory, even to those who believe
the process to be in the nature of a new birth. The
apparent dissociation of the feelings aroused by this
process from all current standards of morality, has
raised a doubt in the mind of many eminent religious
leaders, and one which the involved contradiction
alone forbade them to express. This dissociation will
be noticed both in general and in particular. The
influence on its votaries of a wave of emotional re-
ligious revival is far oftener lowering than it is up-
lifting. Nothing could be more immoral or irreligious
in its tone than Mormonism, with its prophet 's drunk-
enness, its licensed sensuality, its frenzy of supersti-
tion, unless, perhaps, it be the polytheistic Christianity
474 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
of the Middle Ages, of which Hallam expresses such
doubts.
Why a person in the act of "getting religion"
should immediately develop an abnormal egotism, 36
melancholy and gloom ; 3r with marked indifference to
another's feelings, 38 and insensibility to other claims
and wishes ; 39 should become an ungrateful child, 40 an
unkind brother, 41 a neglectful parent, 42 and all to
please his God, this has been one of the paradoxes.
By other paradoxes, no less startling, has the Chris-
tian dogmatist endeavored to account for them ; while
the conflict between our human and our religious
duties has for centuries tormented the unhappy race
of the conscientious. That this conflict is not exag-
gerated, the confessants themselves bear witness; it
has been the sharpest scourge in the hand of so-
called piety. When poor little Jeanne de St. M.
Deleloe became a novice at sixteen, she attributes her
grief at leaving home to the Devil's work.
The virtues of self -absorption are dwelt upon in a
manner highly suggestive. Examples have already
been quoted. When her husband died, Mme. Guyon
hastened to praise God that he had broken her bonds.
The mother of Guibert de Nogent left her delicate boy
alone in the world while she sought salvation in the
cloister. Therese of the Holy Child was the fifth sister
to take the veil, thereby leaving empty her old father's
house. "Keligion," comments William James, "is a
monumental chapter in the history of human ego-
tism!"
Obviously, these ideas of duty are not our ideas;
in our eyes, they appear rather to suggest a doc-
THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: II 475
trine of "Sauve qui peut!" Sprung from animism,
this manifestation of selfish terror becomes a nat-
ural result, founded on a certain logical basis.
We are shocked to-day when we hear of such in-
stances, but most of us regard them as exceptional.
What we have utterly failed to recognize is that such
egotism is fundamental, nay, even essential. Similar
insensibility is manifest in all cases of animistic re-
vival; it is not fortuitous or accidental, it is sympto-
matic and characteristic. It is the one constant fac-
tor, among the many variable factors, of this experi-
ence. Its presence constitutes an unfailing token of
the animistic revival. The gloom, the aridity, the
suffering of the subject, are the natural outcome of
the struggle between brute, selfish terror and any of
his higher ideals and feelings which evolution may
have developed. During such a conflict the Ego
forces itself on the attention of the subject, and ac-
quires an exaggerated importance in his eyes. Hence
his cry, hence his terror, hence his protest that he had
better lose the whole world than his own soul. Recog-
nition of this condition resulted in the dogmatic
teaching of egotism. The mediaeval mind was given
to formula?, while the mere existence of these facts
was warrant for the fathers to nail them fast to some
text. The hardest task of the last century has been
to draw many of these nails, which fasten the right
facts to the wrong explanations. Medisevalism was
not content to acknowledge this fundamental, animis-
tic selfishness as selfishness, but must adopt and preach
it. Peter of Alcantara warns against "the indis-
creet zeal of trying to do good to others." 43 John of
476 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
Avila, counselling the neophyte to forget national
and family duties for those duties so-called, of heaven,
adds a chapter "On the Vanity of Good Works/'
These he finds full of danger, since they tend to
interest one in this world instead of in the next ! 4 *
Milman observes, in comment: "Christianity, to be
herself again, must not merely shake off indignantly
the barbarism, the vices, but even the virtues of mo-
nastic, of Latin Christianity. ' ' 45 The further com-
ment made by science will be to the effect that Chris-
tianity was most herself, in those days when all her
standards and most of her ideals were the standards
and the ideals resulting from the influence of ani-
mistic revival. 46
The characteristics of the animistic revival are at
all times and under all circumstances so definite, so
recognizable, that it is no wonder the Middle Ages
should attach to them a supernatural cause, or should
distort their effects into a form of ethical code. Most
of these effects we should not to-day dare to term
virtues. "We realize their brute nature, their origin
in a time when religion and conduct were separate,
dissociated ideas. Many of the qualities vaunted in
the mediaeval religious life, are now known to have
sprung from the day when man trembled he knew not
why, and adored he knew not what, and their pres-
ence is as plain as such another survival as the child 's
fear of the dark, and to be accounted for in the same
way.
When such revival is in progress there ensues
a temporarily disintegrating effect upon the morals
and philosophy of the subject. It could hardly be
THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: II 477
otherwise when one realizes the potency of the forces
generated and the instability of the material upon
which they operate. The excitement sets up currents
and counter-currents, actions and reactions. Civiliza-
tion does not, as some of our novelists would have it,
fall from the shoulders like a discarded garment at
the first touch of any passion. Hereditary self-con-
trol, hereditary balance and reason, and sense of
duty, do not resign their empire without a struggle
with this antagonist, risen, in Stevenson's apt phrase,
"out of the slime of the pit." It is this age-long con-
flict between Man as he is and Man as he used to be,
to describe which writers have exhausted their vocab-
ulary of poignant and pathetic words, that has
caused more than half the misery of the world.
The mystic himself has had, at moments, a realiza-
tion of this truth. Barbanson depicted his agony in
the phrase, "divisio nature ac spiritus." To more
than one sufferer under the torture of that peculiarly
horrible survival, the Unpardonable Sin, there has
come the gleam of a feeling that, after all, what he
suffers is an anomaly in the teaching of one so gentle
as Jesus of Nazareth, that his despair must have
grown up from a deeper root than the mere suggestion
in a text. Suggestion it is, but far more in the nature
of primordial suggestion. The paragraphs dealing
with the origin of the Unpardonable Sin have already
connected it with other concepts having their source
in primitive Fear. Its qualities of intensity, pecul-
iarity, and vagueness of definition support this rela-
tion ; while it was shown that the confusion among the
Fathers respecting its nature was as striking as their
478 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
unanimous recognition of its prevalence and power.
They did not, of course, relate it to the act of name-
less impiety lying at the root of the idea of primitive
tabu, which few savage tribes are without. It remains
for the modern student to see in these two conceptions
the breaking of the primitive tabu, and the Unpar-
donable Sin a strong family resemblance. The latter
would seem only readily explained if we see it in the
light of a survival of the former. The tabu has all
the equivocal characteristics of danger and fatality
which hung about sacred things to the primitive mind.
Among the Greeks tabu is simply the Forbidden, the
Thing Feared. 47 Breach of tabu meant defilement,
until expiated with blood. It is just as vague, and no
more definite, than the Unpardonable Sin to the sin-
ner who thinks he has committed it, knowing not what
it is. Among the Boloki, to break the tabu was to
bring a curse, or even death to the breaker. 48 Hebrew
tradition makes no mention of any specific unpardon-
able offence ; but in their complicated system of tabus,
purification was demanded even by a trifling breach.
All these tabus mingle, in a manner extremely sug-
gestive, the idea of holiness with that of danger. 49
No doubt the Fear, inherent in the aboriginal tabu,
has remained inherent in this later conception, out of
which all the specific cause for Fear had vanished long
ago. In sacredness, potency, vagueness, and fatal
mysteriousness, the Unpardonable Sin is to the modern
confessant what the breach of tabu is to the Congo
savage, nor is it lacking in that sense of infection,
which served to heighten in both instances the
wretchedness of the sinner. Fear is the main constit-
THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: II 479
uent of all survivals; and where this Fear becomes
active, its malignant influence over some young life
is preserved for us in numberless volumes of pious
autobiography.
Striking as it seems, this particular instance is but
a side-issue in the main psychological conflict. That
such conflict is universal, that all men pass within
danger of it, that youth itself is inextricably bound
up with the forces which produce it, is the fact suffi-
cient to confirm any theory of its innate, primordial
origin.
The reader may impatiently retort that this is not
what he means by religion. Many persons strongly
object to being linked with the Bunyans or the Teresas
of this world. They would insist that the religious
experience, due to an individual revival of savage
animism, is not the only sense in which we use that
term. True; and yet little has been accomplished
by the present investigation unless it has made plain
that the current terms used in treating this subject
are far too loose for our current knowledge of it to
admit. If the emotional religious experience be truly
the result of a revival of savage animism ; then one of
the questions asked at the outset of this study has
been in a measure determined. The mystical states
which form the essence of this experience are not
merely intensified states of intellectual opinion and
belief. Their genesis is other, their evolution is other.
That high seriousness respecting life and its duties,
which to some to many of us to-day constitutes
vital religion, is not the product of animistic survivals.
480 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
May it not even be said to oppose their growth?
Such feelings, such standards, surely interfere with,
and impede emotional revivals, because they belong
to the fabric of civilization which has covered and
changed the primitive man in his nakedness. They
spring from what we have made of ourselves; not
from what we were made. The sources of this high
seriousness are intellectual, and so far as it is possi-
ble to tell, they appear to be directly antagonistic to
the development of emotional experience. The whole
body of intellectual and abstract conceptions has been
introduced much later into the scheme of man's evo-
lution. 50 If classification be made easier thereby, our
intellectualized beliefs may be placed in this late
period; while the emotional experience goes back to
that original. These are the twin streams which have
fed and fertilized the soil of man's religious life; and
once we see these currents as two, we readily agree with
the psychologist "that the word religion cannot stand
for any single principle or essence, ' ' 51 but that it
must be used as a collective term. Moreover, the di-
rect testimony of the data at hand confirms this view.
Manifestations so conflicting, so contradictory, must
needs have more than one source. That man who is
habitually guided by his intellect will suffer partially,
or transiently, or not at all from any animistic re-
vival. For this reason he is apt to deny its existence,
or to scorn it as pathological if he admit it at all.
That man, on the other hand, who is habitually guided
by feeling and imagination, will undergo, while in the
grasp of this revival, passions so furious, terrors so
intense, joys so exalted and transcending, that he will
THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: II 481
look upon the doubter of these experiences as either
a dullard or a madman.
Should it occur to these subjects that both may be
religious, then they frequently rush to the conclusion
that both are affected by the same force, differing
only in its degree of intensity. Each would resent
the imputation that he is any less religious than the
other; each would exclude the other, if he could,
from the realm of religion; failing this, their only
refuge has been a destructive latitudinarianism. Dif-
ferentiation of terms is the first and the most nec-
essary step toward clearing up these obscurities.
Method and classification should be the second, though
even more important. Method will reach the infer-
ence that the so-called religious instinct cannot be held
as singly responsible for all the various and complex
manifestations hitherto grouped under this one head.
If it be the cause of one type of phenomena, then it
is precluded from being responsible for the other,
and vice versa. If by religion there be meant a group
of experiences and resultant phenomena having their
origin in animistic revival, such as form the material
of the present study, then the experience running
counter to these may not be called religion.
The time has come to bring the reader face to face
with the questions asked in the Introduction, and to
decide whether this examination has in any way helped
him to resolve them. The survey at least should have
enabled him to discriminate more successfully between
the various forms of data. "An autobiography, ' ' says
Emerson, "should be a book of answers from one in-
482 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
dividual to the many questions of the time ' ' ; 52 and
when a fellow-creature, in the pages of a confession,
tells of the forces which create, and of the forces which
destroy, the reader knows which of them are physical,
and what they mean, which are mystical, and what
they mean, which are literary and social, and what
they also mean. Instincts, thoughts, and emotions are
laid bare to him ; he is no longer deceived by individ-
ual variation, nor by misinterpreted observation. His
recognition and comprehension of the different factors
will be rapid and complete.
And with understanding will come a greater toler-
ance, one might even say a greater reverence. No
longer will he place everything which is not his ideal
of health sweepingly in the realm of disease. Neither
will he longer conceive that his God is a God despising
the divine medium of natural law. When he comes to
feel and to perceive this law, moving to its fulfil-
ment in his own obscurest processes exactly as it moves
throughout the universe, shaping worlds out of
nebulae, then the frantic running to-and-fro of little
men, shouting their jargon of judgment and revela-
tion, upholding or condemning one another, will no
longer even make him angry. "We will not attack
you as Voltaire did," he will exclaim in the famous
words of Morley; "we will not exterminate you, we
shall explain you. History will place your dogma in
its class, above or below a hundred competing dogmas,
exactly as the naturalist classifies his species. From
being a conviction it will sink to a curiosity ; from be-
ing the guide to millions of human lives it will dwindle
down to a chapter in a book. ' ' 53
THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: II 483
If he desire to formulate a reply to the searching
queries of science, the data of the confessant have
furnished him with the means of meeting them on
new ground, and with fresh suggestions. He now
sees and can describe the manifestations in the in-
dividual of the force which is known as religion. He
recognizes it by the uniformity and universality of
its symptoms; he concludes that this very uniform-
ity and universality are our strongest witnesses
to its reality; the evidence can almost be made to
prove itself. A steady recurrence of the same indica-
tions, under different conditions of time and place and
nationality, is proof sufficient of their foundation in
an actual process. 54
Just as we recognize through its typical effects the
presence of the force called electricity, so we recognize
by its typical effects the presence of the emotional re-
ligious experience. But when we seek its further
relations, in order to complete our induction, we are
checked by the confused voices of philosophy dis-
puting on the question of definition. Turning to
science, therefore, it has seemed as though the work of
the anthropologist came nearest to providing us with
vital comparisons and suggestions. Our conclusion
that the " experiences" of the type herein classified
are due to animistic revival, acting counter to the later-
developed intellectual and social elements of Person-
ality, with a result temporarily or permanently dis-
integrating, is a conclusion very far from the flattering
theories of the mystical compromiser, at present so
much in vogue. This conclusion contradicts such
theories through the confessant 's own testimony, by
484 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
showing that the peace, the joy, the reunion, are but
the evanescent effects of psychological suggestion.
The evidence proves that a conversion-crisis rarely es-
tablishes Personality on any higher level than before,
and that it is never without a reaction, during which
the subject has to suffer further crises of doubt and
'"gloom. The records show that whenever the conver-
sion appears to be the means of opening new channels
to the energy of the subject, it does so through his im-
pulse toward work of some kind, or by bringing him
into contact with some sectarian activity. If his reli-
gious crisis leads him to take up teaching or preach-
ing or organizing, then his level as an individual may
truly be raised ; but such elevation cannot be called the
effect of the conversion; it is rather the effect of the
subsequent work. If the subject's emotional experi-
ence does not lead him in the direction of new work
(and there are many cases where it does not), then the
last state of this man is infinitely worse than his
first. 55 The reader will have become convinced that
in most natures a religious conversion no more changes
the original elements of good and evil in the subject
than a wave changes the constituency of the water
through which it moves. We have enveloped this
crisis in a cloud of our own anthropomorphic beliefs :
we have attached to it the idea of God, conquering the
demon, entering into and calming the troubled soul.
Man has affixed a religious significance to this age-
long, evolutionary conflict, because only a religious
significance seemed fitted to express its extraordinary
poignancy.
THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: II 485
Thus are we brought if unwillingly to that ulti-
mate question; one which will always be asked, and
to which no answer, while men are what they are,
can ever be accepted as final. Do we find in these
experiences any proof of the religious instinct? For
more than three thousand years, men have trembled
and adored after this fashion; what should it prove
to us to-day?
We have seen what it seemed to prove in the past.
God's word was not, we remember, in the thunder,
nor yet in the lightning; and we are now asking one
another if it is in " the still, small voice. ' ' Amid the
clamor of contending theories, science knows only that
she must walk austerely, that she must not assume a
priori supernatural causes for natural, physical effects.
If it is to animistic revival we are to look for proof of
a religious instinct, then we must further differentiate
the ideas dealing with non-anthropomorphic, ethical
conceptions, which many of us include under the same
head. These terms, after all, are but the symbols of
the forces by whose aid man continues to evolve. We
name and re-name them; in essence they remain the
same. "Tous les symboles qui servent a dormer une
forme au sentiment religieux sont incomplets, et leur
sort est d'etre rejetes les uns apres les autres." 56
As we reject these symbols the one after the other,
instinctively we choose symbols of a higher character
to succeed them; and to this instinct we may safely
confide the evolution of our religious ideals. When
men came to understand that visions and voices, ter-
rors and trances, belong to their " ancient kindred,"
486 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS ,
their lower, not their higher selves, then men were
plagued by them no longer ; those symbols passed, and
were rejected.
For the work of the courageous rationalist who to-
day is the only idealist is but begun. Three cen-
turies ago, wise and good judges, under the grip of a
savage survival, put their innocent fellow-men to
a cruel death, on no evidence save that of raving hys-
teria. 57 Less than a century since, and the incredi-
bly grotesque and brutish conception of a personal
Devil, was allowed to torment the sleep of little chil-
dren and to insult the eternal face of things. It
would be hard to find a single intelligent family sub-
mitting to that horror to-day. Two hundred years
ago, a callous, organized selfishness was preached as
the highest life a person could live. To-day, no creed,
no church, puts the career of passive egotism before
that of active social service. It has slipped into its
proper sphere, and the churches now give emphasis
and precedence to the religious orders working for
others. A hundred years hence, and we may confi-
dently hope that the relation borne by the imaginings
of the mystic to our life and ideals, shall be set into
the same category as the demon-possession of the nuns
of Louviers or Loudun. The symbols pass; they are
rejected the one after the other.
Whatever the religious symbols of the future, at
least they will not be those of the past; they will not
be founded on savage survivals. The religion they
form will not permit its votaries to write, as did the
honest Scot of a saintly philosopher, that "this atheist
should have been rightly named Maledictus, and not
THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT: II 487
Benedictus Spinoza !" 58 Religious doctrine will not
be founded on horror, but on beauty ; not on fear, but
on security; not on wild revelations to a few, but on
hope and constructive ethics to the many. It will
teach its followers, through science, how better to fight
the battle with their brute selves. It will bid them
shut their ears and ignore as Luther ignored the
Devil all those mutterings of what they once were.
We, who have hung, like Dante over the Inferno, un-
til our ears shrink from the "high shrieks" and the
"voices shrill and stifled' '; we can but hope for, and
believe in, the swift passing of our outworn symbols.
No one who reads these records of suffering but feels
his soul purged by pity and terror, pity to see his
fellow-man clinging to these rejected symbols, terror
to see him struggling with the slime of the pit, and
knowing not with what he strives !
THE END
NOTES
NOTES
CHAPTER I
1. Advancement of Learning, p. 78.
2. G. B. Cutten, The Psychological Phenomena of Chris-
tianity, p. 5.
3. UEsprit des Lois, preface.
4. E. Caird, The Evolution of Religion, p. 26.
5. Ferrero, Characters and Events in Roman History,
p. 33.
6. William James, Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 3.
7. Such as the Records of Friends, or Methodists, or
Port-Royalists.
8. Port-Royal, vol. vi, p. 245.
9. Ernest Havet, Le Christianisme et ses Origines, vol.
ii, p. 6.
10. Cf. the intellectual freedom of Manu or of Confucius
(in Sacred Books of the East) with such Christian
writings as the Imitation of Christ.
11. A. R. Burr, The Autobiography, Boston, 1909.
12. E. Caird, Evolution of Religion, p. 2.
13. Ibid., p. 89.
14. Jevons, Introduction to the Study of Religion, p. 3.
15. R. W. Emerson, Society and Solitude, "Books," p. 195.
16. Matthew Arnold, Empedocles on JEtna.
17. Philosophical Basis of Religion, p. 153.
18. E. Delacroix, Etude sur I'histoire du Mysticisme, p. 5.
19. "Pour les ames profondes et reveuses, pour les intelli-
gences dedicates et attentives."
20. Cf. William James, Varieties of Religious Experience.
CHAPTER II
1. Across the Plains (Pulvis et Umbra), p. 294.
2. Budge, Book of the Dead, p. 190.
3. Budge, Book of the Dead, Papyrus of Nu.
491
492 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
4. Ibid., p. 35.
5. Morris Jastrow, Religion of Babylonia and Assyria,
pp. 313-320; "confession during a special penitential
season," p. 326. Sayce, Religion of Babylonia, p. 418.
6. Westermarck, Origin of Moral Ideas, vol. i, p. 84.
7. Sacred Books of the East, Buhler, Laws of Manu, xi,
p. 229. Cf. Frazer, Taboo, pp. 214-215.
8. Satapatha-Brahmana, Vedas, p. 397.
9. Sacred Books of the East, Ibid, i, p. 261; cf. also the
Kullavagga, xx, p. 122.
10. Allan Menzies, History of Religion, p. 376.
11. Epistle of James, v, 16.
12. Allan Menzies, op. cit., p. 323.
13. Plutarch, Apothegms, "On Lysander" (Bonn).
14. "The Confessional is a Tribunal." Schieler-Heuser,
Theory and Practice of the Confessional, 1906.
15. Jewish Encyclopedia, art., "Confession."
16. P. C. Conybeare, Myth, Magic and Morals, p. 321.
17. Proverbs, xxvm, 13; Acts, xix, 18; John, i, 19.
18. H. C. Lea, History of Auricular Confession, vol. i, p. 8.
19. Ibid., p. 14.
20. Ibid., p. 19.
21. F. C. Conybeare, Myth, Morals and Magic, p. 321; H.
C. Lea, op. cit., p. 174.
22. See Pere Duchesne, Histoire Ancienne de VEglise.
23. H. C. Lea, op. cit., vol. i, p. 81, et seq.
24. Ibid., p. 171.
25. Ibid., pp. 173-75.
26. Ibid., p. 11 (note).
27. Windelband, History of Philosophy, p. 277.
28. S. fteinach, Orpheus, p. 290.
29. H. C. Lea, op. cit., vol. i, p. 13.
30. Ibid., p. 362.
31. History of the Holy Mar-Ephrem, 378 A.D., in Syriac.
See Schaff's Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. xm, Ephraim
Syrus.
32. H. C. Lea, op. cit., vol. i, p. 362.
33. Ibid., and also p. 171.
34. Ibid., p. 207.
NOTES 493
35. Ibid., pp. 219-21; and see Epistle of James, v, 16.
36. Testament of Ignatius Loyola, p. 42 (Burns and Gates).
37. See Bibliography of Cases.
38. Gorres, Mystique Divine, vol. n, pp. 176, 178.
39. George Eliot, Romola, vol. I, p. 142.
40. H. C. Lea, op. tit., vol. I, p. 347; "amara, festina, In-
tegra, et frequens."
41. See Cardan, De Vita propria liber.
42. Schaff's Ante-Nicene Fathers (trans, by Rev. J. G.
Pilkington, M.A.) ; Prolegomena.
43. Confessions, book i, chaps, vr-x.
44. Ibid., book n, chaps, n-x; chaps, x-xvn.
45. Ibid., book in, chap. i.
46. Shelley's Letters. (Ingpen Collection.)
47. Confessions (Pusey's translation), book x, chaps, xxxi-
XXXVII.
48. See Cardan, Bibliography of Cases.
49. See Wilde, Bibliography of Cases.
50. As books xi and xn.
51. Confessions (Pusey), book v, p. 79.
52. Oscar Wilde, De Profundis, p. 110.
53. Augustin's Confessions, book, x, chap. m.
54. C. A. Sainte-Beuve, Port-Royal.
55. Ibid., p. 412.
56. Lettere Familiari, iv, 1.
57. Petrarch (Robinson and Rolfe), pp. 313 ft.
58. Petrarch, op. cit., pp. 316-17.
59. E. B. Browning, Sonnets from the Portuguese.
60. Petrarch, op. cit., p. 402.
61. H. C. Lea, History of Auricular Confession, vol. i.
62. It may profitably be noted, in this connection, that
Luther's objection to confession was based on its
tendency to found religion on Fear. Against this
bondage he wrote his "Christian Liberty." Person-
ally the practice aroused his contempt. "There was
such a running to confession they were never satis-
fled," he notes in his Table-Talk (Hazlitt), p. 161.
63. Macbeth.
64. W. Hirsch, Genius and Degeneration, p. 44.
494. EELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
65. See H. C. Lea, op. cit.
66. See Abelard, Cardan, in Bibliography of Cases.
67. See A. R. Burr, The Autobiography, chap. n.
68. See The Gadfly, by Mrs. Voynich; or The Silence of
Dean Maitland, by Maxwell Grey.
69. Confessions of an Opium-Eater, p. 114.
70. William James, Varieties of Religious Experience, pp.
462-64.
71. William James, Principles of Psychology, pp. 267-69;
cf. F. Max Muller, Science of Thought, pp. 29-84;
551.
72. See Bibliography of Cases.
73. F. Max Miiller, op. cit., pp. 56-57; 85-86.
74. Cf. uch self-studies as Solomon Maimon's Auto-
biography; De Quincey's Confessions; Rousseau's; and
many others.
75. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun, p. 144.
76. Ibid., p. 141
77. Cf. A. R. Burr, The Autobiography, chap. n.
78. By Marie Bashkirtsev, preface to her Memoires.
79. Society and Solitude, p. 7.
80. Essay on John Bunyan.
81. See Bibliography of Cases.
82. See Bibliography of Cases.
83. See Bibliography of Cases.
84. Shelley's Letters, Ingpen Collection, vol. i, p. 77.
85. Morley's Life of Rousseau.
86. S. Mechtildis, Liber Specialis Gratiw, in, 51.
87. Born, 1462; died, 1525; see Symonds's Italian Renais-
sance, vol. v, p. 461; see also Pietro Pomponazzi, by
A. H. Douglas.
88. London, 1910.
89. Encyclopedia Britannica, art., "Apologetics."
90. Cf. Th. Gomperz, Greek Thinkers, vol. n, p. 102.
91. See also A. R. Burr, The Autobiography, pp. 331-34.
92. Corpus Apologetarum Christianorum, secundi sceculi.
93. The first noteworthy apologist is named Quadratus,
who lived and wrote under the reign of Hadrian. His
work is lost, while that of his contemporary Aristides
NOTES 495
has been found and is edited by J. Rendal Harris.
The attempt of both was to interest the emperor in
Christianity. Later apologies, many of which remain
to us, are those of Pamphilus, Justin Martyr, Rufinus,
Jerome, Athenagoras of Athens, Theophilus of Anti-
och, Melito of Sardis, Apollinaris of Hierapolis,
Minucius Felix, Lactantius, and Tertullian. To these
should be added the Contra Oentes of Athanasius, and
the writings of Arnobius, Eusebius of Csesarea, and
Cyril of Alexandria. Windelband, History of Phi-
losophy, p. 353; E. Renan, L'Eglise Chretienne, p. 40;
Encyclopedia Britannica, art., "Apologetics"; also cf.
Milman's History of Latin Christianity.
94. Schaff's Nicene Fathers; Works of Jerome, Apologies
i, ii ; Works of Rufinus, vol. vi.
95. Jerome Works, Letter to Eustochium.
96. Schaff, op. cit., vol. vi.
97. Ibid., St. John Chrysostom.
98. Schaff's Nicene and Ante-Nicene Fathers, op. cit.
Works of Justin Martyr; Shepherd of Hermas, etc.
99. Confessions (Pusey), books iv, v, x, etc.
100. lamblichus, De Mysteriis; translated by Thomas Tay-
lor.
101. Works of Philo (Bonn), vol. n, pp. 50, and 388.
102. It must not be forgotten, in reference to the above
statement, that the meaning attached to the so-called
Daemon of Socrates has not been exactly determined
by scholars. While certain among them hold his
remarks to refer to a tutelary genius, as Philo does,
others believe Socrates to have been merely ironical;
while others still hold the idea to have been the
legendary contribution of his admirers. (Th. Gom-
perz, Greek Thinkers, vol. n; cf. Grote, History of
Greece, etc., vol. vi, pp. 99 et seq. Jowett's Plato,
Apology 30, 40, et seq.)
103. Schaff, op. cit., Life of Ephraim Syrus.
104. St. Patrick, A.D., 469.
105. Migne, Pat. Lat., t. 51; A.D. 463.
106. Ibid., t. 59; A.D. 461.
496 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
107. Ibid., t. 101.
108. Ibid., t. 121; A.D. 869.
109. Ibid., t. 121.
110. Ibid., t. 144, liber v, ep. 2 (A.D. 1000-1072); trans-
lated by H. O. Taylor, in The Mediceval Mind, vol. i,
pp. 265-66.
111. Life of St. Anselm, by Rule.
112. Chronique de 1047, in Guizot, Memoires pour servir.
113. See Marcus Dod's Forerunners of Dante, for narra-
tives of descent into hell.
114. Historia Calamitatum.
115. Vie de, par lui-meme (1053-1124).
116. Migne, Pat. Lat., t. 188.
117. Ibid., t. 175; cf. also Joachim da Flore.
118. H. O. Taylor, op. cit., vol. n, pp. 488-89.
119. Known as St. Bonaventura. H. O. Taylor, op. cit. t
vol. n, pp. 413-14.
120. Windelband, History of Philosophy, p. 227.
121. Berti, Giordano Bruno, Sua Vita e Sua Dottrina.
122. Apologia di Lorenzino. (Raccolta di A. d'Ancona.)
123. Apology for the Life of Colley Gibber (1757).
124. Apologia pro Vita Sua.
125. A. R. Burr, The Autobiography, pp. 332 ff.
126. Lodge, Works of Alexander Hamilton, vol. vi, pp.
456 ff.
127. Pere Duchesne, Histoire Ancienne de L'Eglise, vol. i,
p. 213.
128. Cf. Barclay's Apology, in the case of the Society of
Friends.
129. A. R. Burr, The Autobiography, pp. 332 ff.
CHAPTER III
1. J. S. Mill, Inaugural Address, Works, vol. iv, p. 356.
2. F. Max Miiller, Sacred Books of the East, Laws of
Manu, 1, 11.
3. Charmides (Jowett).
4. Phwdrus (Jowett).
5. See also Plato's introduction to the Dialogues.
NOTES '497
6. Alciliades (Jowett).
7. E. Havet, Le Christianisme et ses Origines, vol. i, p.
211.
8. Hierocles, commentary on the Carmina Aurea of
Pythagoras. See Jeremy Taylor, Holy Living and
Dying, vol. H, p. 56.
9. Marius the Epicurean, vol. n, p. 192.
10. Windelband, History of Ancient Philosophy, p. 115.
11. Fustel de Coulanges, La Cite Antique, p. 430.
12. Windelband, History of Philosophy, p. 92.
13. Encycl. Brit., art., "Sophists"; Gomperz, Greek Think-
ers, vol. i, pp. 45 ff.
14. Gomperz, op. cit., p. 318.
15. Primitive Culture, pp. 497 if.
16. Grote's defence will not have been forgotten, but mod-
ern scholars seem to have reacted from it. History
of Greece, vol. vi, chap. LXVH, and p. 99. See also
Encycl. Brit., art., "Sophists"; Gomperz, Greek Think-
ers, pp. 453 /f.; Windelband, History of Philosophy, p.
90.
17. A. R. Burr, The Autobiography, Boston, 1909.
18. Auguste Comte, Philosophic Positive, p. 33 (trans, by
Martineau).
19. Ilia.
20. Cf. J. G. Fichte, Science of Knowledge; F. W. Schel-
ling, Transcendental Idealism; I. Kant, Dreams of a
Ghost-Seer, etc.
21. Scaramelli, S. J., Directorium Asceticum, vol. i, pp.
334 ff.: cf. also H. C. Lea, History of Auricular Con-
fession, vol. i, pp. 196-97.
22. Benjamin minor, cap. LXXV (trans, by Edmund Gard
ner, in Dante and the Mystics, pp. 166-67).
23. Jeremy Taylor, Holy Living and Dying, vol. 11, pp.
53 ff.
24. Schaff, Nicene Fathers, Life of Ephraim.
25. H. C. Lea, History of 'Auricular Confession, p. 185;
also Scaramelli, Directorium Asceticum.
26. Hid., p. 185.
27. Schaff, Nicene Fathers; St. Jerome's Letters, etc.
498 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
28. E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. i, pp. 497 ff.
29. C. A. Sainte-Beuve, Port-Royal, vol. n, p. 396; also,
Pascal, by St. Gyres.
30. D. G. Brinton, The Religious Sentiment, p. 81.
31. Windelband, History of Philosophy, p. 192.
32. L. A. Seneca, Works and Life, by Justus Lipsius
(trans, by Lodge).
33. M. A. Antoninus, Meditations (trans, by Long), book i,
17; book iv, 23.
34. Epictetus, Discourses (trans, by Long), p. 81.
35. Life of Plotinus; Works (trans, by Thomas Taylor),
and Viti Plotini.
36. Ibid., introduction to Life of Plotinus, by Porphyry.
37. lamblichus, De Mysteriis (translated by Thomas Tay-
lor).
38. Windelband, History of Philosophy, pp. 276-79.
39. Otto Weininger, Sex and Character, p. 127.
40. Schopenhauer, The World as Will.
41. See also Morris Jastrow, The Liver as the Seat of the
Soul.
42. E. Caird, The Evolution of Religion, pp. 77 and 207.
43. See Thomas a Kempis, Imitation of Christ; and Mil-
man's comment in History of Latin Christianity, vol.
vni, p. 301.
44. William James, Principles of Psychology, first two
chapters. (For an explanation suited to laymen, see
Thomson, Brains and Personality, p. 36.)
45. Ibid., cf. also Encycl. Brit., "Broca" and "Aphasia."
46. Ibid.
47. H. Bergson, Creative Evolution, preface.
48. A. R. Burr, The Autobiography, pp. 220-22.
49. Jean-Paul Richter, Memoirs.
50. Villa, Contemporary Psychology, p. 130.
51. Windelband, History of Philosophy, pp. 304-07.
52. See Edmund Gardner, Dante and the Mystics, pp. 173-
74; translation of De Contemplatione, in Richard of
St. Victor's Benjamin major, i, 5.
53. Cf. Immanuel Kant, Dreams of a Ghost-Seer.
54. Villa, Contemporary Psychology, p. 132.
NOTES 499
55. Cited by P. Bourget in the Preface to La Barricade.
56. Villa, Contemporary Psychology, p. 165; also, William
James, Principles of Psychology, p. 185.
57. Morton Prince, in a Symposium on the Subconscious,
pp. 92 and 95.
58. Cf. J. G. Fichte (trans, by Rand).
59. William James, Principles of Psychology, pp. 292,
297.
60. Villa, Contemporary Psychology, p. 266.
61. E. Caird, Evolution of Religion, pp. 305-08.
62. A. R. Burr, The Autobiography, pp. 81, 419, Appendix;
(cf. idea defined and expressed by Herbert Spencer).
63. G. J. Romanes, Diary, in 2 vols.
64. R. Descartes, Discours de la Methode.
65. A. d'Ancona, Raccolta di Autobiografie, Prefazione.
66. Mention should be made of the psychological journal
of Maine de Biran, who, influenced by the ideas of
Condillac, endeavored, though unsuccessfully, to note
his own mental processes. The attempt had its effect
on later English minds and tenets.
67. Descartes; born in 1596, in Touraine.
68. Al-Ghazzali; born in 1058; died in 1111 A.D.
69. Dominico Berti, Giordano Bruno; Sua Vita, e Sua
Dottrina.
70. Ibid., Constituto: "lo sono pronto a dar conto di me."
71. L. Barbier de Meynard, Al-Gazali, Le Preservatif de
VErreur.
72. Ibid., op. cit.
73. English translation by Claude Field, in the convenient
little volume of the Wisdom of the East series, pp. 10-
14.
74. Ibid., op. cit., p. 18.
75. R. Descartes, Discours de la Methode; Works, vol. 123.
76. Discours, vol. i, p. 125.
77. Ibid., vol. i, p. 130.
78. Claude Field, Al-Ghazzali, p. 57.
79. Descartes, Discours, p. 132.
80. Ibid., pp. 139-40.
81. Cf. A. H. Douglas, Pietro Pomponazzi.
500 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
82. Windelband, History of Philosophy, pp. 344 if.
83. Born, 1462; died, 1524.
84. A. H. Douglas, Pietro Pomponazzi, pp. 286 ff.
85. A. H. Douglas, op. cit., p. 281.
86. Ibid., pp. 74-75.
87. Cf. also A. R. Burr, The Autobiography, pp. 360-65.
88. R. Descartes, Discours, Works, vol. i, pp. 158-59.
89. Ibid., p. 475.
90. Windelband, History of Philosophy, pp. 437, 447 /f.
91. J. J. Rousseau, Confessions, p. 1.
92. See Caird, Philosophy of Kant.
93. Cf. Dreams of a Ghost-Seer.
94. Cf. Buchner, Kant's Educational Theory, pp. 230-34.
95. Windelband, History of Philosophy, p. 630.
96. J. G. Fichte, Science of Knowledge (Rand's translation,
p. 490; also chap, n, p. 10).
97. Ibid., p. 502.
98. J. G. Fichte, Destination of Man, p. 10.
99. Ibid., p. 14 (condensed).
100. F. W. Schelling, Transcendental Idealism.
101. Arthur Schopenhauer, Die Welt als Wille und Vors-
tellung.
102. F. Nietzsche, Ecce Homo.
103. Such as Wilhelm Krug, d. 1842; Soren Kierkegaard:
(also Life of Krug, by G. Brandes), 1893.
104. Burckhardt, History of the Italian Renaissance, vol.
H, p. 36.
105. Dante's Eleven Letters (Latham), Letter xi.
106. Trans, by D. G. Rossetti.
107. Petrarch (Robinson and Rolfe), p. 17.
108. Ibid., trans, on pp. 59-60 ff.
109. Four groups are published under the titles respec-
tively of Lettere Familiari, Senili, Varie and Sine
Titulo.
110. Let. Fam. xm, 7.
111. Petrarch's Secret (trans, by W. H. Draper).
112. Ibid., p. 192.
113. Ibid., p. 14.
114. Ibid., p. 18.
NOTES 501
115. Ibid., pp. 35-36.
116. Ibid., pp. 84-85.
117. Vita di Benvenuto Cellini, 1571.
118. Vita di Girolamo Cardano, 1576.
119. William Boulting, Eneas Sylvius, p. 91.
120. IMd., pp. 149-50.
121. C. A. Sainte-Beuve, Port-Royal.
122. Windelband, History of Philosophy, p. 362.
123. Sir Thomas Browne. See Bibliography of Cases.
124. See Bibliography of Cases, J. J. Rousseau.
125. Confessions, vol. i. "Au moins je suis autre."
126. John Morley, Rousseau, vol. n, p. 303.
127. Jerome Cardan, died in 1576. (See A. R. Burr, The
Autobiography, chap, vn.)
128. See A. R. Burr, The Autobiography, pp. 29-30.
129. Obermann, edited by George Sand, 1804.
130. Ibid., p. 24.
131. A. de Musset, La Confession d'un Enfant de Siecle.
132. Life, by Moore, Journals and Memoranda.
133. Byron, by John Morley, Miscellanies, vol. I.
134. Life, by Thomas Moore, Works, vol. iv, p. 128.
135. Ibid., pp. 270, 328.
136. Ibid., p. 211.
137. Letters' of P. B. Shelley (Ingpen Collection).
138. E. Caird, The Evolution of Religion, p. 352.
139. The Browning Letters, vol. I, p. 43.
140. Journals, vol. i, p. 360.
141. Ibid., p. 79.
142. Ibid., pp. 139-41.
143. Ibid., p. 143.
144. Ibid., pp. 361-68.
145. Translated by Mary A. Ward.
146. It appeared first in 1882.
147. De Vita propria liber.
148. Wenceslas, in La Cousine Bette.
149. William James, Principles of Psychology, p. 185.
150. The Gurneys of Earlham, by A. J. C. Hare, 2 vols.
151. De Profundis, p. 63.
152. Ibid., p. 11.
502 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
153. Hid., p. 38.
154. La Cousine Bette.
155. De Profundis, p. 28.
CHAPTER IV
1. William Morris, The Earthly Paradise.
2. See Augustin, Wesley, Calvin.
3. See Bunyan, John Nelson, E. Swedenborg.
4. See Gertrude More, Rolle of Hampole, Paul Lb'wengard.
5. See Methodist cases; and H. Alline, J. Linsley.
6. Cf. J. Trevor, Martin Luther, and others.
7. Jesus.
8. Buddha.
9. Fox.
10. Swedenborg.
11. Jesus.
12. Buddha.
13. Paul.
14. The Epistles of Paul; Martin Luther's Table-Talk and
Letters.
15. Wesley's Journal.
16. See A. R. Burr, The Autobiography, pp. 171-83.
17. By Gustave LeBon, in La Foule.
18. C. A. Sainte-Beuve, Port-Royal, pp. 416-18.
19. See Rousseau, M. Bashkirtsev, O. Wilde.
20. Anatole France, Jeanne a' Arc, Appendix.
21. Jackson's Lives of Early Methodist Preachers, Preface.
22. Born in 1620.
23. See Bibliography of Cases, John Bunyan.
24. See Bibliography of Cases: George Shadford, M. Joyce,
Thomas Olivers, John Pritchard, John Murlin, George
Whitefield.
25. See on this point Amelia M. Gummere, The Quaker.
26. See Bibliography of Cases, John Gratton.
27. See Bibliography of Cases, Joseph Hoag.
28. This is often denied: the reader is referred to the
cases themselves.
29. See Bibliography of Cases, George Fox.
NOTES 503
30. See Bibliography of Cases: Robert Wilkinson, Lorenzo
Dow, Daniel Young, Thomas Ware.
31. Sampson Staniforth.
32. Thomas Taylor.
33. Mary Fletcher.
34. Thomas Payne.
35. John Haime.
36. Freeborn Garretson, Richard Rodda.
37. See Bibliography of Cases.
38. See John Wesley's Journal.
39. See Jackson's Lives.
40. See Jackson's Lives.
41. Journal.
42. See Bibliography of Cases.
43. Works, vol. ni.
44. Riley, The Founder of Mormonism, pp. 39-40.
45. Ibid., p. 45.
46. Ibid., p. 46.
47. See B. Brown, P. Pratt, Brigham Young, and his
brother Lorenzo.
48. Riley, The Founder of Mormonism, p. 177.
49. Book of Mormon, pp. 588-90; Riley, op. cit., p. 166.
50. Memoirs, p. 133.
51. See The Gurneys of Earlham, vol. i, p. 333.
52. Confessions, book ix.
53. Hydriotaphia, p. 5.
54. Henri-Fr6d6ric Amiel, Journal.
55. Confessions: "I conceived that I should be too unhappy
were I deprived of the embracements of a woman."
(See also Eneas Sylvius, Letters.)
56. Table-Talk (Hazlitt), p. 152.
57. Confessions of an Opium-Eater, Preface.
58. See Bibliography of Cases, narrative of George
Muller.
59. A. Pope: Preface to his Collected Works.
60. Thomas De Quincey, Confessions of an Opium-
Eater.
61. For analysis see A. R. Burr, The Autobiography.
62. Ibid.
504. RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
63. See Bibliography of Cases: Andre" de Lorde, Preface.
64. See Confession of a Neurasthenic.
65. In Nicholson's Phil. Journal, vol. 15 (Hibbert, Phi-
losophy of Apparitions).
66. Ibid., Hibbert, Philosophy of Apparitions, p. 95.
67. A collection of modern relations of matters-of-fact con-
cerning witches, edited by Justice Matthew Hale.
68. De Vita propria liber.
69. John Beaumont (1732), A Treatise of Spirits, p. 221.
70. Cf. the experiences of J. G. Fleay, sent by him to
Herbert Spencer, and quoted in Principles of Sociology,
1, 2, Appendix.
71. See A. R. Burr, The Autobiography, p. 7.
72. Ibid. See Babbage.
73. Ibid. J. A. Symonds, etc.
74. Grasset, Le Demi-fou, p. 257.
75. See A. R. Burr, The Autobiography, p. 39.
76. In Hibbert's Philosophy of Apparitions.
77. Preface to Lettres a une Inconnue.
78. By E. Caird, supra.
CHAPTER V
1. H. Delacroix, Etude sur I'histoire du Mysticisme, p. x.
2. See Edmund Gosse, Father and Son; H. Spencer, etc.
3. The Three Tabernacles.
4. Migne, Pat. Lot., t. 170, "Opusculum de conversione
sua."
5. Acta; Vita; Scivias sen Visiones (all in Migne); also
Pfcre Chamonal, Vie de Ste. Hildegarde.
6. Histoire de France, vol. vi, Introduction.
7. H. Vaughan, Hours with the Mystics.
8. For this and following names see Bibliography of
Cases.
9. Curtis, Some Roads to Rome in America.
10. Dr. Leuba gives a number of drunkards' conversions;
and James quotes that of S. H. Hadley (Varieties of
Religious Experience, p. 201).
NOTES 505
11. See A. R. Burr, The Autobiography, pp. 71, 72.
12. Ibid., p. 49.
13. See History and Practice of Thugs, London, 1851.
14. See H. B. Irving, French Criminals in the Nineteenth
Century, pp. 4-5.
15. Ibid., p. 207.
16. Bibliography of Cases, Public Ledger, Philadelphia.
17. Newgate Calendar.
18. Memoire. See Bibliography of Cases.
19. Les Criminels peints par eux-mmes. Hesse, 1911.
20. H. C. Lea, Chapters from Religious History of Spain,
p. 381.
21. Ibid., p. 344.
22. Gesta Pontificium Leodeinsum (1616), and Gorres,
Myst. Divine et Diabolique f vol. v, pp. 444-50.
23. Myst. Divine et Diabolique, vol. v, p. 374.
24. Cf. trial of Major Weir and his sister, in which both
confessed to crimes that they could not possibly have
committed. See George Sinclar, Satan's Invisible
World Discovered, 1685. Both Weirs were evidently
insane, but were put cruelly to death.
25. Gorres, op. cit., pp. 136-55.
26. Boisroger, La Ptete Affligee, Rome, 1652; also Gorres,
op. cit., vol. V, pp. 226-42.
27. Gorres, op. cit., p. 256.
28. Michelet, Histoire de France, vol. n, pp. 306-30; see
also La Cadriere, by the same author.
29. "L'homme de Dieu" in Lettre a PSre Attichy, 1635.
30. Drs. Ldgue and La Tourette, La Possession de la Mere
Jeanne.
31. By even John Wesley; see Journal, vol. i.
32. Table-Talk (Hazlitt), pp. 246-47.
33. Ibid.
34. Ibid., pp. 104, 263.
35. Narrative of Surprising Conversions, Works, vol. m,
pp. 233-40.
36. See infra, "The Religious Instinct," chaps, ix and x.
37. P. Cartwright, Autobiography, pp. 48-50; see Bibli-
ography of Cases.
506 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
38. G. B. Cutten, The Psychological Phenomena of Chris-
tianity, pp. 38-39.
CHAPTER VI
1. A. R. Burr, The Autobiography, pp. 250-51.
2. Also of Th. Jouffroy as a case of "counter-conversion."
3. See Bibliography of Cases: T. Haliburton, J. Newton,
Frederick Smith, T. Walsh, R. Williams, Carre 1 de
MontgSron, J. Lathrop, B. Bray, J. McAuley.
4. Watson, The Philosophical Basis of Religion, p. 157.
5. Ibid.
6. G. LeBon, La Foule.
7. Translated by G. C. Coulton, in A Medieval Garner.
8. C. Pratt, Psychology of Religious Belief, p. 223.
9. Francis Newman.
10. Angela da Foligno.
11. Mme. Guyon.
12. Sainte-Beuve, Port-Royal, p. 84, et seq.
13. To these cases add Father Gratry, quoted by James
in Varieties of Religious Experience.
14. Cf. also Lacenaire.
15. See Bibliography of Cases: James Naylor, My lea
Halhead, Joanna Southcott.
16. Natural Causes and Supernatural Seemings, p. 234.
17. Cf. pp. 395 ff.
18. Jewish Encyclopedia, art., "Sin."
19. Catholic Encyclopaedia, art., "Holy Ghost."
20. Martin Luther's views were the same as Augustin's
(Table-Talk, Hazlitt, pp. Ill ff.).
21. Matt, xn, 22-32; Mark m, 22-30; Luke xn, 10.
CHAPTER VH
1. Evelyn Underbill, Mysticism, p. 213.
2. St. Cyres, Pascal, p. 193.
3. Ibid., p. 225.
4. Varieties of Religious Experience, chaps, ix, x.
NOTES 507
5. G. B. Cutten, Psychological Phenomena of Christianity,
p. 252.
6. Ante, "Introspection."
7. W. H. Thomson, Brain and Personality, pp. 37-38.
8. Boris Sidis, Suggestion, chap. 19.
9. Cf. William James, Principles of Psychology; see
chape, i, ii.
10. Pratt, Psychology of Religious Belief, pp. 16, 17, 18.
11. James, Varieties of Religious Experience, pp. 231-33.
12. Boris Sidis, Psychology of Suggestion, p. 15.
13. Ibid., p. 45.
14. Ibid., p. 53.
15. P. Gallon, Memories of My Life, pp. 276-77.
16. Cf. G. Stanley Hall, Adolescence.
17. Pierre Janet, The Mental State of Hystericals, p. 153.
18. Ibid., p. 202.
19. See Bibliography of Cases: Ste.-Chantal, Angela da
Foligno, etc.
20. Janet, The Mental State of Hystericals, p. 276.
21. Ibid., p. 527.
22. Ibid., p. 128.
23. Evelyn Underbill, Mysticism.
24. E. Brydges, Autobiography, vol. i, p. 390.
25. Augustin.
26. Joseph Hoag.
27. Freeborn Garretson.
28. Jane Hoskins.
29. Oliver Sansom.
30. Jerry McAuley and John Furz.
31. John Crook.
32. Mary Fletcher.
33. St. Paul.
34. Colonel James Gardiner.
35. Patrick.
36. Elizabeth Ashbridge and Stephen Grellet.
37. Osanna Andreasi.
38. J. Hudson-Taylor.
39. C. G. Finney, Gertrude of Eisleben, Baptiste Varani,
S. Staniforth, Thomas Taylor, Jonathan Edwards, etc.
508 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
40. Loyola, A. de Ratisbonne.
41. Salimbene, Osanna Andreasi.
42. Pascal, H. Alline, A. Braithwaite.
43. Raoul Glaber, Othloh.
44. B. Sidis, Psychology of Suggestion, p. 43.
45. A. Comte, Philosophic Positive, Introduction, p. 37.
46. See Bibliography of Cases for this and all following
names.
47. Peter Cartwright's experience is similar to that of
S. II. Bradley (quoted by James, in Varieties of Re-
ligious Experience, p. 261), who, aged fourteen, had a
vision of the Saviour. Nine years later, after a re-
vival-meeting, he has a violent attack of palpitations
of the heart, during which he feels "a fresh influx of
Divine love."
48. Migne, t. 146 (trans, by Rowland).
49. Letter to Eustochium (Schaff; op. cit.).
50. A non-autobiographical record in Hibbert, Philosophy
of Apparitions.
51. The authenticity of this Testamentum is in dispute.
52. Cf. Dante, Paradiso, xxxin, 140:
"Se non che la mia mente fu percossa
da un fulgore, in che sua voglia venne."
53. Cf. the vision of a Raphael Madonna in full colors
which appeared on his awakening to J. B. Fleay, and
cf. also a "bright vision" of Christ, which Luther in-
terpreted as an illusion of the Devil.
54. F. von Hiigel, Mystical Element of Religion, vol. i, p.
105.
55. Acts, rx, xxn, xxvi.
56. E. Renan, Les ApCtres, p. 181.
57. Ibid., Introduction, pp. vi, vii.
58. Acts xxn, xxvi.
59. Hebrews; Ephesians; Timothy; Titus.
60. E. Renan, Les Apdtres, pp. 170-71.
61. 2 Cor. x, 10; xi, 30; and iv, 13.
62. 2 Cor. xn, 1-7.
63. See Bibliography of Cases.
NOTES 509
64. 1 Cor. m, 2; iv, 14; xni; 2 Cor. vn, 13, 16; x, 9.
65. Cf. Augustin, Mtiller, Loyola, etc.
66. Acts xxvi, 14.
67. E. Renan, Les ApCtres, pp. 179-83.
68. Cf. P. Cartwright, C. J. Finney, Othloh, H. Alline, J.
Hoskins, Colonel Gardiner, etc., etc.
69. Cf. Acts xxvi, with ix and xxn.
70. E. Renan, Les Apdtres, Introduction, p. xliv.
71. The Acts of the Apostles in Greek and English, p. 337.
72. Commentary on Acts, p. 169.
73. Paul the Mystic, p. 55.
74. Hibbert Lectures, "Paul," pp. 34-35.
75. "Paul," p. 67.
76. Ibid., p. 77.
77. Commentary on the Acts (Gloag's trans.), p. 183.
78. Paul.
79. Acts, p. 347.
80. Commentary on Acts.
81. Life and Epistles of Paul.
82. The Apostolic Age, p. 121.
83. The Apostle Paul, pp. 63-67.
84. The Acts.
85. Ibid., p. 153.
86. The Apostolic Age, p. 119.
87. 1 Cor. ix, 1; Gal. I, 12.
88. See Tylor, Primitive Culture.
89. Cf. also Count Schouvaloff.
90. Table-Talk (Hazlitt), p. 77.
91. See Bibliography of Cases, also add the joy mentioned
by Rev. Jonathan Edwards, and that of Stephen H.
Bradley (both in James, Varieties of Religions Experi-
ence).
92. As, for instance, Ubertino da Casale, who calls Jesus
his "brother."
93. J. Edwards, Narrative of Surprising Conversions;
Works, vol. in, p. 259.
94. John Banks, Christopher Story, etc.
95. Table-Talk (Hazlitt), p. 175.
96. Augustin.
510 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
97. Fox.
98. Wesley.
CHAPTER VIII
1. Paradiso xxxm, 46.
2. History of Latin Christianity, vol. vm, p. 217.
3. Milman, op. cit., vol. vm, p. 404.
4. Th. Gomperz, Greek Thinkers, vol. n, p. 45.
5. Francis Thompson, Poems.
6. Such as: F. von Hiigel, Mystical Element of Religion.
E. Underbill, Mysticism. Rufus Jones, Studies in Mys-
tical Religion. E. Lehmann, Mysticism in Heathen-
dom and Christianity, etc.
7. Dante and the Mystics, p. 26.
8. Hid., p. 29.
9. E. Underbill, Mysticism, pp. 70-72.
10. Milman, op. cit., vol. vni, p. 240.
11. R. M. Jones, Studies in Mystical Religion, p. xv.
12. S. T. Coleridge, Aids to Reflection, vol. i, p. 307.
13. R. M. Jones, Studies in Mystical Religion, p. xxi.
14. E. Underbill, Mysticism, pp. 62-63.
15. These terms were apparently the invention of Dio-
nysius the Areopagite.
16. Urn-Burial, p. 71.
17. W. James, Varieties of Religious Experience, pp. 14-15.
18. E. Underbill, Mysticism, pp. 70-71.
19. F. von Hiigel, Mystical Element of Religion, vol. i, p.
135.
20. One might profitably compare the statement of Ben-
jamin Brown, the Mormon elder, in his Testimonies for
the Truth, that during a protracted camp-meeting his
mind was so absorbed in Spiritual things, he ate or
drank "scarcely anything'* for a fortnight, during
which the Lord sustained him.
21. Cf. Paul.
22. Thus there must be excluded from further use in
these pages, the cases of the Catherines of Genoa and
of Siena; MM. de' Pazzi, Bernard of Clairvaux, and
NOTES 511
Francis of Assisi. The legend by Thomas of Celano,
exquisite as it is, cannot be serviceable here.
23. Such are Pierre Janet, Grasset, Th. Ribot, B. Dela-
croix, etc.
24. E. Underbill, Mysticism, p. 57.
25. Ibid., pp. 62-63.
26. Ibid., p. 71.
27. R. M. Jones, Studies in Christian Mysticism, p.
xxxvi.
28. 2 Cor. xn, 1-7.
29. Delacroix, Etude sur VHistoire du Mysticisme.
30. E. Lehmann, Mysticism in Heathendom and Christian-
ity, pp. 232-33.
31. E. Delacroix, Etude sur VHistoire du Mysticisme.
32. There is a certain interest for us in the fact that
whereas Joseph Smith, the Mormon prophet, started
out by priding himself on his ignorance and illiteracy,
just as did these earlier cases; yet, later, he claimed
for himself all the knowledge in the world; said that
he "could read Greek as fast as a horse could run";
knew Egyptian hieroglyphics, and so on. In other
words, he felt it necessary to keep apace with his fol-
lowers, who were not mediaeval disciples, but nine-
teenth-century Americans.
33. Lecky (European Morals, vol. n, pp. 114 ft.) points
out the disfavor in which the ascetics held any in-
tellectual occupation.
34. Cf. Guibert, Jerome, Othloh.
35. History of Latin Christianity, vol. vm, p. 301.
36. E. Underbill, Mysticism, pp. 70-71.
37. Ibid., pp. 72-73.
38. F. von Hiigel, Mystical Element of Religion, vol. n,
p. 32.
39. In Life, by Porphyry (trans, by Thomas Taylor).
40. Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. n, pp. 187-88.
41. Table-Talk (Hazlitt), p. 4.
42. In a letter to Can Grande. (See Latham, Dante's
Eleven Letters, cited by Edmund Gardner, Dante and
the Mystics, p. 32.)
512 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
43. Translated by Edmund Gardner, op. cit., Ibid., pp. 178-
79. Cf. Angela da Foligno, Book of Visions, pp. 36, 37,
74, 98.
44. Edmund Gardner, op. cit., pp. 158-59.
45. Confessions (Pusey), book ix.
46. De Quantitate Animw, translated by Edmund Gardner,
in Dante and the Mystics, p. 46.
47. Evelyn Underbill, Mysticism, p. 318.
48. Hid., p. 324.
49. See Bibliography of Cases, A. da Foligno.
50. See Bibliography of Cases, Loyola.
51. E. Underbill, Mysticism, p. 457.
52. Vaughan, Hours with the Mystics, vol. n, p. 357 (note).
(Gives further the years of suffering before the ecstatic
stage was reached, of certain other saints and hermits.
These correspond to the data furnished under "Depres-
sion.")
53. E. Delacroix, Etude sur VHistoire du Mysticisme, p.
181.
54. Ibid., p. 391.
55. Ibid., p. 325.
56. Book of Visions and Instructions, p. 57.
57. She died in 1896.
58. History of the Inquisition in Spain, vol. iv, p. 6.
59. Book of Visions and Instructions, p. 68.
60. Riley, The Founder of Mormonism, p. 183.
61. Milman, History of Latin Christianity, vol. vm, p.
301.
62. Lea, Chapters on the Religious History of Spain, pp.
240-41.
63. Ibid., "Mystics and Illuminati," p. 214.
64. Ibid., pp. 215-16.
65. Ibid., pp. 246-48.
66. Ibid., pp. 309-17.
67. Ibid., p. 426 (note). The one at Quesnoy la Conte,
in Flanders, in 1491 lasted seven years.
68. History of the Inquisition in Spain, vol. rv, pp. 4-6.
69. H. C. Lea, History of the Inquisition, vol. iv, pp.
39-40.
NOTES 513
70. Ibid., vol. iv, p. 80.
71. H. C. Lea, Chapters from the Religious History of
Spain, p. 227 (note).
72. See S. Reinach, Orpheus, p. 390.
73. Migne, Teresa, vol. ni, pp. 366-68.
74. Migne, vol. iv, p. 496.
1/75. See Maria d'Agreda, La Cite de Dieu.
76. See Carlo da Sezze, Baptiste Varani, Marie de 1'Incar-
nation, etc.
77. St. Augustin (Poujoulat).
78. Sainte-Chantal, par 1'abbe* Bougaud. 2 vols.
79. E. Gerard-Gailly, Bussy-Rabutin, p. 17.
80. Henri Joly, Psychology of the Saints.
81. E. Delacroix, UEtude sur VHistoire du Mysticisme, p.
13.
82. Ibid., pp. 348-49.
83. For mediaeval narratives of descent into hell, the
reader is referred to Marcus Dod's The Forerunners of
Dante, where a list of them, with analyses, is given.
Although many of them are written in the first per-
son, they contain no important matter relating to the
writer.
84. Book of Visions and Instructions, p. 145.
85. Primitive Culture, vol. i.
86. Ibid., vol. i, p. 307.
87. Liber Specialis Gratice, i, 19 [translated by E. Gard-
ner, in Dante and the Mystics, pp. 284 ff.].
88. Mystica Theologia, Prologus.
89. See Bibliography of Cases.
90. Cf. Renan Les Apdtres Introduction.
91. "Prison-Life as I found it." Century, September,
1910, vol. LXXX, p. 1105: "Service was held every Sun-
day, the Protestant and Catholic chaplains alternating,
and was non-sectarian in character. It consisted of pray-
ers, hymns, musical numbers, and a sermon, and was
decidedly perfunctory. In fact, a prisoner who makes
a parade of his religion is regarded with suspicion not
only by his mates, but also by the officials. This is a
514 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
natural result of many cases of insanity preceded by
religious hysteria."
92. The reader is referred to the History of the Mormons,
by Linn, and also to Riley, The Founder of Mormonism.
Here he will see that the attitude of the audience had
a markedly deteriorating influence upon the character
and the teachings of Joseph Smith. Whereas he had
begun as a credulous, simple, and awestricken lad, h
speedily degenerated into more sensational methods to
impress and hold his followers. If they seem amaz-
ingly credulous to us they often seemed stiff-necked
to him.
93. E. Underbill, Mysticism, p. 69.
94. Callaway, Religion of the Amazulu, p. 246 (cited by
Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. n, p. 194).
95. Ibid., p. 194.
96. Narrative of Nicholas Perrot, in E. H. Blair's Indian
Tribes, vol. i, pp. 50-51. Cf. also Alice H. Fletcher's
Handbook of American Indians.
97. Cited by D. E. Brinton, The Religious Sentiment, p.
130.
98. J. Beaumont, A Treatise of Spirits, p. 221.
99. See Autobiography.
100. See also A. R. Burr, The Autobiography, pp. 254-55,
for further cases of non-religious conversion. Pe-
trarch's change is intellectual, but as it was brought
about by the influence of Augustin, it is probably to
be termed religious: but it was "Amor" and not "La
Grace" which caused Dante's heart to cry out, "Incipit
Vita Nuova!"
101. H. C. Lea, Chapters from the Religious History of
Spain, p. 213.
102. As we have already noted, they alternated with the
most violent joys, and a self-complacency beyond all
measure.
103. Dr. Lea (History of the Inquisition, vol. n, p. 364)
comments on the semi-Hindu asceticism "in the prac-
tices of the Gottesfreunde, which drew them down to
the level of the Indian Yogi."
NOTES 515
104. See Martin Luther's Table-Talk (Hazlitt), p. 104
(anecdote already cited).
105. Augustin, Confessions (Pusey), book x; cf. book ix.
106. Cf. Bibliography of Cases.
107. H. Maudsley, Natural Causes, p. 271 ff. Cf. with
Joseph Smith's Vision of Moroni.
108. Job iv, 12-17.
109. Acts xxii, 10.
110. Acts xxvi, 16, 17, 18.
111. Linn, History of the Church, vol. i; Revelation i-vi.
112. Narrative of the Great Revival, Works, vol. m, p.
239.
113. Ibid., p. 270.
114. See Bibliography of Cases.
115. See Bibliography of Cases.
116. Contained chiefly in P. Janet, Mental State of Hysteri-
cals; Grasset, Le Demi-Fou; Binet-Sangle", Varie'tes des
Types Devot, etc.
117. F. von Hiige-1, The Mystical Element of Religion.
118. W. Hirsch, Genius and Degeneration, p. 69.
CHAPTER IX
1. The Autobiography, p. 34.
2. Francis B. Gummere, Democracy and Poetry, p. 284.
3. Scholars estimate the date of Job variously, as from
1000 to 400 years before Christ. The writer wishes it
to be understood that she uses the following quota-
tions in a literary sense. The fact that the consensus
of modern opinion lends to Job a sceptical and protest-
ant, rather than a pious, significance, does not alter its
importance to the present enquiry. Nor does it much
matter that the passages are differently distributed,
and that the dramatis personw are not altogether what
we used to think,
4. Job xm, 3.
5. Ibid., ix, 20, 21.
6. Ibid., XLII, 3.
516 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
7. Jevons, Introduction to the Study of Religion, pp.
18-19.
8. Comte, Philosophic Positive (Martineau's trans.) , p. 523.
9. M. Maeterlinck, L'Oiseau Bleu, Acte in.
10. Job XLII, 5-6.
11. De Profundis.
12. W. Bagehot. Literary Studies, vol. n, p. 412.
13. Matt, v, 20.
14. Matt, xxiii, 23.
15. For the discussion of this question see Bduard Meyer,
History of Antiquity, and E. Havet, Le Christianisme
et ses Origines.
16. Gaston Boissier, La Religion Romaine.
17. Jesse B. Carter, Religious Life in Ancient Rome,
chap. in.
18. E. Renan, Les Apdtres, p. 328.
19. Notably by S. Dill, Roman Society; see also Jesse B.
Carter, op. cit.
20. 1 Cor. v, 1-7.
21. Gal. m.
22. J. B. Carter, Religious Life of Ancient Rome, p. 9.
23. Hid., pp. 72-73.
24. Allan Menzies, History of Religion, p. 114.
25. H. C. Lea, op. cit.
26. A. Menzies, History of Religion, p. 323.
27. Cf. Augustin, the St. Victors.
28. Hydriotaphia, p. 51.
29. Natural History of Religion, Works, vol. n, p. 397.
30. A. Comte, PMlosophie Positive (Martineau trans.), pp.
26-27.
31. Ibid., p. 27.
32. A. Menzies, op. cit., p. 10.
33. Such as Hartmann and Pfleiderer, q. v.
34. Orpheus, pp. 2-3.
35. Ibid., p. vn.
36. By the work of J. G. Frazer, Herbert Spencer, and E. B.
Tylor; supplemented by special monographs such as
those of Franz Boas, A. E. Crawford, and others.
37. Primitive Culture, vol. n, p. 180.
NOTES 517
38. See P. M. Davenport, Primitive Traits, pp. 20 and 32,
for striking instances wherein the savage has bor-
rowed from the Christian.
39. Nicholas Perrot, Narrative of American Indians. (See
E. H. Blair's Indian Tribes, and Fletcher's Handbook
of American Indians.)
40. Primitive Culture, vol. n, pp. 410-12.
41. N. W. Thomas, Natives of Australia, pp. 205-6. ,
42. A. B. Ellis, The Ewe-Speaking Peoples of the Gold-
Coast, p. 150 (note).
43. E. Doutte, Magie et Religion dans I'Afrique du Nord,
pp. 91-92.
44. Klunzinger, Upper Egypt (cited by Maudsley, in Nat-
ural Causes, p. 181).
45. Primitive Culture, vol. n, p. 414. ("The Malay war-
rior; the Zulu, and the Abipone of Hayti fast at in-
tervals. A Hindu king, after three days' fast beheld
Siva," etc.)
46. 2 Sam. xxvin, 20-24.
47. Encycl. Brit., art., "Asceticism."
48. Schaff, vol. vi, letter cxxx.
49. Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. n, p. 419.
50. See Bibliography of Cases: Blair, Conran.
51. Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. n, p. 418; also Herbert
Spencer, Principles of Sociology, vol. I, Q, p. 239.
52. Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. n. Cf. Othloh, R. Wil-
liams, Colonel Gardiner.
53. Spencer, Principles of Sociology, vol. i, Q. pp. 146-48;
vol. i, 2W, p. 789.
54. J. B. Carter, Religious Life of Ancient Rome, p. 72.
55. N. W. Thomas, Natives of Australia.
56. E. Doutte", Magie et Religion, p. 396.
57. R Nansen, Eskimo Life, p. 258.
58. Codrington, The Melanesians, pp. 266 ff. Haddon, The
Papuans, see Torres Straits Reports, vol. i, p. 252.
59. Primitive Culture, vol. i, p. 439; cf. Philo-Judaeus; also
Weeks, Among Congo Cannibals, notes same idea among
the Boloki: among the Kaffirs who held the Soul was
connected with their shadow, Dudley Kidd, The Essen-
tial Kaffir, p. 83.
518 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
60. Primitive Culture, vol. n, pp. 498-50.
61. Gorres, Mystique Divine, vol. n, p. 139.
62. 2 Cor. xn, 4.
63. Book of Visions and Instructions, pp. 36-37, and 67.
64. Letter xi (Latham) ; also cf. Angela da Foligno, Book
of Visions and Instructions.
65. Migne, Way of Mt. Carmel, (Euvres de Terese, vol. in.
66. To show this tendency in operation the reader is re-
ferred to the three narratives of Paul's conversion.
67. F. Boas, The Mind of Primitive Man, p. 103.
68. See Bibliography of Cases: Jeanne des Anges, Raoul
Glaber, Teresa, Mme. Guyon, etc.
69. Wentz, The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries, pp. 354-56;
also Wood-Martin, Elder Faiths of Ireland.
70. Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. n, p. 79 (note).
71. Ibid., vol. n, p. 93.
72. Primitive Culture, vol. n, p. 109.
73. E. Doutte", Magie et Rel, pp. 338 ff.
74. Ibid., p. 494.
75. Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. n, p. 138.
76. Nansen, Eskimo Life, p. 225; and A. B. Ellis, Ewe-
Speaking Peoples, p. 21 ff.; Hose and McDougall, Pagan
Tribes of Borneo.
77. Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. n, pp. 138 ff.
78. Wentz, Fairy-Faith.
79. Gorres, vol. n, p. 141.
80. Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. n, pp. 125 ff.
81. See Hose and McDougall, The Pagan Tribes of Borneo.
82. Codrington, p. 220.
83. Primitive Culture, vol. n, 139.
84. Doutte", Magie et Rel., p. 602.
85. Lecky, Europ. Morals, vol. i, p. 381.
86. Lea, Hist, of Inquis., vol. in, p. 381, names Origen,
Gregory the Great, S. Equitius (who acted as an exor-
cist), Caesarius of Heisterbach, and Thomas of Can-
timpre', as sharing to the full the belief in demonology
and its subsidiary beliefs. "The blessed Reichelm of
Schongan, about 1270, claimed to behold crowds of
spirits under numberless forms."
NOTES 519
87. It will not do to forget that the intellectual Wesley
acted as exorcist on more than one occasion. (See
Journal, i, Oct.) He expelled the demon from a con-
vulsed young woman, who insisted that Satan "was let
loose."
88. I. W. Riley, The Founder of Mormonism, pp. 258-59.
89. IMd., p. 260.
90. Cited by Riley, op. Git., p. 277 (note).
91. Riley,. The Founder of Mormonism, p. 277.
92. IMd., p. 280; and p. 281.
93. Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. n, p. 141 (note).
94. Nevius, Demon Possession in China.
95. Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. n, pp. 130 ft. ; 406 ft. For
compacts with the Devil see Lea, History of the Inqui-
sition in Spain, vol. iv, p. 205; also History of the
Inquisition, vol. in, p. 424, wherein he notes such cov-
enants made on little rolls of parchment and carried
under the arm-pit. (Caesarius of Heisterbach.)
96. J. B. Carter, Religious Life of Ancient Rome, pp. 12-13.
97. See Bibliography of Cases: Bewley, Haliburton, Bos-
ton, and Lobb.
98. Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. n, p. 130.
99. IMd., vol. ii, pp. 132-33; also cf. Hose and McDougall,
The Pagan Tribes of Borneo, vol. 11, chap. n.
100. Maudsley, Natural Causes, p. 32.
101. Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. i, p. 453.
102. IMd., vol. 11, p. 7.
103. Adams, Curiosities of Superstition, p. 243; also Wood-
Martin, Elder Faiths of Ireland, vol. i, p. 371, where he
says that the wail of the banshee resembled the sound
of an ^Eolian harp.
104. Primitive Culture, vol. i, p. 453.
105. Hamlet, i, 1.
106. Al-Koran, Sura cxrv, last verse.
107. Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. i, p. 453 (note) : Dr. Lea
cites the case of Vicente Herman, a hermit, tried be-
fore the Inquisition who said that "Demons, with the
voice of -flies had been recalling his sins." (Inquisition
in Spain, vol. iv, p. 71.) This "buzzing" was char-
acteristic. Cf. J. G. Frazer, Taboo, p. 34.
520 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
108. De Vita propria Liber.
109. Jewish Encyclopedia.
110. Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. i, p. 452.
111. Isaiah xxix, 4.
112. Isaiah vni, 19.
113. See Bibliography of Cases.
114. "Catarrhal otitis media."
115. Ballinger, Diseases of the Ear, p. 735.
116. Anatomy of Melancholy, vol. i, p. 436.
117. A. E. Crawley, Idea of the Soul (in Wentz, Fairy-
Faith, pp. 200-6; 239). Frazer, Taboo, pp. 26, 300.
118. N. W. Thomas, Natives of Australia.
119. Nansen, Eskimo Life, pp. 226-27.
120. Cf. Wentz, op. cit., and Frazer, The Golden Bough, vol.
n, p. 248.
121. Ibid., p. 438; L. Hearn, Two Years in the French West
Indies; Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. i, pp. 450 /f.;
Ill ff.; Wood-Martin, Elder Faiths of Ireland, vol. n,
p. 296. The soul was like a butterfly or a moth.
Frazer, Taboo, pp. 35-37.
122. Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. n, pp. 200 ff .
123. Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. n, pp. 186-90 ff.
124. See Conversions of Pascal, Chingwauk the Algonquin,
Catherine Wabose, J. Smith, Henry Alline.-
125. N. W. Thomas, Natives of Australia, p. 240.
126. Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia,
pp. "523 ff.
127. Gorres, Mystique Divine, vol. n, chaps, xrv, xvi.
128. Mystique Divine, vol. n, p. 5.
129. Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. n, pp. 149-52.
130. Riley, The Founder of Mormonism, p. 188.
131. Cf. Alphonse de Ratisbonne, Peter Favre, Loyola; and
see the memoirs of George Sand and Edmund Gosse.
Lea (Inquisition in Spain, vol. iv, p. 36) notes that
beads, crosses, blessed medals, satisfied this great de-
mand for the fetich. (Ibid., pp. 76, 204.) The Lab-
arum of Constantine was a fetich. (Inquisition, vol.
in, p. 394.)
NOTES 521
CHAPTER X
1. Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. n, pp. 359 ff.
2. Cf. Lecky, History of European Morals; Gregorovius,
History of the Middle Ages; Hallam, A View of the
State of Europe during the Middle Ages; the Works
of Henry C. Lea, etc.
3. Primitive Culture, vol. i, p. 16.
4. See Salimbene's Chronicle; and cf. the extravagances
and immoralities of the Mormon revelation.
5. Middle Ages, vol. n, pp. 492-93.
6. Cf. F. M. Davenport, Primitive Traits in Religious Re-
vival, p. 9, who notes the Southern Mountaineers and
the Russians of the steppes; also see p. 64.
7. Magie et Religion, p. 347.
8. Primitive Culture, vol. i, pp. 138-39.
9. Ibid., vol. i, pp. 136-37.
10. Ibid., vol. i, p. 139. Cf. also, Michelet, La Sorciere.
11. Cf. Nevius, Demon Possession in China.
12. Read the confessions of Madeleine Bavent, Marie de
Sains; the Salem trials; read Michelet, La Sorciere;
and George Sinclar, Satan's Invisible World Discov-
ered, containing the trials of Major Weir and his sister
in Scotland, in the seventeenth century.
13. A. B. Ellis, The Ewe-speaking, and the Joruba-speaking
People of the Gold-Coast.
14. W. Notestein, History of Witchcraft, p. 3; notes tradi-
tions of cannibal feasts among the Irish before the
fourteenth century.
15. History of the Inquisition in Spain, vol. iv, p. 206.
16. W. Notestein, History of Witchcraft, p. 3.
17. Lea, History of the' Inquisition in Spain, vol. iv, p.
206.
18. Ibid., p. 208.
19. Michelet, in his wonderful chapter on "La Sorcellerie
aux convents," thinks that the Sabbat was really the
nocturnal revolt of him who was serf and vassal by
day, and who by night dreamed of a perverse freedom
( li liberte immonde"). But Michelet's dramatization of
the Sabbat serves only to bring more vividly before
522 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
our ideas and eyes, its primordial origins its persist-
ence as a survival.
20. Lea, History of the Inquisition, vol. HI, p. 408. (The
earliest account is in 1357.)
21. Ibid., p. 508.
22. IUd., p. 413.
23. Gorres, op. cit., vol. 11, pp. 226-42; and also cf. the un-
fortunate Magdalena de la Palude, Michelet, Histoire
de France, vol. n, pp. 309, 330-32; cf. also Davenport,
Primitive Traits, p. 64.
24. Varieties of Religious Experience, pp. 483 ff.
25. Riley, op. cit., p. 268.
26. James, Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 583 ff.
27. Primitive Culture, vol. i, p. 144.
28. The Making of Religion, p. 150.
29. The Golden Bough, Preface, p. viii.
30. Les Apdtres, p. 16.
31. Work, vol. m, pp. 233 ff.
32. Davenport, Primitive Traits, pp. 64, 20-32, 261.
33. William Vaughn Moody, Poems.
34. F. Boas, The Mind of Primitive Man, p. 237.
35. Primitive Culture, vol. n, pp. 144-45.
36. A. C. Emmerich, Gertrude of Eisleben, Suso.
37. See "Depression."
38. Fanny Pittar, Jane Hoskins.
39. Mme. Guyon, Blanco White.
40. Salimbene, Angela da Foligno.
41. Francis Newman.
42. Sainte-Chantal.
43. Migne, Terese, vol. m, p. 354.
44. Migne, Terese, vol. iv, "Audi Filia, et Vide," cap. xcvn.
45. History of Latin Christianity, vol. vm, p. 301.
46. Says St. Jerome, "The duty of a monk is not to teach
but to weep." Contra Vigilant, cap. xv. Melancholy
is thus seen to have been regularly taught and advo-
cated.
47. Gilbert Murray, Four Stages of Greek Religion, p. 48.
48. Weeks, Among Congo Cannibals, p. 298.
NOTES 523
",
49. Cf. J. Macmillan Brown, Maori and Polynesian, p. 79,
who calls it "the plague of sacredness." J. G. Frazer,
in Taboo, p. 214 and p. 219, strikingly upholds this
idea when he writes of the "few old savage taboos
which, masquerading as an expression of the divine
will, . . . have maintained their credit long after the
crude ideas out of which they sprang have been dis-
carded by the progress of thought and knowledge."
50. Herbert Spencer, Principles of Sociology, vol. i, pp.
76-77.
51. James, Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 26.
52. Journal, vol. vii (1847).
53. Miscellanies, vol. i, p. 81.
54. Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. v, pp. 10 ff.
55. Cf. Suso, Sainte-Chantal, M. M. Alacoque, James Lins-
ley, etc.
56. E. Renan, Les Apdtres, p. 384.
57. Sir Matthew Hale. John Wesley cried out that "the
giving-up of witchcraft is the giving-up of the Bible!"
(Davenport, Primitive Traits, p. 141.)
58. George Sinclar's Satan's Invisible World Discovered
(1685).
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF CASES
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF CASES
A FEW cases in this list are marked "unread." This
means that the writer has been unable, after four years of
search, to find either the book itself, or an extract of suf-
ficient length to use in her work. The titles are included,
in case any reader should be more fortunate.
The word "testimony" after a Quaker name refers to
the collection of testimonies contained in the series called
"Memorials of Departed Worth."
The Methodist testimonials in the Arminian Magazine
have been collected into Jackson's "Lives of the Early
Methodist Preachers."
Where the book is rare, the fact has been noted.
ABELARD, PIEERE, 1079-1172. "Historia Calamitatum," in a
letter to a friend; "Lettres Completes," trad, de M.
Gre"ard.
d'AcosTA, UEIEL, about 1623. "Exemplar Vitae Humanse."
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d'AGREDA, MARIA, 1602-1665, Vie de; prefixed to "La
Mystique Cite de Dieu." (See Gorres, "Mystique Divine,"
vol. i, pp. 303 ff.; and Migne, "Encycl. Theologique,"
art., "Mysticisme," Preface.)
ALACOQTJE, MARGARET MARY, 1647-1690. Me"moire, written
for her director.
ALBINUS, B. F. (seu ALCUINUS), 804. "Confessio Fidei."
(Doubtful.) Migne, Patrologia Latina, t. 101.
ALEXANDER, MARY, 1760-1808 (Quaker). Testimony of.
ALLEN, JOHN, 1737-1810. (Methodist testimony in Ar-
minian Magazine.)
ALLIES, THOMAS W., 1837-1880. "A Life's Decision."
ALLINE, HENRY, Rev., 1748-1784 (Presbyterian). The Life
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527
528 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
AMIEL, HENRI-FREDERIC, 1821-1881. "Journal Intime."
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ANDBEASI, OSANNA, 1449-1505. Personal Record. (In
Gorres, "Mystique Divine," vol. i, p. 175.)
ANGELA DA FOLIGNO, 1309. "Book of Visions and Instruc-
tions" (taken down from her own lips by Brother Arnold,
of the Friars Minor).
ANONYMOUS, "A Modem Pilgrim's Progress," n. d. Edited
by Bowden.
ANSELM OF CANTERBURY. "Oratio Meditative," in contempo-
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ABNAULD, ANGELIQUE, 1742. "Relation de la vie de la re>-
e"rende Mre." (See Sainte-Beuve's "Port-Royal," pp.
84 /T.)
ASHBRIDGE, ELIZABETH, 1713-1755 (Quaker). "Some account
of the Life of."
ASHMAN, WILLIAM, 1734-1818. (Methodist testimony in
Arminian Magazine.)
AUGUSTINUS, AURELIUS, 354-430. "Confessiones, Retrac-
tiones and Epistolae," and "De Quantitate Animae."
(Trans, by Pusey and Pilkington, in Schaff's "Nicene
and Ante-Nicene Fathers.")
BABBAGE, CHARLES, 1796-1864. "Passages from the Life of a
Philosopher."
BACKUS, ISAAC, 1724-1806. Autobiography of.
BACON, ROGER, 1292. Opus Tertium, Letter, or Apologia.
(Translation of H. O. Taylor, in "The Mediaeval Mind.")
BANGS, BENJAMIN, 1652. Quaker testimony.
BANKS, JOHN, 1747-1810 (Quaker). Journal of.
BASHKIRTSEV, MABIE, 1860-1884. "Me"moires; Journal d'un
jeune Artiste."
BAVENT, MADELEINE, 1642. Confession of. (In Boisroger "La
Piete" Afflige"e," Rome, 1652; also Gorres, vol. v, pp.
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BELLARMIN, ROBERTO, Cardinal, 1542-1621. "Vita." (Ger-
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BERKELEY, GEORGE, 1685-1753. "Principles of Human Knowl-
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BERTRAND, L. A., n. d. (Mormon). "Les Me"moires d'un
Mormon." [ Unread. ]
BESANT, MRS. ANNIE, 1847. An Autobiography.
BEWLEY, GEORGE, 1684 (Quaker). "Narrative of the Chris-
tian Experiences of."
BLACK, WILLIAM, 1760-1834. (Methodist testimony, in
Arminian Magazine.)
BLAIR, ROBERT, 1593-1666 (Presbyterian). Autobiography.
(Unfinished.)
BOEHME, JACOB, 1574-1624. "Aurora."
BONAVENTURA, ST. (JOHN OP FiDANZA), 1221-1274. "Itiner-
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BOSTON, THOMAS, OF ETTRICK, 1676-1732 (Presbyterian).
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BBIGITTE OP SWEDEN, 1302-1373. Revelations. (Little Bol-
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BBOWN, BENJAMIN, 1853 (Mormon). "Testimonies for the
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BROWNE, ROBERT, 1550-1633 (Puritan). "A True and Short
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BROWNING, ELIZABETH BARRETT, 1806-1861. Letters.
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CARDAN, JEROME, 1501-1576. "De Vita propria Liber," in
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Venice, 1881.
CARRE DE MONTGERON, 1686-1754. Autobiographie, prece"dant
1'ouvrage intitule 1 "La Ve"rite" des Miracles de M. de Paris."
(In Mathieu, "1'Histoire des Miraculees de St. Me"dard."
Paris, 1864.)
CARTWRIGHT, PETEB, 1785-1856 (Methodist). An autobiog-
raphy of.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 531
CABVOSSO, WILLIAM, 1750-1834 (Methodist). Autobiography.
CASAUBON, ISAAC, 1559-1614. Diary of, called "Ephemer-
ides." Clarendon Press.
CASTIGLIONCHIO, LAPO DI, n. d. (Thirteenth century; Flor-
entine.)
CATHERINE OF BOLOGNA, 1463. Revelations (posthumous; in
Little Bollandists; Gu6rm).
CATHERINE OF GENOA, 1447-1510. Conversion of, in Vita di.
(See Von Hiigel, "Mystical Element of Religion.")
CATHERINE OF SIENA (BENINCASA), 1347-1380. Letters of,
edited by V. Scudder; and "Life," by Edmund Gardner.
CATON, WILLIAM, n. d. (Quaker testimony.)
CELLINI BENVENUTO, 1500-1571. Vita di. (See J. A.
Symonds, trans.)
CHALKLEY, THOMAS, 1675-1739 (Quaker). Journal of.
CHANTAL, JEANNE F. FREMYOT DE, 1572-1641. "Histoire de,"
par 1'abbe Bougaud.
CHARLES, HENRI. Memorial of, with confession. (In H. B.
Irving, "French Criminals of the 19th Century," p. 210.)
CHURCHMAN, JOHN, 1705-1775 (Quaker). Life of.
CIBBER, COLLEY, 1671-1757. "Apology for the Life of."
CLARKE, JAMES FREEMAN, 1810. Autobiography.
COLEMAN, CARYL (Catholic conversion). (In Curtis, "Some
Roads to Rome in America." 1910.)
COLLINS, ELIZABETH, 1755-1831. (Quaker testimony.)
CONRAN, JOHN, 1739-1827. (Quaker testimony.)
COPUS, J. E. (Catholic conversion). (In Curtis, "Some
Roads to Rome in America." 1910.)
CORNABY, HANNAH (Mormon). Autobiography.
CRISP, STEPHEN, 1692 (Quaker). "A Journal of the Life of."
CROKER, JOHN, 1673. (Quaker testimony.)
CROOK, JOHN, about 1654 (Quaker). "A Short History of
the Life of." Rare.
CROWLEY, ANN, 1826. (Quaker testimony.)
CRUDEN, ALEXANDER. "Autobiography of Alexander the Cor-
rector." Scots, 18th century; rare. (Prefixed to first
ed. of Concordance.) [Unread.]
CUSINAS, FRANCOIS DE, 1863. Brussels. "Me"moire," edited
by Campan. [Unread.]
532 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
DANTE AUGHIEBI, 1265-1321. Letter to Can Grande. (Lath-
am's trans., entitled "Dante's Eleven Letters.")
DAVID, CHBISTIAN, 1738 (Moravian). Wesley's "Journal,"
vol. i, pp. 120-22.
DAVIES, RICHARD, 1685-1707 (Quaker). "An Account of the
Convincements, Services, Exercises, and Travels of."
DAVY, SIB HUMPHBY, 1778-1829. "On the Effects of Nitrous
Oxide Gas," in "Fragmentary Remains."
DELELOE, JEANNE DE ST. MATHIEU, 1604-1660. "Une Mystique
Inconnue du 17e Siecle"; Dom Bruno Destre"e, O. S. B.
DEEBY, HASKETT, M.D. (Catholic conversion.) (In Curtis,
"Some Roads to Rome in America.")
DESCABTES, RENE, 1596-1650. "Discours de la Methode pour
bien conduire sa Raison"; also, "Meditations"; in CEuvres
completes.
DEWEY, OBVUXE, 1794-1882. Autobiography.
DICKINSON, JAMES, 1659-about 1700. (Quaker testimony.)
DICKINSON, PEABD, 1758-1802. (Methodist testimony in the
Arminian Magazine.)
Dow, LOBENZO, 1777 (Methodist). "Life of."
DUDLEY, MABY, 1750-1810. (Quaker testimony.)
DUNTON, JOHN, 1659-1733. "The Life and Errors of."
EBNEBIN, MABGABET, 1351. Vie et Journal de. (See Gorres,
vol. n, p. 207.)
EDMUNDSON, WM., 1627-1712 (Quaker). Journal of the
Life of.
EDWABDS, JONATHAN, 1703-1758 (Presbyterian). Diary,
Resolutions and Conversion of. Complete Works. Wor-
cester ed.
EDWABDS, MBS. JONATHAN, "The Mystery of Pain and
Death." London, 1892. (See James, "Varieties of Re-
ligious Experience," p. 276.) [Unread.}
ELIPHAZ THE TEMANITE, about B.C. 400. (In the Book of
Job rv, 12-17.)
ELIZABETH OF SCHONATJ, 1129-1165. "Revelations." (In
Migne, "Pat. Lat.," t. 195.)
ELLWOOD, THOMAS, 1639-1713 (Quaker). The Life of.
EMEBSON, RALPH WALDO, 1803-1882. Journals, in 10 vols.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 533
EMMERICH, ANNE-CATHERINE, 1774-1824. "Vie et Visions
de"; R-P Fr. J. A. Duley.
ENEAS SYLVIUS PICCOLOMINI, 1405-1464. Commentaries and
Letters. (Boulting's "Pope Pius II.")
EPHBAIM SYRUS, OF EDESSA, 368. "Testamentum et Con-
fessiones," in Syriac (disputed). (Life of, in Schaff,
"Ante-Nicene Fathers.")
EUDES, JOHN, BLESSED, 1601-1680. "Memoriale Beneficiorum
Dei." (In "Life" of, by Fr. Russell.)
EVANS, WILLIAM, 1787. (Quaker testimony.)
FAIBBANKS, HIRAM F. (Catholic conversion). (In Curtis,
"Some Roads to Rome," etc.)
FAVRE, PETER, BLESSED, 1506-1546. "Memoriale," and Spirit-
ual diary. (Trans, in Quarterly series.)
FERY, JEANNE, 1559-1586. Confession of. (See Gorres, vol.
v, pp. 136-55.)
FICHTE, J. G., 1762-1814. "The Science of Knowledge," and
the "Destination of Man." (Rand.)
FIELDING, HENRY, 1904. "Hearts of Men."
FINNEY, CHARLES G., 1792-1875. (Presbyterian.) "Memoirs
of."
FLEAY, J. G., Experiences of. (In Herbert Spencer, "Prin-
ciples of Sociology," vol. I, Part n, p. 787.)
FLECHERE, J. DE LA (otherwise Fletcher), 1729-1785
( Methodist) . Autobiography.
FLETCHER, MARY, 1739-1815. (Methodist testimony in Ar-
minian Magazine.)
FOLLOWS, RUTH, 1738-1819. (Quaker testimony.)
FONTAINE, J. DE LA, 1658. (Huguenot memoirs.)
FOTHERGILL, JOHN, 1676. (Quaker testimony.)
FOURNIER, FBANCOISE, 1685. "Vie de la mere." [Unread.}
Fox, GEORGE, 1624-1691 (Quaker). "A journal, or historical
account of."
FRANCOISE ROMAINE, ST., 1384-1440. Visions, in "Vita," by
J. Mattioti. (Guerin.)
FRANCKE, AUGUSTUS HERMAN, 1660-1727. Memoir; trans,
from German.
FBASEE OF BRAE, JAMES, 1639-1700. (Presbyterian.)
534 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
Memoirs of the Life of. (Tweedie, Wodrow Society Pub-
lications.)
FEOUDE, RICHABD HUBEELL, 1803-1836. "Remains of."
FULLEBTON, LADY GEOBGiANA, 1812-1885. "The Inner Life"
of. (In memoir.)
FUBZ, JOHN, 1717-1800. (Methodist testimony in Arminian
Magazine.)
GABDINEB, COLONEL. Conversion, n. d. (In Scott, "Waver-
ley," vol. i, p. 72, and in Hibbert, "Philosophy of Appar-
itions.")
GABDINEB, DB. WM., n. d. (Quaker). Journal.
GABBETSON, FBEEBOBN, 1752-1827. (Methodist testimony.)
GATES, THEOPHILUS, W., 1786. "Trials and Experiences of."
AL-GHAZZALI, 1056-1111. "Munquidh min ad dalal." (Trans,
into French by Barbier de Meynard, as "Le Preservatif
de 1'Erreur"; also into English as "Apology," by Claud
Field, Wisdom of the East Series. See Amer. Oriental
Soc., vol. 20, p. 71; and Journal Asiatique, 7e serie, t. ix,
Macdonald.)
GEBTBUDE OF EISLEBEN, 1263-1334. The Revelations of St.
("Legatus Divinse Pietatis," book n.). Dates doubtful.
GIULIANI, VEBONIQUE, 1660-1727. Vie de, edited by M. Sal-
vatori, Rome, 1803. (See Gorres, vol. n, pp. 190-93.)
GLABEBUS, RODOLPHUS (RAOUL GLABEB), 1047. Chronica.
(Trans, by Guizot, "Me"moires pour Servir," T. v.)
GOBDON, ALEXANDEB, 1789 (Presbyterian). Autobiography.
GOSSE, EDMUND, 1908. "Father and Son." Biographical
Recollections.
GOTTESCHALCHUS, 870. "Confessio," and "Confessio pro-
lixior"; Migne, "Pat. Lat." t. 121.
GOUGH, JAMES, 1712 (Quaker). Memoirs of.
GOUGH, JOHN B., 1817. Autobiography.
GBADIN, ABVID, n. d. (Moravian). (In Wesley's "Journal,"
vol. i, pp. 120-22.)
GBATBY, PEBE A., 1880. "Souvenirs de ma Jeunesse." (See
James, "Varieties of Religious Experience," pp. 146, 476,
506.)
GBATTON, JOHN, 1643-1712. (Quaker testimony.)
BIBLIOGRAPHY 535
GREEN, ASHBEL, 1762-1848 (Presbyterian). Life of.
GBELLET, STEPHEN, 1773. (Quaker testimony.)
GRIFFITH, JOHN, 1713-1776. (Quaker testimony.)
GUIBERT DE NOGENT, 1053-1124. Vie de, par lui-meme.
(In "Histoire des Croisades.")
GURNETS OF EARLHAM, THE. By A. J. C. Hare.
GUYON, JEANNE DE LA MOTHE, 1648-1717. Vie de, par elle-
meme. (Eng. trans.)
HADLEY, S. H. Conversion of (no date nor title). (See
James, "Varieties," etc., pp. 201-03.)
HAGGER, MARY, 1768-1840. (Quaker testimony.)
HAIME, JOHN, 1710-1734. (Methodist testimony in Armin-
ian Magazine.)
HALHEAD, MYLES, 1690 (Quaker). "A book of some of the
sufferings and passages of ... as also concerning his
labour and Travel in the work of the Lord." (Rare
tract; Roberts' Collection; Haverford College.)
HALIBURTON, THOMAS, 1674-1711 (Presbyterian). Auto-
biography and Diary, in Life.
HALL, DAVID, 1683. (Quaker testimony.)
HALL, JOSEPH, Bishop of Exeter and Norwich, 1574-1656.
"Observations of some specialties of Divine Providence."
HAMILTON, ALEXANDER, 1757-1804. "Reynolds Pamphlet."
(In Works, Lbdge; vol. vii.)
HAMON, PERE. "Relation de plusieurs circonstances de la
vie de, faites par lui-meme dans le gout de St. Augus-
tin . . ." 1734. (See Sainte-Beuve "Port-Royal," vol. iv,
p. 288.) [Unread.]
HANBY, THOMAS, 1733-1796. (Methodist testimony in Ar-
minian Magazine.)
HANSON, THOMAS, 1783-1804. (Methodist testimony in Ar-
minian Magazine.)
HARE, A. J. C., 1834-1900. "The Story of my Life."
HARRISON, FREDERIC, 1831. "Memories and Thoughts"; also
"Apologia pro fide mea."
HASLETT, WILLIAM, 1766-1821 (Presbyterian). Letter, in
Life of.
HAYES, ALICE, 1657-1720 (Quaker). A short account of.
536 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
HEBMANNUS, 1124 (Allot) TUITENSIS; "Opusculum de con-
versione sua." (Migne, "Pat. Lat." t. 170.)
HEYWOOD, OLIVEB, 1630-1702 (Presbyterian). Memoirs of,
by Slate.
HIBBABD, B., 1771 (Methodist). Life.
HICKMAN, WILLIAM, 1815 (Mormon). "Confessions and Dis-
closures."
HILDEGABDE OF BiNGEN, ST., 1098-1178. "Acta; Vita;
Scivias seu Visiones." (Migne, "Pat. Lat." t. 197; also,
Vie de; Chamonal.)
HOAG, JOSEPH, 1762-1846 (Quaker). Memoirs of.
HOPKINS, SAMUEL, 1728-1803. Autobiography.
HOPPEE, CHBISTOPHER, 1722-1802. (Methodist testimony.)
HOBNSBY, NICHOLAS L. (Catholic conversion.) (In "Some
Roads to Rome in America.")
HOSKINS, JANE, 1693. (Quaker testimony.)
HOWGILL, FBANCIS, 1618-1668 (Quaker). Memoirs of.
HUDSON-TAYLOB, J., n. d. Sketch; called "A Retrospect."
HULL, HENBY, 1765-1834 (Quaker). Memoirs of.
HUNTEB, WILLIAM, 1728-1797. (Methodist testimony in
Arminian Magazine.)
IAMBLICHUS, 330. "De mysteriis"; trans. Thomas Taylor.
IVAN THE TEBBIBLE, 1530-1584. Confession of (in two Let-
ters, addressed to the Monastery of Louzdal. Russian
Archives ) . [ Unread. ]
JACKSON, WILLIAM, 1794-1834 (Methodist). "A Man of
Sorrows; or the Providence of God displayed."
JACO, PETEB, 1729-1781 (Methodist). A Letter to Wesley
(in Arminian Magazine).
JAFFBAY, ALEXANDEB, 1614-1673 (Quaker). Diary, etc.; ed.
by Barclay.
JAMES, JOHN ANGELL, 1785-1840. Autobiography of.
JABBATT, DEVEBEUX, 1732-1800. Autobiography of.
JAY, ALLEN, n. d. (Quaker). Autobiography of.
JEANNE DES ANGES, 1602-1665. "La Possession de la mSre,"
par Drs. G. LSgue et G. de la Tourette; preface de Char-
cot; Paris, 1886.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 537
JEFFEEIES, RICHARD, 1883. "The Story of my Heart."
JEFFEEIS, EDITH, 1811-1843. (Quaker testimony.)
JEBOME, ST., 345-420. Autobiographical details in "Let-
ters" and "Apologies"; also conversion, in Letter xxn,
to Eustochium. (Schaffs "Ante-Nicene Fathers," vol.
vi.)
JOHN OF SALISBURY, 1181. "Metalogicus." (In Migne, "Pat.
Lat," t. 199.)
JONES, PETER, 1802-1860 (Methodist). Autobiography of.
JORDAN, RICHARD, 1765-1827. (Quaker testimony.)
JOUFFROY, TH., 1796-1842. Experiences of. (In "Nouveaux
melanges philosophiques," p. 83.)
JOYCE, MATTHIAS, 1754-1814. (Methodist testimony in Ar-
minian Magazine.)
JULIANA OF NORWICH, 1373. Revelations to Mother. (Tick-
nor & Fields, 1864.)
JUSTIN MARTYR, 167. "Dialogue with Trypho." (Schaff's
"Ante-Nicene Fathers.")
KANT, IMMANUEL, 1724-1804. "Introduction to Prolego-
mena of a Future Metaphysic"; and "Dreams of a
Ghost-Seer."
KELLER, HELEN, 1911. "The Story of My Life."
A KEMPIS, THOMAS (HEMERCHER), 1379-1471 (?) "The Three
Tabernacles."
KIMBALL, HEBER, C. (Mormon). Journal, n. d.
KIRK, EDWARD N., 1802-1874 (Presbyterian). Letter, in
Life of.
KNAPP, JACOB, 1799-1867. Autobiography.
KNIGHT, LYDIA (Mormon), n. d. History of.
KNIGHT, NEWELL C. (Mormon), n. d. Journal.
KRUMMACHER, F. W., 1796-1868. Autobiography.
LACENAIRE. Short autobiographical sketch in H. B. Irving's
"French Criminals of the 19th Century," p. 30.
LACKINGTON, JAMES, 1746-1815. Memoirs of the first forty-
five years of the life of.
LAFARGE, MARIE, veuve, nee Cappelle. Me"moires, 1841.
LATHROP, JOSEPH, 1731-1820. Memoir.
538 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
LAVATER, JOHANN KASPAB, 1741-1801. Journal, called "Se
cret History of a Self-Observer." (In "Geheimes Tage-
buch von einem Baobachter seiner selbst.")
LAYTHE, T., 1686 (Quaker). Convincement of.
LEAD, JANE, 1623-1714. Diary of. [Unread.]
LEDIEU, n. d. (Quietist). Me"moires et journal de. [Un-
read.]
LEE, JOHN D. (Mormon), n. d. Confessions of. (See
"Mormonism unveiled.") [Unread.]
LEE, THOMAS, 1717-1786. (Methodist testimony in Ar-
minian Magazine.)
LEINS, WILLIAM, 1753-1816. (Quaker testimony.)
LIEBEEMANN, F. M. P., 1804-1852. Me"moire. (Gue"rin, les
petites Bollandistes.)
LINSLEY, JAMES H., 1787-1844. Memoir of.
LISLE, AMBROSE DE, Life and Letters. (Baker, 1900.) [Un-
read.]
LIVINGSTONE, JOHN, 1603-1672. (Presbyterian.) "A brief
historical relation of the Life of." (Wodrow Society.)
LIVINGSTONE, PATRICK, 1634-1694. (Quaker testimony.)
Loss, DR. THEOPHILUS, 1678-1755. "The Power of Faith."
LOMENIE DE BRIENNE (fils), 1636-1688. Me"moires ine"dits
du Comte de.
LORDE, ANDRE DE, about 1911. "Avant-propos de Theatre de
1'Epouvante."
LORENZINO DI MEDICI, 1548-1574. "L' Apologia di." (An-
cona.)
LOWENGARD, PAUL, 1910, "La Splendeur Catholique."
LOYOLA, ST. IGNATIUS, 1491-1556. Testamentum; trans, by
Rix (Burns and Gates).
LUCAS, MARGARET, 1701-1769. (Quaker testimony.)
LUTFULLAH, 1802-1857. Autobiography of (edited by East-
wick) .
LUTHER, MARTIN, 1483-1546. "Table-Talk" (Hazlitt) ; "Let-
ters, and Life" (P. Smith).
MACREADY, WILLIAM C., 1793-1873. Reminiscences of.
MACK, LUCY (Mormon), n. d. Experiences of. (In Riley,
"The Founder of Mormonism," pp. 20-26.)
BIBLIOGRAPHY 539
MACK, SOLOMON, 1810 (Mormon). Narrative of the Life of.
(Rare.)
MAINE DE BIRAN, 1766-1824. "Journal intime." (GEuvres
Inedits; Naville.)
MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS, 121-180. Meditations (trans.
by Long).
MARIE DE L'INCARNATION (Ursuline, of Quebec), 1599-1672.
Life, by Richadeau.
MARIE DE S. SACREMENT, about 1642. Confession of. (Gorres,
vol. v, pp. 156 /f.)
MARIE DE SAINS, about 1618. Confession of. (Gorres, vol.
v.)
MARIS, ANN, 1714. Journal, entitled, "The Path of the
Just."
MARKS, DAVID, 1805-1845. Autobiography of.
MABSAY DE, about 1773. Unpublished autobiography. (In
Vaughan, "Hours with the Mystics," p. 391.)
MARSDEN, JOSHUA, 1777-1814. (Methodist testimony.)
MARSH, JAMES, 1794-1842 (Presbyterian). Account, in Life
of.
MARSHALL, CHARLES, 1637-1698. (Quaker testimony.)
MARTYN, HENRY, 1781-1812. Short account, in Life of.
MARY OF THE ANGELS (Carmelite), 1661-1717. Auto-
biography. (In Life of, by G. O'Neill, S.J.)
MARY OF THE DIVINE HEART (MARIE DROSTE-VISCHERINE),
1863-1899. Autobiography. (In Life of, by L. Chasles.)
MASON, JOHN, 1733-1810. (Methodist testimony in Armin-
ian Magazine.)
MATHER, ALEXANDER, 1783-1800. (Methodist testimony in
Arminian Magazine.)
MATHER, COTTON, 1662-1727. Journals and Meditations.
(In Life of, by his son.)
MATTHEW, TOBIE, SIR, 1577-1655. "True Historical account
of the conversion of." (In Life, by A. H. Mathew.)
MCAULEY, JERRY, 1884. Sketch, called "Transformed." (In
his Life and Work, by S. I. Prime.)
MECHTELDIS VON HACKEBORN, 1241-1310. Revelations of St.
(In "Liber Specialis Gratise.")
MECHTILDIS VON MAGDEBURG (beguine), 1212-1280. Revela-
540 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
tions, called "Offenbarungen; Oder Das Fliessende Licht
der Gottheit;" ed. Gall Morel, 1869. (See also Lina
Eckenstein, "Woman under Monasticism," pp. 332-40.)
MELVILL, SIB JAMES, 1556-1614 (Presbyterian). "Historic
of the Lyff of." (Wodrow Society.)
MEBBILL, W. S. (Catholic conversion). (In Curtis, "Some
Roads to Rome," etc.)
MERSWIN, RULMAN, 1308-1382. "Book of the Five Men,"
and "Book of the Nine Rocks." (See also Jundt "Les
Amis de Dieu.")
MEYSENBUG, MALWIDA VON, n. d. "M6moires d'une Ideal-
iste." (Trans, from German.)
MITCHELL, THOMAS, 1726-1785. (Methodist testimony.)
"MONK OF EVESHAM," 1483. "Revelations to a." (See
Coulton, "A Mediaeval Garner.")
MONTAIGNE, MICHEL DE, 1533-1592. Essais de.
MOODY, GBANVILLE, 1812-1887 (Methodist). Autobiography
of.
MOBE, DAME GEBTBUDE, 1606-1633. Apology, and "Confes-
siones Amantis." (In Weld-Blundell's "The Inner Life
and Writings of.")
MOBE, DB. HENBY, 1614-1687. Short Autobiography. (In
Ward's Life.)
MULLEB, GEORGE, 1805-1837. "Narrative of the Lord's deal-
ings with."
MUBLIN, JOHN, 1722-1799. (Methodist testimony in Ar-
minian Magazine.)
MUBRAY, JOHN, 1741-1814. Autobiography of.
MUSSET, ALFBED DE, 1810-1857. "La Confession d'un enfant
de Siecle."
NAYLOB, JAMES, n. d. (Quaker testimony.)
NEALE, SAMUEL, 1729. (Quaker testimony.)
NEILL, WILLIAM, 1778-1860 (Presbyterian). Autobiography.
NELSON, JOHN, 1707-1774. (Methodist testimony in Ar-
minian Magazine.)
NETTSSER, WENSEL, n. d. (Moravian). (Cited in Wesley's
"Journal," vol. i, pp. 120, 122.)
BIBLIOGRAPHY 541
NEWMAN, FRANCIS W., 1805 to about 1850. "Phases of
Faith."
NEWMAN, J. H., 1801-1890. "Apologia pro Vita Sua."
NEWTON, JOHN, 1725-1807. Narrative of the Rev. (In
Memoir.)
NICOLAI. The Case of, n. d. (In Nicholson's Philosophical
Journal, vol. 15.)
NIETZSCHE, F., 1844-1900, "Ecce Homo;" trans, by Ludovici.
("Life," by Halevy.)
NITSCHMAN, DAVID, n. d. (Moravian). (In Wesley's "Jour-
nal," vol. i, pp. 120-22.)
NOVALIS, FKIEDKICH VON HAEDENBUBGH, 1772-1801. Diary of.
OBEBMANN (E. P. DE SENANCOUB), 1770-1846. Edited by
George Sand.
OLIEB, J. J., 1608-1657., "M6moires Spirituelles." (In
"Life" of, by Healy-Thompson.)
OLIVEBS, THOMAS, 1725-1791. (Methodist testimony in Ar-
minian Magazine.)
OTHLOH OF ST. EMMEBAN, 1010. "Liber de Visione"; "Liber
de Tentationibus suis." (In Migne, "Pat. Lat." T. 146.)
Trans, by E. C. Rowland.
OXLEY, JOSEPH, 1715. (Quaker testimony.)
OZANAM, A. F., 1813-1854. Preface to Letters of.
PASCAL, BLAISE, 1623-1662. Conversion of. (In "Pascal,"
by St. Gyres, and Sainte-Beuve's "Port-Royal.")
PATON, JOHN G., 1824 (Presbyterian). Autobiography.
PATBICK, ST., 398-469. Confession of ("Confessio Patricii").
PATBICK, SYMON, Bishop of Ely, 1626-1707. "A brief Ac-
count of my Life." (Oxford, J. Parker.)
PATTISON, MARK, 1814-1884. Memoirs of.
PAUL, ST., 10-62. Acts, chapters ix, xxn and xxvi.
PAUL OF COBDOVA, 869. Confession in metrical Latin prose
(Migne, "Pat. Lat.," t. 121).
PAULINUS PELL^US, 376-460. "Eucharisticon de vita sua."
PAYNE, THOMAS, 1741-1783. (Methodist testimony in
Arminian Magazine.)
542 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
PAWSON, JOHN, 1737-1806. (Methodist testimony in Armin-
ian Magazine.)
PEARSON, JANE, 1734-1816 (Quaker). "Sketches of the Life
and Religious Experiences of."
PELLICAN, DB. CONBAD, 1478-1556. "Chronicon vitae ipsius,
ab ipso conscriptum;" new ed. B. Riggenbach, Basle,
1877. [Unread.]
PENINGTON, MARY (Quaker), d. 1682. "A Brief Account of
My Exercises from My Childhood."
PENNYMAN, JOHN, 1628. (Quaker testimony.) Rare.
PENRY, JOHN, 1693 (Puritan). A Letter to Lord Burghley,
in Ms., 12 pp. (See Dexter's "Congregationalism in its
Literature.") [Unread.]
PERPETUUS, Bishop of Tours, 461. "Testamentum." (In
Migne, "Pat. Lat.," t. 58.)
PERROT, JOHN, n. d, "A Narrative of the Sufferings of."
(Rare tract.)
PETER, DAMIANI, St., 1000-1072. Letters of. (Migne, "Pat.
Lat./' T. 144, lib. v.)
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544 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
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546 RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS
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INDEX
INDEX
Abelard, 138, 175, 211; attitude to-
ward confession, 29, 42; Letter
II, 61.
d'Acosta, Uriel, 173, 180, 251, 304,
320.
Adams, Curiosities of Superstition,
cited, 438.
d'Agreda, Maria, 196-97, 262, 295,
315, 343, 344, 346, 361, 369,
379, 381, 388, 428, 437.
Alacoque, M. M., 188, 209, 238,
263, 319, 324, 343, 346, 357,
370, 381, 388, 437, 473, 484 n.
Alcuin, 60.
Al-Ghazzali, 104-08, 172, 183, 200,
251.
Al-Koran, 438.
Allen, John, 192, 205, 237.
Alexander, Mary, 234.
Allies, T. W., 254, 325.
Alline, Henry, 143 n, 164, 180, 199,
230, 250, 286-87, 306 n, 314,
439, 443 n.
Amiel, 262, 381, 437; Journal
Intime, 131-33, 134, 162.
d'Ancona, A., cited, 103.
Andreasi, Osanna, 189, 196, 239,
285 n, 286 n, 293, 357, 379, 381.
Angela da Foligno, 175, 196, 250 n,
262, 283 n, 315, 318, 349 n, 353,
356, 357, 358, 368, 369, 376,
426, 437, 474 n.
Animism, conception of spirits, 76 ;
348; Protagoras, 77; Democ-
ritus, 77-79; theories of, 420,
430, 454; survivals of, 454 ff,
465, 468 ff, 479^, 485, 486; ex-
amples in mediaeval times, 465 j7;
in individuals, 469 ff, 475 ff.
Anselm, Abbot of Canterbury, Life
of, by Rule, containing "Oratio
meditative," from the original bi-
ography by Eadmer, 61, 318.
Anthropology, 65, 78, 393-94, 418,
483.
Apollinaris of Hierapolis, 55 n.
Apologia, chap, n, 55 n; for par-
ticular cases, see Bibliography
of Cases; connotations, 53-54, 66,
408.
Aquinas, Thomas, 360.
Aram, Eugene, 215.
551
Arnauld, Angelique, 187-88, 209,
224, 253-54, 318, 376.
Arnobius, 55 n.
Arnold, Matthew, cited, 10, 73,
300; Poems, quoted, 129.
Aristides, 55 n.
Aristotle, 105.
Ashbridge, Elizabeth, 241, 285 n,
287, 439.
Ashman, William, 193, 225, 237,
259.
Athanasius, 55 n.
Athenagoras of Athens, 55 n.
Audland, John, 312.
Augustin, 27, 42, 43, 48, 58 62
63, 85, 109, 110, 112, 117, 118,
119, 120, 138, 142 n, 145, 146,
162, 163, 165, 175, 180, 199,
226, 230, 247, 251, 285 n. 287,
302, 305 n, 312, 315, 323, 344,
348, 350, 351, 352, 381, 388,
391, 409, 413 n, 426, 438, 439;
Confessions, 30-37, 65, 159,
350-51, 362, 409, 455; first
Christian psychologist, 90; on
Unpardonable Sin, 266; attitude
of Clerics toward, 364.
Autobiographies. See Confessions.
Autobiographical intention, 42, 49,
126, 325. 397.
Babbage, Charles, 167.
Babylonian confessions, 21.
Bacon, Advancement of Learning,
cited, 5, 39.
Bacon, Roger, 62.
Bagehot, W., Literary Studies,
quoted, 402.
Bangs, Benjamin, 190, 204.
Banks, John, 191, 255, 316 n.
Barbanson, 355, 477.
Barclay, Robert, Apology, cited,
313.
Ballinger, Diseases of the Ear,
quoted, 439-40.
Balzac, H. de, cited, 133, 134;
quoted, 138.
Basil, St., 28, 85.
Bashkirtsev, Marie, 134; quoted,
49.
Baudelaire, Charles de, 127.
Bavent, Madeleine, 219, 459 n, 463.
Baxter, Richard, 197, 229, 252.
552
INDEX
Beaumont, John, 167, 373, 374.
Beecher, H., 193, 211, 239, 261,
301.
Beers, W., 166.
Begbie, Harold, quoted, 274.
Belief, 414 ff, 479 ; changes in,
142-43, 408 ff, 455 ; intellectual
factors in, 402-03; emotional
factors in, 402-03, 454-55;
Bagehot on, 402.
Bellarmin, Cardinal, 181, 199, 230.
Bergson, H., 82, 113; Creative
Evolution, quoted, 94.
Berkeley, George, 103.
Bernard, views on confession, 29,
339 n; cited, 85.
Besant, Annie, 181, 230.
Bewley, George, 204, 235, 322,
436 n.
Binet-Sangle, cited, 310, 388 n.
Black, William, 237, 259.
Blair, Robert, 181-82, 199, 230-31,
315, 382, 386, 424, 443.
Bianco-White, Joseph, 187, 202,
320. 474 n.
Boas, Franz, The Mind of Primitive
Man, quoted, 429, 472 n.
Boccaccio, G., 115.
Boehme, Jacob, 372.
Bogomils, The, 423.
Boissier, Gaston, quoted, 406.
Bollandists, cited, 362, 364.
Bonaventura, St., 62, 347, 352,
361, 369.
Borrow, George, Lavengro, 265.
Bossuet, 393.
Boston, T., 178, 197, 229, 252,
320, 321, 436 n, 443.
Bourignon, Antoinette, 188, 209,
238, 292, 315, 318, 346, 358,
376, 381, 443.
Bownas, Samuel, 242.
Bradley, H., 189-93, 288 n, 314 n.
Brainerd, David, 207, 260, 298.
Braithwaite, Anna, 190, 204, 235,
286 n, 297.
Bray, Billy, 193, 211, 244, 246 n,
261, 297, 423.
Bray, Charles, 199, 231, 261.
Brigitte of Sweden, 367.
Brinton, D. G., The Religious Senti-
ment, quoted, 86.
Broca, Paul, 92.
Brown, Benjamin, 127 n, 157 n,
225, 339 n.
Brown, J. MacMillan, Maori and
Polynesian, cited, 478 n.
Browne, Sir Thomas, 211; Religio
Medici, 123-24 ; Urn-Burial,
quoted, 161, 337, 415.
Browning, E. B., quoted, 38, 129.
Browning, Letters, 134.
Bruno, Giordano, 63, 104, 109.
Brydges, Egerton, quoted, 285.
Brysson, George, 260, 321.
Buchner, cited, 111 n.
Buddhistic confessions, 22.
Bunyan, John, 143 n, 151, 199-200,
216, 226, 240, 250-51, 264, 287,
312, 319, 465.
Burckhardt, History of the Italian
Renaissance, quoted, 114.
Burton, Robert, Anatomy of Melan-
choly, cited, 440.
Byron, 127-28.
Csesar, Julius, 390.
Caesarius of Heisterbach, 248,
433 n.
Caird, E., The Evolution of Re-
ligion, quoted, 6, 8, 91, 102, 129.
Callaway, Religion of the Amazulu,
quoted, 373.
Calvin, John, 142 n, 191, 212, 261,
311.
Campbell, Paul the Mystic, quoted,
308.
Candour in self-study, 65, 162-66.
Capers, William, 192, 205, 212,
243, 258, 317.
Cardan, Jerome, 31, 34, 42, 48, 64,
100, 109, 116, 123, 124, 125,
134, 164, 165, 167, 175, 221,
374, 425, 438, 439; De Vita
propria, quoted, 132.
Carlo da Sezze, 175, 209, 254,
292, 319, 364 n, 370, 431, 473.
Carre de Montgeron, 188-89, 211,
244, 246 n, 295, 443.
Carter, Jesse B., 407 n, 424 n ;
Religious Life in Ancient Rome,
quoted, 411, 436.
Cartwright, Peter, 200, 224-25,
288, 306 n, 423.
Carvosso, William, 192, 259.
Casaubon, Isaac, 124.
Casaubon, Meric, 221.
Castiglionchio, 113.
Catherine of Bologna, 367.
Catherine of Genoa, 195, 301, 334,
337, 338-39, 339 n, 342, 372,
389.
Catherine of Russia, 47.
Catherine of Siena, 195, 238, 324,
339 n, 352.
Cellini, Benvenuto, 42, 47, 64
109, 129, 165.
Chalkley, Thomas, 153, 182, 231.
Chantal, Sainte-, 188, 215, 238, 263,
283 n, 318, 364, 388, 474 n,
484 n.
Charles, Henri, 215, 374.
Chingwauk, the Algonquin, 422,
443 n.
Christianity, 274, 275, 347, 406 if,
409, 430; tendency toward in-
trospection, 85 ff, 405 ; Neo-
Platonists, relation to, 88 ff ;
modern, survivals in, 421, 452,
INDEX
553
453, 457; mediaeval, 427-29,
451, 474, 476.
Chrysostom, St. John, 57.
Church, the, Mariolatry, 451; atti-
tude toward confession, 25, 31,
408 ; attitude toward introspec-
tion, 84-86, 121; attitude toward
mysticism, 85, 359-62, 363 ;
attitude toward "Unpardonable
Sin," 266; treatment of mystics
by, 359-62, 363.
Churchman, John, 203, 234, 255.
Gibber, Colley, 63.
Clarke, J. F., 182.
Cloag, cited, 309, 310.
Codrington, The Melanesians, cited,
425 n, 433.
Cohn, Rev. J. R., cited, 308.
Coleridge, S. T., 336.
Collins, Elizabeth, 203.
Comte, Auguste, quoted, 81, 286,
400 ; attitude toward psychology,
81-82, 415, 416.
Conduct, religion and, 404, 407,
412, 473-76.
Confessant, the, use of word, 39;
and mystic, 332, 398; data of,
420 ff, 443, 457, 463, 466, 483.
Confessions, chap. II, auricular, 20-
29, 397, 408; in ancient reli-
gions, 21-24; Lysander, case of,
23 ; in early Christian Church,
25, 41; early meaning, 28;
libelli, 28; Aboard on, 29, 42;
Bernard, views of, 29; Ramon de
Penafort, views of, 31; impulse
toward, 40-49 ; criminal, 48,
214/7; witchcraft, 216 ff, 462 ff.
Conran, John, 234, 386, 424.
Contagion, group, 146-47, 223-26,
367, 456, 467, 470-71.
Conversion, 246, 248, 249, 273 ff,
468 ; preexisting immortality, 50-
52, 151, 315; depression preced-
ing, 106, 250-64, 269, 280.?; in
meeting, 152-53, 297, 300, 313;
mystical phenomena during, 152,
247, 287 ff, 375 ff; illness preced-
ing, 210/7; theories concerning,
246-47; 273 ff, 392; personality
in, 279.?, 483-85; suggestion in,
281-86, 287, 293, 299, 376/7;
suggestibility in adolescence af-
fecting, 282-84; methods of, 284,
285, 286 ff; forms of suggestion
in, 285-86, 287, 293; Paul's,
202-11, 385, 386; non-mystical,
311 ff; reaction from, 313,
3142f, 323 ff, 326-327, 354/7,
378, 468/7; in prison, 371; non-
religious, 373-74.
Conybeare and Howson, cited, 309.
Conybeare, F. C., Myth, Morals, and
Magic, cited, 25 n.
Corpus Apologetarum Christian-
orum, cited, 65, 397, 409.
Covenanters with God, 321-23, 435,
436.
Crawley, A. E., cited, 441.
Criminal confessions, 48.
Criminals, tendency toward mysti-
cism, 216.
Crisp, Stephen, 200, 231, 251, 312.
Croker, John, 190, 321.
Crook, John, 213, 216, 231, 251,
285 n, 288, 388, 465.
Crowley, Ann, 235.
Cusanus, Nicholas, 109.
Cutten, G. B., The Psychological
Phenomena of Christianity cited,
5, 226, 275.
Cyril of Alexandria, 55 n.
D'AgrMa, Maria. See d'Agreda,
Maria.
Dante, Letter to Can Grande, 114,
115. 116, 329, 348, 349, 426,
427; Inferno, 267, 268, 487;
Paradiso, 293 n.
Davenport, F. M., Primitive Traits
in Religious Revival, cited,
421 n, 451 n, 463 n, 471 n.
David, Christian, 208, 262, 317.
Davies, Richard, 182, 212, 242.
Davy, Sir Humphry, 1778-1829,
cited, 168.
Day-books. See Confessions.
Delacroix, E., cited, 12, 355-56;
quoted, 12, 172, 340 n, 342, 343,
366.
Deleloe, Jeanne de St., 178, 197-98,
224, 230, 253, 266, 295-96, 318,
319, 376, 442, 474.
Democritus, 77-79.
Demoniacal possession, 374, 432,
468; at Yssel, 217-18; at
Cambrai, 218-19; at London,
219, 220, 221, 295, 359, 433,
486; at Louviers, 219, 359, 433,
486; at Placido, 359; at Salem,
Mass., 433-34; at Kirtland,
Ohio, 434-35, 457, 463; in Scot-
land, 434; in Switzerland, 435,
457; in China, 435; in Virginia,
435; spiritualism, 457.
Demons, 61, 220-21, 222, 378-79,
429 ff, 442-44, 484.
Depression, 280, 455, 467, 468;
duration of, 250 ff; character of,
250, 269; during reaction and
relapse from conversion, 323/7,
326-27, 354/7, 484.
De Quincey, Thomas, 44, 64; cited,
47 n, 164, 166.
Descartes, Rene", 82, 138, Discours
de la Mtthode and Meditations,
104, 107/7.
Dewey, Orville, 193, 207, 243-44.
Diaries. See Confessions.
554
INDEX
Dill, S., Roman Society, cited,
407 n.
Dickinson, James, 190.
Dickinson, Peard, 192, 206, 237,
257.
Dion, Cassius, 373.
Dionysius, the Areopagite, 337 n,
347, 348, 352, 369.
Documents, chap. IV, 397, 410,
455; mystical, 362 ff, 369.
Dods, Marcus, Forerunners of
Dante, cited, 61 n, 367 n.
Dostoievski, crime and punishment,
43.
Doutte, E., Magie et Religion dans
I'Afrique du Nord, 422 n, 425 n,
430, 431, 433, 455.
Dow, Lorenzo, 154 n, 205, 236,
257, 301.
Dreams, 301, 430.
Duchesne, Pere, Histoire Ancienne
de I'Eglise, cited, 26 n, 65 n.
Dudley, Mary, 191, 204-05, 235,
256.
Dunton, John, 182, 212.
Eberin, Margaret, 196, 368, 377.
Ecstasy, 330, 343, 344, 349, 350 tf,
356. 373, 379, 386, 424-29,
467; Lea on, 359.
Edmundson, William, 251.
Education, 177 ff, 194.
Edwards, Jonathan, 210, 239, 262,
286 n, 294, 314, 315, 377;
Narrative of Surprising Con-
versions, quoted, 156, 223, 386,
471-72.
Ego, the, 86, 91, 99-100, 277, 356,
358, 387, 477; in Job, 399.
Egyptian confessions, 21.
Eliot, George, Romola, quoted, 31.
Eliphaz the Temanite, 384-85.
Elizabeth of Schonau, 62, 367.
Ellis, A. B., The Ewe-speaking
Peoples of the Gold Coast, cited,
422 n, 43 In, 459 n.
Ellwood, Thomas, 153.
Emmerich, A. C., 189, 197, 239,
252, 295, 315, 319, 343, 346,
357, 378, 381, 437, 474.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, cited, 10,
122, 130-31, 333; quoted, 49,
481.
Eneas Sylvius, 121.
Ephraim Syrus, cited, 59, 85, 291.
Epictetus, Discourses, quoted, 87.
Epidemics, hysterical, 219, 359,
432-35; 467; of witchcraft, 219,
457 tf, 460 If, 486; of the jerks,
225, 434.
Equitius, St., 433 n.
Eudes, John, 188, 230.
Eusebius of Csesarea, 55 n.
Evans, William, 190, 212, 242
Evidence, 324, 329, 354, 383.
Exomologesis, rite of, 25; influence
toward introspection, 86.
Exorcism, 196, 220, 221, 432-35,
454. See Demoniacal possession.
Faith, 58, 65, 171.
Fasting, 373, 375, 421-24; Cather-
ine of Genoa, 334, 338-39, 342.
Favre, Peter, 189, 197, 224, 239,
262, 320, 431, 445 n, 473.
Ferrero, Guglielmo, Characters and
Events in Roman History,
quoted, 6.
Fery, Jeanne, 218-19, 435.
Fetich, 402, 445, 472, 473; fetich-
worship, 402.
Fichte, J. G., cited, 99, 111-12.
Fielding, Henry, 189, 207-08.
Finney, O. G., 182, 211, 251,
286 n, 288, 306 n, 423.
Fleay, J. G., 167 n, 294 n.
Flechere, John de la, 205, 259.
Fletcher, Alice H., Handbook of
American Indians, cited 373 n,
421 n.
Fletcher, Mary, 154 n, 206, 237,
256, 285 n, 299, 467.
Flight, mystical, 445.
Follows, Ruth, 190.
Fontaine, James de la, 190, 230.
Foscolo, Ugo, 127.
Fothergill, John, 190, 204, 235,
256.
Fox, George, 143 n, 145, 150 ff,
158, 165, 172, 177, 182, 191,
213, 231, 247, 251, 288, 312,
319, 323, 342, 438, 443.
France, Anatole, Jeanne d'Arc,
cited, 248.
Francis of Assisi, St., 115, 339 n.
Franchise Romaine, 367.
Francke, A. H., 192, 259.
Fraser, James, of Brae, 182, 200,
241, 316, 319.
Frazer, J. G., The Golden Bough,
cited, 65, 418 n, 441, 442 n,
465 ; quoted, 478 n.
Friends. See Quakers.
Froude, R. H., 162, 210.
Furz, John, 193, 205, 237, 258,
285 n, 299.
Fustel de Coulanges, La Cite
Antique, cited, 77 n.
Galton, Francis, quoted, 282.
Gardner, Edmund, Dante and the
Mystics, quoted, 333-34; cited,
97 n, 369.
Gardiner, Colonel, 254, 285 n, 286,
291, 306 n, 386, 424 n.
Garretson, Freeborn, 154 n, 192,
257, 285 n, 300.
Gates, R., 207, 243, 259, 298.
Genius, 143-44 ; relation to mysti-
cism, 341-46, 356, 381.
INDEX
555
Gerard-Gailly, E., Bussy-Rdbutin,
quoted, 365.
Gerson, John, 360.
Gertrude of Eisleben, 175, 198,
224, 244, 252, 286 n, 289-90,
315, 353, 357, 367, 414, 428,
432, 474 n.
Ghazzali, A1-, 104-08, 172, 183, 200,
251.
Giuliani, Veronique, 196, 295, 377,
444.
Giusti, G., 127.
Glaber, Raoul, 61, 262, 286 n,
429 n, 433, 442.
Goethe, W. von, 34, 465.
Gomperz, Th., quoted, 331; cited,
54 n, 59 n, 77 n, 81 n.
Gordon, Alexander, 191, 260, 467.
Gorres, Mystique Divine, Naturelle,
et Diabolique, quoted, 30; cited,
218, 219, 332, 340, 426 n, 432 n,
444, 463 n.
Gosse, Edmund; Father and Son,
183, 224, 231-32, 445 n.
Gotteschalchus, 60.
Gottesfreunde, 145.
Gough, James, 183, 203, 214.
Gough, John B., 51, 323.
Grasset, E., 168, 340 n, 388 n.
Gratry, Father A., 263 n.
Gratton, John, 152 n, 191, 204,
235. 256, 300, 370, 443.
Green, Ashbel, 191, 207, 317.
Greek confessions, 23.
Gregory the Great, cited, 85, 433 n.
Gregory of Nyssa, 28.
Gregorovius, History of the Middle
Ages, cited, 450 n.
Grellet, Stephen, 191, 235, 285 n,
297.
Grey, Maxwell, The Silence of Dean
Maitland, cited, 43 n.
Griffith, John, 235, 255.
Grote, History of Greece, cited,
81 n.
Group, contagion, 146-47, 367, 423,
470-71.
Groups, 10, 144-47 ff, 171, 172,
364-65, 366; Gottesfreunde, 144,
367; Methodists, 145, 247; Mor-
mons, 145; Quakers, 145, 150,
247; Port- Royalists, 145; Pietists,
145.
Guerin, Eugenie and Maurice de,
Journals of, 134.
Guibert de Nogent, 61, 175, 183-84,
224, 232, 288, 344 n, 376, 391,
433. 435, 474.
Gummere, Amelia M., The Quaker,
cited, 152 n.
Gummere, Francis B., Democracy
and Poetry, quoted, 398.
Gurneys of Earlham, the, 134-36,
159, 178, 211, 230.
Guyon, Jeanne de La-Mothe, 145,
175, 184, 200, 222, 232, 250 n,
251, 263, 288, 318, 343, 363,
373, 376, 380, 391, 414, 429 n,
437, 442, 474 n, 474.
Haddon, Thomas, The Papuans,
cited, 425 n.
Hagger, Mary, 190, 204, 235, 298.
Haime, John, 154, 154 n, 206, 243,
256, 299, 320.
Hale, Sir Matthew, 216,221, 486 n.
Hall, G. Stanley, Adolescence,
quoted, 282.
Halhead, Myles, 256, 263 n 298,
467.
Hallam, cited, 450 n, 451, 474.
Haliburton, Thomas, 172, 179, 198
240, 246 n, 252-53, 319 322.
436 n.
Hall, David, 190, 203, 213 465
Hall, Joseph, 179, 198, 230.
Hallucinations, 197, 352 ff, 374-75
461, 467, 485; auditory, 154,
285, 286, 296, 443; visual, 154,
222, 286, 296, 422, 443, 454.
Hamilton, Alexander, 'Reynolds
Pamphlet, quoted, 64
Hanby, Thomas, 192.
Hanson, Thomas, 192, 259, 299
Hare, A. J. C., 184, 232.
Harnack. cited, 309.
Harrison, Frederic, 184, 211
Hartley, 103.
Hartmann, 416 n.
Haslett, William, 191, 260.
Havet, Ernest, Le Christianisme et
ses Origines, cited, 7, 75 n, 406 n.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, The Scarlet
Letter, cited, 43; The Marble
Fcvun, quoted, 47.
Haydon, B. R., 166.
Hayes, Alice, 200, 380.
Health, 194 #, 279, 390, 465; good
135, 195, 211 ff; bad, 134, 195
196 ff; abnormal, 212.
Hearn, L., cited, 442.
Heaven, 352, 367, 428, 430, 454.
Hebrew confessions, 24.
Hell, 352, 367, 428, 429-30, 454.
Herbart, 97.
Herbert of Cherbury, 374.
Heredity, 177 ff, 194, 465.
Hermannus, Abbot, 175.
Hermas, Shepherd of, 58.
Hesse, Les Criminels peints par
eux-memes, cited, 216.
Heywood, Oliver, 191, 212, 243,
260.
Hibbard, B., 192, 257, 299, 317.
Hibbert, Philosophy of Apparitions,
cited, 166.
Hildegarde of Bingen, 62, 175-76,
187, 198, 224, 230, 320, 346,
367, 375-76, 426.
556
INDEX
Hierocles, 75 n.
Hirsch, W., Genius and Degenera-
tion, quoted, 40, 390.
Hoag, Joseph, 152 n, 190, 200, 232,
252. 265, 285 n, 289, 306, 319,
380, 439, 443.
Hoffding, on psychology, 275.
Hopkins, Samuel, 192, 211, 260,
317.
Hopper, Christopher, 193, 206, 225.
Hose and McDougall, Pagan Tribes
of Borneo, cited, 431 n, 432 n,
437 n.
Hoskins, Jane, 190, 204, 242, 256,
285 n, 298, 306 n, 474 n.
Howgill, Francis, 153, 200, 232,
252.
Hudson-Taylor, 245, 285 n, 293,
321.
Hiigel, F. von, 332, 333, 334, 336,
338. 346, 372, 389.
Hull. Henry, 190, 204, 235.
Hume, David, 103, 111, 418;
quoted, 415.
Hunter. William, 236, 257.
lamblichus, 62, 89, 405.
Individualism, rise of, 398 #, 410,
411 ff; the Church and, 362-63.
Introspection, chap, ill, 52; defini-
tion, 71; attitudes toward, 72-73;
Plato, 74-75, 86; Socrates, 74;
(Sophists, 77; relation to meta-
physics, 82-84, 111; in philos-
ophy, 82, 94, 97-98, 103 ff,
lllff; in religion, 83-86, 104.?,
121, 402-03; attitude of Church
toward, 84-86, 121; Christianity,
tendency of, toward, 85 ff, 397;
Marcus Aurelius, 87; Epictetus,
87; Rousseau, 87, 111, 124-26;
'Seneca, 87; Neo-Platonists, 88-
90, 130, 402, 405, 413; Plotinus,
88; Schopenhauer, 91, 112; as a
factor in psychology, 93, 97 ff ;
William James, attitude of, to-
ward, in psychology, 93, 100;
Kant, 97, 111; Fichte, 99, 111-
12; Cardan, 100, 109; in sci-
ence. 103, 113, 129, 134; intro-
spective type in literature, 101 ; Al-
Ghazzali, 104-08; Descartes, 104,
107 ff; relation of, to mysticism,
106, 114, 215; Montaigne, 109,
122-23; Schelling, 112; Augus-
tin, 112, 117, "118, 119, 120,
351; Nietzsche, 113; minor ex-
amples, 113, 134; Dante, 114,
115, 116; Petrarch, 115-20;
Eneas Sylvius, 121 ; Browne,
123-24; Byron, 127-28; Shelley,
128-29; Emerson, 130-31; Amiel,
131-33; Gurneys, the, 134-36;
Wilde, 136-38; Job, 400-02; See
Self -study; and Health, 134-35.
Intoxication. 423, 424.
Ireland. W. H.. 214.
Islamic confessions, 22.
Ivan the Terrible, 47.
Jackson, William, 214, 257, 300.
Jaco, Peter, 155, 192, 205, 236,
257, 300, 443.
Jaffray, Alexander, 204, 242.
James, Epistle of, 407.
James, J. A., 192, 243, 317.
James. William, 61, 63, 94 n, 100,
247, 275, 276, 277, 332, 340,
347, 394; quoted, 44, 93, 134,
337. 464, 474, 480.
Janet, Pierre, The Mental State of
Hystericals, 283, 284, 340 n,
388 n.
Jarratt, Devereux, 190, 244.
Jastrow, Morris, The Liver as the
Seat of the Soul, cited, 91 n; Re-
ligion of Babylonia and Assyria,
cited, 21 n.
Jeanne, des Anges, Mere, 187, 210,
220-21, 222, 223, 262, 373, 374,
377, 381, 388, 429 n, 433, 435,
442.
Jefferis, Edith, 204, 234.
Jerome, St., 55 n, 56, 65, 85, 253,
291, 294, 318, 321, 344 n, 376;
quoted, 193-94, 198, 423, 476 n.
Jevons, Introduction to the Study
of Religion* cited, 8, 400.
Job, Book of, 399-400, 401, 435.
See Eliphaz the Temanite.
John of Avila, 360, 363, 476.
John of the Cross, St., 355-59, 363,
427.
John of Fidanza. See St. Bona-
ventura, 62.
John of Salisbury, 189 ; Metalogicus,
61.
Joly, Henri, 365.
Jones, Peter, 225, 259.
Jones, Rufus, 332 n; quoted, 334,
336, 341.
Jordan, Richard, 190, 242, 256.
Jouffroy, Th., 240 n.
Journals. See Confessions.
Joyce, Matthias, 151 n, 155, 193,
214. 237, 259, 300.
Juliana of Norwich, 175, 209, 254,
291-92, 367, 369, 437, 443.
Justin Martyr, Dialogue with
Trypho, 55 n, 57, 58, 187.
Kant, Immanuel, attitude toward
psychology, 97; Critique, 111.
Keller, Helen, 45, 190, 212, 245.
a Kempis, Thomas, 175, 312, 358.
Kidd, Dudley, The Essential Kaffir,
cited, 425 n.
Kierkegaard, Soren, 113 n.
Kimball, H. C., 435.
Kirk, E. N., 225, 243, 260, 317.
INDEX
557
Klunzinger, Upper Egypt, cited,
422 n.
Knapp, Jacob, 207, 239, 261, 297,
318.
Knight, Newell, 434.
Kotzebue, A. V., 126.
Krug, William, 113 n.
Lacenaire, 215, 263 n.
Lackington, James, etc., 159, 184,
212, 304, 316, 319.
Lactantius, 55 n.
Lafarge, Marie, 215, 216.
Lang, Andrew, The Making of Re-
ligion, quoted, 465.
Lathrop, Joseph, 190, 210, 245,
246 n, 322.
Lavater, 126.
Law, method of study in, 12-13.
Law, Thomas, Serious Call, 312.
Laythe, Thomas, 213, 370, 467.
Lea, H. C., 25, 27, 28, 357, 358,
359, 360, 361, 375, 433 n, 460,
461, 462; cited, 217, 412; His-
tory of Auricular Confession, 26,
38, 40.
LeBon, Gustave, La Foule, cited,
144, 226, 246.
Lecky, History of European Morals,
cited, 344 n, 433, 450 n.
Lee, Thomas, 236, 257, 300, 324.
Legue and La Tourette, La Pos-
session de la Msre Jeanne, cited,
220.
Lehmann, E., 332 n, quoted, 343.
Leibnitz, 110.
Le Mans, Robert of, 28.
Leuba, Dr., 214 n.
Lewis, William, 191, 203, 242.
Libelli, 28.
Liebermann, F., M.P., 188, 254.
Linn, cited, 371 n, 386 n.
Linsley, H., 143 n, 214, 242, 261,
299, 324, 414, 443, 484 n.
Literary, influences, 64.
Livingstone, John, 164 n, 212, 241,
256, 316.
Livingstone, Patrick, 204, 234.
Lobb, Theophilus, Dr., 322, 436 n,
443.
Locke, John, 103, 111.
Lomenie, de Brienne, 185, 212,
319.
Lorde, Andre, de, 166, 214.
Lprenzino de Medici, 63.
Lowengard, Paul, 143 n, 188, 209,
238, 304, 325.
Loyola, St. Ignatius, 187, 198-99,
226, 240, 253, 286, 286 n, 290,
305 n, 312, 342, 353, 359, 365,
372, 373, 388, 391, 423, 437,
445 n; quoted, 29.
Lucas, Margaret, 191, 203, 265,
297, 324, 380.
Luis of Granada, 358.
Lumby, Dr., cited, 309.
Lutfullah, 200, 201, 232.
Luther, Martin, 143 n, 158, 172,
316, 342, 387, 433, 487; objec-
tion to confession, 39 n ; quoted,
164, 251, 285-86, 288, 294 n,
314, 318, 348; attitude toward
apparitions, 221-23, 253.
Lysander. See Confessions.
McAuley, Jerry, 193, 207, 244,
246 n, 261, 285 n, 297, 320.
McGiffert, 309, 310.
Macaulay, Thomas B., quoted, 50.
Macready, William C., 201.
Mack, Solomon, 203, 251.
Maeterlinck, M., L'Oiseau Bleu,
cited, 400.
Magdalena de la Cruz, 217.
Magdalena de la Palude, 219,
463 n.
Magic, 412, 454, 462 ff.
Maimon, Solomon, 47 n.
Manu, Laws of, 7, 22 ; quoted, 73.
Maine de Biran, 100, 131; his
psychological journal, 103.
Marcus Aurelius, 87, 405.
Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi, 29,
339 n.
Marie de L'Incarnation, 211, 238
254, 315, 319, 324, 357, 364 n.
Marie de St. Sacrement, 219, 435.
Marie de Sains, 217-18, 222, 374,
459 n.
Maris, Ann, 190.
Marks, David, 236, 298, 317.
Marsay, M. de, 187, 208-09, 324,
376, 381.
Marsden, Joshua, 192, 206, 237.
Marsh, James, 207.
Marshall, Charles, 190, 234, 256,
320, 324.
Martineau, Harriet, 134.
Martyn, Henry, 190, 244.
Mary of the Angels, 188, 196, 239,
262, 315, 378, 382, 432.
Mary of the Divine Heart, 315,
318, 357, 379.
Mason, John, 192, 259.
Mather, Alexander, 192, 324.
Mather, Cotton, 192.
Matthew, St., quoted, 404.
Matthew, Sir Tobie, 187, 244.
Maudsley, Henry, 437; quoted, 264.
Mechtildis, Ste., 52, 175, 210, 224,
296, 352, 367, 369, 414.
Medical-materialists, 195, 283, 310,
340, 387-90.
Melito of Sardis, 55 n.
Melville, James, 191, 238.
Memory, 276, 424 #; mystical
memory, 349, 350, 426 ff; views
of the St. Victors on, 349-50,
427; Paul, 426; Dante on, 427;
558
INDEX
views of John of the Cross on,
427; Teresa's views on, 427; ves-
tigiary, 459^; in witchcraft,
459 ff, 463.
Menzies, Allan, History of Religion,
cited, 22 n, 23 n; quoted, 412,
413, 416.
Merime'e, Prosper, 134, 168.
Merswin, Rulman, 210, 244, 253,
295, 318, 368, 377.
Metaphysics, introspective charac-
ter, Greek, 79-80, 82-84, 100,
111; in mystical writings, 333.
Methodists, 145, 148-50, 153-56,
212, 320, 325.
Meyer, Eduard, History of An-
tiquity, 406 n.
Meyer, quoted, 309.
Meysenbug, Malwida von, 189, 208,
239.
Michelet, 176, 220, 457 n, 461 n,
463 n.
Middle Ages, 352, 366, 412, 428,
436, 442, 450-452, 462, 466,
474, 476 ; imagination during,
286, 368, 459; women during,
315.
Mill, J. S., 134, 165, 276; quoted,
72.
Milman, quoted, 329, 330, 334,
345, 476; cited, 358 n.
Minucius, Felix, 55 n.
Miracles, 371, 433.
Misinterpreted observation, 372-73,
380, 382, 386-87, 409, 440, 471.
Mitchell, Thomas, 236, 257, 316.
Modern Psychology. See Psychol-
ogy.
Monk of Evesham, 214, 367.
Montaigne, 36, 109, 122-23, 134.
Montesquieu, L'Esprit des Lois, 5.
Moody, Granyille, 193, 239, 301.
Moody, William Vaughn, Poems,
472.
More, Gertrude, 143 n, 187, 211,
224, 244, 262-63, 295, 320, 376-
77.
More, Dr. Henry, 185, 232, 252.
Morley, John, cited, 52, 128;
quoted, 125, 482.
Mormons, 145, 156-59, 457, 463,
473.
Miiller, George, 51, 164, 165, 191,
207, 214, 242, 250, 305 n, 324.
Miiller, F. Max, Science of Thought,
cited, 45 n.
Murlin, John, 151 n, 243.
Murray, Gilbert, Four Stages of
Greek Religion, 478 n.
Murray, John, 191-92, 211, 260.
Musset, Alfred de, 127.
Mysticism, chap. VHI, 172, 183-84,
284, 314, 479; Neo-Platonism,
62; mystical way, the, 62, 95,
96, 200, 296, 337, 352, 355 ff,
372; attitude of Church toward,
85, 359-62, 363; self-study and,
88, 106, 114, 351, 413; and
health, 195, 200, 208, 345, 346,
361, 390; medical-materialists,
195, 283-84, 340, 387 #; mys-
tical phenomena during conver-
sion, etc., 202, 247, 286-301,
352, 437, 442; and crime, 216 tf;
modern theories of, 332 ff ;
340^; 352; relation of genius
toward, 341-46, 356 ; egotism and,
344, 356-58, 473-77, 486; origin
of divine union, 346 #, 353, 355;
as a process, 354, 366, 375, 380,
390-92, 469^7; revelations,
367^, 428 ff ; compared with,
savage phenomena, 373; paucity
of truths discovered, 381, 389-
90; mystical flight, 445. See
Memory.
Nansen, F., Eskimo Life, cited,
425 n, 431, 441.
Naylor, James, 263 n, 298.
Neale, Samuel, 190, 204, 235, 255,
297, 317, 320, 322, 380.
Neill, William, 207, 237.
Nelson, John, 143 n, 154, 192, 206,
237, 256, 320.
Neo-Platonists, 130; relation of
mysticism to, 62; introspective
tendency, 88-90, 401, 405; dis-
appearance before Christianity,
405 ; anti-Christian influence,
495.
Nevius, Demon Possession in China,
cited, 435, 457 n.
Newman, Francis, 230, 250 n,
474 n.
Newman, J. H., 63, 211, 414;
Apologia pro vita sua, 53, 163,
179, 230, 253, 325.
Newton, John (1725-1807), 185,
241, 246 n, 319, 324.
Newton, Thomas, 65.
Nicolai, 166-67.
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 113, 179, 214,
245.
Nitschman, David, 208, 262, 301,
314, 320.
Norm, the, 176, 243, 249.
Notestein, W., History of Witch-
Nov
craft, cited, 459 n, 460 n.
alis, 113.
Obermann, 127, 134, 210.
Olier, Jean Jacques, 188, 238, 319,
324.
Olivers, Thomas, 151 n, 205, 242-
43, 257, 300, 324.
INDEX
559
Origen, cited, 25, 26, 85, 433 n.
Othloh of St. Emmeran, 29, 179,
199, 238, 286 n, 290, 306 n, 319,
344 n, 376, 380, 424 n, 433, 442.
Oxley, Joseph, 204, 242, 255.
Ozanam, A. P., 188, 254.
Pamphilus, 55 n.
Parentage, 177 ff, 194.
Pascal, cited, 86, 181, 214, 253,
274, 286 n, 293, 443 n, 445.
Pater, Walter, Marine the Epicu-
rean, cited, 75.
Paton, J. G., 212.
Patrick, St., 60, 185, 211, 232,
252, 285 n, 289.
Patrick, Symon, 185, 201, 233.
Pattison, Mark, 185, 201.
Paul, St., 144 n, 178, 200, 209,
247, 285 n, 325, 387, 388, 406,
407, 408, 426; his conversion,
302-11, 339, 342, 385-86.
Paul of Cordova, 60.
Paulinus Pellaeus, 185, 201.
Pawson, John, 192, 225, 242, 257,
300.
Payne, Thomas, 154 n, 192, 214,
236, 299.
Pearson, Jane, 233.
Pennyman, John, 213, 256.
Pentateuch, 413.
Pepys, Samuel, 47.
Perpetuus of Tours, 60.
Perrot, John, 213.
Perrot, Nicholas, 373 n, 421 n.
Personality, 276^, 284, 483-84;
dual, 83-84; theories of, 276,
277; in conversion, 277, 279-281,
284, 392; survivals in, 462^,
469.
Peter of Alcantara, 475.
Peter Damiani, 60.
Petersen, Gerlac, 367.
Petrarca, Francesco, quoted, 36-38,
115-20.
Pfleiderer, cited, 308, 416 n.
Phillips, Catherine, 203, 234, 254-
55, 264.
Philo-Judseus, quoted, 59; cited,
374.
Pietists, 145.
Piety, chap, vi, early, 229-40, 465;
late, 240-45.
Pike, Joseph, 235, 321.
Pittar, Fanny, 188, 210, 238,
474 n.
Plato, cited, 74-75, 86.
Plotinus, Enneads of, 62, 88, 347,
348, 352, 405, 437.
Plumer, William, 210, 240, 261.
Plutarch, 23.
Pomponazzi, Pietro, 54, 109.
Pope, Alexander, quoted, 165.
Pordage, John, Dr., 167, 373.
Porphyry, letter to Anebo, 59, 89,
405.
Port-Royalists, 145, 175; St. Cyran,
35.
Pratt, C., Psychology of Religious
Belief, 249, 278.
Pratt, Orson, 225.
Pratt, P. P., 157 n, 225.
Prickard, John, 192, 205, 242, 300,
324.
Prince, Morton, Symposium on the
Subconscious, quoted, 99.
Pringle, Walter, 233.
Pritchard, John, 151 n, 205, 237.
Proclus, cited, 89, 130.
Prosper of Aquitaine, 60.
Protagoras, 77, 80, 134.
Psalmanazar, George, 214.
Psychology, 65, 275, 456; ancient,
65; Comte's attitude toward, 81-
82, 97; modern experimental, 82,
92, 95, 276, 277; Kant's atti-
tude, 97; introspective methods
in, 111; "B" region in, 463-64,
468, 472.
Pythagoras, on self-examination, 75.
Quadratus, 55 n.
Quakers, 134-35, 145, 150-53, 159,
203, 212, 249, 323, 325, 366;
mysticism in, 380, 437.
Questionnaire, the, disapproved, 39,
149, 275, 394, 397.
Ramon de Penafort, views on con-
fession, 31.
Rankin, Thomas, 192, 205, 243,
258.
Ratcliff, Mildred, 191, 203-04, 235,
297.
Ratisbonne, Alphonse de, 188, 209,
254, 286 n, 295, 304, 325, 445 n,
473.
Reid, 103.
Reinach, S., Orpheus, cited, 28,
363 n, 416.
Religion, 414 #, 416^, 479 ff,
4S3./7; mass, 7, 410; individual,
7, 411; data for study, 14; re-
lation of, to> introspection, 83-86,
121, 462-63; religious instinct,
391-94, 415-16, 481, 485 ff ; rise
of subjective, 400 ff ; rise of re-
ligious sentiment, 400^, 410 ff,
416, 454; and philosophy, 406 If;
453; national, 410, 411, 413 /,
454 tf.
Renan, Ernest, 58, 185-86, 201,
303, 305-06, 307, 310, 371, 386,
407, 414; quoted, 201, 471, 485.
Rendall, quoted, 308.
Revelations, 362-69, 428 ff.
560
INDEX
Revivals, religious, 223, 224-26,
451, 456, 4:57 ff, 463, 465, 466-
68, 470-72, 473-77, 479-85.
Rhodes, Benjamin, 192, 258.
Ribot, Th., cited, 340 n.
Rice, Luther, 207, 236, 260, 298,
322.
Richardson, John, 190, 204.
Richelieu, 390.
Richter, Jean-Paul, 126; quoted,
94.
Rigge, Ambrose, 235.
Riley, The Founder of Mormonism,
cited, 156 n, 157 n, 371 n, 435,
445.
Roberts, Robert, 192.
Rodda, Richard, 154 n, 192, 212,
236, 257, 300.
Rogers, James, 237.
Rolle, Richard, of Hampole, 143 n,
178, 211, 244, 294, 314, 377,
414, 443.
Romanes, G. J., 103.
Rousseau, 34, 42, 48, 63, 87, 111,
124-26, 134, 164, 165, 166, 175,
393 ; Confessions, 47 n, 51, 52.
Rufinus, 55 n, 56.
Rutherford, Thomas, 193, 316, 324.
Sabatier, cited, 309, 310, 311.
Sadler, cited, 308.
Sainte-Beuve, C. A., Port-Royal,
cited, 7, 122, 253 n; quoted, 36,
145.
St. Cyres, Pascal, quoted, 274.
Saint-Martin, L. C. de, 208, 374.
Salimbene, Fra, 215, 224, 233, 263,
286 n, 290, 314, 451 n, 467,
474 n.
Salmon, Joseph, 260, 293, 321.
Sanctity, 360, 361, 365, 430, 431,
436-37, 444.
Sand, George, cited, 445 n ; Ober-
mann, 13.
Sansom, Oliver, 190, 233, 285 n,
289.
Saul, King, 422.
Savery, William, 255.
Sayce, cited, 21 n.
Scaramelli, S. J., cited, 84 n.
Schelling, 112.
Schieler-Heuser, cited, 24 n.
Schimmelpenninck, 186, 201-02,
233, 320.
Schleiermacher, E., 190, 239.
Schopenhauer, Arthur, cited, 91,
112.
Schouvaloff, Gregoire, 186, 241,
263, 313 n, 317.
Schurman, Anna van, 186, 233.
Scott, Job, 233, 252, 320.
Scott, Thomas, 207, 244, 261, 312.
Self -consciousness, 91 ff ; the Ego,
91, 99-100, 277; personality and,
93^, 277; definition of, 100.
Self-study, 63, 402, 405; candour,
42, 152-56; and mysticism, 98,
106, 413; scientific, 109, 116,
166-68, 175; modern, 409. See
Introspection.
Seneca, 87, 405.
Sewall, Jotham, 237.
Shadford, George, 151 n, 205, 237,
258.
Shaler, N. S., 210, 245.
Shelley, 34, 51, 128-29, 390.
Sherburne, Andrew, 207, 260.
Shillitoe, Thomas, 190, 212, 242.
Simeon, Charles, 210, 244, 254.
Sidis, Boris, Suggestion, quoted
281-82, 286.
Simon, George, 215, 216.
Sin, 254; Unpardonable, 263-69;
Augustin on, 266; as a survival,
267, 268, 477-79.
Sincerity in autobiography, 8.
Sinclar, George, Satan's Invisible
World Discovered, cited, 218 n
221, 459 n, 487.
Smith, Elias, 242, 298.
Smith, Frederick, 214, 242, 246 n,
250.
Smith, Joseph, 157-58, 180, 213,
240, 251, 292-93, 321 343 n
358, 379, 381, 387, 38S, 428,
437, 439, 442, 443, 443 n, 445,
465, 473.
Socrates, Apology, 54, 405, 425;
his daamon, 59 n; attitude to-
ward, 74.
Sophists, 77, 80.
Soul, 405; size of the, 76, 441-
42; Greek idea of, 77-79; mediae-
val ideas of the, 347, 348; wan-
dering of the, 347 ff, 350, 353,
424-29, 430; Roman ideas of the,
411, 425 n; savage ideas of the,
425 ff.
Southcott, Joanna, 197, 214, 239,
263 n, 294, 343, 346, 379, 381,
387, 388, 437, 465.
Speech, relation to thought, 44-45.
Spencer, Herbert, 65, 134, 165,
414, 418 n; Principles of Sociol-
ogy, cited, 167 n, 424 n, 480 n.
Spencer and Gillen, cited, 444.
Spinoza, Benedictus, 110, 487.
Spring, Gardiner, 225, 240, 260,
293.
Spurgeon, C. H., 193, 207, 244,
261.
Staniforth, Sampson, 154 n, 192,
242, 264, 286 n, 300, 324.
Stanton, Daniel, 235.
Stephen, Sir Leslie, 54.
Stevenson, John, 207.
INDEX
561
Stevenson, Robert Louis, quoted,
19, 477.
Stigmata, savage, 444; mediaeval,
196, 218, 444.
Stirredge, Elizabeth, 190, 202, 233,
320.
Story, Christopher, 191, 255, 316 n.
Story, George, 237, 258, 324, 467.
Story, Thomas, 235, 256, 298, 306.
Subjectivity, development of, 54,
66, 86 ff , 98 ff, 129 ; tendency to-
ward, 61, 405-08; the Sophists,
77, 80; trend in literature, 81,
113 /; in religion, 404 /, 408.
Suggestibility, during conversion,
282-84, 469 ff; among moderns,
444.
Suggestion, 466, 469, 477; in con-
version, 151, 281-86, 293, 299,
300, 376 ff; theories on, 281 ff.
Surin, Pere, 220-21, 324, 377, 381,
388, 433, 435.
Survivals, chap, x, 430, 450 ff, 456,
486; Unpardonable Sin as, 268,
477-79; individual, 456-57,
465 ff, 467, 468 ff; witchcraft as,
457^7, 459 ff, 462 ff.
Suso, 172, 189, 202, 222, 233,
252, 289, 314, 318, 346, 368,
376, 380, 414, 437, 443, 474 n,
484 n.
Swedenborg, 14371, 145, 177, 179,
213, 226, 230, 240, 253, 291,
324, 383, 428, 438, 442, 443,
465; spiritual diary, 164, 214.
Symonds, Italian Renaissance,
cited, 54 n.
Tabu, 416; Unpardonable Sin, 478-
79.
Taine, H., quoted, 97, 168.
Tauler, John, 261, 291, 368, 377.
Taylor, Jeremy, Holy Living and
Dying, cited, 75 n, 85.
Taylor, H. O., The Mediceval Mind,
cited, 60 n, 62 n.
Taylor, O. A., 192, 238.
Taylor, Thomas, 154 n, 286 n, 299.
Tennant, Thomas, 192, 324.
Teresa, St., 48, 145, 165, 175, 186,
202, 224, 226, 233, 247, 252,
284, 289, 315, 318, 342, 344,
355, 359, 365, 369, 380, 383,
387, 388, 391, 423, 426, 427,
428, 429 n, 432, 437, 442.
Tertullian, 55 n.
Testamenta. See Confessions.
Theophilus of Antioch, 55 n.
TherSse, 188, 197, 238-39, 250,
262, 294, 320, 357, 378, 381,
431, 474.
Thomas of Cantimpre", 433 n.
Thomas, Joseph, 207, 225, 243,
259.
Thomas, N. W., cited, 422 n, 425 n,
441, 444.
Thomson, W. H., Brain and Per-
sonality, 92 n, 276.
Thompson, Francis, 331.
Thought, relation to speech, 44-45.
Torry, Alvin, 192.
Tolstoi, 51, 186, 211, 241, 252;
My Confession, 312.
Trance, 424 ff, 445, 467, 485.
Travis, Joseph, 192, 236, 257, 264.
Trevor, John, 143 n, 164, 189, 208,
239, 262, 264, 320.
Tucker, Sarah, 235.
Turner, Joanna, 261, 322.
Tylor, E. B., 65, 91, 418 n, 419;
Primitive Culture, quoted, 78-
79, 85, 347, 368, 418 n, 420,
422 n, 423 n, 424 n, 425, 430,
431, 432, 433, 435, 436, 437,
438, 439, 442, 443, 445, 449,
450, 451, 456, 457, 465, 483 n.
Ubertino Da Casale, 115, 294
315 n, 318, 321, 356, 368.
Underbill, Evelyn, 332 n, 334; Mys-
ticism, quoted, 274, 284, 336,
338, 339, 340, 341, 345, 346,
353, 354, 372.
Unification, 88, 334, 344, 346, 347,
355, 437.
Unpardonable Sin, 263-69, 477-79.
Van Der Kemp, 202.
Varani, Baptiste, 209, 254, 286 n,
292, 319, 324, 357, 364 n, 368,
473.
Vaughan, H., 355; quoted, 176.
Vaux, Jean de, 217.
Vedic confessions, 22.
Vernazza, Baptista, 315, 346, 357.
Vestigiary memory, 459-61.
Vestigiary survival, 453, 455 ff,
459, 468-69.
Victor, St., Hugo of, 62, 92, 95,
114, 189, 350, 352, 369, 413 n.
Victor, St., Richard of, 133, Benja-
min Major and Benjamin Minor,
De Contemplatione, quoted, 84,
92, 96, 114, 349, 350, 352, 360,
361, 369, 413 n, 426, 427, 437,
463.
Villa, cited, 95; Contemporary
Psychology, quoted, 98, 100.
Viterbi, L. A., 168.
Voice, 285, 286, 297, 300-01, 307,
352 ff, 384; of God, 437, 441,
443, 458, 485 ; of the dead, 437-
38, 439-41.
Voltaire, 393, 482.
562
INDEX
Vows, 435.
Voynich, Mrs., The Gadfly, 43 n.
Wabose, Catherine, 291, 373, 422,
443 n.
Walsh, Thomas, 154, 193, 206,
243, 257. 299-300.
Ward, Mrs. Humphry, cited, 131.
Ware, Thomas, 154 n, 192, 206,
246 n, 258, 467.
Watson, The Philosophical Basis of
Religion, quoted, 10, 247.
Weeks, John H., cited, 425 n,
478 n.
Weininger, Otto, Sex and Character,
quoted, 90.
Weir, Major, 218 n.
Wentz, A. F., The Fairy Faith in
Celtic Countries, cited, 430 n,
437 n, 441 n.
Wesley, Charles, 154, 206, 324.
Wesley, John, 142 n, 145, 148-50,
- 153-55, 177, 180, 191, 199, 211,
221 n, 240, 247, 253, 304, 311,
317, 323, 388, 414, 434 n, 486 n.
Westermarck, Origin of Moral
Ideas, cited, 22.
Whatcoat, Richard, 237, 258, 299.
Wheeler, Daniel, 190, 205, 242.
Whiston, 65.
Whitefield, George, 151 n, 154, 155,
187, 202-03, 240-41, 252, 255,
264, 289, 312, 414.
Whitehead, George, 191.
Wigham, John, 190, 212, 235.
Wilde, Oscar, 63, De Profundia,
34, 136-38, 165, 214, 401.
Wilkinson, Robert, 154 n, 205, 258,
264, 439.
Williams, Isaac, 203, 213, 233-34,
320.
Williams, Richard, 206, 243, 246 n,
301, 304, 424 n.
Williams, William, 190, 300.
Wilson, Thomas, 234.
Wilson, William, 192, 237-38, 260,
322.
Windelband, quoted, 27, 90; His-
tory of Philosophy, cited, 62 n,
77 n, 81 n, 87 n, 96 n, 109 n,
110, llln, 122.
Winthrop, John, 207.
Witchcraft, 216 ff, 412, 442, 486;
contagion in, 219-21; epidemics
of, 219, 457, 466; witches' Sab-
bat, 219, 459-61, 462^7, 465,
468 ; survival and revival in, 223,
268, 457-63, 466; memory in,
460 ff, 462.
Wood-Martin, Elder Faiths of Ire-
land, 430 n, 438 n. 442 n.
Woolman, John, 153, 212, 234,
251, 312.
Wrede, cited, 309.
Wright, Duncan, 192, 243, 258.
Young, Brigham, 157 n.
Young, Daniel, 154 n, 243, 258,
423.
Young, Jacob, 192, 205, 257, 299.
Young, Lorenzo, 157 n.
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