tihv<xvy of t:he theological ^tmxnavy 
 
 PRINCETON . NEW JERSEY 
 
 
 FROM THE LIBRARY OF THE 
 
 REVEREND CHARLES ROSENBURY ERDMAN 
 D.D., LL.D. 
 
 BV 4501 .S33'"l908 ^ 
 
 Schofield, A. T. 1846-1929. 
 Christian sanity 
 
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 >--4-r<S»-«''V\ 
 
CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
CHRISTIAN 
 SANITY 
 
 A. T. SCHOFIELD, A.D 
 
 Author ol "The Unconscious Mind," "'The Knowledge of God, 
 "With Christ in Palestine," &c., &c. 
 
 WITH A PREFACE BY 
 
 DR. HANDLEY AOULE 
 
 (Bishop 0/ Durham) 
 
 Xa)(f)pov7jcraT€ > 
 
 New York 
 
 A. C ARMSTRONG & SON 
 
 3 AND 5 West Eighteenth Street 
 
 1908 
 
R. W. SIMFSON AND CO , LTD.. 
 
 PRINTERS, 
 
 RICHMOND AND LONDON. 
 
''Me sbouit) live 60berl^ an& riabteouel^ 
 ant) QOM^ in tbis present worlD/' 
 
 '* %ox^f %ot^, Mt) we not propbes^ b^ ^bl? 
 IRame, anC) bp ^bp IRame cast out devils, 
 anO bp tlb^ IRame t)o man^ migbt^ worfts?*' 
 
 **H)epact tcom me, se tbat \oot\i iniquity!'' 
 
PREFACE 
 
 (By the Lord Bishop of Durham.) 
 
 My friend, Dr. Schofield, has been good enough to 
 shew me in proof some important specimens of his 
 work, Christian Sanity. The topic to which he 
 addresses himself is of permanent and now also of 
 peculiar and pressing gravity. 
 
 In every direction we are met with theories of 
 spiritual life, and with actual or alleged phenomena 
 of spiritual or psychical experience which force upon 
 the Christian observer the anxious question, What 
 are these teachings, what are these experiences ? 
 What must I think of their relation alike to the 
 promises and the warnings of Scripture ? What is 
 their place in the study of religion ? What is their 
 bearing on the salvation and sanctification of man ? 
 
 Dr. Schofield has long given his attention, the 
 attention of a highly skilled and widely experienced 
 physician, who is also the convinced and devout 
 believer in our Lord Jesus Christ and His Word, 
 
X PREFACE 
 
 to topics which lie close to those to which he 
 addresses himself in Christian Sanity. 
 
 The specimens of his work on this subject 
 which I have been permitted to see in advance, 
 along with my antecedent confidence in the writer's 
 high competency as student and teacher, lead me to 
 welcome the appearance of the work as one which is- 
 timely in a high degree. May it powerfully aid the 
 cause of what St. Paul so often calls in his latest 
 Epistles, " the healthful doctrine." 
 
 Handley Dunelm. 
 
 December 2nd, 1907. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER Page-. 
 
 I. General Scope of The Subject - - i 
 
 II. The Bible on Christian Sanity - 12 
 
 III. What Is Sanity in Christianity? - - 32 
 
 IV. Sanity in Childhood and Youth - 50 
 
 V. Sanity in Revivals, Conventions and 
 
 Missions - - - - 69 
 
 VI. Sanity in Revivals, Conventions and 
 
 MissiO'i^S— continued - - 86 
 
 VII. Sanity in the Higher Life - - 125 
 
 VIII. The Wiles of the Devil - • 142 
 
 IX. From a Medical Standpoint - - i54- 
 
TO THE READER 
 
 I AM asked to write this book for two reasons. 
 First, there seems to be at the present time 
 a special need for some serious attempt to be 
 made to indicate the line that divides sound 
 from unsound Christian practice, more especially in 
 large gatherings and in the more advanced stages 
 of the Christian life. Secondly, I presume the 
 subject is placed in my hands because, as a Christian 
 physician, I have been for so many years exclusively 
 engaged in seeing and trying to help nerve sufferers 
 of all sorts, including large numbers of Christian 
 people who have lost their health through religious 
 excesses of various kinds, or through some morbid 
 forms of religious exercises. 
 
 Personally I think that a clergyman would be, 
 for many reasons, much better fitted than myself 
 for this difficult and delicate, though perhaps neces- 
 sary task ; but as it has fallen to my lot I will 
 endeavour to throw what light I am able to do on 
 
xiv TO THE READER 
 
 the subject. I, of course, write as one in full 
 sympathy with all forms of religious life, and as 
 holding all the ordinary articles of the Christian 
 faith ; and especially in regarding the inspired Word 
 of God as a final court of appeal in all matters 
 pertaining to faith and doctrine. I shall have to 
 touch upon other topics of great interest, besides 
 those directly concerning sanity ; such as Christian 
 life in childhood and youth. 
 
 One thing however is impressed upon me already, 
 as I write these opening lines, that although to some 
 extent I may be qualified to be a mentor, as being 
 for so long a time acquainted with Christian aberra- 
 tions, it is well to remember that in touching 
 Christians one is touching those who have touched 
 the Divine ; and one must move cautiously and 
 reverently amongst soul-mysteries where God is 
 never very far off; and be very careful before one 
 lays down rules of right conduct on the lines 
 of ordinary mental and medical science, for the 
 limitation of the servants of a Divine Master. 
 
 Still, after all there is such a thing as Christian 
 Sanity, and there is a life in accordance with it 
 that is in favour with God and with wise and 
 thoughtful men ; while, on the other hand, there is 
 an un-Christian insanity, which, however high flown 
 
TO THE READER xv 
 
 its pretensions or mystic its language, brings neither 
 glory to God nor help to men. 
 
 It is therefore with a due sense of the importance 
 and delicacy of the work that I will try and indicate 
 as far as possible the line of demarcation between 
 these two. 
 
 I cannot of course please all, nor would it be 
 desirable if I could. I can only point out what I 
 think is comprehend(id and what is excluded by the 
 title of this book, from the long and often painful 
 experience I have acquired not only of the psychology 
 but of the pathology of Christianity. I am indeed 
 constrained to write it in the hope of pointing out 
 that line of conduct which Scripture specially 
 enjoins for those who live in these closing days. 
 
 ALFRED T. SCHOFIELD, M.D., 
 
 19, Harley Street, 
 
 London, W. 
 January^ igo8. 
 
CHAPTER L 
 
 General Scope of the Subject 
 
 THERE is no country where deviation from 
 the normal is so severely looked upon as in 
 these Isles. On the Continent and in a 
 marked degree as we travel further and 
 further from these shores, passionate words and 
 actions, and manifestations of excitement pass with- 
 out comment, which would be regarded here as 
 almost maniacal and certainly not compatible with 
 full sanity. This is especially so in the whole 
 of the East, for there conditions pass unnoticed, 
 that at home would demand an asylum or a strait- 
 jacket. 
 
 Nor do we find, taking England again as a starting 
 point, and travelling West instead of East, that the 
 idea of what constitutes sanity is more restricted 
 On the contrar}', there again, and especially in 
 Christian circles, all sorts of vagaries and extrava- 
 gances are tolerantly regarded, and by no means 
 looked upon as signs of mania. 
 
 There can be no doubt at all that in this country 
 the limits of what is regarded as sane and sober 
 
 ' B 
 
2 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 conduct are narrower than elsewhere, and that if a 
 man can pass muster here, he will not be regarded 
 anywhere else with suspicion. 
 
 This may account for the demand for a book on 
 this subject, and there is perhaps the greater open- 
 ing for this monograph, because as far as I have 
 been able to ascertain, no similar work has yet 
 appeared ; and while I could wish the subject had 
 been treated by abler hands, I do not think it could 
 have been approached with a deeper sense of its 
 importance, and its value at the present day. 
 
 To understand what is meant bj^ sanity and by 
 Christian sanity, some sort of definition is indispens- 
 able, for we must understand what we mean by the 
 words we use. It is, however, easier to ask for 
 definitions than to get them, and especially in such 
 a case as this. As far as I know, no definition of 
 either sanity or insanity thai will cover all cases has 
 ever yet been given, and even in studying individual 
 cases there are always those so exceedingly doubtful, 
 that since the dividing line has never yet been 
 drawn, it is impossible to pronounce them either sane 
 or insane. As Burke has so wisely said, while * no 
 man has ever been able to say exactly when twilight 
 begins or ends, all men can distinguish between day 
 and night.' The law of the land only recognizes sane 
 and insane, and so far has steadily refused to accept 
 a borderland class ; chiefly on account of the 
 impossibility of making a valid distinction as the 
 dividing line is approached. It would be of th§ 
 
GENERAL SCOPE OF THE SUBJECT 3 
 
 greatest possible service in hundreds of mild and 
 doubtful cases could the sufferers receive some care 
 without being placed in asylums. As it is, there are 
 numbers there for whom they are not intended ; while 
 on the other hand very many are at large to their 
 own danger who ought to receive some care ; but no 
 institution has yet been opened for their relief. 
 
 If there then be such difficulty of judging of some 
 people's mental condition in ordinary affairs, how 
 far more complicated does the problem become if we 
 look at it with regard to Christian life, and from the 
 standpoint moreover of a Christian rather than that 
 of a medical man. 
 
 I hope in the third chapter to describe as well as 
 I can what I mean by Christian sanity. But in 
 doing so we must remember that it is not for us to 
 deny the action of the Spirit of God in Almighty 
 power on the hearts and lives of men, nor to lay 
 down any laws for His action. 
 
 We thus see at once how dangerous it is to pro- 
 nounce any spiritual effects in Christian lives to be 
 sane or insane, according to our preconceived ideas, 
 based solely on human phenomena. 
 
 At the same time, while confessing the great diffi- 
 culty of the task and fully aware of the caution 
 required, we cannot shut our eyes to the crying need 
 there is at the present day at least to attempt it. 
 
 Everywhere^the name of Christ is blasphemed 
 through the wild excesses and fanatical outbursts of 
 Christian, or so-called Christian, men and women. 
 
4 CHRISTIAN SANITV 
 
 Such has been the case in all ages of the Church, 
 and the wildest insanities have been permitted under 
 the name of Christ and Christianity. 
 
 But in the present day the matter is much worse. 
 Not because the excesses are greater, but because 
 the standard of rational life is higher, and though 
 not yet defined, the limits of sanity are certainly 
 better understood, and any outrages on the name of 
 Christ are more flagrant and more disastrous to 
 Christianity. 
 
 I write this book because of the Holy Name by 
 which we are called, and one cannot but shudder 
 to see how it is dragged through the mire of this 
 world's ridicule owing to extravagances whose claim 
 to be Christian, should never have been allowed. 
 
 All who profess and call themselves Christians 
 must account it one of the dearest wishes of their 
 hearts to see that Name reverenced and its dignity 
 upheld by the conduct and practice of those who 
 profess it. 
 
 I know well that the love of God when it reaches 
 and touches the heart of banished man and brings 
 him back to his Father's arms, may occasion such 
 transports of joy as marked the return of the prodigal 
 son in the parable. But though these may be 
 misunderstood by those who do not share them 
 (as by the elder son in the parable), they are divided 
 by a wide gulf from the excesses of which I speak, 
 and are as different in their character as in their 
 source. 
 
GENERAL SCOPE OF THE SUBJECT 5 
 
 It is quite possible that many who read these 
 lines are wholly unaware of the extravagancies to 
 which I refer. 
 
 Their lives have been guarded and secluded, and 
 they may not even have heard of much that has 
 caused this book to be written. But they have seen 
 and do know how unbalanced and easily shaken the 
 faith of multitudes is ; and how little is known in 
 many places of that Christian stedfastness and 
 steady sanity that characterized earlier and quieter 
 days. The wildest doctrines, the newest up-to-date 
 theology, the most mystic nonsense have only got to 
 be spread abroad and their dogmas ventilated and 
 discussed and gratuitously published far and wide 
 by the cheaper papers, and one sees scores and 
 hundreds of men and women, whom hitherto we 
 deemed to be steady and sober-minded Christian 
 people, carried off their feet by the flood, and joining 
 the throng of worshippers at any new shrine ; at 
 which, though many old names are retained, a new 
 worship is offered and a new God adored. It is 
 the devastating effect of these novel cults that 
 demonstrates how little ballast there is of sober 
 sanity in the average twentieth century Christian 
 man. 
 
 But one need not, alas, go to strange creeds to 
 see practices that can hardly be described as 
 sane. Right in evangelical and ultra-protestant 
 circles deeds are done and scenes enacted that by 
 half the spectators are described as manifestations 
 
6 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 of God's Holy Spirit, and by the other half as 
 demonstrations of Satanic power. 
 
 Surely in the present day a Christian of sane and 
 sober mind should be able to distinguish between 
 the operations of the Spirit of God and the out- 
 breaks of diabolic energy ; and Christians should 
 not be led away by the latter, as they undoubtedly 
 are. I shall endeavour in this monograph to trace 
 out some of the causes to which this unsteadiness 
 and want of discernment are probably due. 
 
 There is yet another additional reason for sobriety 
 and sanity, and that is because the end approaches. 
 Whatever may be our views as to the future, all 
 Christian men and women know that we are nearing 
 the close of the age and that there is much predicted 
 in the Bible that is not yet fulfilled, but will shortly 
 come to pass. 
 
 When, in the language of St. Peter, the adversary, 
 the devil, goes about "as a roaring lion," our 
 only safety is to follow the Apostle's advice and to 
 *' be sober," as well as " vigilant." It is well for us 
 to lay to heart the very last words of this Apostle 
 that have been given to the Christian church, for 
 they are full of solemn meaning to us at the present 
 day. 
 
 "Ye therefore beloved, seeing ye know these 
 things before, beware lest ye also, being led away 
 with the error of the wicked, fall from your own 
 stedfastness." 
 
 If this verse had been more heeded there would 
 
GENERAL SCOPE OF THE SUBJECT 7 
 
 be no occasion for this book ; and the Church of 
 God would have been spared much that has 
 disgraced it. 
 
 In considering the subject I may point out that 
 the personal and the racial factor must of necessity 
 be taken into account. The Celt is not the 
 Anglo-Saxon and never will be, and aline of conduct 
 that may be congruous and sane in the one, becomes 
 incongrous, if not insane, in the other — another 
 instance of the impossibility of absolutely drawing 
 a rigid line of demarcation. Because certain 
 things happened at the Welsh revival among Celts 
 that is no possible reason why they should happen 
 in England amongst Anglo-Saxons. 
 
 It was through the want of seeing this that the 
 attempt was made, and incongruous and unseemly 
 scenes occurred recently at one of our largest 
 Conventions. 
 
 St. Paul, after giving the most exhaustive instruc 
 lions for the conduct and procedure of the Church 
 of God in all its assemblies, sums up his whole 
 Apostolic charge in one pregnant sentence, as he 
 concludes with the comprehensive and important 
 exhortation, " Let all things be done decently and 
 in order." 
 
 In this first chapter, which only indicates the 
 subject that is to occupy us, I cannot lay down in 
 detail how this is best to be done. There is no 
 doubt that the exhortation must not be interpreted 
 in too rigid or frigid a sense, but with the warmth 
 
8 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 and love and liberty that must ever characterise true 
 Christian procedure. Indeed, as I have indicated, 
 it is by no means impossible or uncommon to set 
 sanity before Christianity. 
 
 It is quite easy to be sane if we are dead ; and no 
 one can say that where there is no life there is any 
 insanity. Indeed, insanity itself is a proof of life, 
 although grievously disordered. 
 
 One has therefore but scant patience with those 
 censors, who because themselves dead in spirit to 
 the higher Christian realities, condemn as insane all 
 active proofs of Christian life. It is cheap and easy 
 so to do, but grossly misleading. 
 
 It is indeed impossible, as the Apostle argues in 
 the first of Corinthians (chap, ii), for a man to know 
 anything but " the things of a man," with which the 
 " things of God " are placed in sharp contrast. 
 These latter, says the Apostle, are known by none 
 but the Spirit of God and the " natural man," that 
 is, the man not living the spiritual life, not only 
 cannot know these things of God, but they appear 
 to him foolish or insane, as so many things do to 
 us which are beyond our comprehension. 
 
 A stolid Anglo-Saxon tourist surveying with 
 British phlegm the antics and gesticulations in an 
 excited French quarrel might well deem the men 
 mad because he understands neither their language 
 nor their spirit. 
 
 I do not therefore attempt here to answer any 
 common outcries against Christians generally as 
 
GENERAL SCOPE OF THE SUBJECT g 
 
 insane, for these have been common in all ages from 
 New Testament times. Indeed the first Christian 
 gathering ever recorded was looked upon by many 
 as an assembly of drunkards, if not of the insane. 
 ("These men are full of new wine." Acts ii. 13). 
 
 But although much of the outcry against the 
 so-called " insane " conduct of Christians may be 
 safely disregarded, especially when it proceeds from 
 those who have no real knowledge of, or sympathy 
 with Christianity, there still remains, as I have 
 already said, quite enough that is a reproach to 
 religion in the eyes of most earnest Christian people. 
 
 We must remember, in enumerating some of the 
 causes of this, that an ill-balanced or diseased mind 
 does not necessarily become balanced and sound 
 when Christianity is embraced, and in writing of 
 vagaries and excesses one must always consider by 
 whom they are committed, as the mental state so 
 often explains all : and if on the one hand it clearly 
 shows that the acts complained of are not of 
 Divine or Spiritual origin, it equally shows they are 
 not of the devil, as one is often too ready to assume, 
 but are the natural products of a weak brain. 
 
 We may indeed, in searching out causes for the 
 various scenes and acts that bring disgrace on 
 Christianity, find three that are prominent. One 
 is that which I have just mentioned — the mental 
 condition of the individual in question. Another is 
 the effect of false teaching and example. The third 
 lies at the door of religious parents and teachers in 
 
t& CHRISTIAN SANITV 
 
 not sufficiently warning and strengthening their 
 children or pupils as they grow up against all 
 excesses and extravagances associated with 
 Christianity. 
 
 * ***** 
 
 It only remains for me now briefly to indicate 
 the plan of this book. I propose in the first place 
 to examine what is said respecting sanity in 
 Christian practice in the New Testament, and then 
 having laid our foundations on the solid rock of 
 Scripture, proceed to see what practically constitutes 
 sanity in Christianity at the present day, and 
 review the development of Christian life in different 
 stages and at different ages. 
 
 The next thing will be to examine the teaching 
 and practices in conversions, revivals, missions, 
 and Christian conventions, and see how far much 
 that has transpired lately is to be recognised as the 
 outcome of a sound mind, or as the action of the 
 Spirit of God. 
 
 We may then consider Christian sanity in relation 
 to the higher spiritual experiences, and carefully 
 examine the special dangers that beset the path 
 f more advanced Christians. Lastly it may be 
 well to examine the pathology of Christianity, that 
 is, those forms of religious aberration that seem to 
 arise from certain misuses of Christian doctrines 
 and practices. 
 
 In other words, in this last chapter we may look 
 at our subject of Christian sanity a little from 
 
GENERAL SCOPE OF THE SUBJECT ii 
 
 the medical point of view rather than simply from 
 the Christian standpoint. 
 
 It is to be hoped that when we have traversed 
 this ground together we may have learned some- 
 thing more of the gravity and importance of the 
 whole matter, and be better qualified to discern 
 what is not of God or of the Holy Spirit; while 
 at the same time we may be able to recognise and 
 endorse every action of Divine power. 
 
CHAPTER 11. 
 The Bible on Christian Sanity. 
 
 ON opening our New Testaments two points 
 at once strike us respecting our subject* 
 The one is how often Christians (and their 
 Master) were accounted mad ; and theif 
 other, how constantly they are exhorted to be sane.^j 
 
 We may get some vahiable general light upon^ 
 our subject by first of all briefly reviewing the 
 passages in question. 
 
 I will begin with insanitj^, first as to the Master 
 and then with regard to His servants. Four times 
 our Lord was said to " have a devil," and once to 
 be "mad" or maniacal, and once to be "basida 
 himself" or bewitched {e^i(^r<yfiL), a milder word. [ 
 will take the passages in their order. 
 
 Mark iii. 21, Luke xi. 15. " And when his friends 
 
 heard it, they went out to lay hold on him: for 
 
 they said ' He is beside himself.' And the scribes 
 
 which came down from Jerusalem (to Capernaum) 
 
 said ' He hath Beelzebub,' " The setting of this 
 
 scene is remarkable. Just before, St. Matthew (xii. 
 
 18-21) gives us God's estimation of the man Christ 
 
 12 
 
THE BIBLE ON CHRISTIAN SANITY 13 
 
 Jesus at that very time ; and it forms an interesting 
 contrast to that of His " friends." 
 
 God says, " Behold my servant whom I have 
 chosen ; My beloved in whom my soul is well 
 pleased ; I will put my Spirit upon him. And he 
 shall declare judgment to the Gentiles. He shall 
 not Btrive nor cry aloud ; neither shall any one hear 
 his voice in the streets. A bruised reed shall he 
 not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench, 
 till he send forth judgment unto victory. And in 
 his name shall the Gentiles trust." 
 
 His friends at this very time go out to lay hold of 
 him as insane. 
 
 His enemies say He has a devil. Here is a three- 
 fold simultaneous estimation of Christ, and it is not 
 without warning at the present day, and may well 
 cause Christian " friends," as well as the writer of 
 this book, to proceed with caution, lest their judg- 
 ment should be found equally grievously astray ! 
 
 The immediate ground for supposing insanity here 
 appears to be that our Lord had no time for any 
 set meals. In Matt. xi. 18 He had already pointed 
 out to His disciples that this abstinence from food 
 caused John the Baptist to be condemned as having 
 a devil. This attitude of His friends gives us 
 an instance of the very slight grounds upon 
 which we are sometimes led to doubt one another's 
 sanity. 
 
 With regard to His enemies, they then and there 
 committed that special sin against the Holy Ghost 
 
14 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 concerning which our Lord speaks in such solemn 
 terms. 
 
 Here then at the very outset we get a fearful 
 warning against hastily assuming that unusual and 
 unconventional phenomena in Christian work are 
 necessarily of Satanic agency. It calls, upon us, 
 indeed, perhaps more than any other passage in 
 Scripture, to exercise the greatest care in judging 
 any manifestations that claim to be those of the 
 Spirit of God. This whole passage has much to 
 say to us to-day. 
 
 The next instance is John vii. 20. "The multitude 
 answered, ' Thou hast a devil,' who seeketh to kill 
 thee ? " The accusation here is for quite another 
 reason, and appears to be rather a malicious remark 
 than the utterance of the deliberate judgment of His 
 " friends." Our Lord had revealed the thoughts ot 
 His hostile audience suddenly and in a most 
 disquieting manner by quietly saying, " Why seek 
 ye to kill me ? " They, conscious, or perhaps as 
 yet but semi-conscious, of the impulse that lay deep 
 in their hearts, tried to attribute the idea to a delusion 
 of the devil and to regard Christ as one possessed. 
 
 The next instance is in John viii. 48. " The 
 Jews answered and said unto him, ' Say we 
 not well that thou art a Samaritan and hast a 
 devil?'" and (v. 52) "Now we know that thou hast 
 a devil." This was on the occasion when our Lord 
 was teaching divine truths of the Fatherhood of God, 
 culminating in the claim to be in His own Person 
 
THE BIBLE ON CHRISTIAN SANITY 15 
 
 the " Jehovah " of His people. And for this they 
 would have stoned Him ; no comforting thought of 
 the "Divine imminence" in the hearts of all men 
 being present to lessen the startling effect of the 
 tremendous truth. 
 
 The last instance is in John x. 20, " And many of 
 them said, He hath a devil and is mad ; why hear ye 
 him ? " The occasion here was the truth concerning 
 the resurrection that our Lord was teaching them in 
 these words, " I lay down my life that I may take it 
 again. No one taketh it away from me I have 
 power to lay it down, and I have power to take 
 it again." 
 
 I have shown how the first occasion on which our 
 Lord was accounted mad might be repeated now in 
 a very similar way with regard to Christians con- 
 sidering the differences of time and place ; and with 
 regard to the last three, if men become uneasy in 
 conscience as here (John vii. 20), it is no uncommon 
 thing for them to abuse the preacher ; while with 
 regard to the other two, staunch upholders of the 
 Deity of our Lord (with which the virgin birth is 
 generally connected), and of His literal bodily 
 resurrection are still not infrequently accounted — 
 at any rate foolish and credulous. 
 
 The occasion on which our Lord was said to be 
 "beside himself" or bewitched is in Mark iii. 21, 
 and has already been referred to in the first of the 
 four passages. Besides these Christ suffered from 
 being called many opprobrious names, but we 
 
i6 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 restrict ourselves here to the limits of our direct 
 subject. 
 
 * * # * » * 
 
 Turning now from Christ to Christians, we must 
 remember these words : 
 
 *' A servant is not above his master nor a disciple 
 above his Lord. It is enough for the disciple that 
 he be as his master, and the servant as his Lord. 
 If they have called the master of the house Beelze- 
 bub, how much more shall they call them of his 
 household ? " 
 
 The first case is St. John the Baptist, and they 
 could not begin earlier than with the forerunner of 
 Christ. He, because he came neither eating nor 
 drinking, was said to " have a devil." Ascetics in 
 all ages have often had similar epithets cast at them. 
 
 The next case is most interesting, and is that of a 
 servant girl called Rhoda, who, because she came 
 and told the members of a prayer-meeting (not 
 sceptics or careless people) that their prayers were 
 answered, was declared to be mad. The passage is 
 in Acts xii. 12, and lest I should be thought to have 
 overstated the case I quote the verses. " Peter came 
 to the house of Mary, the mother of John, whose 
 surname was Mark (the evangelist), where many 
 were gathered together and were praying." (For 
 the subject of their prayers see v. 5. " But prayer 
 was made earnestly of the church unto God for 
 Peter.") 
 
 The prayer was answered by the release of St. 
 
THE BIBLE ON CHRISTIAN SANITY 17 
 
 Peter, who actually came and knocked at the gate 
 while the meeting was being held. The maid went 
 to the door and recognised St. Peter's voice with- 
 out, as he was well known at this house. Leaving 
 the gate still locked she rushed back into the prayer- 
 meeting and told them their request was granted 
 and St. Peter was released. She was declared mad, 
 and when she kept to her statement and maintained 
 it to be true, sooner than believe their prayers were 
 effectual they concluded he had been executed in 
 prison, and his departed spirit had come to visit 
 them. I wonder if St. James who afterwards wrote 
 "The prayer of faith shall save the sick," was in 
 this prayer-meeting, for there would appear to 
 be a most entire absence of this quality in the 
 prayers that night. But St. Peter kept on knocking, 
 and at last convinced them their request had been 
 granted, and they were most astonished. Nothing 
 really seems quite so incredible to many men, and 
 Christian men too, as an answer to prayer. 
 
 I think here, too, we may find a parallel to-day ; 
 for Miiller and others who looked on prayer as 
 indeed a power, and proved it to be so, were long 
 accounted very visionary if not insane. This is an 
 important part of our subject, for the question often 
 arises " How far is it safe to trust God to answer 
 our prayers for material things ? " And though of 
 course we all say at first " What a dreadful ques- 
 tion ! " when it practically comes to the point, the 
 answers are very diverse and the practice still more 
 
 c 
 
i8 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 so, in spite of the wonderful examples of Miiller and 
 others. I was dining with a man some time ago who 
 many years before had been used by God to lay the 
 foundation of the higher spiritual life in England 
 from which sprang the Keswick and other conven- 
 tions ; and he asked me with real interest if I could tell 
 him what was the secret of the immense power that 
 prevailed in all his meetings at that time, for it had 
 always puzzled him. I said I thought it was 
 because he seemed to have brought home to the 
 Christians of England that if God were only trusted 
 He would be as good as His word. " I suppose 
 that must be it," he said. 
 
 Perhaps here I should turn back to Acts ii. 13. 
 When the first Christian assembly was held it was 
 thought by some to be a gathering of drunkards (as 
 I have pointed out elsewhere). "They are filled 
 with new wine." Such a charge almost amounts to 
 one of temporary insanity. 
 
 We pass on to St. Paul's case in Acts xxvi. 24, 
 25. " Festus said with a loud Yoice, Paul, thou art 
 mad; thy much learning doth turn thee to 
 madness. But Paul saith, I am not mad, most 
 excellent Festus, but speak forth words of truth and 
 soberness." 
 
 This again was on an occasion when St. Paul was 
 speaking of the resurrection of Christ ; and there 
 is little doubt that it was this truth, coupled 
 with St. Paul's account of his conversion that 
 caused Festus to exclaim that he was a madman. 
 
THE BIBLE ON CHRISTIAN SANITY 19 
 
 There was evidently nothing in his manner or 
 bearing to induce such a charge. 
 
 St. Paul, however, speaking of his own conduct 
 previous to his conversion says that he was 
 " exceedingly mad " against the Christians, using 
 practically the same expression against himself that 
 Festus used with regard to him when he was being 
 persecuted in his turn. There is no doubt that 
 Festus would consider St. Paul's action in persecut- 
 ing the Church as exceedingly sane. 
 
 So that we observe here that conduct which would 
 be ordinarily thought sane, may by Christians be 
 considered mad ; while conduct thought to be mad 
 by others, may by Christians be looked on as sane. 
 
 The next passage I shall adduce is in i Cor. xiv. 
 23. " If therefore the whole church be assembled 
 together, and all speak with tongues, and there 
 come in men unlearned or unbelieving, v/ill they not 
 say that ye are mad ? " 
 
 This is, I think, a very important passage, because 
 it shows that though unlearned or unbelieving men 
 may (as in this case) be erroneous in their judgment, 
 it is not therefore to be disregarded. All occasion 
 for such a mistake is to be removed, and all is to be 
 done with sobriety and intelligence. 
 
 The last passage is in 2 Cor, v. 13. " For 
 whether we are beside ourselves, it is unto God ; or 
 whether we are of sober mind, it is unto you." 
 
 The apostle here acknowledges that in the trans- 
 ports of Divine love the soul is as it Vv^ere for the 
 
20 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 time "bewitched" or "beside itself" with joy; 
 sobriety comes when face to face with human need 
 and misery.* 
 
 This also is a passage we do well to ponder 
 as it shows that there is a sense in which one can 
 be "beside oneself" rightly and with God, and 
 indeed while actually entirely in one's right mind. 
 ****** 
 
 These few passages have already thrown valuable 
 light upon one side of our subject, and we doubt 
 not the other side will be illumined still more by the 
 numerous passages in which sobriety is enjoined. 
 One wo rd onl y, with its five derivations, is used in 
 the New Testament to denote soundness of mjnd, 
 and that is aoo^^oiv. Its derivations are the noun 
 acocppoavvT] — wisdom ; the adverb aco(fip6va)<i — wisely ; 
 the noun aw^povia^i6<; — soundness of mind; and 
 the two verbs aw^poveco and aw^povi^w — to be 
 wise ; (xdocppcov and its derivatives are translated 
 sober, temperate, discreet, of a sound mind, of a 
 sober mind, and of a right mind. The passages are 
 twelve in number. 
 
 I. The first is Acts xxvi. 25. "But Paul saith, 
 1 am not mad, most noble Festus ; but speak forth 
 words of truth and soberness." Here soberness is 
 placed in direct opposition to madness and is 
 equivalent to sanity. Here the words are sane 
 words. 
 
 *An analogous passage is, " Be not drunk with wine, wherein 
 is excess ; but be filled with the Spirit " (Eph. v. 18). 
 
THE BIBLE ON CHRISTIAN SANITY 2i 
 
 2. The next passage is Romans xii. 3. "For 
 I say, through the grace that was giYen me, to 
 every man that is among you, not to think of him- 
 self more highly than he ought to think ; but so to 
 think as to think soberly, according as God hath 
 dealt to each man a measure of faith." Here we 
 see that our thoughts are to be sane thoughts, as 
 well as our words sane words. 
 
 3. 2 Cor. V. 13. " Whether we are beside our- 
 selves it is unto God ; or whether we are of sober 
 (sane) mind, it is unto you." This seems to teach, 
 as I have already pointed out, that whatever our 
 transports in our devotion and worship, in our ser- 
 vice to man, a sane mind is always to be conspicu- 
 ously present. This is sanity in service. 
 
 4. I Tim. ii. g. "In like manner that women 
 adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shame- 
 fastness and sobriety." The first word diSox: 
 " shamefastness " or " shamefacedness " is only used 
 once elsewhere in the New Testament, Heb. xii. 
 28, "with reverence {atSco'i) and godly fear; for 
 our God is a consuming fire." This then, this holy 
 reverence and awe together with sanity is to adorn 
 all Christian women. Nothing could be more, 
 opposed in its spirit to the levity and flippancy audi 
 familiarity, to say nothing of the undue excitement} 
 with which holy mysteries are too often approached 
 in the present day. Here we get sanity in women. 
 
 5. I Tim. ii. 15. "She shall be saved through 
 the (or her) child bearing, if they continue in faith 
 
92 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 and love and sanctification with sobriety or (sanity)." 
 
 I will not discuss this somewhat obscure passage 
 now, as it does not concern our subject, but merely 
 remark that here we get sanity in connection with 
 motherhood. 
 
 6. 2 Tim. i. 7. "For God gave us not a spirit of 
 fearfulness, but of power and love and discipline " 
 
 (or a sound or a sane mind). Here is a text worthy 
 of close study, and yet I am unable here to do more 
 than glance at it. Three things are here placed 
 together, not only as not being incompatible with 
 each other, but positively harmonious and forming 
 the three sides of a true Christian character. 
 Spiritual power is often made an excuse for 
 extravagances of conduct ; not so here. Love, 
 too, is made to cover more sins than were 
 ever contemplated by the apostle Peter (i Pet. 
 iv. 8) and condone all sorts of excesses ; not so here. 
 With both power and love are coupled, to maintain 
 the balance of Christian conduct, the essential 
 element of a sane mind. But then there is the other 
 side. Of little value is this boasted sanity unless it 
 acts as a handmaid to the two great qualities of 
 power and love. Power that propels the life and 
 love that guides its direction. A little reflection 
 will show us how perfectly the last of the three is 
 the complement of the other two. So that here we 
 get sanity in mind. 
 
 7. Titus i. 8. (The bishop must be) ** giyen to 
 hospitality, a lover of good, sober (or sane) minded, 
 
THE BIBLE ON CHRISTIAN SANITY 23 
 
 just, holy, temperate." We here get as an essential 
 quality in a church dignitary that sanity and sobriety 
 of which I speak. So that here we get sanity in 
 office. 
 
 8. Titus ii. 2. " That aged men be temperate / 
 grave, sober-minded." This is perhaps the easiest I 
 exhortation to follow that we have yet found. For \ 
 when the hot blood of youth is spent and the years 
 of discretion attained, it is comparatively easy to be 
 sober-minded. Here then we get sanity in old age. 
 
 g. Titus ii. 5. "The young women to be sober- 
 minded, chaste, workers at home." The exhorta- 
 tion to sobriety in v. 4 found in the authorized 
 version is left out in the revised, and I do not there- 
 fore give it. But here in v. 5 is the special 
 exhortation to young wives to be sober in their 
 general conduct. This then is sanity in marriage. 
 
 10. Titus ii. 6. " The younger men likewise 
 exhort to be sober minded." The Bible does not\ 
 seem to leave a condition of life without its especial ' 
 exhortation to sober-mindedness, so important a j 
 place does this subject occupy in Scripture. Here, ' 
 indeed, the exhortation is needed, though not always 
 heeded. While the right place must be given to 
 enthusiasm, and to zeal and devotion, there must be 
 this sober-mindedness with it all. And this is not 
 always popular ; though if we consider the supreme 
 importance that the name of Christ should be 
 honoured through the conduct and character of 
 those who proclaim themselves His followers, the 
 
24 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 great part this sober-mindedness plays in the 
 conduct of young men is at once apparent. This 
 then is sanity in youth. 
 
 II. Titus ii. II, 12. " For the grace of God hath 
 appeared bringing salvation to all men, instructing 
 us to the extent that, denying ungodliness and 
 worldly lusts, we should live soberly and right- 
 eously and godly in this present world." 
 
 The grace of God brings salvation, but it also 
 instructs the one who is saved, the Christian man, in 
 his threefold bearing towards himself, his neighbour, 
 and his God. In his own conduct there is but one 
 quality enjoined — sobriety or sanity. This must be 
 well marked. Towards his neighbour he is to be 
 righteous, towards God, godly. And the three begin 
 with sobriety and sanity. Does not this passage 
 truly give a foremost place to our subject ? Suppose 
 for a moment it said instructing us to speak in 
 tongues or to work miracles, or even to heal the sick. 
 But no ! the first and foremost instruction of the 
 grace of God is none of these things, nor any gift 
 whatever, but sanity and sobriety in bearing and 
 conduct. 
 
 I think those who give full weight to this passage 
 will feel that sanity could not be put in a more 
 prominent or important place. So that here we get 
 sanity in conduct. 
 
 12. I Pet. iv. 7. " But the end of all things is at 
 hand, be ye therefore of sound mind, and be sober 
 ojito prayer." The word sober here we have not 
 
THE BIBLE ON CHRISTIAN SANITY 25 
 
 met before, but will discuss later ; it is the sound 
 mind that belongs to the root ' aax^pcov ' which we 
 are now considering. Here is a fitting exhortation 
 for a last word in sanity, and the word therefore 
 comes to us with great force in connection with the 
 end of all things which draws near. We began 
 with sanity and we must end with it, too, and for a 
 special reason. Those who carefully study 2 Peter 
 ii. will soon discover the reason, for it is in the days 
 of disorder, when much insanity abounds, that 
 sanity is hard to find, and hence it is so earnestly 
 enjoined here. 
 
 This then is sanity to the end. 
 
 Let me sum up the wonderful counsels connected > 
 with this one word ' aoi^poiv.' It is earnestly enjoined 
 as a distinguishing characteristic to young men, young 
 women, married women, mothers and old men. It 
 is enjoined in conduct, in office, in mind, in service, 
 in thought, and in word, and lastly it is to continue/ 
 to the end. 
 
 We may notice here that o f the t w el yejjjass ages, 
 nine are from epistles to individuals and not to the 
 C hu r ch7"sHe wi ng~th at sanity is essentially a quality 
 appertaining to each ipdividual Christian, rather 
 than to corporate bodies ; for after all, it is this 
 sanity in individual lives that checks all unseemly 
 displays in large gatherings of people. 
 
 Before leaving this subject I should like to call 
 attention to four other Greek words enjoining 
 virtues akin to sanity. 
 
26 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 \ The first is the one beloved of Matthew Arnold, 
 iTrieUeLa and translated by him " sweet reason- 
 ableness." It occurs seven times, Acts xxiv. 4 ; 2 
 / Con X. I ; Phil. iv. 5 ; i Tim. iii. 3 ; Titus iii. 2 ; 
 James iii. 17 ; i Pet. ii. 18 ; and five times it is 
 translated gentle and gentleness, once forbearance, 
 and once clemency. 
 
 It is an eminently sane quality. The better 
 balanced a man is, the wiser, the more sure of him- 
 self, the gentler does he become, the more reasonable 
 is his bearing to all. To me this sweet reasonable- 
 ness of Christianity is a most precious and fragrant 
 quality ; and sometimes when one has unhappily 
 been immersed for hours in some scene of strife or 
 bigotry amongst Christians, it is like an oasis in the 
 desert to come across a spirit graced with this 
 iTTieUeia. 
 
 Let no bitter or narrow spirit cry out that it is 
 easy to be gentle if indifferent. 
 
 It is not easy to be gentle, the eTrieUeia of which 
 the Bible speaks, comes from companying with the 
 Master, and is a heavenly grace. It has also no 
 connection with indifference, but a very close con- 
 nection with sanity. 
 
 A brief study of the passages, for which I have not 
 time here, will well repay the trouble and bring forth 
 some of the hidden beauties of the word. 
 
 The next word is vi](})co and its derivative 
 vr](paXe6';. This means a watchful soberness, and 
 includes also the sobriety that comes from abstinence. 
 
THE BIBLE ON CHRISTIAN SANITY 27 
 
 It is not exactly the sobriety of sanity of which we 
 have spoken, but the sobriety of being on the watch 
 and alert. 
 
 The passages are i Thess. v. 6, 8 ; i Tim. iii., 2, 
 II; 2 Tim. iv. 5; Titus ii. 2 ; i Pet. i. 13, iv. 7, 
 V. 8, _ 
 
 Six times the word is translated sober, and thrice 
 temperate. It is closely akin to sanity. Each 
 passage should be carefully studied. 
 
 The third word is iyKpareia, which again means 
 temperate or sober, but from yet another different 
 standpoint — that of self-control. If anyone wishes 
 to spend a profitable hour and has the most 
 elementary knowledge of Greek, let him with a good 
 concordance and a good dictionary look up the 
 meaning and uses in the New Testament of these 
 three forms of sobriety : the sobriety of the sound 
 mind {aco(f)pa)v), the sobriety of watchfulness 
 {vi](j)o)), and the sobriety of self-control {iyKpdreia). 
 This word is only used six times, and five times it 
 is translated temperance or self-control and once 
 continence. The passages are remarkable and 
 worth a brief reference. 
 
 I. Acts xxiv. 25. "And as Paul reasoned of 
 righteousness and temperance and the judgment to 
 come, Felix trembled." Compare this last word 
 carefully with Titus ii. 12 and note the three 
 subjects in each ; one personal, one relative, and one 
 divine. 
 
 In Titus the grace of God instructs us to be sober 
 
28 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 in ourselves, righteous to our neighbour, and godly 
 to God. 
 
 In the Acts, St. Paul speaks of self-control of 
 ourselves, righteousness with our neighbour, and 
 the coming judgment before God. It is again most 
 remarkable that of all the qualities of human conduct 
 and character St. Paul speaks of but one, temperance 
 or self-control. This is, of course, closely akin to 
 sanity. 
 
 2. The next passage is i Cor. vii. 9, where the 
 self-control of the body is spoken of. 
 
 3. The next is i Cor. ix. 25 : "Every man 
 that striveth in the games is temperate (self-control) 
 in all things," So in the Christian race. He that 
 would win and wear the crown must through his 
 life be sane and self-controlled. 
 
 4. The next is Gal. v. 23, where this virtue is 
 one of the fruits of the Spirit, and one without which 
 the Christian would be very incomplete and bring 
 but little glory to God. 
 
 5. Titus i. 8. Here the virtue is an essential 
 quality in a bishop, as well as we have already seen 
 — a sound mind. 
 
 6. 2 Peter i. 5,6: In your faith supply virtue 
 and in your virtue, knowledge ; and in your know- 
 ledge, temperance ; and in your temperance, 
 patience ; and in your patience, godliness." 
 
 Here in St. Peter's famous addition sum, so hard to 
 work and get the answer right, one of the most 
 
THE BIBLE ON CHRISTIAN SANITY 29 
 
 important figure is self-control, and it is the want 
 of this virtue that so often makes the total 
 wrong. 
 
 The fourth and last of the words I would group 
 round acocjipcov is vyidtvo) and its derivative, v'yiy]<i 
 This means sound in the sense of healthy, 
 or whole, and is applied to both body and mind. 
 Omitting the former passages, we find ten that refer 
 to mental action. A whole, healthy mind is un- 
 doubtedly a sane mind, and these ten passages 
 have therefore a very close bearing on Christian 
 sanity. They differ, however, greatly in their use 
 from those we have already considered. The pas- 
 sages are i Tim. i. 10 ; vi. 3 ; 2 Tim. i. 13 ; iv. 3 ; 
 Titus i. 9 ; i. 13 ; ii. i ; ii. 2 ; ii. 8 ; and 
 3 John 2. 
 
 The words we have reviewed so far refer almost 
 entirely to personal sanity of conduct and character ; 
 but this word, with the one exception of 3 John 2, 
 which after all may refer to the body, has nothing 
 personal about it, but refers entirely to the doctrine, 
 teaching, and faith of the person. This is a question 
 of sanity in teaching of wholesome, healthy, hygienic, 
 sane words and doctrine, and this word completes 
 our subject, because sanity in doctrine and teaching 
 is as important to-day as sanity in conduct, and 
 wholesome words as much needed as a self-controlled 
 life. 
 
 The passages where this word occurs are so 
 important that I must touch on one or two. In 
 
3© CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 the second (i Tim. vi. 3) these " sound " words are 
 said to be the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and 
 there is the most solemn warning to keep to them. 
 The next passage (2 Tim. i. 13) is )'et more emphatic. 
 " Hold the pattern of sound words which thou hast 
 heard from me." 
 
 In the midst of the advanced and new teaching 
 that abounded even then, the pattern of sound v/ords 
 was to be zealously maintained ; and now standing 
 at a period of nearly two millenniums later, this 
 pattern has not become obsolete or of less value. 
 But the next passage shews that it is certainly less 
 acceptable and cannot compete in popularity with 
 the new phases of faith or " unfaith " that abound. 
 2 Tim. iv. 3 : " For the time will come when they 
 will not endure the sound doctrine ; but having 
 itching ears, will heap to themselves teachers after 
 their own lusts." Titus, too, is earnestly enjoined 
 by the apostle in his Epistle (Titus i. 13) to reprove 
 the Cretans sharply, that " they may be sound in the 
 faith," not giving heed to Jewish fables. He tells 
 Titus himself (Titus ii. i) to speak " the things which 
 befit the sound doctrine," and ever in his doctrine 
 to shew " uncorruptness, gravely sound speech 
 that cannot be gainsaid " all of which points to the 
 supreme importance which St. Paul attached to this 
 quality of soundness of speech and of mind in 
 speech. 
 
 So that now we have the full teaching of the New 
 Testament that bears upon our subject, and most 
 
THE BIBLE ON CHRISTIAN SANITY 31 
 
 wonderful it is, may I illustrate the five words 
 thus : — 
 
 eTneUeta iyfcpdT€ta 
 
 (gentleness.) -.^.^^ ^^.^^ (self-control.) 
 
 tn^PO^TNH 
 
 - (SANITY.) ^.^^^^^ 
 
 vi](f)aX€6^ ""'^ ^^ vyidu'Q) 
 
 (sobriety.) (soundness.) 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 What is Sanity in Christianity ? 
 
 HUMAN minds are quite competent to judge 
 of all human affairs, and the "common 
 sense " of civilised humanity has long 
 since laid down a rough but intelligible and generally- 
 workable standard of sober and rational conduct as 
 contrasted with that of inebriety or insanity. The 
 rational common sense of the community compre- 
 hends what is meant by sanity and insanity, how- 
 ever impossible they may find the words to be of 
 definition. If we turn to the dictionaries, this 
 difficulty of definition is ludicrously obvious. 
 Murray, in his monumental work can only define 
 " insanity " as *' unsound in mind." This dictionaiy, 
 unfortunately, is not yet completed as far as 
 " sanity." 
 
 Webster defines " sane " as " possessing a 
 rational mind ; having the mental faculties in such 
 condition as to be able to anticipate and judge of 
 the effects of one's actions in an ordinary manner." 
 
 A most cumbrous and unsatisfactory definition, 
 that leaves us rather worse off than before, as we read 
 
 83 
 
WHAT IS SANITY IN CHRISTIANITY? 33 
 
 it ; for if such a test were applied to all our actions 
 few of us would be pronounced " sane." 
 
 The Century dictionary gives "sane " as " mentally 
 sound " — which we knew before. 
 
 I merely adduce these instances to show that even 
 to the highly-trained minds of these dictionary 
 authorities these words are really undefinable. 
 Nevertheless practically, everyone pronounces with 
 great assurance whether such a person or such 
 action were sane or insane. 
 
 It is, as I h?ve already suggested in the first 
 chapter, quite another matter when we have to deal 
 with life and conduct into which a fresh and higher 
 motive power has entered. On this point indeed it 
 is necessary to have a clear understanding if we are 
 to really grasp our subject. 
 
 There certainly is such a thing as a higher 
 spiritual life which all men have not entered. Those 
 who have are, in the language of Scripture, " born 
 again"; and the time or occasion of entrance, if 
 at all marked or sudden, is called " conversion," 
 concerning which I shall bring forward some most 
 interesting facts in the next chapter. Those thus 
 spiritually awake are called in a special sense 
 " Children of God," as in John i. 12 where this 
 birthright is made conditional upon " receiving " 
 Christ and not upon natural birth. They are also 
 in an especial way indwellt by the Holy Spirit of 
 God (Romans viii. 10, 11). To some, of course, this 
 " new birth " is said to be the time when man 
 
 D 
 
34 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 awakes to his right and true status. Such is gener- 
 ally the teaching of the " new theology " school. 
 To the Bible, however, the awakening is the dis- 
 covery of one's sinful state and need of Divine 
 mercy, and the " new birth " is not the recognition 
 of any existing condition, but of entrance into the 
 new life by the external agency of the Spirit (John 
 iii. 5) and that of the Word of God* (i Peter i. 23). 
 I merely allude to the new birth to show that by it, 
 
 *Water is possibly mentioned, both in its typical meaning 
 as representing God's word, and in its literal significance in 
 Christian baptism as connected with belief. This literal mean- 
 ing is, I know, often denied ; but it is a little strained to think 
 that to a self-righteous, though enquiring Pharisee, our Lord 
 would use water without explanation to mean the word of God, 
 of which it is not generally regarded as a type ; a sword and 
 fire being both better known figures. On the other hand, it is not 
 unlikely Christ may have referred to literal water, if, as has 
 been supposed, Nicodemus was one of those who stayed up in 
 Jerusalem, and did not go down, as did others, to John to be 
 baptized in the Jordan, confessing their sins. This use of water 
 would at once bring the matter home to his conscience, and 
 may be taken as a parallel to the fire of coals in the resurrec- 
 tion, carrying Peter's thoughts back to the fire, by the side of 
 which he had denied his Lord. To suppose, however, 
 that it teaches baptismal regeneration and that water 
 so used has any saving efficacy, is beside the tenor of 
 the passage ; as there can be no doubt that of the two, it is 
 the Spirit that is the agent of the new birth ; for it is the Spirit 
 that quickeneth and giveth life, and not water. But I must not 
 discuss the subject here ; and only mention it as a protest 
 against arbitrarily limiting any Scripture to a single interpreta- 
 tion. 
 
WHAT IS SANITY IN CHRISTIANITY? 35 
 
 one is lifted into a higher spiritual existence in 
 which the soul is in touch with God, in the special 
 relationship of a child with a father. 
 
 Observe, without this spiritual life one cannot 
 " see the Kingdom of God." 
 
 Perhaps one can understand this more readily 
 if one considers for a moment the conditions by 
 which life in various stages is limited. 
 
 Take a fish and a frog ; the former dies in agonies 
 out of water, whereas the frog is perfectly happy. 
 Moreover the frog can breathe the pure air of heaven 
 with lungs, the fish only the aerated water with gills. 
 The parallel is far from perfect, but it will suffice ; for 
 the difference between what the Bible calls "the 
 natural man " and " the spiritual man " is just as 
 marked. The former is perfectly adapted for his 
 milieu ; and with things around he is in perfect 
 touch — it is the things above that puzzle him. He is 
 a kind and good man and admirably adapted to 
 adorn the plane on which he lives. But he is not a 
 spiritual man. Supposing some text, some whisper 
 of the Divine Spirit awake him to a higher life ; in 
 the language of our Lord he is " born again " as 
 " from above " ; and the result is a Christian life. He 
 can now breathe a spiritual air that would have been 
 positively poison to him before. He can live in a 
 Christian environment and society that he would 
 not go near before ; and the man who can do this, 
 can and will breathe the pure air of heaven when he 
 exchanges this world for the next ; while previous 
 
36 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 to the change, he could not live in heaven even were 
 he taken there — the air is too rarified. 
 
 That is why Christ said " Ye must be born again." 
 It is no question of expediency, nor can we say that 
 even if we are not, the love of God will still take us 
 to heaven all the same. Such an action would 
 be cruelty, not mercy. We must be fitted for 
 a sphere before we can Hve in it ; and Scripture 
 shows conclusively that the "fitting" does not 
 consist in education or ethics, or in any sort of 
 improvement of the old life, but in the raising of 
 the man to a new and higher life. 
 
 This being clearly understood, it will be readily 
 apprehended that many of the rules and regulations 
 so admirably adapted for the material life fail in their 
 application to the spiritual ; but the Christian does 
 not, therefore, in Christian matters, give up his 
 common sense. On the contrary, the Apostles' 
 stern command that in Christian gatherings and 
 procedure " All things were to be done decently and 
 in order " (i Cor. xiv. 40) is emphatic, and can be 
 thoroughly understood and warmly approved of by 
 all. Only we must remember that, though in the 
 spiritual world there is nothing contrary to reason, 
 there is much that is above and beyond it, much that 
 
 " The world's coarse thumb 
 And finger failed to plumb." 
 
 And therefore we cannot fully accept the judgment 
 of the natural man as to what is sane or insane in 
 
WHAT IS SANITY IN CHRISTIANITY? 37 
 
 such matters. As I have shown in the person of 
 Festus, he is ready to call much conduct 'mad,' that 
 is not so at all. The Christian, however, using the 
 same common sense, but enlightened by a spiritual 
 understanding and using a spiritual judgment, 
 should be able to discern the one from the other. 
 
 I think the following remarks of Lord Penzance, 
 the famous judge, are of great value in this 
 connection : — 
 
 ** It is not assuredly in the region of enthusiasm 
 that we must look for the calm exercise of pure 
 reason and temperate and well-balanced ideas. Still 
 less must we expect that the fervour of fanaticism 
 will follow in the slow steps of philosophy." 
 
 " It is hardly then by the mere test of their reason- 
 ableness that the wild thoughts of religious 
 enthusiasts can be brought to a standard for judg- 
 ment of their sanity." 
 
 " But there are surely limits even to so mythical a 
 subject, within which the human mind in a state of 
 health is unreasonable or extravagant ; and the 
 common experiences of life give us a sense of those 
 limits sufficient for the formation of judgment in 
 most cases. To draw the exact line — if there be 
 one — which defines such limits may be impossible, 
 but to affirm that some instances surpass it, is not so." 
 
 This passage is admirable in its strong common 
 sense, and though showing no special sympathy 
 with Christian thought, has a tone that commends 
 itself to every honest mind, 
 
38 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 The standpoint from which we study this question 
 is of all importance in coming to our conclusions. 
 
 To understand this subject, we must at any rate 
 avoid two positions. One, that of the asylum doctor 
 who brands all above the dead level of common 
 experience, such as the recognition of the blackness 
 of sin, or the joy of deliverance from it, as insane; 
 the other that of the extreme religionist who 
 passes all absurdities as normal and sane, if only 
 they are done in the name of God. 
 
 The only safe standpoint is that of strong common 
 , sense enlightened by a Christianity whose judg- 
 ments are guided by the Bible. 
 ' t The standards of sanity are of course as diverse 
 { I as those of rfght and wrong ; for one man — as the 
 ; proverb runs — " may steal a horse, while another must 
 : not look over the hedge." 
 
 To the mere materialist, to talk of and believe in 
 , a spiritual world at all is insanity, 
 f To the man of the world, however, who accepts 
 conventional religion, such talk may be sane, but 
 to display any active interest in the subject is not. 
 
 To the ordinary Churchman such interest is sane, 
 but to go about slumming or preaching in the 
 streets is bordering on the insane. 
 
 To the earnest worker this preachingand slumming 
 may be sane conduct, while to speak of a " clean 
 heart " and complete deliverance from the taint of sin, 
 is not sane doctrine. 
 
 To the perfectionist this is sober sanity, but to 
 
WHAT IS SANITY IN CHRISTIANITY? 39 
 
 indulge in the tenets of the *' Agapemone " or the 
 antics of the saltatory Christian damsels that lately 
 visited England is decidedly not. While to these 
 damsels themselves of course their own conduct is 
 sane and scriptural. 
 
 Here are six progressive standards of sanity, and 
 we might easily have made six more. 
 
 Obviously with such diverse opinions we must have 
 some reliable guide, and this is only to be found m 
 the Word of God. 
 
 Our last chapter, speaking of the Word of God, 
 enshrined in five words what must characterize 
 Christian conduct. It is well to repeat them. It V 
 must be sober, it must be self-controlled, it must be ) 
 gentle, it must be sane, and it must be of sound/ 
 mind. 
 
 Considering how lightly people now change or 
 give up their faith, and the force with which winds 
 of doctrine and other disturbing gales are now 
 blowing, these five may well be supplemented by one * 
 other eminent quality of Christian sanity, and that [ 
 is steadfastness. 
 
 We have in the New Testament four separate 
 words to designate this invaluable characteristic. 
 y3e/3ato9 (2 Cor. i. 7, 8), steadfast or confirmed. 
 <nepe6<i (2 Tim. ii. ig), steadfast or solid, ehpalo'^ 
 (i Cor. XV. 58), steadfast or seated. aTrjpcy/j.o'i (2 Pet. 
 iv. ig), steadfast or settled. The first, /^e/Saio?, is a 
 steadfastness arising from evidence. It occurs also 
 in Heb. ii. 2 ; iii. 6, 14; vi. ig, and elsewhere. It is 
 
40 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 the result of the faith that is founded on the rock, on 
 a hope that is anchored within the veil, and of a love 
 from which nothing can separate us. It is a sort of 
 steadfastness that springs from a power outside our- 
 selves ; from the living power of Christ, from the un- 
 changeableness of God, from the teaching of the Spirit 
 The second cxrepeo'i occurs also i Peter v. g, where 
 we are exhorted to be steadfast in the faith. In the 
 first passage quoted, in 2 Tim. ii. ig, it is the 
 foundation of God that is steadfast. In both cases the 
 special meaningof the word is " solid." Stearic acid 
 is a solid acid, stearine is a solid fat, and crrepeo? 
 means solid. Here the steadfastness depends on an 
 inward quality, and not upon an outward support. 
 This inward quality is the reverse of what 
 characterized Reuben, " Unstable as water, thou 
 shalt not excel." Fluid Christians are of little use. 
 They run freely and temporarily adopt the shape of 
 any mould into which they are poured, but they are 
 utterly unreliable in character and creed. These 
 characters abound to-day when all things are being 
 shaken. And though fluidity and change may be no 
 proof of insanity, there can be no doubt that 
 stability from solidity is a condition of sanity. Nor 
 is this solidity the solidity of an iceberg, which after 
 all soon melts when it meets the warm gulf stream 
 of the higher criticism, or advanced thought. No ! 
 this is a solidity not due to coldness, but one 
 combined with great warmth, with fervent love, with 
 every Christian grace, 
 
WHAT IS SANITY IN CHRISTIANITY? 41 
 
 The next form of steadfastness is e8palo<i. This 
 is also found in Col. i. 23, and is dependent upon 
 position rather than on condition. It means " seated," 
 not standing, still less "halting between two 
 opinions." 
 
 Sitting " on the fence " is not the sitting referred to 
 here ; but sitting solid on the truth itself and refusing 
 to move. This form of steadfastness is that of the 
 man who has bought the truth and will not sell it. 
 It is not a popular attitude to-day. It is said to 
 savour of bigotry and conceit to be so sure of one's 
 position. It is better, we are told, to stand on one 
 leg, ready to hop off when the next learned critique 
 appears ; or better still, planting one foot on the old 
 theology and the other on the new, to rest the weight 
 first on one leg and then on the other, so as to 
 show no undue partiality. It is called a liberal 
 spirit, but it is liberal with that which is Another's, 
 and that is God's. 
 
 The other day a well-known Archdeacon of the 
 Anglican Church pleading for a greater liberality on 
 the grounds that after all the Spirit had " diversities 
 of operations," specially urged the acceptance of 
 the " theological Liberal," who (I quote his own 
 words) " while holding the highest, deepest view of 
 the Anglican branch of the Holy Catholic Church, is 
 convinced that narrowness of definition is never an 
 effective spiritual force, and who, feeling strongly 
 the bondage of certain conventional standpoints, 
 preaches boldly, not the unsearchable riches of 
 
42 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 Christ, but the universal immanence of God. His 
 basis is that what comes forth from the Creator 
 must partake of the Creator's nature, therefore God 
 and man are essentially inseverable. This basis 
 implies an absolute universalism, and a negative of 
 the essentiality of evil, which, if essential, must be 
 the antithesis of God. Yet for this teaching he is 
 sneered at as a Unitarian, condemned as a heretic, 
 branded as dangerous and unorthodox, and but for 
 the protection of his position as an incumbent of the 
 established Church, would be cast out and silenced." 
 
 Only one greater injustice could be done to such 
 an one, and that would be to call him a Christian, 
 or to confound him with one. Such utterances 
 savour strongly of Mrs. Eddy, whether coming from 
 incumbents of churches or from the minister of a 
 Temple ; and the worthy Archdeacon assures us 
 these "Liberals" exist in great numbers, and is 
 evidently proud of it. One thing is certain, such 
 tenets and those who hold them find little quarter 
 and scant courtesy in the Roman Church ; which 
 overlaid with error and superstition as it undoubt- 
 edly is, shows a solidity and steadfastness in sitting 
 firmly on the old foundations, that some agile and 
 unstable members of the Anglican Church would 
 do well to copy. 
 
 The Christian religion seems to have expanded 
 into the very largest cloak that ever was made ; for 
 innumerable and incongruous crowds are gathered 
 together beneath its shelter ; or, to use the Scriptural 
 
WHAT IS SANITY IN CHRISTIANITY? 43 
 
 simile, the kingdom of heaven has indeed become 
 " a great tree," and exceedingly rare and curious fowls 
 both "clean" and "unclean" now "lodge in the 
 branches thereof." 
 
 The fourth variety of steadfastness is a-TTjpcyfjioq 
 which is found only in 2 Pet. iii. 17. Here it is 
 evidently steadfastness from duration of time. The 
 Apostle is clearly addressing experienced Christians 
 who had long known the truth, for in iii. i he writes 
 to stir up their •' pure hearts by way of remembrance." 
 
 To my knowledge this form of steadfastness is 
 much needed to-day ; for I have been amazed at the 
 old and experienced Christian men who have lost 
 this quality, and who are now drifting about on a 
 sea of doubt. 
 
 Steadfastness, then, is enjoined by St. Paul and 
 St. Peter (for all our illustrations are from them) on 
 four grounds : — 
 
 On account of the confirmation of the truth. 
 
 On account of the condition of the believer. 
 
 On account of the position of the believer. 
 
 On account of the duration of time since he 
 believed. 
 
 No quality is a greater check to insanity 
 amongst Christians. There can be no doubt that 
 Christianity does ample justice to all the varied 
 mental phenomena. It gives to each faculty its 
 own place. It appeals to the whole man. I don't 
 say "religion" does this, but Christianity; and I 
 feel sure that it is from lives confined in narrow 
 
44 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 religious grooves instead of expanded on broad 
 Christian lines that much of the insanity comes. A. 
 very one-sided character is sure to tumble over, 
 sooner or later, for there is no balance. 
 
 We must not however for a moment suppose that 
 all must be accounted insane who do not conform to 
 the five requirements I have enumerated from 
 the New Testament. It is not so ; though there can 
 be no doubt that the limits of perfect sanity are 
 narrower in the Bible than in the world. And this 
 is what we should expect, for the standard in every- 
 thing is necessarily higher. Even amongst men 
 few of us are perfectly sane, and how much smaller 
 in proportion is the number among Christians who 
 reach the perfectly balanced level. Therefore 
 instead of the standard of sanity being more lax, as 
 is often supposed, it is really more rigid ; only those 
 who coms short of the five qualities I have 
 named may still be sane, if they possess one of them. 
 How, then, is the path of sanity and steadfastness 
 to be found ? How is one to learn to be sober, and 
 gentle, and sound, and self-controlled ? The great 
 secret, I am firmly convinced, and I beg for earnest 
 } consideration of it, is to keep nearer to God than to 
 Christians. One can stand anything if one dwells 
 in the secret place of the Most High. Our Lord 
 could face all the contradictions of sinners against 
 Himself, in the irritating misunderstandings and 
 unbelief of His own family at Nazareth, because He 
 4welt (not there) but in the bosom of His Father, 
 
WHAT IS SANITY IN CHRISTIANITY? 45 
 
 So you and I can do likewise, and only doing so 
 can we discover the path ' the vulture's eye hath not 
 seen'— the path of wisdom. 'The fear of the Lord 
 is the beginning of knowledge' (and of sanity). Con- 
 tact with the Divine is essential to the Christian life, 
 and when through feeling after Him, eventually we 
 find Him ("though He be not far from any one of 
 us"), the first touch of His hand in the dark is 
 never, never forgotten. 
 
 Oh what power, what steadiness, what gentle- 
 ness, what sobriety, what self-control flows into 
 my life, when I feel God has gripped my hand, 
 and I have touched His ! God is so great, and 
 we are so little, that when we reach this shelter it 
 is like a small rowing boat, which has been tossing 
 in the water, running for shelter to the lee side of a 
 mighty man-of-war where all the water lies calm 
 and still. Here is perfect sanity. 
 
 Only I must insist that God must be nearer to me 
 than Christians, that is. He must be between me and 
 them. Not that they are enemies, but God must be 
 nearest. There are Christians and Christians, but 
 there is only one God, and He is my Father, and 
 I can trust Him. But I cannot and must not 
 trust Christians as such — for there are many insane 
 Christians and erratic spirits of ail sorts. With God 
 alone I am safe ; but having Him nearest and 
 dearest, I can love all the family and soon discern 
 the sober members, and those who are pleasing my 
 dear Father ; for the knowledge of God gives 
 
46 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 wisdom to the foolish ; and one who would be sorely 
 puzzled to decide on the sanity of certain practices 
 soon comes to a right conclusion when he lives 
 where Christ lived. 
 
 Listen to a description of a man who lives with 
 God. Can anything be more sane ? " When a man 
 lives with God, his voice shall be as sweet as the 
 murmur of the brook, and the rustle of the corn. 
 He will weave no longer a spotted life of shreds 
 and patches ; but he will live with a Divine unity. 
 He will cease from what is base and frivolous in 
 his life, and be content with all places, and any 
 service he can render. He will calmly front the 
 morrow in the negligency of that trust which carries 
 God with it, and so has the whole future in the 
 bottom of his heart." 
 
 It is quite clear that this is a far higher type of 
 sanity than is considered necessary in worldly 
 affairs. There can be no doubt, I repeat, that the 
 operation of the Spirit of God in the human heart 
 and mind is favourable to the development of a 
 greater, and not lesser, soundness of mind, from 
 being brought into contact with that Divine 
 wisdom which cometh from above. 
 
 Again, a man may be insane in many of his acts 
 as a Christian, and yet perfectly sane in his worldly 
 dealings. We must distinguish between personal 
 and relative insanity. In leading a forlorn hope or 
 a desperate assault men often act as insane who 
 are quite sober-minded in themselves. And at 
 
WHAT IS SANITY IN CHRISTIANITY? 47 
 
 certain crises of the Church of God, when in fierce ^ 
 combat, similar things may occur, though such are \ 
 not of course for a moment to be defended, for ,' 
 God is able to keep men sober at all times ; only 
 we must distinguish between the normal and the ■ 
 exceptional. 
 
 Again, we must allow for the personal factor. St. 
 James, we presume, would always be sober-minded, 
 while St. Peter, as we know, acted in many ways 
 that could not be so characterized ; and so did St. 
 Paul at Jerusalem. 
 
 In fact we come back to the point which we have 
 touched on already, that no two persons can agree 
 on the limit where normal religious experience and 
 action passes into the abnormal and pathological. 
 In a beautiful passage in the Phsedrus of Plato, 
 Socrates points out that those who seek God are 
 accounted mad. I will quote it. " They endeavour 
 to discover of themselves the nature of God, and 
 when they grasp him with their memory — being 
 inspired by him — they receive from him their 
 manners and pursuits, so far as it is possible for 
 
 man to participate of God Anyone 
 
 who is reminded of this time begins to recover 
 his wings, and having recovered them, longs to 
 soar aloft ; but being unable to do so, looks upward 
 like a bird (a striking and pathetic simile) and 
 despising things below, is deemed affected with 
 madness. When they see any resemblance of things 
 there (in heaven) they are amazed, and no longer 
 
48 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 master of themselves ; (remembering) when they 
 beheld in the pure light — perfect, simple, calm, 
 and blessed visions." 
 
 Does not this heathen philosopher approach in 
 thought very nearly to St. Paul when he says (2 
 Cor. V. 13) "For whether we be beside ourselves 
 it is to God ? " 
 
 In the same way the feelings and practises of the 
 higher phases of Christian life often seem very 
 strange not only to men of the world, but to the 
 average Christian man. He cannot understand this 
 " agonizing in prayer," this " realization of God," 
 this " transport of joy," and these " visions of glory." 
 Enough for him to be on the road to heaven, com.- 
 fortably and quietly as may be. We must therefore 
 make full allowances for much with which we our- 
 selves may not quite sympathize, or perhaps wholly 
 understand. 
 
 And Christianity must be alive or it is nothing. 
 There must be a fire in the core of every vital 
 religion or it becomes a mere cinder. 
 
 I have pointed out one great means of judging 
 and estimating Christian sanity in others, by being 
 personally in contact with God. I will conclude by 
 alluding to a second means — a close study of His 
 Word. 
 
 A thorough knowledge of the limits the Bible 
 marks out for Christian conduct, a careful study of the 
 practice of the Apostle in missionary and other 
 meetings in the Acts, and of the rules the Bible lays 
 
WHAT IS SANITY IN CHRISTIANITY? 49 
 
 down in the Epistles for the guidance of gifts in the 
 Church, together with a thoughtful and prayerful 
 examination of the various passages I have quoted 
 in the last chapter, will give abundant material on 
 which to form a sound and reliable judgment on 
 any phase of Christian movement that may be in 
 question. 
 
 Christian judgment and action, however, become 
 paralyzed if we admit that the modern progress 
 of thought and life in the twentieth century forbids 
 any criticism based on rules framed in the first ; in 
 short that the Bible is not a sufficient guide to-day, 
 and that by it the " man of God " cannot be perfect, 
 nor can he be "thoroughly furnished unto all good 
 works." (See 2 Tim. iii. 17). 
 
 Those who fail to judge righteous judgment re- / 
 specting extravagances and insanities practised in 
 the name of Christ, generally do so from one of two 
 reasons. They either take the ground that Scripture 
 does not give enough instruction upon which to 
 form a judgment at the present day, or, admitting 
 the Scriptures are sufficient, they fail to study them. 
 The latter class are, I judge, almost as numerous as 
 the former, for ignorance of the Scriptures is a 
 feature of the present day quite as much as a dis- 
 belief in them. Of course the two constantly go 
 together. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Sanity in Childhood and Youth. 
 
 I PROPOSE in this chapter to consider our 
 subject first of all somewhat generally in 
 relation to childhood and youth, and then 
 with special regard to the religious history and 
 experience at that time. 
 
 There can be no doubt that young childhood is a 
 period of intense sanity, while youth is a time of 
 unrest and instability. 
 
 The sanity which is expressed in an infant's eyes is 
 often appalling to a frivolous mind, and almost equals 
 the calm reproach of anything foolish in the liquid 
 eyes of a collie. One direction in which the baby 
 shows its sanity as well as its lofty origin — bearing 
 testimony to the truth of Wordsworth's beautiful 
 conception — is in its startling sense of justice. It 
 will have justice to itself and justice in the nursery, 
 and is, at a year old, often a calm arbiter of right and 
 wrong. 
 
 For a young child seems, as Wordsworth says, 
 
 to be 
 
 " Trailing clouds of glory," 
 
 and to retain distinct traces of its heavenly 
 home in its innate sense of love and justice, 
 
 50 
 
SANITY IN CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 51 
 
 which are surely a reflection of the Love and Light 
 which are the two sides of the Divine character 
 as revealed to us. 
 
 I want to dwell a little on the absolute sanity 
 of a normal infant. No nonsense there, no 
 trifling with truth, or indeed with anything else ; all 
 is seen in the calm white light of pure reason. 
 Every fresh article submitted to the infant judge is 
 quietly surveyed, turned over, perhaps solemnly 
 tasted, before a decision is arrived at by the aid of 
 these three special senses. The whole process is 
 impressive in its sanity. But by degrees as the baby 
 degenerates into the child, it becomes more and more 
 earthly and less heavenly (that is, if it is going to 
 live), and above all less serenely sane. This deteri- 
 orating process of accommodating its lofty ideas to 
 its earthly environment goes on until at last the 
 carnal, full-blown, but somewhat mad product is 
 arrived at, in the shape of the British schoolboy or 
 girl. 
 
 No doubt children seem mad and wild in relation 
 to the unapproachable calm of infancy — but they are 
 very sane, terribly sane often in relation to " grown- 
 ups ! " There is still in the sanity, simplicity, and 
 purity of the child much that awes the careless adult, 
 and bad men especially are ill at ease with children as 
 well as with wise dogs, because both see through 
 them. 
 
 Then comes the great disturbance of puberty, when 
 the sex problem first looms on the horizon, but is 
 
52 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 not as yet by any means understood. Sanity now is 
 no longer conspicuous, the whole cerebral system is 
 developing so rapidly that it is in a state of very 
 unstable equilibrium, and all sorts of fads and fancies 
 and vagaries flourish ; new ideas take root and sprout 
 with alarming rapidity. All this, as we shall see, 
 means much when we come to consider Christianity 
 in youth. 
 
 The bearing of this time on the future of the 
 subsequent man or woman cannot be sufficiently 
 estimated. If the five words of Scripture of which 
 I have spoken, sanity, sound-mindedness, sobriety, 
 self-control and gentleness, are engrafted into the 
 character of a child at this age, there cannot be much 
 fear for his religious future. 
 
 But if this critical time be missed he may be 
 unstable all his life. 
 
 " Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control. 
 These three alone lead life to sovereign power," 
 
 Tennyson truly says in his CEnone ; and child- 
 hood is the time when these virtues can be best 
 acquired, and there can be no doubt that much of 
 the present instability of Christian character would 
 never have been seen had children been so trained. 
 But child training and above all real Christian home 
 training has well nigh ceased, and hence the disas- 
 trous results. Listen to Professor Felkin who says, 
 " We are producing in this country at the present 
 day a race of self-willed, self-centered, self-conceited 
 
SANITY IN CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 53 
 
 young people, devoid of respect for God or man or 
 devil ! Obedience and self-restraint are prime factors 
 in a healthy existence and must be learned early.'' 
 *' There never were such children in England before. 
 For while much is improved in physique and stature, 
 especially in girls, there is a still more marked change 
 for the worse in their attitude towards God." 
 
 The doubts of the authority of the Bible sown 
 broadcast by the Higher Critics have resulted in a 
 crop of evils that many of the sowers would be the 
 first to regret. The decline and practical abolition 
 of family prayer is largely due to this teaching. That 
 shrine known as the "family altar" has been cast 
 down, and the young people of to-day too often 
 have the sobriety and reverence and the self-control 
 that the early study of the Bible teaches, and wise 
 religious instruction imparts, replaced by the quali- 
 ties of which Professor Felkin speaks — self-will, self- 
 indulgence, and self-conceit — poor substitutes indeed ! 
 
 These do not afford much foundation on which to 
 build a stable character. What can parents do to 
 alter this ? What can they do to strengthen and 
 fortify their children in their conflict with evil ? I may 
 very briefly enumerate twelve things they can do; to 
 which my readers doubtless can add many more. 
 
 1. They can control the child's surroundings so as 
 to make them ever the medium of good suggestions, 
 physical, mental, moral, and spiritual. 
 
 2. They can by example and story fill the child's 
 mind with inspiring, lofty, and Christian ideals. 
 
54 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 3. They can form habits of moral and religious 
 value, and allow none others to be acquired. 
 
 4. They can feed the child's mind with ideas, the 
 character of which they can wholly control. 
 
 5. They can exercise and strengthen the child's 
 moral powers by circumstances which they can 
 arrange, taking care that the trial is not too hard. 
 
 6. They can by watching hereditary tendencies 
 foster one and restrain another, so as to produce a 
 more even character. 
 
 7. They can strengthen the will and make it act 
 with energy and decision. 
 
 8. They can educate and train the moral sense ; 
 keeping it sensitive and tender to evil, and must only 
 set up such standards of right and wrong that 
 are true and will last through life ; so that no arti- 
 ficial conscience is created. 
 
 g. They can increase the sense of moral responsi- 
 bility to oneself, to others, and to God, 
 
 10. They can directly teach moral principles, and 
 the sequence of cause and effect. 
 
 11. They can inspire faith in God and in Christ, 
 and the spirit of reverence and humility. 
 
 12. They can thus obey the two exhortations 
 *' Train up a child in the way he should go," and 
 " Offend not one of these little ones." 
 
 There is, of course, another side to a child than 
 that of which I have spoken. For instance, there is 
 in many a distinct vein of cruelty, or a disregard for 
 truth. These both can be made to disappear by 
 sound training. 
 
SANITY IN CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 55 
 
 One has, however, only to allude to these sub- 
 jects to feel how entirely child-training is neglected ; 
 and it is, I repeat, this neglect which is answerable 
 for much of the instability and gullibility of Christians 
 in matters specially pertaining to religion. 
 
 There can be no doubt that the period when the 
 child changes into the budding man or woman is 
 the time when altruism, the social instincts of the 
 religious feeling, sets in. The child's interest is all 
 in the central " ego." Its feelings and ideas are truly 
 nearly all objective, there is no introspection ; but 
 nevertheless the child in its life and actions is self- 
 centred and selfish. As a youth this gives way to 
 the feelings I have just described. 
 
 It must be remembered too that youth is a period 
 when all the faculties are ill-balanced owing to 
 rapid growth, when the emotional system especially 
 is easily and often disastrously aroused, when all 
 sorts of disordered nerves abound. It is indeed rare 
 and difficult to get through this period into calmer 
 waters without a crisis of some sort. 
 
 It is very doubtful wisdom to induce extreme 
 spiritual activity at this age. The ethical instincts or 
 conscience, the sesthetic or emotional feelings, and 
 the intellectual and moral centres are all extremely 
 active in themselves, and need guiding rather than 
 stimulating. It is of course supremely difficult to 
 ensure that all the best objective and subjective 
 influences are brought to bear upon any individual 
 in youth ; and hardly a week passes in my consulting 
 
56 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 rooms but some mother, in tears, is asking herself 
 the question Has she succeeded in this ? as she 
 brings some child wrecked in nerves or mind. 
 
 Even without " conversions " religious childhoods 
 are quite common, and it is certainly well not to 
 force the young growing plant, and to keep children 
 from all premature discussion of dogmas. 
 
 It seems indeed that the children of some 
 Christian parents are treated like young and tender 
 plants and are placed in religious hot-houses, and 
 forced artificially to blossom and bear fruit long 
 before their time. Such plants, too, are weak and 
 sickly, and once the protection of the greenhouse is 
 taken away the first rough wind snaps them off 
 short ; and at the age when they should be at their 
 strongest they are already fading. 
 
 That growth is best which is most natural, where 
 the child has the full enjoyment of its childhood, 
 and the youth of its youth, tempered and sobered 
 everywhere by the loving, gentle, spiritual atmo- 
 sphere of true and quiet Christianity. Such children 
 will not be show children, but will be far more 
 likely to make sane Christians than the former class. 
 
 We shall understand more about this if we turn 
 to the religious history of the young. 
 
 First of all as to the fact of " conversion." That 
 these sudden awakenings occur even in children, 
 coupled with entrance into higher spiritual life, none 
 who can be convinced by evidence can deny. That 
 innumerable spurious cases occur is also true ; and 
 
SANITY IN CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 57 
 
 likewise that many of the greatest saints on earth 
 never experienced such a crisis at all. To some 
 people, of course, all sudden conversion seems 
 incompatible with full sanity. Professor Sidis, for 
 instance, considers that sudden conversions are 
 phenomena of "revival" insanity, as it is termed 
 in America, or of religious insanity, as it would be 
 called here. We believe this verdict is passed 
 incorrectly because the Professor fails to take into 
 account, or does not believe in the supernatural side 
 of the process. It is not of course an ordinarily 
 sane process, suddenly in a moment to change all 
 one's ideas and views. It is only when we admit 
 that the new birth is of the Holy Spirit, and that this 
 Spirit is not a part of our spirit,* but is Divine and 
 is God and Omnipotent, that we can reasonably 
 understand that He who by His almighty Word 
 said in the beginning "Let there be (physical) light" 
 and " there was light," can say now to the soul 
 "Let there be (spiritual) light," and it is so. Leave 
 God out and much that is Christian is insane ; but 
 then that's just what I shall not do in this book, 
 and I therefore conclude that conversions occurring 
 even in the young are not the slightest proof of want 
 of mental balance. 
 
 Of course I do not say for a moment that all 
 
 * In view of much that is now current I may shew that this, 
 at any rate, is the Bible teaching. " The Spirit itself beareth 
 witness with our spirit" (Rom. viii. 16), and "Strengthened 
 with might by his Spirit in the inner man, " both shew that our 
 spirit is distinct from the Holy Spirit. 
 
SS CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 Christianity is taught or revealed at once to any 
 man. It is only the " entrance into life " of 
 which I speak. 
 
 As F. W. H. Myers, in his wonderful poem on St. 
 Paul, says : — 
 
 " Let no man think that sudden, in a moment, 
 All is accomplished, and the work is done. 
 Though with thine earliest dawn though did'st begin it, 
 Scarce were it ended in thy setting sun." 
 
 Turning to conversions I will give a few interest- 
 ing and well-tested statistics collected by Dr. 
 Starbuck, as exhibiting the actual experiences in 
 ordinary Christian life. 
 Out of 1,000 Christians 
 
 6g5, or nearly | were converted under 20. 
 208, or I were converted between 20 and 30. 
 
 69 
 
 19 
 6 
 
 2 
 
 I 
 
 30 and 40. 
 40 and 50. 
 50 and 60. 
 60 and 70. 
 70 and 75. 
 
 1000 
 
 This shows that if conversions are not to take 
 place amongst young people three-fourths of the 
 present Christians would not be Christians at all. 
 
 As we look more closely at these figures we shall 
 see how remarkably the spiritual unfolding co- 
 incides with material changes. Indeed conversions 
 
SANITY IN CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 59 
 
 follow puberty with a little interval, so regularly 
 that it seems as if the one were connected with the 
 other. Amongst girls the awakening or arousing to 
 a sense of need of salvation and of entrance into a 
 higher life, in fact the real opening of the mind to 
 spiritual realities takes place mainly from 10-16, 
 amongst boys 14-T6 ; and this awakening takes 
 place as a rule a year before conversion. 
 
 Conversions amongst girls are as follows : — For 
 every 40 at sixteen we get 36 at thirteen, and 12 at 
 twenty, and 5 at nine and twenty-four. That is to 
 say conversions at 16 are more numerous than at 
 13 and three times as numerous as at 20. They are 
 also eight times as numerous at 16, as at 9 or 24. 
 In other words the age of most conversions is 
 undoubtedly that of fully-developed puberty. 
 
 Amongst boys for 40 cases at sixteen we get 13 
 cases at thirteen or twenty, and 4 cases at nine and 
 twenty-four, and conversions are rare after thirty. 
 
 Here again the dawning manhood is the period 
 for conversions ; these being three times as numerous 
 then as they are four years sooner or later, and ten 
 times as numerous as eight years sooner or later ; 
 while at double the age they hardly occur at all. 
 
 There can be no doubt whatever that the most 
 common time for conversions is 16 or thereabouts : 
 and there can be little doubt that the period chosen 
 for confirmation has some connection with this. 
 
 Spontaneous awakenings and conversions, that is 
 apart from external agencies, are most common at 15. 
 
6o CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 In conversion the influence of the home life is 
 more marked in boys than girls ; though in girls also 
 home influence is the most common cause. Next 
 to home the influence of friends is the greatest 
 cause, and next to that the Church or ministry. 
 Girls suffer in the deep effect on their emotions, more 
 at the time than young men. Of course in all 
 statistics and in all religious education the needs and 
 conditions of each personality must be taken into 
 account. I can only give the general result, which 
 must not be too closely pressed, for we have many 
 ** Samuels " and not a few " Philippian gaolers " : so 
 that it must not be supposed on the one hand that 
 there must be no thought of God till one is i6 ; nor 
 on the other that there is no hope afterwards. 
 
 Following up the history of conversions, we find 
 there are four distinct lines of subsequent religious 
 experience. 
 
 1. Smooth progress in Christianity into spiritual 
 manhood with no relapse or breakdown. 
 
 2. A temporary apparent extinguishing of religious 
 faith and hope. 
 
 3. No progress after conversion. 
 
 4. Conversion at adolesence and definite sancti- 
 fication on entering a still higher spiritual life in 
 maturity. 
 
 The final condition varies less than would be sup- 
 posed in these four cases ; it is the experience by 
 the way that differs the most. 
 
 Amongst ordinary true conversions the relapse is 
 
SANITY IN CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 6i 
 
 only about 5 per cent. ; but about one-half become 
 indifferent and the spiritual growth seems arrested. 
 
 About one quarter have severe fights with old 
 habits which reassert their power in a varying time 
 after conversion. 
 
 As many as three quarters of the whole pass at 
 some time through a period of great stress and 
 struggle ; while about one half experience great 
 doubts. 
 
 The essential difference from a human point of 
 view of the life of the converted and that of the 
 " moral " unconverted appears to be that in the 
 former its virtues are more positive, in the latter 
 they are more negative ; in fact, in Christians it is 
 more the expression of a new life, while in those 
 who make no such profession, in the sense we are 
 now using the word, but are strictly moral, it is rather 
 the repression of the old ; though, of course, not 
 exclusively so. 
 
 On the whole, amongst the converted there are 
 some who pay less attention to conduct than some 
 unconverted. But the unconverted pay much less 
 attention to Christ. Of course I do not for a moment 
 defend the former attitude. I only state what is 
 arrived at from the careful study of a large number 
 of lives. 
 
 After conversion, as I have said, the spiritual 
 attitude of soul is really permanent in all but 5 per 
 cent., but the feelings fluctuate, and the experiences 
 widely differ. It is important to remark here, to avoid 
 
62 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 grave misunderstanding, that the statistics I have 
 presented are taken from the experience of average 
 Christian men and women attending church and 
 chapel. They represent the present condition of 
 things fairly well ; which in many respects is very far 
 from what it should be. 
 
 There can be no doubt, for instance, that in truly 
 Christian families the children should grow up from 
 their earliest years in the nurture and admonition of 
 the Lord ; and such a thing as conversion should be 
 rare. 
 
 A great evil is done to children ot Christian 
 parents in treating them as hardened sinners and 
 expecting sudden repentance and conversion. To 
 me such a result would be rather a sign that their 
 early training had failed, than that it had succeeded ! 
 
 There can be no doubt that the simple presenta- 
 tion of Christ to the young soul as Saviour, Shep- 
 herd, Friend, is not only attended with the best 
 results ; but what is of importance to our subject, 
 is never attended with evil ones. 
 
 And this brings me to my other point, and that is 
 children who have not such Christian homes, but 
 who are under definite simple Christian teaching, 
 such as is obtained at the many Christian Orphan 
 Homes, are constantly brought to Christ long before 
 puberty. 
 
 I repeat, therefore, that the figures I have given 
 are only of value if it is clearly understood that they 
 represent in no way the best possible results, but 
 
SANITY IN CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 63 
 
 merely those actually attained in average Christian 
 life of all sorts. 
 
 To go a little more into the period of doubt and 
 distress. Two-thirds of Christians as a whole have 
 distinct times of doubt as follows : four-fifths of the 
 men and half the women. The difference of the 
 causes in the sexes is of great interest. Doubt in 
 women is more emotional, in men it is connected 
 with reason and the intellect. 
 
 The greatest source of doubt in men arises from 
 the books they read ; in women it generates 
 spontaneously in the mind, or from some influence 
 they are under. What women doubt most is the 
 existence of the Christian God ; that is, a God who 
 is a Father and who cares for them. What men 
 most doubt are the orthodox beliefs and creeds or 
 the inspiration of the Bible, or both. During the 
 period of doubt, ethics and good deeds of all sorts 
 tend to take the place of active religious work. 
 
 Besides doubt, which does not trouble some 
 natures, a period of religious upset from different 
 causes, of storm and stress, of anything but peace 
 and joy, is found in more than half the Christians 
 whose history was examined. It consisted of an 
 acute sense of sin, agonized strivings for entire 
 sanctification, fear of eternal punishment, with loss 
 of peace with God, brooding and self-introspection, 
 and also, of course, various difficulties and fears. I 
 must point out here that deep and painful work in 
 the soul and the wrestling with trials and difficulties 
 
64 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 (though not necessary with doubts) is often conducive 
 to strong life afterwards. A butterfly has great 
 difficulty in emerging from the crysalis with its delicate 
 wings that look as if they would be torn to pieces. A 
 friend of mine pitied one so much that she aided it, 
 and got it out without effort ; but the butterfly never 
 flew : and she learnt that the struggle was essential 
 to the delicate circulation in the wings, and was 
 necessary for subsequent flight. 
 
 Of the seventy per cent, of these Christians who 
 suffered from some form of severe religious trouble 
 it was found that only twenty-two per cent, were 
 engaged in active religious work, which rather 
 suggests that this is a good and safe antidote 
 to these soul disturbances. 
 
 In adolescence, &c., the greatest care and delicacy 
 is needed to help and guide the soul through such 
 troubled waters into peace and harmony — which is 
 sanity. 
 
 Much of the storm and stress that often accom- 
 panies the time of conversion find their parallel in 
 the pangs which accompany birth. In merely 
 mental science the digesting of a new idea is often 
 most painful ; it is therefore not to be wondered at, 
 that these Divine mysteries often cause great trouble 
 in the human heart, especially when we consider the 
 emotional age at which they usually affect it ; to say 
 nothing of the agitation possibly caused by the 
 powers of darkness. It is indeed often more on 
 the religious than on the material side that the 
 
SANITY IN CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 65 
 
 dangers of adolescent life are most marked. These 
 latter are bad enough, and we know how many of 
 our young men and young women go on the rocks 
 at this time. 
 
 I may remark also here that all these after results 
 are not presented as necessary to Christian life, but as 
 what actually occurs in the average Christian of the 
 day. With better and more careful training, there can 
 be no doubt that the troubles and difficulties could 
 be minimized, and the proportion of backsliders 
 greatly lessened. 
 
 I may say that not only the brain and 
 emotions are very unstable in youth, but that it is a 
 period when all external influences are most active, for 
 good or evil. How important is it, then, that these 
 be pure and spiritual ? 
 
 It is a remarkable fact that in all nations and 
 amongst all religions the time of puberty is marked 
 by religious rites, sometimes of a most elaborate 
 nature. In the English Church, of course, this rite 
 is called confirmation ; and as we have seen, apart 
 from all rites and ceremonies, the union of the soul 
 with God in the power of the new life, in the new 
 birth by the Spirit, occurs constantly also at this 
 very period. 
 
 It is also, alas ! at this period that mental balance 
 is so often lost and nerves so often wrecked through 
 overpressure from religious teaching, or too close 
 attendance at camp meetings, missions, conventions, 
 &c. As I have to speak of these in considerable 
 
66 CHRiSTtAN SANfTY 
 
 detail in the next two chapters, I will not say more 
 about them here. 
 
 Another feature I should like to point out is the 
 greater stability of the Christianity, and the greater 
 after-freedom from storm and stress among those 
 converted through the ordinary Christian ministry 
 as compared with those that are brought in through 
 special gatherings for the purpose. Of course the 
 converts are more numerous at these latter, but they 
 are not so steady. 
 
 One important point that must be faced is the 
 fact that our young people are growing up more and 
 more ignorant of the Word of God and ever less 
 stable in their faith, and less able to resist the 
 attacks of the devil, or to discern him in any pseudo- 
 Christian movement, where he may masquerade 
 as an angel of light. 
 
 For centuries the knowledge of the Bible has 
 been the glorious distinction of this country. Now 
 through the unhappy wrangles on education, and 
 the jealousy of the contending parties, through the 
 general atmosphere of doubt thrown over the Bible 
 by destructive criticism, through the apathy of 
 parents, and the rush and pressure of modern life, 
 the Bible is more and more pushed aside and 
 neglected. 
 
 Knowing this, it is incumbent on all clergymen and 
 teachers and instructors of the young to do 
 their best to supply the lack of home training by 
 classes for pure Bible study. There is no danger 
 
SANITY IN CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 67 
 
 in these, but on the contrary they would be great 
 safeguards against future religious troubles. 
 
 It is the unenlightened and the ignorant who, 
 suddenly brought face to face with the tremendous 
 questions of eternity, are overwhelmed and un- 
 balanced. 
 
 I would therefore suggest for children the simple 
 stories of the Bible, and particularly of the 
 Gospels, with as much about the Person of Christ as 
 possible, and as little doctrine as is needed to make 
 the story intelligible ; and then when the age of 10 
 or 12 is reached more careful and detailed religious 
 instruction, combined always with plain and strong 
 ethical teaching. All the time the child should 
 take a personal interest in, and shew appreciation of 
 these great truths, and a real acceptance of them 
 should be evidenced long before 16 is reached. 
 Prayer, too, should be taught with the utmost 
 simplicity and reality, and the immanence of God (in 
 the true sense) in all His works everywhere shown. 
 
 The exercises of the young soul, even with the 
 most careful training, are often quite severe, when 
 the reality of the Gospel truths dawn upon the 
 mind ; but there is no fear, if there be no undue 
 external excitement or unhealthy stimulus or 
 hereditary want of balance, of these exercises doing 
 anything but good in deepening the reality of the 
 work that is going on. They should therefore on no 
 account be rashly checked for the fear of harm, 
 and the child thrown back upon itself. 
 
68 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 What one can do at such a time is to get the child's 
 confidence in loving sympathy and so relieve it of half 
 its fears ; while at the same time one should see that 
 the simple material needs, of good and sufficient food, 
 and outdoor exercises and games are not neglected in 
 the consideration of these great religious truths. 
 
 A v^ise and loving mother who is capable of meeting 
 the spiritual needs of her children is a veritable gift 
 of God. Such a mother will be fully alive to the need 
 of guiding with double care a neurotic child or one 
 convalescing from fever or from influenza. 
 
 There is great encouragement in knowing that 
 once this critical time is passed and the young soul 
 well anchored in Divine love, a good foundation has 
 been laid for a sound and useful life, and the whole 
 being has been brought at these early years into 
 harmony with its Maker and itself. 
 
 Early Christianity has a singularly beautifying 
 effect upon the character, which in its humility and 
 reverence is as far removed as the poles from the 
 conceit and pride of some who are alas, the subjects 
 of religious emotion rather than of true conversion. 
 
 I may quote here one specially sobering text that 
 was hung up in each of our bedrooms, when I formed 
 one of a large circle of Christian children, for it 
 was of great value at the time. " If any have 
 children or grandchildren let them learn first to 
 show piety first towards their own family, and to 
 requite their parents ; for this is acceptable in the 
 sight of God." (I Tim. v. 4). 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 Sanity in Revivalst Conventions and 
 Missions. 
 
 IN this and the next chapter I intend first to 
 describe various religious movements at 
 different times, both rational and irrational, 
 with the utmost possible brevity ; then to 
 turn to specially consider some supposed miraculous 
 gifts and their manifestations to-day ; and lastly 
 to carefully examine what is sane and insane in 
 these matters, and in some way seek to indicate 
 if possible the safeguards that may be relied upon 
 in times of perplexity. This last, however, is such 
 a wide subject that it will require still another 
 chapter to itself. 
 
 There can be no doubt whatever both of the 
 danger and difficulty of my task, and I feel most 
 strongly the extreme care that is needed. 
 
 At the same time I think a quiet consideration of 
 the subject here must be helpful ; and I shall 
 endeavour with much caution and with all possible 
 care to give what little assistance I am able to afford 
 to many who are greatly perplexed. 
 
70 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 Of course there are now, as always, large numbers 
 of people who have never even heard of anything out 
 of the ordinary taking place in religious life ; but I 
 think these will become fewer and fewer every day. 
 If I read the Bible aright, we are I judge as yet 
 only at the "beginning of sorrows," and not only 
 evil men but seducing spirits will wax worse and 
 worse as time goes on ; and at all times it is well for 
 us to remember that in our own wisdom we can 
 never expect to be a match for " the old Serpent. " 
 
 Such being the case, let us to our task and 
 consider first some historical instances of religious 
 movements in the Church. Nine great revivals of 
 religion may be noted. 
 
 The first lasted from the twelfth to the middle of 
 the thirteenth century. 
 
 The second was that of the Franciscan and 
 Dominican Friars, and lasted a century. 
 
 The third was that of Wycliffe, preceding the 
 Reformation. 
 
 The fourth was the Reformation. 
 
 The fifth was the Puritan revival, leaders of 
 which founded the United States in America and 
 the Commonwealth in England. 
 
 The sixth was the Quaker revival. 
 
 The seventh was the Wesleyan movement, in 
 which convulsions, hysterics, sobbing, &c., occurred. 
 These features were very marked at that time in 
 North Wales. 
 
 The eighth was the general revival of 1859, 
 
SANITY IN REVIVALS 71 
 
 beginning in America in 1857. This was of great 
 power in the North of Ireland, where again physical 
 signs abounded. 
 
 The ninth was the Welsh revival of 1905, associated 
 with Evan Roberts. 
 
 These, one and all, were doubtless manifestations 
 of the power of God, and were a means of blessing to 
 many; and though at none of them, all that was 
 said or done could be endorsed as sane, the general 
 tendency was for good. Let us examine the one 
 nearest to our own day — the Welsh revival — a little 
 more closely. 
 
 Everywhere the authorities and all conditions of 
 men in Wales have freely testified to the real and 
 lasting change effected in the lives of hardened 
 sinners, while the pastors of the various churches 
 increased their membership by thousands. 
 
 The vast congregations were, on the whole, sober, 
 sane and orderly. This last may be questioned in 
 the face of the offering of many prayers simul- 
 taneously, and both singing and prayer going on 
 together ; but even to clergyman and others accus- 
 tomed to much formality all was conducted with such 
 reality and reverence that it was not accounted 
 disorder. Many of the services were as reverent 
 in the Welsh revival as those under the dome of 
 St. Paul's ; though in some, scenes of great excite- 
 ment were witnessed ; indeed, all was aflame with a 
 vast amount of religious enthusiasm. 
 
 Considering the character of the Celtic nature. 
 
72 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 there was little that was wild, violent, hysterical ; 
 but everywhere a solemn gladness in hundreds of 
 serious men and thoughtful women. 
 
 There was no leader. The last person to attempt 
 to control the meeting would have been Evan 
 Roberts. There was no pastor, no organ, no 
 hymn-books; all was in the hearts of the people, 
 and in the hands and ordering of the Holy Spirit of 
 God. 
 
 Remarkable visions were seen by Mr. Evan 
 Roberts himself. Every morning for three or four 
 months, before the movement commenced, though 
 wide awake, he passed into a sort of trance between 
 I and 5 a.m., and found himself in the very presence 
 of God. 
 
 This changed his thoughts and nature and 
 prepared him for the great revival. 
 
 Many great leaders have had such visions, J. 
 Boehme, Madame Guyon, Loyola, Fox, St. Teresa, 
 St. Catherine, and many others. It was not Christ 
 specially who was before the soul at these times, but 
 God the Father or the Triune God. In the chapel 
 Evan Roberts sometimes saw a blinding light. This 
 was so bright that he could not see the minister in 
 the pulpit. This reminds us of the visions of St. 
 Paul, Constantine, Col. Gardner, &c. 
 
 I pass over some of the painful later scenes, 
 which were so clearly due to overwrought nerves, 
 that they excite our sympathy rather than pur 
 criticism. 
 
SANITY IN REVIVALS 73 
 
 Evan Roberts lays down five conditions as neces- 
 sary for what he terms the " outpouring " of the Holy 
 Spirit : 
 
 1. Confession of all known sin. 
 
 2. The forsaking of all doubtful things. 
 
 3. Implicit obedience to the Spirit. 
 
 4. The Confession of Christ. 
 
 Please note and bear in mind the third of these 
 requisites, because I shall have a good deal to say 
 upon it, and it is here that unseemly practises creep 
 in and much error arises. 
 
 I give now a couple of isolated cases of the sudden 
 manifestations of the Spirit's power without any 
 breaches of decorum, just as samples of hundreds 
 such, not connected with general revivals. 
 
 In 1630 at the Kirk o' Shotts in Scotland a carriage 
 containing some ladies broke down. The minister 
 kept them at the manse during the repair of the 
 carriage. They were so pleased with his care that 
 they built him a new manse, much superior to the old 
 one, and invited some ministers they knew to the 
 first Communion, which was celebrated on June 21st, 
 after the house was completed ; and one of the 
 ministers they had asked preached on the Monday, 
 after a prayer-meeting held all through the preceding 
 Sunday night, and 500 were converted on the spot. 
 
 In July, 1861, there was a school in Yorkshire 
 where a small prayer-meeting among a few of the 
 boys who were Christians had been held for some 
 time, Suddenly one night while they were at prayer 
 
74 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 there came upon them, with the suddenness of a 
 thunder-shower, a spirit of intense earnest seeking 
 after God for the forgiveness of sins and for consecra- 
 tion. The headmaster was told of what was going 
 on, and stopped all the preparation classes that night 
 so that the boys could attend. There was no sing- 
 ing, only the Bible was read, and there were brief 
 exhortations, confessions of sins, and requests for 
 prayer. On that memorable night forty boys out of 
 a total of fifty were "converted" and turned to God. 
 " The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou 
 hearest the voice thereof, but knowest not whence 
 it Cometh and whither it goeth ; so is every one that 
 is born of the Spirit." 
 
 * ***** 
 
 Turning now to Conventions and taking Keswick 
 as a type, we notice that as a rule these meetings are 
 particularly sane. There is no excitement, nor 
 special efforts to work the people up ; all is done 
 decently and in order. 
 
 At Keswick seven stages are recognised in the 
 teaching according to Dr. A. T. Pierson. 
 
 1. Immediate abandonment of every known sin, 
 doubtful indulgence, or conscious hindrance to holy 
 living. 
 
 2. The surrender of the will and whole being to 
 Jesus Christ, in loving and complete obedience, as 
 not only Saviour but Master and Lord. 
 
 3. The appropriation in faith of God's presence 
 and power for holy living. 
 
SANITY IN REVIVALS 75 
 
 4. The voluntary renunciation and mortifying of 
 the self-life that centres in self-indulgence and self- 
 dependence, that God may be all-in-all. 
 
 5. Gracious renewal or transformation of the 
 inmost temper and disposition. 
 
 6. Separation unto God for sanctification, con- 
 secration and service. 
 
 7. Enduement with power and filling of the Holy 
 Ghost. 
 
 Amongst these seven, note specially No. 2, to 
 which we shall recur, as we shall to No. 3 of Evan 
 Roberts' quartette ; seeing that both contain an 
 element of danger that requires to be guarded against 
 most carefully. 
 
 Speaking generally, there is no new doctrine taught 
 officially at Keswick. 
 
 I say "officially " because one must acknowledge 
 that in many of the unauthorized meetings not under 
 the guidance of the Convention, not only new but 
 very strange doctrines are annually put forth. 
 
 Keswick has been blessed to the deepening and 
 strengthening of the spiritual life in thousands of 
 Christians, and in increasing the efficacy of 
 thousands of the clergy and ministers. It is rem.ark- 
 able that it is not found to cause either dissensions or 
 divisions in churches, but is, on the contrary, in 
 many cases a most happy bond of union. 
 
 Side by side with these wonderful and helpful 
 revivals and conventions there have been revivals and 
 missions of a very different character. 
 
76 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 In 1374 there was a dreadful religious dancing mania 
 which began at Aix. There were hundreds of danc- 
 ing men and women screaming and foaming at the 
 mouth, and all this coupled with wonderful visions 
 of Christ and the Saints. There were many cases 
 of recovery of sight to the blind. This mania spread 
 all over that part of Germany like wild fire, and yet 
 there can be no doubt that multitudes carried away 
 by it were earnest and true Christians. 
 
 In Italy, at another time, thousands of people 
 were suddenly affected with the literal " fear " of 
 God ; and persons of noble and ignoble birth, men 
 and women and even children five years old, walked 
 naked in public two and two, each with a scourge of 
 leather thongs, and lashed themselves on their bare 
 backs, with tears and blood accompanying the act. 
 There were many thousands thus all over Italy crying 
 to God for mercy. 
 
 In 1707 and following years London was disturbed 
 by a noisy group of French and English fanatics, who 
 combined the highest religious pretensions and the 
 most Scriptural language with prophecies, speaking 
 in tongues which were accompanied by all sorts of 
 contortions and by many immoralities. The 
 movement began by three French Protestant 
 refugees coming over in the reign of Queen Anne ; 
 and amongst their followers were Sir Richard 
 Bulkeley a wealthy baronet, a prebendary of Salis- 
 bury Cathedral, several physicians, a learned 
 scientist, the tutor of the Duke of Bedford, Lady 
 
SANITY IN REVIVALS 77 
 
 Jane Forbes, and many others. These do not 
 seem to have been deceivers, but earnest Christian 
 men deceived and deluded by lying spirits, which 
 they firmly believed were the Holy Spirit of God. 
 
 Coming to more modern times I will touch upon 
 the Irvingite movement, and the recent outbreaks of 
 tongues in India and America and elsewhere. I 
 might of course write about hundreds of such out- 
 breaks, for they abound in all ages, but I think by 
 taking these few instances their general character will 
 be sufficiently understood. 
 
 I give first a condensed extract from a remarkable 
 document by Mr. Robert Baxter called a " Narrative 
 of Facts," and beg for its careful perusal. The story 
 gains much additional weight when the reader 
 realizes that in Mr. Robert Baxter one has to do 
 with a slow, cautious, and somewhat heavy Scotch 
 lawyer, of considerable eminence in London at the 
 Parliamentary bar. An intimate friend of mine was 
 his personal friend for twenty years, and describes 
 him as singularly clear, level-headed, and reliable 
 in every way, and one who was regarded generally 
 as a man of sound and solid judgment as well as 
 being a highly-taught Christian. The narrative is 
 in his own words : — 
 
 " Conceiving as I did, and still do, that there is 
 no covenant in Scripture for limiting the manifesta- 
 tions of the Spirit to the apostolic times, and deeply 
 sensible of the growth of infidelity ; in the face of 
 the prevalence of formality and lukewarmness in the 
 
78 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 Church, I wag ready to examine the claims to 
 inspiration, and even anxious for the presence of the 
 gifts of the Spirit, according as it seemed to me to 
 that apostoHc command, " coYet earnestly the best 
 gifts;" conscious that nothing but an abundant out- 
 pouring of the Spirit of God could quicken the 
 Church into active life ; and that nothing less than 
 the power of God, put forth in testimony, could 
 stem the torrent of infidelity which was flowing in 
 upon us ; I longed greatly and prayed much for 
 such an outpouring and testimony. 
 
 " When I saw, as it seemed to me, that those who 
 claimed these gifts were walking honestly, and that 
 the power manifested in them was evidently super- 
 natural ; and moreover bore testimony to Christ come 
 in the flesh, I welcomed it at once as the work of 
 God. 
 
 " In the midst of a prayer-meeting for the first 
 time I was myself seized upon by the power, and 
 in much struggling against it was made to cry out (in 
 a loud and commanding voice) and myself give forth 
 a confession of sin, a prophecy that the messengers 
 of the Lord would go forth and publish to the ends 
 of the earth .... the near coming of the Lord 
 Jesus. 
 
 ** I was overwhelmed by this occurrence. I was 
 distinctly conscious of a power acting in me. 
 
 " In private prayer one day I was much distressed 
 at my wandering thoughts, when suddenly the power 
 came down upon me, and I found myself lifted up 
 
SANITY IN REVIVALS 79 
 
 in soul to God, my thoughts were riveted, and 
 calmness of mind given me. 
 
 " By a constraint I cannot describe, I was made 
 to speak, at the same time shrinking from utterance. 
 The utterance was a prayer that the Lord would be- 
 stow on me the gifts of His Spirit, the gift of wisdom, 
 of knowledge, of faith, the working of miracles, the 
 gifts of healing, of prophesy, of tongues, and that he 
 would open my mouth to declare His glory. This 
 prayer was forced from me by the constraint of the 
 power which acted upon me : and the utterance was 
 so loud that I put my handkerchief to my mouth to 
 stop the sound that I might not alarm the house. 
 When I had reached the last word the power died 
 off me, and left me filled with amazement, and with 
 a strong conviction, ' This is the Spirit of God.' 
 
 " I must testify that looking back upon all that is 
 past (now I know it is of the devil) whenever the 
 power rested on me, I seemed to have joy and 
 peace in the Holy Ghost, and I cannot even now, 
 by feeling alone, discern that it was not really such ! 
 
 " At a meeting while the pastor was speaking 
 the power fell upon me and I was made to speak 
 (in a loud voice), and for two hours or upwards I gave 
 forth prophecies concerning the church ; declaring its 
 present state and coming glory, and the return of 
 the Lord. I had no excitement ; to myself it was 
 calmness and peace. The words flashed into my mind 
 without forethought, without expectation, without 
 any plan or arrangement ; all was the work of the 
 
8o CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 moment, and I was as the passive instrument of the 
 power which used me. 
 
 " Mr. Irving said he had doubts as to allowing me 
 to speak in his church ; and the power came on me, 
 rebuking him, and reasoning with him, until he sat 
 down and said he did not know what to do. Then 
 the power came on Miss H., who said he must not 
 forbid my speaking. This satisfied him, and he 
 yielded at once. 
 
 " To those who have never been visited with any 
 power beyond the mere vagaries of excitement it 
 may seem inexplicable how persons can be brought 
 to surrender their own judgment and act upon 
 impulse without daring to question the power. But 
 the process is very simple and perfectly logical. 
 
 " Though accustomed to try the power of my own 
 mind in public and in private, in business and in 
 religious meetings, in reasoning and in exposition, I 
 found, in a sudden, in the midst of my accustomed 
 course, a power coming upon me which was alto- 
 gether new, an unnatural and in many cases a most 
 appalling utterance given to me with great clearness 
 of view in the word of God, great freedom in prayer. 
 It was manifest to me the power was supernatural ; 
 it was therefore a spirit. It seemed to me to bear 
 testimony to Christ, and the conclusion was inevit- 
 able, that it was the Spirit of God. 
 
 "The mistake is awfal, if a seducing spirit is 
 entertained as the Holy Spirit. The more devoted 
 the Christian seduced, the more implicit the 
 
SANITY IN REVIVALS 8i 
 
 obedience ; and unless God graciously interpose, 
 there can be no deliverance. 
 
 " About this time was consummated the master- 
 piece of doctrinal delusion in the development of 
 the "baptism of fire" as it was thenceforth 
 expounded by me. It was declared " in utterance " 
 that the Lord would again send apostles, by the 
 laying on of whose hands should follow the baptism 
 of fire, which should subdue the flesh, and burn 
 out sin, and give to the disciples of Christ the full 
 freedom of the Holy Ghost, and final victory over 
 
 the world. 
 
 "The simultaneous action of the power upon 
 two or more continually occurred, leading them to 
 utter the same words. 
 
 " In the midst of minds duly prepared, Satan can 
 gradually develop the subjects of his delusion ; and 
 going on step by step, can unwarily lead his victims 
 into extravagancies, first by doctrine and next by 
 conduct, which they would, without such gradual 
 preparation, shudder to contemplate. 
 
 " Some amongst us were found to be speaking by 
 an ' evil spirit ' and Mrs. C. and Mrs. E. C. had been 
 much in power to declare it. This troubled me 
 greatly, for I had been led in power to declare 
 the call of one of them to the spiritual ministry. 
 
 " I treated, however, any doubt as a temptation, I 
 rested implicitly upon the text, " every spirit that 
 confesseth Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God," 
 and felt assured that no spirit making that 
 
 G 
 
82 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 confession could be of Satan. I had heard the 
 confession made several times by the spirit which 
 spoke in myself and others. I ought lo have seen that 
 the mere confession in words is not of itself a proof 
 of the spirit being of God, and searched out more 
 fully whether the spirit did really set forth the truth. 
 " At this time Mr. Irving's views became known 
 that the law of the flesh and the law of sin was in 
 Jesus, and only kept down by the Holy Spirit. In 
 April, 1832, Mr. Irving wrote to me : " I believe 
 the flesh of Christ to have been no better than other 
 flesh ; but he received such a measure of the Holy 
 Spirit as sufficed to resist its own proclivity to the 
 world and to Satan ! " 
 
 " I then called on Mr. Irving and told him my con- 
 viction that we had all been speaking by a lying 
 spirit and not the Spirit of the Lord. One point in 
 these manifestations is the manifest denouncement 
 and debasement of the understanding. It is true 
 the understanding must bow, as well before Divine 
 mysteries as before the teaching of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 " But the Apostle exhorts us, be not children in 
 understanding, but in understanding be men, and 
 prays for the Ephesians, " the eyes of your under- 
 standing being enlightened," and for the Colossians, 
 " In all wisdom and spiritual understanding," and 
 for Timothy " The Lord give thee understanding in 
 all things." It is manifest that the grace of God and 
 the teaching of the spirit of God purifies and 
 enlarges the understanding, and gives us to discern 
 
SANITY IN REVIVALS 83 
 
 by the understanding between truth and error. 
 The understanding is to be used and strengthened 
 by the Word and the Spirit, and the man of God 
 walks according to an enhghtened understanding in 
 the degree of Hght God gives him. Now I am 
 assured that the spirit, manifested in us all, has 
 always striven to put aside the understanding, and 
 bring its followers into absolute submission to the 
 utterances. 
 
 " Another characteristic to which I would allude is 
 the spirit of separation which marks out a line by j 
 the reception or rejection of these utterances. It ' 
 casts off the great mass of orthodox professors and 
 raises up those who receive the utterances into 
 "the Church." 
 
 " With many of these there is, however, a Christian 
 spirit and a sincere love of the truth. They are 
 deceived and not deceivers, save instrumentally. 
 There is no intentional deceit or guilt about them ; 
 they are really acted upon by a supernatural power, 
 and they worship it as the Holy Spirit of Jehovah. 
 
 The text, " Every spirit which confesseth that 
 Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God," is 
 given us explicitly as the test whereby to try the 
 spirit, and it must therefore be decisive. In some 
 the spirit was not permitted to confess it, even verbally 
 (as in Gloucestershire). But I have "under power," 
 declared it, and so has my brother. 
 
 " It appears that a mere verbal confession is not 
 all that is required; for the devils said, "I know 
 
84 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 Thee who Thou art, the Holy One of God." The 
 
 confession should be sought on any points which 
 create suspicion as to soundness of faith. 
 
 " My persuasion concerning the ''unknown tongue," 
 as it is called, is that it is no language whatever, but 
 a mere collection of words and sentences, and is 
 much of it a jargon of sounds. 
 
 " The whole work is a mimicry of the gifts of the 
 Spirit in the utterance, the tongues, the prophesy- 
 ings, and all the other works of " the power." It 
 is Satan, as an angel of light imitating, as far as 
 permitted, the Holy Spirit of God. 
 
 " It has been most fully manifested that a false 
 spirit does bear witness against Satan. The warn- 
 ings against Satan were very abundant. The spirits 
 are ' lying spirits,' and one lie will be ministered to 
 one and another (the opposite) to the other." 
 
 ** I was with gifted persons in London who all gave 
 the same testimony, but gifted persons in Port 
 Glasgow spoke against me and others. 
 
 " To those who have never experienced or witnessed 
 the effect of delusion in perverting the judgment 
 and shutting the eyes of the understanding, its 
 workings are incredible. I have found in myself 
 such woful darkness, and such credulity, that 
 when I think of it I am almost afraid of making a 
 statement, or advancing an opinion, lest I should 
 still be under its influence. 
 
 " One circumstance cannot but force itself upon 
 observation : that is, the continual use which was 
 
SANITY IN REVIVALS Ss 
 
 made of the doctrine of the second Advent of our i 
 Lord. The same thing has, as far as we are | 
 informed, attended every putting forth of assumed 
 prophetic power from the earhest times. With the 
 French prophets at the beginning of the i8th century, 
 with the followers of Joanna Southcote, the nearness 
 of the second Coming has been the leading doctrine. 
 
 " At the first advent of our Lord many false 
 Christs came and drew away many. We are also 
 expressly warned with reference to the second 
 Advent, " There shall come false Christs and false 
 prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders, 
 insomuch that if it were possible they shall deceiYS 
 the very elect." 
 
 " Long after I gave up the delusion, "the power" 
 so continued with me that I was obliged to resist it 
 continually." 
 
 ****** 
 
 I might give much more, but this will suffice, and 
 with it I will close this chapter, reserving further 
 considerations of revivals, missions, and conventions 
 to the next. 
 
CHAPTER VL 
 
 Sanity in Revivals, Conventions and 
 Missions — continued. 
 
 THE remarkable and pathetic narrative by a 
 great and good man given in the last 
 chapter, who fell into the snare of the devil 
 through reasons he himself afterwards 
 clearly discerned, may now be compared and con- 
 trasted with the following brief account of how a 
 weak woman, the well-known Charlotte Elizabeth, 
 the authoress, was assailed, but instead of falling 
 under the Satanic power, how remarkably she 
 escaped. Her action is full of instruction in the 
 ; present day, and if only her course of procedure were 
 ' generally followed, there would be little need of this 
 or any other such work to guard and guide unwary 
 souls. 
 
 These extracts are from a small volume called 
 *' Personal Recollections of Charlotte Elizabeth." 
 
 " The first thing that aroused my attention to the 
 new doctrines of Mr. Irving was the singular case of 
 Miss Fancourt. Had it been a person unknown to 
 me I might have thought less about it, but I knew 
 
 86 
 
SANITY IN REVIVALS 87 
 
 her and her family; and I was and am perfectly 
 certain that the least attempt at deception was never 
 practised, never thought of by them. 
 
 A sweet, patient, suffering child of God, guileless as 
 a babe, and whose bodily affliction had moved my 
 tenderest sympathy as I sat beside her couch of pain ; 
 the intelligence of her instantaneous recovery, of her 
 having walked from her father's house at Hoxton to 
 that of myhospitable friend Mr. Hawtry, in Hackney, 
 and back, with my intimate knowledge alike of the 
 localities and the individuals concerned, came upon 
 me with a reality the most overwhelming ; I certainly 
 held it to have been a miraculous answer to faithful 
 prayer, and I was strongly predisposed to receive 
 whatever might be placed before me on the same 
 basis. 
 
 " Just then, within two or three days afterwards, 
 a lady to whom I looked up as a most enlightened, 
 zealous Christian, wrote me a glowing letter, enclos- 
 ing two little pamphlets, or rather tracts, on the 
 subject of miraculous gifts in the church, as set 
 forth in the 14th chapter of i Corinthians, which 
 was quoted in full. She also gave me an account of 
 the " tongues," and exhorted me to pray for 
 miraculous gifts, and to devote my pen immediately 
 and wholly to this great cause. She added that her 
 parents were violently opposed, but she hoped to 
 obtain the " gifts " herself, and by that means to 
 silence all. 
 
 " I was confounded. I read the tracts, and all 
 
88 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 the Scriptures pointed out in them, as confirmatory 
 of the view taken, and which certainly made 
 out a strong case ; but I felt, too, that a 
 reference to single texts would not suffice ; I had 
 always read the Bible as a continuous book, not as a 
 collection of scraps. 
 
 "Accordingly I that night took the New Testament 
 
 up, kneeled, and fervently, most fervently prayed 
 
 to be guided to all truth, kept from presumptuous 
 
 sin, and led to glorify God by humbly receiving 
 
 what He was pleased to reveal. I then seated 
 
 myself on the side of my bed, and read the whole of 
 
 the New Testament from the first chapter of 
 
 Matthew to the Epistle of Jude, and the first seven 
 
 I chapters of the Revelation, finishing that book on 
 
 j the morrow. The result was such as to make me 
 
 ' decidedly reject the new pretensions. 
 
 ** I cannot go over the subject here, it would be a 
 treatise in itself; and my object is to recommend to 
 you and others the same process, that each may have 
 his own convictions based on the Word of God, and 
 not on the convictions of a fellow mortal. I was 
 quite sure that if such an important change was to 
 take place in the character of the dispensation, and 
 women to become public teachers of men, I should 
 find some express warrant for it, since God would 
 never require us to believe a miracle not wrought 
 according to His Word. 
 
 " I found that signs and wonders in the last 
 days were the predicted marks of what was not to 
 
SANITY IN REVIVALS 89 
 
 be received or followed, and I began to regard with 
 jealous suspicion this assumption ; resolved to 
 watch most narrowly the doctrines he (Mr. Irving) 
 might preach. Miss Fancourt's case was argued at 
 large in the Record newspaper, and I soon came to the 
 conclusion, from which I have not swerved, that it 
 was one of nervous, not organic disease ; and while 
 ascribing all glory to God as the hearer of her prayer 
 and healer of her sickness, I believe that it had been 
 accomplished by the natural operation, mercifully 
 ordered by Him, of a natural cause. 
 
 " In this state of mind I remained, when a letter 
 from a friend in Scotland brought me some account 
 of a meeting where he had heard Mr. Irving expound 
 on the subject of our adorable Lord's human nature, 
 and which, he said, perplexed him. He stated the 
 outline, slightly ; but sufficiently to convince me that 
 some great error lay beneath the surface, and this 
 rendered me the more thankful that I had not lightly 
 admitted the claim to supernatural powers, which, 
 once acknowledged, would have given weight to any 
 doctrine associated with them. 
 
 " A little time brought me better acquainted with 
 the nature of this heresy. . . . He maintained 
 that the human nature in which our Divine Lord 
 was pleased to become incarnate was not only the 
 likeness of sinful flesh, but flesh inherently sinful. . . . 
 
 " I was far from denying the probability of super- 
 natural agency, for the doctrine was so truly 
 diabolical that Satan might be likely enough to 
 
go CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 strengthen it with such signs and wonders as he was 
 permitted to show, in order to try the faith of God's 
 people; and I know of nothing that would sooner 
 put me on my guard against any new theory than 
 seeing it backed by seeming miracles. 
 
 " That Satan can work miracles there is no doubt, 
 and that he will yet do so we are plainly warned. 
 He seems to withhold his hand now, in order to 
 conceal the fact of his existence ; but there will be 
 a snare provided for each individual, according to 
 his natural disposition, and the most devoutly 
 disposed are just those who have need to watch the 
 most carefully against spiritual wickedness in high 
 places." 
 
 I now pass on to some manifestations in the present 
 day, of a similar character to those seen in 
 Irvingism, and will first of all give without names 
 some extracts from a correspondent in India that 
 will perhaps suffice to show how the same features 
 are reproduced, and succeed in carrying away un- 
 doubtedly true-hearted and earnest Christian people 
 now, as formerly. 
 
 April, 1907. " I believe this movement to be 
 an incipient Agapemone, and the dear people 
 entangled are just where Piggott (the Clapton 
 *' Messiah ") and others were twenty-two years ago. 
 
 " For three days and nights I have passed through 
 the deepest travail of soul I have ever known. All 
 
SANITY IN REVIVALS 91 
 
 the spiritually-minded men in South India whom 
 we are in touch with are opposed to the movement. 
 
 " We were told God's presence was manifested at a 
 meeting near, and would we come over. I refused on | 
 the ground they were teaching what was contrary ] 
 to Scripture, 
 
 " There are two chief points in the awful delusion 
 that is now working here. Satan is subtly offering 
 stones to hungry souls, and they believe them to be 
 bread. Then having succeeded in getting his 
 stones accepted for bread, Satan goes on to say, 
 * Cast thyself down ? The angels have charge 
 over thee.' That is, ' give over the control of your ' 
 personality. Let go ! Let yourself go ! Lose con- 
 trol and pass out of the condition of consciousness.' " 
 
 I need scarcely point out here how closely this 
 resembles Mr. Robert Baxter's awful experience 
 of Irvingism nearly eighty years before. 
 
 The two points on which he was led astray were 
 the same as in this case. First, accepting stones ' 
 as bread — that is false doctrines as the Word of 
 God. Second, letting himself go and letting " the 
 power" master him, and speak through him. 
 
 The similarity of the methods of deception is 
 startling, though so much else differs. To proceed : 
 
 " Those who accept this condition do indeed lose 
 control and become like persons insane, or in 
 convulsions or hysterical, and in this condition 
 shameful things happen. 
 
 •* St. Paul says: ' I keep my body in subjection,' i.e., 
 
92 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 I retain my rightful rule and control over the body 
 ' lest I should become a castaway.' The next step 
 naturally follows, and the soul accepts Satan for 
 God, and a spirit of delusion for the Spirit of God. 
 
 " Here it is said ' Speaking with tongues is the 
 sole evidencing sign that one has received the true 
 Pentecostal Baptism ' ! They also say, ' An 
 essential condition is the renunciation of all control 
 over the bodily movements, &c. ' ! 
 
 " The atmosphere in their gatherings is most 
 peculiar and intoxicating. 
 
 " I told the lady most implicated that the movement 
 was of the ' depths of Satan.' That I had been 
 mercifully held back twenty-two years before when 
 trifling on the brink of the same awful pit (Piggott, 
 &c.). I told her she was under hypnotic influence. 
 
 " This delusion cannot stand the Word of God. 
 Bring this to bear upon it, and it falls to pieces like 
 a house of cards. Scarcely one spiritual man of 
 standing has been deceived. 
 
 '* On one occasion the leader spoke on the 
 wise and foolish virgins, and said that speaking with 
 tongues was as the oil in the vessels of the wise 
 virgins, and that those who did not obtain it would 
 go to Hell. After there were the most dreadful 
 shrieks in the meeting, and a group of sisters were 
 on the floor, with one stretched full length and 
 groaning in their midst. 
 
 " In another meeting the leader did his utmost 
 to work up the excitement and keep it at boiling 
 
SANITY IN REVIVALS 93 
 
 pitch. He commenced crooning a weird song 
 without words, moving his head and his hands 
 gently with the tune ; but soon he got more excited, 
 and this increased till every member of his body was 
 shaking at a fearful rate, and his head shook as though 
 it would soon shake itself off and his song jerked itself 
 out in gasps. All was most painful to witness. 
 
 " He then made passes over an Indian pastor 
 by him, caught him by the wrists, and shook 
 him most vigorously, while he himself was shaking 
 in every limb, at the same time praying in a most 
 passionate manner, ' Lord, finish this man off.' 
 Then he would rub his hand over the poor man's 
 head. Gradually, as I watched the process, the 
 pastor became more and more under the 
 influence, and at last lost control and fell over. 
 Then he knelt up again and began to pray in an 
 ecstacy, but without any coherence. 
 
 " I heard him repeat rapidly the word preaching 
 (prasangain) in Tamil many times, and then at last he 
 seemed to lose all knowledge of what he was doing or 
 saying, and with his arms and face working desper- 
 ately he commenced repeating the word * Bramha, 
 Bramha,' perhaps a hundred times, as fast as he could 
 get the word out. It was the vocative of Bramha, 
 the first person of the Hindu Trinity of Bramha, 
 Vishnu, and Siva. Had I needed any further proof 
 of the devilish character of some of these practices 
 in these meetings I had it now to the full.* 
 *I believe the pastor was very soon after delivered from the snare. 
 
94 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 " And yet in this same meeting I noticed the 
 sisters' prayers were sweet and reasonable, and 
 the hymns and choruses full of adoration. 
 
 " I am deeply convinced that whoever seeks to 
 follow and preach Christ will have, in days to come, 
 real hand-to-hand conflicts with Satanic hosts, and 
 will only be able to withstand in the evil day if 
 clothed in the whole armour of God." 
 
 I now give a brief account from Los Angeles from 
 the pen of one well known to me, which seems to 
 show the exceedingly corrupt source from which so 
 much of the movement springs. 
 
 " Los Angeles, California, is the common source 
 of the present speaking with tongues, &c. 
 
 ''This is a strange place. First there are thousands 
 of heathens with their idolatries and filthinesses, 
 which means the presence of demons in their homes. 
 There, then, is the widespread theosophy, new 
 thought, mysticism, sorcery, clairvoyance, and 
 necromancy. One feels the air is infected in a 
 peculiar way. 
 
 " On Friday night at a meeting I heard a man 
 begin to draw in his breath between his teeth with 
 a peculiar hiss. I knew at once what that meant ; 
 that he was a man who had some connection with 
 the ' tongues ' movement in the city where there 
 is any amount of the demon imitation of the things 
 of God. He rose to give his testimony ; how he 
 had had his baptism and spoke with tongues, and 
 gvery one on whom he laid his hands for healing 
 
SANITY IN REVIVALS 95 
 
 had been healed instantaneously, &c. His voice 
 rose higher and higher with the peculiar drawn-out 
 intonation that always indicates to me demon posses- 
 sion, and he raved and raved and then began to gabble 
 in some unknown gibberish, and his arms became 
 rigid. 
 
 " On Monday a woman began to bark like a dog. 
 Another went off into hysterics and fainted. She then 
 rose up and with a fixed stare and arms rigidly 
 stretched out, began to wander round the room, 
 creeping and gliding like a snake. She remained in 
 this state twenty minutes, and one said to me, " She 
 has a familiar spirit, and it is all of the devil." 
 Then the woman glided back to her seat. 
 
 " A coloured girl then pushed to the front and sang 
 a hymn all by herself. One felt that too was of 
 the enemy. 
 
 " I can trace much here to what has gone on in the 
 * tongue ' meetings where the enemy has got in, 
 and the devils seem to have cleverly simulated the 
 work of God, and these people, being nearly all 
 of them ignorant of their Bibles, are easily led 
 astray. 
 
 " 1 have been thinking a good deal about this 
 demon possession, and considering that here the 
 heathen are pouring in, Chinese, Japanese, and 
 Hindoos, and have brought their heathenism, and 
 the idols are here, and the demons are behind 
 them. It is becoming a residence for demons. At 
 San Diegos a great colony exists, led by a Mrs. 
 
96 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 Tingley, who is the head of a cult for the worship 
 of Isis, where she has a temple for this. The 
 inner life and practices are never shown." 
 
 This movement, with its tongues and other signs, 
 has spread from Los Angeles all over America to 
 Norway and Sweden, to India as we have seen, and 
 doubtless to many other parts. Here is a very brief 
 extract from Pittsburgh, U.S.A. 
 
 " What we see here corresponds well with the 
 general reports from elsewhere. The meetings are 
 ' bedlam,' everything is confusion ; prayers to God 
 are yelled or groaned or barked or yelped. Now 
 and then some one gets ' the blessing ' and falls in a 
 trance-like condition on the floor to remain rigid, 
 perhaps for hours. Another begins to talk some 
 sort of gibberish* interspersed with English. 
 
 '* Another in a different guttural mumbles and 
 then gives an interpretation in English. These are 
 said to have the ' unknown tongues ' of Pentecost. 
 The people in attendance pay little heed to what is 
 uttered by these ' tongues ' and their interpretations. 
 Some are simply curious, others are too engrossed 
 with their desire to have a trance or an ' unknown 
 tongue,' to do anything else than groan their 
 prayers to God for those gifts as evidence of His 
 favour. Frenzied hugging and kissing and rolling 
 
 *One must ever remember that all that is called s^ibberish is 
 not always so. I heard a woman saying repeatedly " Ah che 
 chela ma Helo^'' which I thought gibberish, till I learnt that on 
 the Congo it meant '' Hallelujah to my Saviour," 
 
SANITY IN REVIVALS 97 
 
 on the floor are amongst the evidences that these 
 poor people are surely under some spirit influence. 
 And it certainly does not appear to be ' the spirit of 
 a sound mind ' (2 Tim. i. 7). 
 
 " In Los Angeles a woman got this so-called gift of 
 tongues, and a reputable Chinaman hearing her, 
 said that he understood her quite well — that she 
 spoke his dialect of Chinese. Pressed for an inter- 
 pretation he declined, saying that the utterance was 
 the vilest of the vile. 
 
 " In our judgment the facts justify the con- 
 clusion that these ' signs ' are of an unholy spirit of 
 Satan ; that he is now producing a poor counterfeit 
 for the deception of a class whom he cannot reach 
 
 otherwise." 
 
 ****** 
 
 Having given, for the sake of juxtaposition, 
 accounts from India and America of the efforts of 
 Satan to counterfeit the gifts of the Holy Ghost, it 
 will be well now to give brief accounts from reliable 
 eye witnesses of some manifestations which appear 
 from the fruits of the work, to proceed from the power 
 of the Spirit of God. 
 
 The close and careful study I have been obliged 
 to give to this question leads me to the conclusion 
 that those who declare the whole of what is going on 
 to be of the devil, and those who declare it to be of 
 God are both alike wrong. 
 
 In the first place, as a medical man, I feel that while 
 much extravagant behaviour can be attributed to 
 
 H 
 
98 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 mere imitative hysteria, some of the power behind 
 the manifestations is supernatural rather than patho- 
 logical in character. 
 
 It seems from the evidence that this power is of 
 two sorts — the genuine and the false. The former 
 is quite distinguishable from the latter by the godly 
 and Christian results of real converts from 
 heathenism, sound in faith and doctrine ; the latter 
 while exaggerating and caricaturing some of the 
 outward signs of the power of the Holy Spirit, 
 fails to produce what cannot be imitated — lives 
 changed by the power of God. 
 
 The task of distinguishing between the two is not, 
 however, quite so simple as it would appear; because 
 in many cases where a genuine work of God is going 
 on, counterfeits are introduced by the enemy. In 
 other words, while the results of the general mission 
 work may be of God, many of the accompanying 
 phenomena may not be. 
 
 I will give a few extracts by a reliable eye-witness 
 I descriptive of scenes, some of which do appear to 
 proceed from the action of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 The origin of this class of work in India seems 
 to be the Welsh Revival ; that of the other I have 
 described was Los Angeles, California ; and these are 
 certainly two very different sources. 
 
 " According to the laws of the spiritual kingdom 
 it was quite in order that the Welsh Revival should 
 be reproduced on the Welsh corner of the Indian 
 Mission Field, 
 
SANITY IN REVIVALS 99 
 
 "For ten days before the Pariong Presbytery, we 
 had daily prayer meetings to ask God to send His 
 Holy Spirit on us in that Presbytery. We felt that 
 God was very near to us, and had a strong hope of 
 seeing something wonderful, so went in good 
 numbers, both men and women. We were not 
 disappointed, for we saw with our own eyes in very 
 truth the Holy Spirit descending with power on the 
 people assembled there. Never had we experienced 
 such a thing before, and we praise God for it. After 
 returning we had a meeting in Ranthong at which 
 nearly all the Christians were present. We told of 
 the marvellous things the Lord had done at Pariong, 
 and afterwards, while we were pra3'ing, the Spirit 
 descended on us also. 
 
 " From that day many of our friends are like new 
 creatures ; they love the services, they love the Word, 
 they are more earnest in prayer, they love their 
 neighbours better, and they are bolder and more 
 active in preaching and speaking the Gospel of 
 Christ. The heathen wonder at the transformation 
 of the Christians, and many come to hear the 
 Gospel." 
 
 The following is from another district. 
 
 " The next evening, June 30th, while P. R. 
 was expounding John viii. in the daily prayer 
 meeting in her usual quiet way, the Holy 
 Spirit descended with power, and all the 
 girls began to pray aloud so that she had to 
 cease talking. Little children, middle-sized girls, 
 
loo CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 and young women, wept bitterly and confessed their 
 sins. Some few saw visions and experienced the 
 power of God, and things that are too deep to be 
 described. Two httle girls had the spirit of prayer 
 poured on them in such torrents that they continued 
 to pray for hours. They were transformed with 
 heavenly light shining on their faces. 
 
 " The news of the Revival in Wales brought 
 gladness to R. In January, 1905, she told her 
 pupils about it, and called for volunteers to meet 
 with her daily for special prayer for a Revival in 
 India. Seventy came forward, and from time to time 
 others joined. In June, 550 were meeting twice 
 daily in this praying Band. 
 
 " Prayer continued all night in the various com- 
 pounds on more than one occasion. The Bible 
 school was filled with those crying for mercy. Such 
 repentance, such heart-searching, such agony over 
 sin, and tears, as they cried for pardon and cleansing 
 and a baptism of the Holy Ghost ! Then a baptism 
 like a fire within them came upon them. They 
 seemed to have their eyes opened to see " the body of 
 sin " in themselves. Then came a strong realization 
 of Christ's work upon the cross ; then peace, 
 followed by intense joy. It often took a soul hours 
 to pass through all these experiences. The Lord 
 used the Word greatly, and the work went on rapidly 
 for three days. Satan was also busy and tried to 
 counterfeit all he saw. Some who saw the joy 
 thought they could get it by imitating what they had 
 
SANITY IN REVIVALS loi 
 
 seen the others do. Yet the work went on, and thus 
 early a spirit of prayer and suppHcation for a 
 Revival in India was poured out like a flood. 
 
 "* Perhaps,' says Rev. A. L.Wiley, who chronicled 
 these experiences, * some will say this is all 
 imaginary ; but if it has been once experienced, or 
 witnessed even, no doubt will remain.' He con- 
 tinues : ' Simultaneous prayer is not confined to the 
 meetings only. Wherever two or three are gathered 
 together at all hours of the day or night, there will be a 
 season of simultaneous prayer. It is not an unusual 
 thing to awake in the middle of the night, to hear a 
 roar of prayer in the orphanage or in other places.' 
 
 " Is it all real ? To those of us who have gone 
 through it, this question seems out of place. We 
 also reply, ' By their fruits ye shall know them.' 
 Differences of long standing have been made up, and 
 a beautiful harmony and unity prevail. Restitution 
 has been made. Silver and gold ornaments have 
 been thrown into the collecting bag. Those who 
 were afraid to testify for Christ in public, testify 
 now with beaming faces. Many who never gave the 
 message before to the heathen, or who went in fear 
 and trembling, now go with great boldness and 
 rejoicing to tell of Him who has changed their lives. 
 Yes, they have looked unto Him and have become 
 radiant with His own glory and beauty. Many 
 although baptized had never experienced any change 
 of life, had never been converted; but all have 
 experienced that change now." 
 
102 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 A later account says : — 
 
 *'One Sunday, as I was coming out of the 
 Church, after the morning service, I saw some girls 
 standing near the door of a worker's room. They 
 seemed greatly excited and wondering. I soon 
 found out the cause of their wonder. A girl was 
 praying aloud, and praising God in the English 
 language. She did not know the language. Some 
 of us gathered around her in the room, and joined 
 her mentall}^ in prayer. She was perfectly un- 
 conscious of what was going on, her eyes were fast 
 closed, and she was speaking to the Lord Jesus very 
 fluently in English. I had heard her and some 
 other girls uttering only a few syllables. Some of 
 them repeated certain words over and over again ; 
 some spoke one or more sentences, and some were 
 simply groaning as if under a great agony of heart 
 and mind and carrying a great burden of soul. 
 
 " So far as I can judge people by their daily 
 life, I am convinced more and more, that those who 
 have received the gift of tongues, have been greatly 
 helped to lead better lives, and are filled with zeal 
 for the salvation of others, and are given to more 
 earnest prayer than they were formerly.* The Lord 
 has been most graciously visiting His children 
 here for the last two years, and He has blessed 
 some with this special gift. Many others have not 
 
 * We give this judgment of the writer here, but do not thereby 
 endorse "the gift of tongues" as Divine. As will be seen, it 
 is too soon for those at a distance to pronounce a judgment. 
 
SANITY IN REVIVALS 163 
 
 had this gift, but they have been much blessed in 
 other ways. 
 
 " As a result of this visitation, these people 
 are beginning to feel their responsibility, to 
 give the Gospel of Christ to others. They are 
 doing their work in a very humble way without 
 being paid for it, and without expecting any reward 
 in this world. They are magnifying Christ, giving 
 Him all glory, and travailing in prayer for the lost 
 souls living around them. They do not act 
 foolishly, or do extravagant things in their daily life. 
 They are very humble and unpretending people, 
 walking in the fear of the Lord. This sort of fruit 
 is not borne by the branches * of the vine of the 
 earth,' but is the fruit of the True Vine. 
 
 " I have to learn a great deal more than I know 
 at present, so shall wait upon the Lord, and a^ 
 Him to teach me and lead me as He will. It is 
 neither safe nor right to say, that every physical 
 manifestation, and other signs which are appearing 
 among people visited by the present Holy Ghost 
 revival are from the devil." 
 
 I will now give a very brief account of a remark- 
 able work in Korea as described by the Rev. Lord 
 W. Gascoyne-Cecil in The Times. He says : — 
 
 " There is in the north of Korea a town called 
 Pyeng Yang, in which work two bodies of American 
 missionaries, with ordinary even if rather successful 
 missions. They had a practice of summoning all 
 their converts from the country round to come for 
 
104 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 ten days in Spring to receive further instruction in 
 the faith, for the ignorance of professing Christians 
 is at all times a great difficulty to the missionaries. 
 This meeting was purely educational. There were 
 no moving hymns, no emotional speeches. 
 
 "The mission chiefly concerned was a Presbyterian 
 mission conducted by Americans whose Scottish 
 origin was obvious, not only in their names, but in 
 every line of their faces and demeanour. Except for 
 the accent, one would have thought oneself in the 
 presence of representatives of the cold and canny race 
 that lives in our northern kingdom, and I only dilate 
 on this point because it is necessary to separate the 
 phenomena I am going to relate from those 
 emotional manifestations of religion with which 
 most of us are conversant under the name of revival 
 meetings, and which most of us distrust. 
 
 " The meetings held on the first seven days were 
 common-place. The usual syllabus of instruction was 
 followed, and at the end of the week, to all appear- 
 ance, the meetings might be expected to go on as 
 they always had done till they closed on the tenth day. 
 But just at the end, to the surprise of the missionary 
 who was conducting the meeting, one of the Korean 
 men arose and expressed a desire to speak, as some- 
 thing was on his mind which lay so heavily on his 
 conscience that he could no longer sit still. 
 
 "This caused a feeling of annoyance to theconductor 
 of the service, for it was in the nature of an interrup- 
 tion, but he thought it wiser to give the man leave to 
 
SANITY IN REVIVALS 105 
 
 unburden his conscience. The sin turned out to be 
 merely a feeling of animosity and injury on account 
 of a fancied slight which he had received a year ago 
 from the missionary. To settle his doubt the 
 missionary assured him that he forgave him for his 
 ill-temper, and then began to say a prayer. He 
 reached only the word * My Father,' when, with a 
 rush, a power from without seemed to take hold of 
 the meeting. 
 
 *' The Europeans described its manifestations 
 as terrifying. Nearly everybody present was 
 seized with the most poignant sense of mental 
 anguish, before each one his own sins seemed to be 
 rising in condemnation of his life. Some were 
 springing to their feet pleading for an opportunity to 
 relieve their consciences by making their abasement 
 known, others were silent but rent with agon}^, 
 clenching their fists and striking their heads against 
 the ground, in the struggle to resist the Power that 
 would force them to confess their misdeeds. 
 
 " From eight in the evening to two in the morning 
 did the scene go on, and then the missionaries, horror- 
 struck at some of the sins confessed, frightened 
 by the presence of a Power which could work such 
 a wonder, reduced to tears by sympathy w^ith the 
 mental agony of the Korean disciples whom they 
 loved so dearly, stopped the meeting. Some went 
 home to sleep, but many of the Koreans spent the 
 night awake : some in prayer, others in terrible 
 spiritual conflict. 
 
io5 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 *' Next day the missionaries hoped that the 
 storm was over, and that the comforting teaching 
 of the Holy Word would bind up the wounds 
 of yesternight, but again the same anguish the 
 same confession of sins, and so it went on for 
 several days. It was with mingled feelings of horror 
 and gratitude that the missionaries heard the long 
 list of crimes committed by those whom they had 
 hoped were examples of righteousness. 
 
 "One man confessed a crime not so horrible to their 
 minds as to ours — viz., that of murdering his infant 
 daughter ; another confessed a crime worse even to 
 Korean ears than it is to our own, that of killing his 
 old and infirm mother to escape from the burden of 
 her maintenance. A trusted native pastor confessed 
 to adultery, and of sexual sins both natural and 
 unnatural there were no lack. 
 
 " Not only was there confession, but, where it was 
 possible, reparation was made. One man sold his 
 house to repay money he had embezzled, and has 
 since been homeless ; another returned a wedge of 
 gold he had stolen years before. Some did not 
 find peace for many days. One man struggled till 
 it seemed as if his health would give way, to resist 
 the power that was forcing him to confession, and 
 then at last with pale face and downcast eyes came to 
 tell his sin. He was the trusted native preacher, 
 and he had misused his position to rob the mission. 
 He furnished an exact account of his defalcations, 
 and has since repaid every penny of the money. 
 
SANITY IN REVIVALS 107 
 
 ** When we reached Pyeng Yang the storm was 
 over. At the meeting I attended wnat struck me 
 most was the look of quiet devotion which shone on 
 many faces. There were no exclamations of 
 theatrical piety, no reference to a man's own sins and 
 conversion. The meeting took these for granted. 
 At first it was feared that the confession of such 
 heinous sins would injure the Christian body in 
 the eyes of the heathen ; but, on the contrary, they 
 were deeply impressed, for they said, " These men 
 under torture would not have confessed such sins, 
 how great must be the power of this religion." This 
 was told me as the opinion of a heathen Korean 
 expressed to an English layman. Bishop Turner 
 said that what most impressed him about this great 
 turning to Christ was that the Koreans as a nation 
 were not emotional." 
 
 Having given these extracts from India and 
 Korea, I will comment briefly on some of the won- 
 derful manifestations that have accompanied the 
 movement, leaving for the moment the special 
 question of ** tongues." 
 
 Taking into consideration the remarkable fact 
 that these are stories of the direct action of the 
 Spirit of God upon heathen people of the Far East, 
 deeply imbued with demon worship, incantations, 
 and prodigies of all sorts, the first point that strikes 
 me is the decided sobriety of the narrations ; as 
 well marked, indeed, as that which describes the 
 early years of our Lord in the Gospels, when com- 
 
to8 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 pared with the weird, sensational, and unnatural 
 stories that abound in the apocryphal narratives of 
 His childhood. 
 
 In reading the accounts two things at least must 
 be borne in mind. The first is, that since the days 
 of Pentecost there is no record of the sudden and 
 direct work of the Spirit of God upon the souls of 
 men that has not been accompanied by events more 
 or less abnormal. It is, indeed, on consideration, 
 only natural that it should be so. We cannot expect 
 an unusual inrush of Divine light and power, so 
 profoundly affecting the emotions and changing the 
 lives of men, without remarkable results. As well 
 expect a hurricane, an earthquake, or a flood, to 
 leave nothing abnormal in its course, as to expect 
 a true Revival that is not accompanied by events 
 quite out of our ordinary experience. 
 
 The second point is that there is no nation on 
 earth more narrow in its ideas of what is fit and not 
 fit, what is proper and not proper, what is legitimate 
 and what not, than the English ; and none more 
 slow to comprehend the difference between the East 
 and the West. This is remarkably shown in the 
 misunderstanding of what is of the East in the 
 Bible — and how much there is ! As Dr. Bullinger 
 and others have so well shown, the Bible is con- 
 stantly wrongly interpreted, through the utter want 
 of knowledge and sympathy with the Eastern style 
 of language and thought that pervades it. 
 
 Having then grasped these two points, let us 
 
SANITY IN REVIVALS 109 
 
 consider the abnormal (to us) in this work. We 
 come across dreams, visions, waking visions, and a 
 good deal of noise and irregular procedure. Attempts 
 made to introduce greater outward decorum were 
 apparently attended with no good results, and so 
 they were abandoned. 
 
 There were visional illusions of different sorts, 
 such as seeing a girl on fire — which, after all, is not very 
 different from seeing a light shining on a girl's face. 
 
 We get wailing, laughter, trembling, visions of 
 the Saviour, and healing of disease, and intoxication 
 with joy. 
 
 We get also possession of demons, beating of 
 breasts, and rolling on the ground. We also get 
 sounds of rushing wind, feelings of inward burning, 
 and visions of fire. 
 
 And really this is about all besides the " tongues." 
 Some of course, will say it is enough, and others 
 that it is too much. 
 
 It must be remembered, however, that in Belfast 
 and in South Wales many of us can remember 
 manifestations at least as remarkable; which in 
 cases specially examined were demonstrated to be 
 genuine, and free from fraud or exaggeration. 
 
 It may be worth our while briefly to consider these 
 phenomena. They may be classified as follows : — 
 
 Dreams and visions when asleep (See Acts ii. 17). 
 
 Emotional actions ) (see many passages in the 
 
 Emotional feelings) Gospels). 
 
 Possession of demons (See Mark xvi. 17, &c.). 
 
no CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 Healing of diseases (see Mark xvi. i8, &c.). 
 
 Ocular phenomena (see Acts ii. 3). 
 
 Auditory phenomena (see Acts ii. 2). 
 I have set down opposite each one a passage of 
 Scripture where similar abnormalities occur. 
 
 Let us remember, in considering these, that in 
 India at least, they are commonplaces ; that in 
 English Revivals they also occur ; and that, above 
 all, they are not the abnormalities and the marvels 
 of the movement at all. These consist in changed 
 hearts and lives, in men and women transformed 
 from darkness to light in a moment ; and the very 
 practical demonstration of this by the payment of 
 old debts, by loving their neighbours, by an entire 
 alteration of life. Without these real wonders the 
 cries and visions and dreams would attract little 
 notice. 
 
 What, however, we are particularly prone to as 
 Anglo-Saxons in the West is, to attempt to dis- 
 credit the real marvels on account of their (to our 
 ideas) somewhat unnatural and indecorous accom- 
 paniments. Now to understand these manifestations 
 in any way we must know a little, a very little, about 
 the mind of man and its wonders. 
 
 We must understand that the eye of conscious- 
 ness can see only a portion of our mental thoughts, 
 emotions, and actions, and that a vast district of 
 instincts, emotions, and thoughts, remain hidden 
 from our ken in unconsciousness. It is indeed here 
 in the unconscious mind that we find the seat of the 
 
SANITY IN REVIVALS m 
 
 character, of the personahty, of the ego ; and here i 
 also is the seat of the new hfe, the sphere of the new I 
 birth, the dwelling-place of the Holy Spirit. ' 
 
 The presence of the Spirit is not the subject of f 
 direct consciousness. Visions, meditations, prayers, 
 and dreams, have been undoubtedly occasions of 
 spiritual revelations. 
 
 A clergyman of great experience told me that he 
 believed that in one-third of the Christian people in 
 England dreams were connected with their conver- 
 sion, and it is quite certain that many are thus 
 influenced. 
 
 In view of these facts, what room is left for 
 amazement or cavil at the manifestations recorded 
 here in connection with a people so prone to sub- 
 jective phenomena ? 
 
 For we must remember that ocular and auditory 
 phenomena may be subjective or objective ; and it 
 really matters little which. The point in all these 
 wonders is the permanent effect for good that results 
 in the lives of the subjects of them — and here the 
 record seems clear. As to the emotional cries and 
 actions, little need be said, when we remember 
 how extravagant men may become even in England 
 in times of deep sorrow or sudden joy. The conduct 
 of thousands of otherwise sober people was just as 
 amazing during the Boer war (Mafeking night, &c.). 
 
 The Apostle writes of being "beside himself" 
 with joy, and of " being filled with the Spirit," as 
 contrasted with drunkennesg, 
 
112 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 It will be observed that the seeing and feeling of 
 fire is probably directly traceable to the prominence 
 given in all these Revivals in the present day to the 
 teaching that Matt. iii. ii refers to the Holy Ghost 
 coming as fire,* and to the hymns addressed to the 
 *' Spirit of Burning " ; so that undoubtedly the ideas 
 of all the manifestations and sounds and feelings were 
 all there in the atmosphere and minds of the people. 
 Under these circumstances it is quite natural that 
 an impressionable people should see, hear, and feel, 
 in accordance with their thoughts. Why even we 
 may shiver with cold in a warm room if we hear a 
 graphic account of suffering in the Arctic regions. 
 Hence I am inclined to believe these records are 
 true and unexaggerated ; the real marvel being, I 
 I again repeat, not the manifestations at all, but that 
 [hidden work of the Spirit which accompanied them 
 in such power as to transform the men and women 
 who experienced them into new creatures in Christ 
 Jesus. 
 
 I should like here to say one word about the 
 "possession with demons." 
 
 I think those who know the East cannot doubt 
 that Satan's power there is beyond all dispute, and 
 any who have read the painfully realistic pages of 
 
 * It is thought by many that v. 12 gives the true interpretation 
 of V. II. That the work of the Holy Ghost is to " Gather the 
 wheat into his garner," and that of the fire to burn up the chaff. 
 It is most important to notice that when Pentecost is foretold 
 in Acts i. 5 no fire is mentioned, but the Holy Ghost is. 
 
SANITY IN REVIVALS 113 
 
 Things as They Are must know how devil-possessed 
 many in India are. Lunacy is a general word that 
 covers any departure from sanity, but I think that 
 at times it covers even more. My experience even 
 in England goes to show, and I think the experience 
 of all skilled men directly connected with mental 
 diseases proves conclusively, that here and there 
 one comes across a case that is evidently "pos- 
 sessed " by some evil spirit. 
 
 I have seen a marked and special malignity against 
 God in a lady, naturally of a gentle and reverent 
 character, with a use of the most abominable words 
 which could never have been even heard, and a delight 
 in evil entirely contrary to her life and ways, that 
 compels one to believe in actual " possession " in 
 such a case. 
 
 With regard to the " tongues," from many quarters 
 one gets glowing accounts of their use far exceeding 
 the short extract I have given. 
 
 But in view of the facts so solemnly recorded in 
 Mr. Baxter's remarkable narrative, where we get a 
 most sober and clever Christian man entirely led 
 astray by them, believing firmly all the time it was 
 the Spirit of God, and also the terrible history of 
 the "tongues" in London in the i8th Century, I 
 feel one must suspend one's judgment ; it being 
 quite possible that godly men wholly in earnest 
 may find later on that they are mistaken. Time is 
 certainly often required to judge ; all one can say, 
 that hitherto these "gifts of tongues" have been 
 
114 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 sources of great distress and error in the Christian 
 Church. 
 
 In certain cases, as we have seen, there can be no 
 doubt there is a delusion of the enemy ; but in other 
 cases, apparently, the question is doubtful, as there 
 appears at present to have been edification and real 
 Spiritual blessing. I think, however, in view of 
 terrible past experiences, the reasonable course is to 
 defer one's judgment for the present. 
 
 I may add one word more which may help some 
 who rightly find a difficulty in believing many of the 
 occurrences in a true revival to be of God, It does 
 not in the least follow, when the Holy Spirit comes 
 in power in an individual or a meeting, that the 
 often trying manifestations and actions are of 
 Divine origin at all. Neither need they be in the least 
 Satanic. The cries, contortions, trances, &c., may 
 be merely the natural reaction of the person under 
 sudden and strange feelings. So that while the 
 work may be of God, there is not the least need to 
 suppose that all the manifestations are ; for much 
 that is human accompanies it. At the same time it 
 is quite possible that the imitations by Satan which 
 I have spoken of and will further describe, may 
 accompany a true revival. One can never, therefore, 
 even in a genuine work, be sure that all one sees is 
 of God ; but must be prepared to distinguish 
 between the Divine, the human, and possibly also 
 the evil elements present. 
 
 A good sovereign is worth twenty shillings at all 
 
SANITY IN REVIVALS 115 
 
 times, and its value endures. A false one may pass 
 current with the unwary once or twice, but is soon 
 found to be worthless ; and it could never circulate at 
 all if there were not good ones current at the time. It 
 is the genuine work that makes the false imitation 
 possible. It is quite probable that elsewhere genuine 
 and remarkable manifestations of Divine power have 
 been seen and borne solid fruit as well as in India. 
 Only it will always be found that at many such centres 
 the devil is also active and counterfeits the genuine 
 work of God as well as he is able. 
 
 Of course, time always shows ; for what is not of 
 God must come to naught in spiritual things ; and 
 as I have said, in the case of speaking with tongues, 
 I think there are weighty reasons from the past for 
 suspending one's judgment. 
 
 With regard to these I may add a word from 
 personal experience. No doubt I was fortunate in 
 lately being amongst an exceedingly earnest body 
 of Christian people with an able and quiet and 
 experienced Christian leader, who did not himself 
 speak with tongues at all — but who was waiting for the 
 gift. I attended a long meeting (three hours) and was 
 much struck with the simple earnest faith of the 
 people; with their intelligence and joyful acceptance 
 of the leading articles of Christian faith, the atoning 
 work of Christ, the value of His blood, of death and 
 burial with Him, of resurrection life, of the power of 
 the indwelling Spirit, these all being specially empha- 
 sized. 
 
ii6 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 Not only so, but no one could see them without 
 a strong impression that there was no conscious 
 effort to work up any excitement, but that the 
 whole desire of the meeting was for the glory of 
 God, and that some of the leaders at any rate were 
 guarded and watchful against anything of evil 
 influence. 
 
 Having said this, I must add that to me there was 
 much also that disfigured what would otherwise have 
 been an exceptionally bright and helpful gathering. 
 For an hour or more there were low mutterings and 
 jabberings about the room louder and softer ; sup- 
 posed I believe to be " tongues," but to me, in 
 part at any rate, simply uncouth sounds uttered 
 with great rapidity, and not any real language 
 at all. 
 
 I was told that when the tongues were received at 
 first by anyone (as a result of laying on of hands) the 
 person often jabbered incessantly for two or three 
 days as if practising them, and then got more 
 orderly ; but at no time was the use subject to his 
 will or control, as to time or method ; but at times he 
 could avoid giving audible utterance. I gathered 
 that as a rule the speaker in tongues had no intelli- 
 gence of what he was saying. 
 
 Those in the meeting also spoke constantly of 
 tongues and other signs as receiving a " Pentecost," 
 and these signs were regarded as oil in the lamps of 
 the faithful — a dangerous line to take, leading rapidly 
 to the formation of an exclusive class, and possibly 
 
SANITY IN REVIVALS 117 
 
 a denial of true Christianity to those who did not 
 possess them. 
 
 There were also loud shrill utterances in 
 " unknown tongues " with a very rapid interpretation 
 repeated twenty or thirty times at great speed, and 
 also hissing sounds all over the room as the breath 
 was drawn in sharply between the teeth. Two near 
 me, a girl and a curate, appeared in a trance for over 
 an hour, quite unconscious of what was passing. 
 The girl was saying " li-li-li-li " with great rapidity, 
 while smiling foolishly, while the curate was earnestly 
 jabbering at a high speed in guttural sounds ; and 
 yet I was told that the girl two days before had 
 given a most touching address, and I had heard the 
 curate earlier give a short and lucid account of his 
 experiences. 
 
 The final impression on my mind was that these 
 were good earnest Christian people, who through 
 perhaps wrong and undue pressing of the value of signs 
 and gifts, &c., had unconsciously produced these with 
 more or less success by imitation and action of the 
 mind. To me the part that was of God was the 
 joy and simple faith, and the error lay in seeking 
 these signs and calling them Pentecost. Evil 
 agencies also were undoubtedly at work and probably 
 often mistaken for the work of God. Several there 
 were said to have had "devils" cast out of them; 
 one being the curate, that very afternoon. 
 
 With regard to the power at work, I know 
 of only three agencies at most that can use 
 
ii8 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 the body. There is myself, and then there are the 
 supernatural powers of good and evil. Respecting 
 the two latter most people think they know a good 
 deal ; and the power of the Holy Ghost, or of evil 
 forces in opposition seem quite familiar to those 
 who are mixed up with these recent manifestations. 
 What is not seen nor understood and cannot be 
 believed, is the extent to which one's own mind can 
 energize the body without any conscious knowledge 
 and consent. Such action is continually attributed 
 to external agencies, but is really from within. 
 Two things must be understood, first, that the 
 mind extends far beyond the limits of consciousness 
 and that the unconscious part has entire power 
 over the body ; not only in causing and curing 
 ' disease, but in producing under certain conditions, 
 without the knowledge or will of the conscious 
 mind, but chiefly as the .result of suggestion — 
 stigmata or wounds and bruises all over the body, 
 sometimes in perfect imitation of the five wounds of 
 our Lord, trances, contortions of all sorts under 
 emotion, cries and languages not previously spoken, 
 also mysterious utterances or strange voices, and 
 many other phenomena well known in spiritualistic 
 circles. 
 
 The best conditions for producing these natural 
 but rare phenomena are a weakened body, over- 
 strained nerves, the presence of numbers, concentra- 
 tion on the desired signs or gifts, strong suggestions 
 as to possessing them, and powerful influences. 
 
SANITY IN REVIVALS 119 
 
 These seemed all present at the meeting I was at ; 
 and I should therefore be very slow to attribute to 
 supernatural power, least of all to God's Holy Spirit, 
 any of the unseemly sights and sounds I witnessed. 
 
 In reviewing and considering the various 
 manifestations of Satan's power in India and 
 California as compared with those of Irvingism we 
 at once notice the difference of the atmosphere. In 
 the narrative of Robert Baxter one cannot but be 
 stfuck with the reverence and solemnity and close 
 obedience to Scripture that characterizes it; where- 
 as in the latter these characteristics are not at all 
 conspicuous. Mr. Baxter ascribes all his errors to 
 a want of close attention and obedience to the Word 
 of God. In the present day, owing perhaps to the 
 widely-spread scepticism, the Bible is more lightly 
 esteemed, and there is by no means the same 
 reverence or distrust of one's own judgment as 
 there was fifty years ago. The result is that the 
 spirits in this last manifestation do not seem either 
 so subtle or so reverent as in the old days. 
 
 There can be no doubt that in both cases it is 
 the same class of people who are deceived ; as also 
 in the eighteenth century. Earnest godly people, 
 who are ever eager to hear and to know about the 
 latest sensation in religion, and who, having 
 embraced the higher teaching, of which I shall 
 have more to say in another chapter, are eager to 
 surrender every faculty they possess, if thereby God 
 may be glorified. They have zeal in abundance ; 
 
120 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 all they lack is that quality that is ever at a discount 
 — discretion. 
 
 Large meetings of all sorts, and especially con- 
 ventions, constitute in themselves a great danger, 
 however soberly they may be conducted, because 
 such danger is absolutely inseparable from any 
 gathering of a large number of people whose 
 minds are all set in one direction, and in whom the 
 supernatural element is prominent. 
 
 I There is much hypnotic power, both conscious 
 
 I and unconscious, in large crowds. Slow, monotonous 
 singing while bowed in prayer, with constant 
 repetition greatly favours this. But let me here 
 remark that religious hypnosis is not necessarily 
 
 (an evil; but a power that may be used by God 
 
 I for good. It is not of itself evil ; and the 
 Devil does not originate it. It is a natural 
 phenomenon, and its value consists in the fact that 
 when partially or wholly in this condition suggestions 
 
 ''of all sorts have great and permanent power. 
 
 If these suggestions be good and spiritual, real and 
 lasting good is done. Much more good indeed than 
 would be possible if there were only a handful in the 
 
 j tent or hall. But, alas, all extremes of excitement and 
 of hypnosis are too easily regarded as sane behaviour, 
 
 I and are accepted as of God, provided they occur in 
 
 'connection with religious assemblies. 
 
 Much danger, however, lies in the strain on the 
 emotional centres in religious revivals ; and the feel- 
 ings thus induced too often leaves no permanent 
 
SANITY IN REVIVALS 121 
 
 spiritual result behind. The emotions are wrought 
 upon by constant affirmation, repetition, and the 
 contagion of crowds. 
 
 Positive injury, sometimes of a permanent kind, 
 results from this surrender of the highest brain 
 centres to mere emotion. 
 
 One should be temperate in all things ; religion 
 should show itself in a clean life, and in a pure 
 heart. Sterile emotions are not religion, and may 
 be as intoxicating as alcohol and even more 
 dangerous, because they are even more insidious, 
 and screen themselves under the sacred name of 
 Christ. 
 
 There should ever be a stern rebuke of all religious 
 revivals, missions, or conventions that deliberately 
 seek to work up the emotions, with painful or un- 
 seemly additions. 
 
 Much of the curious phenomenal displays in 
 religious revivals are really the result of hypnotic 
 suggestions. 
 
 These emotional crises resulting in a superficial 
 " conversion " or ''consecration," and, in joining the 
 church, too often end in utter indifference in six to 
 nine months ; some subsequently may be truly con- 
 verted, but many are not. 
 
 In a recent mission over ninety were " converted," 
 Two-thirds relapsed in six weeks, and of one-third 
 received into church-fellowship, more than half 
 lapsed, leaving thus one-eighth only standing firm. 
 
 In the ordinary work at the same church out ot 
 
122 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 seventy converted, one quarter lapsed in six weeks, 
 three-quarters joined the church, and four-fifths 
 instead of one-eighth stood firm. 
 
 Of course many more are converted in revivals in 
 proportion to the time expended ; but then in many 
 cases much evil is done by the excitement, the 
 extravagances, and above all by the subsequent 
 [relapses. There can be no doubt that chronic 
 I religious excitement is extremely destructive to 
 the real higher religious life. 
 
 I must now, before I conclude, refer to two 
 points that I promised to touch upon. The one is 
 the third requisite for the so-called " outpouring " of 
 the Holy Spirit as stated by Evan Roberts, and runs 
 as follows : — " Implicit obedience to the Spirit." 
 The other is the second of the Keswick requisites, as 
 stated by Dr. A. T. Pierson, " The surrender of the 
 will and whole being to Jesus Christ." 
 
 It is unnecessary to say these are both good and 
 true requisites ; but neither must be pressed to 
 mean an abandonment of one's faculties, under- 
 standing, sound mind, judgment, and common 
 sense. These, sanctified by God and in subjection 
 to the Spirit, must be active and in use ; and it is 
 the interpretation of "surrender" and "implicit 
 obedience" to mean the divesting of oneself of every 
 faculty, that has caused so many to be led astray. 
 
 Many will remember the blasphemous arguments 
 as to the limitations of our Lord's mind owing to 
 the Kevocn,<^ in Philippians (emptying Himself) being 
 
SANITY IN REVIVALS 123 
 
 pressed unduly ; and it seems to me that Christians 
 are often called upon to empty themselves unduly in 
 this forced manner without the slightest warrant 
 from Scripture. Much of the high-flown language of 
 the present day in connection with this is contrary to 
 the Word of God, which never asks us to lay aside 
 our sound mind, our sobriety, our self-control, our 
 reasonableness, and our judgment ; but to exercise 
 these faculties in accordance with His Word. 
 
 It is the conjunction of hypnotic power with false 
 doctrine on this point that has done so much harm. 
 
 And the distressing part is that it is those who 
 are most anxious to do right and to follow and obey 
 God, who, neglecting the caution of the Word, get 
 into the greatest trouble, while the careless escape. 
 
 I would earnestly beg any who read these pages, 
 and who may attend large conventions and other 
 scenes of religious power, to be most careful to see 
 that they are always fully conscious of what they 
 are doing ; that their will and judgment are active ; 
 and that they do not give up their intelligence 
 and power of mind to another human being ; but 
 that while fully surrendering the direction of their 
 lives and wills, and opening their hearts to all the 
 holy influences around, they retain their sane and 
 quiet minds and judgment. Those who take this 
 precaution are not liable to be carried away by 
 excitement or to fall into any of Satan's snares. If 
 one feels oneself losing self-control and becoming 
 hypnotized and carried away, it is often better to 
 
124 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 leave the meeting, or if one stays, resolutely to 
 refrain from any action while in such condition. 
 
 A great deal of misconception indeed exists upon 
 this whole question ; and being "filled with the Spirit" 
 is by many synonymous with bidding farewell to all 
 one's natural reasoning powers. Such is not the 
 case. As has been already said in this chapter, our 
 understandings have their part in the highest con- 
 ditions of spiritual life ; and the Christian, however 
 spiritual, is always to remain the sane and sober 
 man, with his faculties so far from being abolished, 
 dedicated to the service and glory of God. 
 
 This watchful care, together with, when needed, 
 a real and not perfunctory trying of the spirits as 
 directed in i John iv. i, 2, will safeguard many who 
 would otherwise be deceived. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 Sanity in the Higher Life 
 
 THERE can be no doubt that it is specially in 
 the developments of Christian life that 
 care is needed and that difficulties and 
 dangers abound. As I have said, those 
 completely dead to the spiritual life cannot shew 
 any signs of insanity in Christian things. It is 
 equally true that those who are half dead are seldom 
 tempted to do so either. It is the wide-awake, the 
 enquiring, the advancing, the whole-hearted, the 
 true witnesses and soldiers of the Cross who are 
 naturally the mark for Satan's arrows, or for his 
 wiles. As long as we sit in our arm-chairs we can 
 never take a wrong turning ; it is when we are 
 pushing on towards our Home along lonely roads 
 that we are apt to go astray, if we neglect to study 
 the signposts that our loving Father has placed 
 along the way. 
 
 In the last two chapters I considered some of the 
 dangers connected with revivals, missions, conven- 
 tions, &c. Now we will consider the life of the 
 individual Christian in the more advanced stages of 
 
 125 
 
126 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 his career, for it is here, as I have said, that the 
 danger mostly lies. 
 
 I will first give a few particulars as to ideals and 
 objects in the normal Christian life.* 
 
 From childhood, of which I have spoken in 
 Chap, iv., to maturity, the general trend of 
 development is away from the self-assertive " ego " 
 centre and instincts, towards God and man, to 
 spiritual and altruistic activities. 
 
 The ideals aimed at by individual Christians, as 
 ascertained by large statistics, are very different to 
 what many suppose, and are somewhat as follows : — 
 
 The chief ideal is that of doing good to others. 
 This is the first of all, and is given by more than one 
 half of the whole number as the chief object in their 
 Christian life. 
 
 To perfect oneself as a Christian is the ideal 
 with over one quarter. 
 
 Complete harmony and communion with God is 
 the ideal of one fifth. 
 
 Those who have altruistic ideals are double the 
 numberof those whose ideals are egoistic and relative 
 to self-growth and perfection. 
 
 The most prominent thoughts occupying the 
 minds of Christians are as follows: — 
 
 Nearly half have God before their minds most 
 
 *It must again be noted here that these facts relate entirely 
 to the ordinary Christian experience of the average Churchman 
 or Dissenter. They do not represent ideals, nor results 
 obtained in special religious circles. 
 
SANITY IN THE HIGHER LIFE 127 
 
 of all. One third have Christ ; and about one quarter 
 the thought of immortality ; while the rest state 
 that good conduct predominates in their thoughts. 
 
 Generally speaking, it may be stated that the 
 majority of Christians over forty years of age set the 
 thought of God and good conduct principally before 
 them. 
 
 Dependence, reverence, and praise to God are 
 ascertained to be the three most prominent Christian 
 feelings. Faith, happiness, and peace are quite 
 secondary. 
 
 Peace and holiness is the Christian's principal 
 desire between twenty and fifty, and after that period 
 the interest in God and others increases, and that in 
 self distinctly lessens. 
 
 As women grow up in Christian life religion of the 
 intellect as a rational system almost disappears, and 
 their Christianity becomes more of an emotional 
 type. 
 
 A stable, spiritual maturity is seldom reached 
 before the stable physical maturity of full man and 
 womanhood. Some may object to the statistics 
 given here and in Chapter iv. in connection 
 with such spiritual matters. They are certainly 
 novel, but are the sober and true statements of a 
 large number of Christian men and women who 
 voluntarily gave their religious experience in answer 
 to a number of carefully-arranged questions ; and 
 as far as they go they represent facts, which are 
 so singularly difficult to get hold of as to the 
 
128 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 Christian life ; and I think they are of value, in that 
 the results differ widely from our common ideas on 
 this subject. I do not, of course, attach extreme 
 importance to them; but the light they throw on 
 conversion and Christian experience is certainly both 
 interesting and novel, and to some extent instructive. 
 
 Now it is when we pass beyond these ordinary 
 lines of Christian development that danger begins. 
 The danger is not at all from the advance by natural 
 growth in the knowledge of God and of Christ and a 
 steady development on the Christian side of a well- 
 balanced ordinary life with its round of duties. The 
 danger really is when some special line of truth, 
 correct enough in itself, is pressed unduly, and grows 
 to fill the whole mental horizon. 
 
 And this danger is greatly increased if this special 
 line be enforced by powerful and magnetic teaching 
 upon it in large and excited gatherings ; or if it be 
 taught privately to small selected circles of followers 
 by some favourite teacher ; in either case great care 
 is needed lest the balance of proportion be lost, and 
 the soul carried away. 
 
 There can be no doubt of the overwhelming power 
 and blessedness of the sense of the presence of God. 
 There can be no doubt of the power of the Holy 
 Spirit in certain gatherings, and there can also be 
 no doubt of the uplifting power of certain truths 
 when they are felt and realized in the soul, and 
 these of course all do good to natures otherwise 
 sound and sane. 
 
SANITY IN THE HIGHER LIFE 129 
 
 Indeed, I may go further and say that I think 
 the more of spiritual feehng a man can constantly 
 experience without its becoming an overmastering 
 excitement, overbalancing the soundness of one's 
 judgment and unsteadying any of one's actions, the 
 better for the development of the spiritual nature. 
 
 Sanctification is the identification of the ego with 
 the new life in the Spirit. He that is joined to the 
 Lord is one Spirit — the Holy Ghost is one with the 
 believing human spirit. 
 
 But this is not at all what is understood by sancti- 
 fication in advanced schools. 
 
 In these the whole nature is searched for any taint 
 of evil, and all is to be cast out or burnt out by 
 "fire," and the whole nature "cleansed" until 
 nothing remains but what is of Divine purity in 
 the entire man — spirit, soul, body. 
 
 With many this is actually pressed so far that the 
 very breath and sometimes the very blood of the 
 body is believed to be changed, and to become of 
 spiritual origin and purity.* 
 
 Here, of course, we leave the sound mind just in 
 proportion as we leave the Word of God, or perhaps 
 I may say in proportion as we press its words beyond 
 their evident signification ; which undue straining of 
 the Word is the origin of most heresies. Few heresies, 
 
 * The Scripture <' who shall fashion anew the body of oar 
 humiliation" (Phil. iii. 21), is behaved by such teachers to 
 mean that the bodies of behevers are now being physically- 
 changed, so that in the very words of one, " the whole physical 
 make-up becomes instinct with Deity.' 
 
130 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 if any, were originated by wicked people ; but rather 
 by the greatest saints, who were beguiled into 
 making a creed out of a single doctrine, and pressing 
 it beyond the limits of any sound judgment. 
 
 Of course, in all this we must remember the point 
 that is frequently overlooked. Each Christian is too 
 often considered to be uniform in character with 
 all other Christians, and to have no personality 
 beyond his Christianity ; and it is quite forgotten that 
 each one carries with him into his Christian life all 
 his original characteristics. St. Paul, the Christian, 
 could never be confounded with St. Peter, the 
 Christian ; and this not on account of the differences of 
 their Christian growth, but on account of the natural 
 differences of temperament bet\\een the two men. 
 
 So we get some men naturally well-balanced, of 
 sound mind and judgment. These are they who can 
 most safely pass on to the greatest spiritual heights. 
 Then we get neurotic men and women and people 
 with ill-health and unbalanced minds, all of whom 
 should understand that they can only approach the 
 deep things of God with great humility and caution 
 and sobriety. 
 
 It is vaguely thought b}^ those persons who really 
 do not think at all, that Christianity ought to level 
 all natural differences. As a matter of fact it does 
 not do so, and it is because this truth is not under- 
 stood or heeded, that people get worked up beyond 
 themselves in conventions, and eventually too often 
 fall victims to nervous disease. 
 
SANITY IN THE HIGHER LIFE 131 
 
 Of course I know that a false idea of " power " and 
 self-surrender is abroad, and it is thought that only 
 when a person is carried away and has evidently lost 
 all will and judgment that the Holy Spirit is really 
 working. It is not so. The spirit of "power" and 
 "love" is inseparable from a "sound mind," and 
 it is the sanctioned divorce between these three that 
 has led to so much trouble and sorrow. 
 
 The time has come when we should emphatically 
 deny that the culminating or pattern type of religious 
 experience is a state in which the natural self-control 
 lapses. Some object to the word self-control and 
 would substitute "Christ" or " God " control, but 
 this is only a quibble ; for it is the self that is con- 
 trolled, the power being the will, energized no 
 doubt, and directed by Divine power ; and not as so 
 many would teach, paralyzed and destroyed by the 
 same power. 
 
 We are very eager to grasp the promises of God : 
 but it must be remembered that something is to be 
 added to the faith that laj's hold of them ; and it is 
 not excitement and surrender of one's faculties, but 
 according to the Apostle (2 Pet. i. 5)— "In your 
 faith supply virtue, and in virtue knowledge, and in 
 knowledge temperance " or self control. There 
 are other qualities, but add these three ingredients 
 alone to the faith that grasps the promise, and we 
 shall see no more unseemly excesses. 
 
 " What manner of persons ought ye to be ? " 
 asks the same Apostle (2 Pet. iii. 11) "in all holy 
 
132 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 living and godliness ? " in view of the coming judg- 
 ment. I fear St. Peter would hardly recognize as 
 features of the higher Christian life much that passes 
 as such in the present day, so lacking is it in sobriety 
 and self-control. 
 
 I may go further, and say I am fully persuaded that 
 it is only possible to reach the highest heights if one 
 has Christian sanity. Witness indeed the Apostle 
 Paul, who, though he calls himself mad before his 
 conversion, and afterwards was accounted mad by 
 Festus, was an eminently well-balanced and highly 
 educated man. Look at the heights to which he 
 soared ; study the profound star-depths to which 
 his spiritual vision extends in Ephesians, mark the 
 way in which he strains the Greek tongue to the 
 utmost to try and make it express his sense of the 
 love and wisdom of God ; and j^et we all feel and 
 know he never surrendered his self-control. Indeed, 
 so far from this, he declared that if he did, he himself 
 would be no longer fit for such high service, but 
 would as to his work become a castaway. 
 
 One finds also amongst Christians great spiritual 
 attainments combined with perfect sobriety. 
 
 Let me give an instance of deep spiritual thought 
 in one eminently sane. I allude to Dr. Butler, Master 
 of Trinity College, Cambridge, and I quote from the 
 Cambridge Theological Essays, p. 585. 
 
 " The person of Jesus takes captive one soul after 
 another with no distinction of rank or race or sex. 
 It is not the evidence for the truth of the sacred 
 
SANITY IN THE HIGHER LIFE 133 
 
 books, it is not the wisdom or the poetry, or the 
 literary beauty of the words of these books — it is not 
 these save in a very inferior degree, which draw the 
 heart and overcome the prejudice or the indifference 
 of man or woman or child. It is the Person — the 
 Life — Past, Present and to come — of one Character 
 m all history — the Lord Jesus Christ, the Jesus of 
 Bethlehem, of Nazareth, of Capernaum, of Nain, of 
 Tyre and Sidon, of Bethany, of Jerusalem, of Geth- 
 semane, of Calvary, of Emmaus, of the early morn- 
 ing by the Sea of Galilee, of the Holy Mount, of the 
 Ascension — it is this Person even more than His 
 sacred teaching who has been the ideal and the hope 
 of every contrite heart ; it is the Person, whom 
 having not seen, the poorest, the meanest, the 
 guiltiest amongst us cannot choose but 'love.' " 
 
 " And now may we not add to this lively sense, as 
 apart of it, and an essential part of it, that adoration, 
 that joyous pride of prostrate worship which may 
 almost be called the keynote of the Apocalypse ? 
 The whole universe (Rev. v.) prostrate at the feet of 
 Him through whom all things were made, even of 
 the Lamb, who by His blood brought back . . . 
 to His Father those that had wandered from the 
 fold. Is it not the same great vision that haunts and 
 soothes and humbles and uplifts the minds and the 
 hearts of all true Christians now ? " 
 
 Consider also the great sanity of men foremost in 
 the Church — of Liddon, of Lightfoot, of Westcott, to 
 whom I may specially add Dr. Moule, present Bishop 
 
t34 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 of Durham ; all conspicuous for profundity of insight 
 into Divine mysteries, as well as for a childlike faith, 
 and a character best described by the beautiful word 
 i'TrteUeLa (sweet reasonableness or gentleness). 
 
 Turning to the Mission world, consider the per- 
 sonal characters of Hudson Taylor, of Paton, of 
 Moffat, of Carey, of Hannington, of Moody, of 
 Torrey, of Pierson. 
 
 Look at the composition of what is known as the 
 " Keswick platform " for the last twenty years as 
 representing the higher spiritual life ; and observe 
 how carefully, while endeavouring to teach the 
 highest truths, and give full liberty to the action of 
 the Spirit of God, every effort is made to subdue 
 excitement and to do away with any mere emotion, 
 and to promote reasonableness and self-control. 
 
 Nevertheless, there is no doubt when we approach 
 the mystics that we find the balance more difficult 
 to hold. 
 
 Still, mysticism was the very salt of the mediaeval 
 church that kept it from going to corruption. 
 Henry Suso, Tauler, Jacob Boehme, Pascal, 
 Fenelon, and other "friends of God" all belonged 
 to this school. 
 
 One of the mystics who perhaps most departed 
 from the Christian sanity of which I speak was 
 Madam Guyon. She scourged herself with iron 
 points, and tore herself with brambles, thorns, and 
 nettles, which she kept on her. She says, " If I 
 walked I placed stones in my shoes. It was, O my 
 
SANITY IN THE HIGHER LIFE 135 
 
 God, what you inspired me from the first to do." 
 She adored a paper image of our Lord, who held in 
 his hands little crosses for distribution. She carried 
 a piece of the " true " cross on her neck. She tried 
 to annihilate self, and become absorbed in God. 
 This point is important, as it is now again after 350 
 years much to the front, not only in orthodox 
 Christian teaching, but in Christian Science, and 
 elsewhere. It closely resembles the Quietism of 
 the heathen. 
 
 That which shone forth with such an extra- 
 ordinar}^ lustre in Madam Guyon's life was the 
 same light of which Eastern sages had caught a 
 fleeting glimpse. " It is ancient Buddhism," says 
 Miss A. R. Habershon, " that teaches concerning 
 the true Nirvana, that only when the self-centre 
 is lost, the Divine Spirit can take its place." 
 A Book on the Quietism of India, written by a 
 French traveller, Bernier, in Madam Guyon's time 
 (1688), gives the following description, which is 
 wonderfully applicable to Madam Guyon's teaching : 
 
 " Among the different fakirs or pagan religieiix 
 there are those who are called Jogees (Yogi's) — 
 that is to say, saints, ilhimines, perfect, or perfectly 
 united to the Sovereign Being — to the First and 
 Sovereign Principle of all things. They are people 
 who appear to have totally renounced the world, 
 and who ordinarily withdraw into some secluded 
 garden, like hermits with a few disciples, who, 
 modest and submissive, are only too happy to listen 
 
136 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 to them and serve them. If food is brought them 
 they receive it ; if they are forgotten, it is said they 
 do without it, and that they Hve by the grace of 
 heaven in fasts and perpetual austerities, and are 
 sunk in contemplation ; I say sunk {abiines), for they 
 enter so deeply therein that it is said they pass 
 whole hours ravished and in ecstacy. Their 
 external senses appear wholly inert, and they 
 maintain that they see the Sovereign Being as a 
 living and indescribable Light, with a joy and 
 satisfaction inexpressible, which is followed by a 
 contempt of and total detachment from the world." 
 
 A great deal that is popular to-day is founded 
 upon Madam Guyon's teaching as well as on her 
 practice, and particularly with regard to self- 
 crucifixion. 
 
 She says : " We never lose ourselves in God save 
 by total death, the mortification of our own 
 intellect, and our * own ' will, commencing by the 
 loss of our ' own ' activities. This is never effected 
 without profound prayer, no more than the death of 
 the senses will ever be entire without profound 
 concentration joined to mortification." 
 
 But the Bible never teaches that we are to crucify 
 ourselves, nor does God call for the death of the 
 senses. The Epistles teach us that believers have 
 BEEN crucified with Christ* ; it is past, an accom- 
 
 * Observe Gal. ii. 20 reads : "I !iave been crucified with 
 {(TvaTcwpoco) Christ"; Gal. vi. 14.: "The woj?ld /;a//i iee;t cruci- 
 fled unto me" ; Romans vi. 6 : "Our old man was (or has 
 ^een) crucified with hin»." 
 
SANITY IN THE HIGHER LIFE 137 
 
 plished fact, and we are to reckon ourselves dead. 
 Experience must come from fact, and not fact from 
 experience. 
 
 It has been pointed out that if we were able to 
 crucify ourselves, we should be alone on the cross ; 
 our Lord is not there. He was taken down from 
 the cross, buried, and on the third day rose again. 
 
 In union with Him, we rose too, and are called 
 to live in " newness of life " : we are not hanging 
 upon the cross, and we are never told to try and i 
 kill ourselves. Our senses, our powers, our will, our j 
 every faculty, are to be consecrated, not killed. 
 
 It has been well said that when we cease to 
 " reckon " we have to " mortify." If we do not reckon 
 ourselves to have died with Christ, sin will reign, 
 active sins will be the result ; and these are the mem- 
 bers which we are told in Col. ii. 5 must be mortified. 
 
 And yet from the lips of honoured teachers of 
 this higher life we get such exhortations as to " Take 
 our position as crucified," "Accept crucifixion in 
 Christ," " Escape to a place in Christ on the cross," 
 &c., all of which, though well meant, puts, as an 
 optional Christian experience, that which the Word 
 of God gives us as a fundamental fact, true of every 
 child of God, and not a matter of attainment at all. 
 
 Tauler, of Strasbourg, gives us a conversation with 
 a beggar which I may repeat here as illustrative of 
 true Christian mysticism : — 
 
 Tatder. I give you good day. 
 
 Beggar, I never have a bad day. 
 
138 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 T. God give you a happy life. 
 
 B. I thank God I am never unhappy. 
 
 T. Never unhappy ! What do you mean ? 
 
 B. Well, when it is fine, I thank God ; when it 
 rains, I thank God ; when I have plenty, I thank 
 God ; when I am hungry, I thank God. Since 
 God's will is my will, and whatsoever pleases Him 
 pleases me, why should I say I am unhappy when I 
 am not ? 
 
 T. But what if God were to cast you into hell ? 
 How then ? 
 
 B. And if He did, I should have to embrace 
 Him with the arm of my faith and the arm of my 
 love ; and I would infinitely rather be with Him there 
 than anywhere else without Him. 
 
 T. But who are you ? 
 
 B. I am a king. 
 
 T. A king ! Where is your kingdom ? 
 
 B. In my own heart ; for Thine is the Kingdom 
 and the power and the glory, for ever and ever. 
 Amen. 
 
 This "practice of the presence of God "was Jeremy 
 Taylor's third instrument for holy living. 
 
 Another who understood it and from whom we 
 learn much was Nicholas Herman, known as 
 Brother Lawrence, a peasant monk in Paris, who 
 lived at the same time as Madam Guyon, but from 
 whom he differed so widely in practice. He says : 
 " There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet 
 and delightful than that of a continual conversation 
 
SANITY IN THE HIGHER LIFE 139 
 
 with God. It is not necessary for being with God 
 to be always at church ; we may make an oratory in 
 our hearts, wherein to retire from time to time to 
 converse with Him in meekness, humility, and love. 
 When we come to love God we shall think of Him 
 often, for our hearts will be with our treasure." 
 
 We are told he was always " pleasing himself" in 
 every condition, by doing little things for the love of 
 God. He was more united to God in his outward 
 employment than when he left them for devotion in 
 retirement. He began to live as if there were none 
 but God and he in the world. He walked before God 
 simply in faith, with humility and with love, and he 
 applied himself diligently to do nothing and to think 
 nothing which might displease Him. He had a 
 habitual silent and secret conversation of the soul 
 with God, which caused in him so great joys and 
 raptures that he was forced to use means to moderate 
 them. A week before his death he said " I hope 
 from God's mercy the favour to see Him within a few 
 days." 
 
 Here then is the utmost possible exaltation of 
 soul and communion with God combined with 
 Christian sanity ; for he was a very hard-working 
 servant — a remarkably good cook and a good judge 
 of wine, which he always had to buy for the community. 
 
 Sanity, I submit, is compatible with the deepest 
 spiritual exercises of which the soul is capable, pro- 
 vided they be natural and not forced nor contrary to 
 the teaching of the word of God. 
 
t4o CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 In the Holy Communion the soul is sometimes 
 so carried away as to be quite oblivious of things 
 around. H. Ward Beecher writes : " There are 
 times when it is not I that am talking. When I 
 am caught up and carried away so that I know not 
 whether I am in the body or out of the body," 
 which corresponds closely with the experience of 
 Evan Roberts and many others. 
 
 There are few mj'stics but have been at times quite 
 unconscious of being in the body ; but even this 
 exaltation does not necessarily imply undue excite- 
 ment or extravagance of any sort. 
 
 The presence of God gives the very deepest joy 
 that the human heart can ever know. It gives the 
 highest spiritual exaltation and boundless happi- 
 ness, and it is in this connection that the Apostle is 
 obliged to speak of being " besids himself." It 
 produces the most perfect and indescribable con- 
 tentment, trust, and peace. The soul feels abso- 
 lutely impregnable. 
 
 But it has also other sides in the experiences that 
 flow from it. 
 
 It produces perfect calm and quietness. He that 
 believes does not "make haste." There is great 
 sobriety and the absence of all excitement. 
 
 The language of the man who walks with God is 
 wonderfully restrained and rational, and above all 
 perfectly natural. 
 
 There is very little talk about God, but there is 
 profound and manifest reverence. Above all there 
 
SANITY IN THE HIGHER LIFE. 14I 
 
 is a deep and strong sanity and self-control and 
 sobriety, and soundness, and gentleness. In fact all 
 the traits in which God delights. He Himself pro- 
 duces, without effort on their part, in His children 
 by the fact of His enjoyed presence in the soul. 
 
 The truest sanity is in Christians ; for they alone 
 can survey the whole of life past, present, and future, 
 and not be afraid ; but are filled with the peace and 
 with the serene intelligence that contact with the 
 Divine gives to the soul. 
 
 They fulfil Browning's lines, 
 
 " Trust God, see all, be not afraid." 
 
 Moreover their lives are sane and full of good 
 works. To be under the guiding eye of God con- 
 sciously and constantly, to see Him alwaj/s before 
 us, is to have Him even at our right hand, so that 
 we cannot be moved. 
 
 I might of course say very much more, but I 
 think I have said enough to show that the greatest 
 enjoyment of the highest privileges and communion 
 are all compatible with sanity. Indeed to suppose 
 otherwise were to make God the author of confusion. 
 It is not so. 
 
 The man whose whole being is in harmony with 
 itself and with God is the man who is furthest 
 removed from folly of mind or action. 
 
 But we must remember there are counterfeits and 
 imitations everywhere, and that the devil always lurks 
 beneath the shadow of the Church. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 The Wiles of the Devil 
 
 STUDENTS of Scripture are well aware that 
 Satan is termed the God of this world. They 
 know (2Thessalonians and the Revelation) that 
 he will 3^et become the Antichrist, indwelling in some 
 human being. It only remains for him to usurp the 
 place of the third person of the Trinity — the Holy 
 Ghost. And this appears to be his special role at the 
 present day, and in Irvingism and similar delusions. 
 The Person and work of the Holy Spirit have been 
 specially prominent in Christian doctrine of late 
 years, and this is undoubtedly Satan's point of 
 attack, in simuktting the energy and work of the 
 Holy Ghost. 
 
 In Spiritualism, which is not all charlatanism, 
 there is reason to believe that evil spirits have posed 
 as those of departed friends, but now we get them 
 speaking with the voice and authority of the Spirit 
 of God. 
 
 Not only so, but in any mystic cult, in every 
 thought-healing centre, in Christian Science and in 
 all the new theology teaching, even in the cult of 
 
 112 
 
THE WILES OF THE DEVIL 143 
 
 Isis in London, and other strange faiths, the Bible 
 is everywhere freely quoted and referred to and 
 apparently honoured. The one thing that is not 
 done is to make confession of "Jesus Christ 
 come in the flesh," which St. John points out is 
 the test no evil spirit can stand; in short the 
 revelation of our Divine Saviour in human form in 
 His birth, death and resurrection. The operations of 
 evil spirits are very various, and well adapted to 
 different minds and faiths ; but they have one point 
 of union, denial of the Person and work of the Son 
 of God in some form or other.* 
 
 There seems reason to believe that quite apart 
 from a human liability to sin, and proneness to err, 
 we get in religion, special temptations amongst 
 Christians to sins, which are one and all utterly alien 
 to the spirit of Christianity. It is quite remarkable 
 under the name of religion what enmity, strife, 
 jealousy, wrath, factions, divisions, heresies, envy- 
 ings, lying, malice, hypocrisy, and hatred abound 
 (Gal. v. 19). 
 
 One cannot but think that the promotion of these 
 evils is the work of the enemy ; as the sowing of 
 the tares among the wheat. There seem to be 
 specially devised snares set for Christians at every 
 stage of their life. 
 
 *It is true that in the Irvingite movement there was a mere 
 verbal assent to the phrase "Jesus Christ come in the flesh," 
 but further examination showed that doctrines denying this were 
 taught. 
 
144 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 The dead level easy-going Christian is already 
 overcome by sloth and inertia, and needs no 
 further attention. He will never give much trouble 
 to the enemy. 
 
 The Christian of "open and inquiring mind" is 
 agog for new vagaries and ideas of every sort, and 
 greedily swallow^s the latest new thing in theology, 
 which is carefully prepared for his consumption. 
 
 The "doctrinal " Christian is the prey of various 
 heresies, mostly consisting in truths distorted in 
 different ways, and used as centres for dispute and 
 division. 
 
 The emotional and "higher-life" Christian is 
 however the one for whom most snares are set, 
 and it is utterly futile for him to dream of being 
 " able to stand against the wiles of the devil," unless 
 he closely obeys the Apostle's detailed direction for 
 the conflict as given in Eph. vi. 10-18. The whole 
 armour of God, every piece of it, is needed ; and 
 above all the sword of the Spirit which is the Word 
 of God, and the attitude of prayer. 
 
 I think the most careless one who reads this 
 passage must be struck by the tremendous nature 
 of a conflict that requires such elaborate armour. 
 
 The Christian's danger of course begins with his 
 progress, and his attempts to make good his footing 
 on high and holy truths, and in short to fit himself 
 entirely for the service of God. 
 
 I have already indicated some of the subtle 
 dangers that beset his path. There is that con- 
 
THE WILES OF THE DEVIL 145 
 
 nected with " full surrender " when pressed, as was 
 the Kevocrt<; (emptying) of our Lord, far beyond its 
 Scriptural meaning. 
 
 There is the misuse of crucifixion, as an active 
 voluntary process instead of an accomplished fact. 
 
 There are many errors connected with the power 
 and work of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 Special caution is needed with regard to all 
 miraculous, or partly miraculous gifts such as the 
 gift of tongues, prophesying, healing the sick, &c., all 
 these being easily and freely counterfeited by Satan. 
 
 Respecting the gift of tongues I should like to say 
 a word here. It has been pointed out to me that it 
 is at least very doubtful whether the miraculous 
 gifts of apostolic da3's were intended to be con- 
 tinued. There was a very special reason for pro- 
 phesying and speaking by the Spirit when the 
 churches had no Bible and Christians were veritably 
 like children. Now we have the full Bible and the 
 need is not the same (See i Cor. xiii. 11). 
 
 All miracles have been for special seasons only. 
 The miracles prepared for the deliverance of Israel 
 from Egypt were not needed in the wilderness. 
 Those in the wilderness ceased when the Jordan 
 was crossed. It would not have been according to 
 the mind of God had they prayed ever so long and 
 earnestly for the pillar of cloud to lead the tribes to 
 their various inheritances. It had served its purpose 
 and ceased to exist, and if we examine into the gifts 
 of tongues we may find something very similar. 
 
 K 
 
146 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 It is remarkable in the first place that there is no 
 mention of them in Ephesians, Philippians,Colossians, 
 Timothy, Titus, Epistles of St. James, St. Peter, and 
 St. John, all written subsequently to Corinthians. We 
 must, in looking at these questions, have some idea of 
 the various dispensations and what belonged to them ; 
 and I think a close consideration of the tongues will 
 show they were specially employed when God finally 
 gave up His ancient people and turned to the 
 Gentiles. 
 
 St. Paul tells us that the gift of tongues was " for 
 a sign ... to them that believe not," and his 
 quotation from Isaiah xxviii. ii, 12, clearly shows 
 that these were not unbelieving Gentiles, but the 
 unbelieving Jewish nation. It is very significant 
 that it is at Corinth we hear so much about 
 them. If we turn to the history of the founding of 
 this church (Acts xviii.) we find that it corresponds 
 with one of the great crises in the book of the Acts 
 when the Jews once more rejected the Gospel. 
 "They opposed themselves and blasphemed" and 
 Paul therefore said, " Henceforth I will go unto the 
 Gentiles." He left the synagogue and went next 
 door to the house which joined " hard to the 
 synagogue," and there, " Many of the Corinthians 
 hearing, believed." 
 
 It was in this church thus formed that the "gifts " 
 were so abundantly manifested, and for a special 
 reason. The Jews in the adjoining synagogue must 
 have heard of them, and had they understood Isaiah 
 
THE WILES OF THE DEVIL 147 
 
 xxvili. would have known that these tongues were a 
 sign from God that he had taken up the Gentiles. 
 
 No such state of things is found to-day. But to 
 pass on. 
 
 There is a special danger connected with erroneous 
 teaching concerning the second coming of Christ. 
 
 In every outburst of evil teaching the Second 
 Advent has been prominent, and if Satan is to 
 come forth eventually as Antichrist, one can under- 
 stand how he could misuse the special truths to 
 serve his own purposes. There is also great danger 
 attaching to the pressing of Christian perfection 
 beyond scriptural limits. 
 
 And connected with this. Is there not great 
 danger in a teaching which makes those who embrace 
 these doctrines into a special class with special 
 privileges, such as being those who alone will be 
 taken away at our Lord's coming ? 
 
 Such a doctrine is peculiarly subtle in its results, as 
 those who are left behind at this time can still regard 
 themselves as Christians and as such form a body of 
 worshippers of one who will present himself to them 
 as Christ, but who in reality is Antichrist. 
 
 The " rightly dividing " the word of truth by 
 means of a knowledge of the various dispensations 
 is in itself another safeguard against error. 
 
 With regard to meetings of all sorts, special 
 dangers may be pointed out, only it is my earnest 
 wish while forewarning the unstable not to deter any 
 from seeking every blessing God has to give them. 
 
T48 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 No one, therefore, must imagine for a moment that I 
 do not fully appreciate the value of religious meet- 
 ings, because I point out certain dangers which may 
 lie in them for some, if watchfulness and care be 
 not exercised. 
 
 In the first place we must remember that in all 
 great crowds assembled with a special object, 
 particularly if it be a religious one, there is a strong 
 hypnotic power absolutely inseparable from them, 
 and not dependent on the speakers. It is just as 
 common as the exhaustion of the air. Quiet, mono- 
 tonous singing greatly intensifies this hypnotic 
 influence, and especially with the head bowed and 
 the eyes shut — so does prolonged prayer and so do 
 impassioned speakers — and yet none of them nor all of 
 them together are in themselves bad in any way ; 
 and as I have said, God can use the power of crowds 
 to His glory just as He can use the quietness of the 
 closet. It is only that one has to be on one's guard 
 against mere ephemeral emotion. I may give an 
 illustration of this. 
 
 I remember well in one of Moody's great meetings 
 in the East of London I was sitting behind a remark- 
 able-looking man in the after-meeting, and I 
 entered into conversation with him — while the choir 
 on the platform was crooning in low plaintive tones 
 the words "Come to Jesus, come to Jesus." After 
 a while he said, " I would rather you did not say 
 more to me now, for I shall come to no decision at 
 the present moment. I feel I am carried away just 
 
THE WILES OF THE DEVIL 149 
 
 now, and not master of myself, and should not like 
 to decide on such an important matter in my 
 present condition," Two days afterwards he called 
 to see me at the London Hospital, and told me his 
 whole life had been changed and that he was now an 
 earnest Christian. But, he added, it was no words of 
 yours that did it. It was the endless repetition of 
 that choir ; I could resist the call a dozen times, but 
 I could not stand it for a hundred ! I found he was 
 the head of an eminent firm of City lawyers, and a 
 very clever man. 
 
 Now this shows two things, his recognition of his 
 emotional state and his desire not to build on that ; 
 and at the same time God's use of the undoubted 
 hypnotic power of the low monotonous repetition of 
 the choir. 
 
 All manifestations of supernatural power are of 
 course very upsetting to the mental balance, and 
 here we must once more repeat that wherever God 
 begins any great work it is simultaneously counter- 
 feited or corrupted by evil agencies. In the teaching 
 at such assemblies there are certain points that may 
 awaken caution in the hearer; such as earnest and 
 persistent calling and praying for gifts and miracles, a 
 neglecting of the foundations of truth, and as I have 
 said, special teachings respecting the Second Advent, 
 all of which have been much employed by the enemy* 
 
 Secret teaching and initiation, despising and 
 
 * This caution must not lead us to regard Second Advent 
 teaching, which is so greatly needed, as of danger in itself. 
 
ISO CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 ignoring other Christians of different sects, the 
 formation of special coteries and circles, working up 
 of excitement and forcing of testimony, abnormal 
 physical manifestations, incoherences and mysticism 
 are all practices that should be avoided. 
 
 In the present day it must not for a moment be 
 imagined that if teachers are men of pure and 
 righteous lives, exhibiting the fruits detailed in 
 Galatiansv. and well instructed in the Bible, that it 
 is of itself sufficient proof they are of God. 
 
 It is now the day of 2 Cor. xi. Satan is now an 
 " angel of light," and little else : his ministers are 
 " ministers of righteousness," and stern denouncers 
 of immorality. 
 
 It is useless hunting for Satan only in the vicious 
 purlieus of the City, when he may occupy the 
 fashionable pulpits and preach sound ethics. 
 
 I may add a few further cautions even at the risk 
 of some repetition. 
 
 Never surrender consciousness, a sound mind, a 
 good understanding, self-control, a reasonable gentle 
 disposition, and general sanity. God uses and 
 sanctifies these gifts of His for His praise and glory ; 
 He does not abolish them. 
 
 There must be sound common sense in full 
 activity, combined with humility, reverence, and 
 submission to God's will. 
 
 To be emptied of self, including almost an 
 annihilation of all reasoning and intellectual facul- 
 ties was, as I have said before, much pressed in 
 
THE WILES OF THE DEVIL 151 
 
 a recent heresy as true of Christ in PhiL ii. 7, but 
 is neither true of the Master, nor should it ever 
 be true of the servant. 
 
 Next I would suggest, with regard to any 
 magnetic speaker whom one is following, a 
 very careful examination of his teaching respecting 
 the Person and work of Christ. 
 
 I was lunching with an eminent religious teacher 
 once, who boasted to me of his complete emancipa- 
 tion from the old and effete doctrine of man's lost 
 condition, the need of a Saviour, the atonement by 
 blood, etc., and at the same time said he was agree- 
 ably surprised to see what an immense circulation his 
 books had in orthodox Christian houses ; the readers 
 apparently never noticed that none of the truths on 
 which their hopes were built were ever found in his 
 books. 
 
 Another point to bear in mind when miraculous 
 gifts are pressed as essential, is that the passage in 
 the Bible on which they are chiefly founded is of 
 doubtful origin* (Mark xvi. 17, 18). It is not, 
 as most are aware, found in the great manuscripts 
 at all, and first occurs about the fifth century. It 
 is, therefore, possibly of no apostolic authority. 
 
 Another point to notice is that our Lord's miracles 
 of healing were not performed with a view to 
 banishing all diseases, but were for signs ; and more- 
 over, were not wrought on converts in answer to the 
 prayers of faith, but on sinners. 
 
 * The verses are not found in Sinaitic or Vatican MSS. 
 
152 CHRISTIAN SANITV 
 
 The reason the existence of the gifts (prophesying, 
 tongues, etc.) in the very early Church, I repeat, 
 appears to be because there was then no Bible ; for 
 even the Old Testament was exceedingly rare and 
 hard to get, and of course the New did not exist. 
 Thus they were as children, and had to be instructed 
 by the direct voice of the Spirit. 
 
 But now we have the full and completed Word of 
 God, and it would seem that the gifts are no longer 
 needed {see i Cor. xiii.) 
 
 Not only so, but there is a great danger of founding 
 doctrines, or lines of conduct on the " voice of the 
 Spirit" instead of on the written word of God, 
 which is able to furnish the " man of God " with all 
 he needs. Such " voices " have been the source of 
 countless errors and grievous sins and immoralities 
 wherever they have occurred. 
 
 It is, I repeat, well to note that there is not a 
 word about tongues in the other churches : nor in 
 the instruction to Timothy, Titus, or by St. Peter ; 
 and the omission is most significant. 
 
 With regard to healing, that, too, seemed to 
 have passed away, at any rate as a practice, 
 when Israel was finally rejected ; for we find 
 Trophimus and Epaphroditus left sick, and 
 Timothy counselled what to take for his dyspepsia. 
 This may seem trivial, but is all of weighty 
 meaning. 
 
 I may close with a word or two of general 
 advice. 
 
THE WILES OF THE DEVIL 153 
 
 Never rashly pronounce any unusual manifesta- 
 tions to be of God or the Devil. Wait and see ; 
 most probably they are mere natural excitement. 
 
 If convinced of a supernatural element, prove the 
 spirit, carefully and thoroughly, as directed in i John 
 iv. I, 2. 
 
 Be very careful in your decision, and never act on 
 it until some time has elapsed. 
 
 Remember how many greater and wiser than our- 
 selves have been deceived. 
 
 At the same time do not denounce what you do 
 not understand, and speak evil of no man. Re- 
 member that to attribute the genuine works of the 
 Spirit to Satanic agency is akin to the " unpardon- 
 able sin " of the Gospels.* 
 
 Great and prayerful study of the Word of God and 
 close adherence to it is, I am convinced, the best 
 safeguard when dealing with rare spiritual 
 phenomena. 
 
 Don't follow even the best man into what you 
 judge as doubtful doctrines or ways. Be fully per- 
 suaded of all you do in your own mind, and ever 
 pray earnestly for Divine guidance. 
 
 *But there is a great difference I The "unpardonable sin 
 was the maUcions attributing the Spirit's work to the Devil, 
 through hatred of heart, and resisting the truth by unconverted 
 men. No Christian can commit this sin; and an error in 
 judgment is after all a sin of ignorance ; and the desire and 
 purpose is good ; whereas in this case it was the evil desire 
 that prompted the blasphemous utterance. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 From a Medical Standpoint 
 
 SO far I have used the words sanity and 
 insanity in the loosest possible way, and one 
 professionally quite unworthy of a medical 
 man. But I did so purposely, desiring to 
 write as a layman to laymen, or rather I would say 
 as a Christian to Christians. In this last chapter, 
 however, I wish to treat my subject rather from the 
 standpoint that comes before one week by week in a 
 class of people that prove the most perplexing of all 
 my patients. I am sorry to have to talk about my 
 own work at all, but it is inevitable. I must draw 
 upon my own experience if I am to make this 
 chapter of any use, and I earnestly hope that its 
 careful perusal and consideration may be helpful in 
 keeping some who are drifting towards these 
 insidious dangers of which it treats, out of the 
 doctor's hands. 
 
 It is quite lamentable to see how many Christians 
 suffer from nervous disorders, and while I hold no 
 belief that Christianity is in any sense a specific 
 against disease or a guarantee against accidents, I 
 do believe that there are a large number who never 
 
 151 
 
FROM A MEDICAL STANDPOINT 155 
 
 need have been ill at all, had their Christianity been 
 of the right sort. 
 
 I should like to be understood in what I say : I see 
 numbers of nervous invalids who have become so by 
 chafing against adverse fate, uncongenial ties, 
 unkindness, and misunderstanding and neglect, 
 want of love and sympathy ; or perhaps it may 
 have been active persecution, misrepresentation, and 
 slander, loss of money or friends, want of occupation 
 or of an object or ideal in life, or from monotonous 
 work or drudgery. 
 
 "And surely," you say, "this is enough to 
 destroy the nerve force of any man or woman." 
 Yes, it is, but not of any Christian, if he knows how 
 to meet it aright. A careful consideration of Psalms 
 xxxi. 19, 20 ; xci. i ; and Isaiah xl. 28-31, and Phil. iv. 
 6, 7, will reveal that the Christian has a practical and 
 available refuge from chafing and irritation, from 
 wear and tear of spirit and nerve exhaustion, that 
 makes for health, if he only knows how to use it. 
 
 Indeed, the picture presented to us in Phil. iv. is 
 that of a heart actually garrisoned by God, in such a 
 way that it cannot be reached save through Him ; and 
 in passing through His grace and love the sharpest 
 venom loses its poison, and the most malignant dart 
 falls harmless. It was thus our Lord was kept in 
 perfect peace of spirit through all the wearing unbelief 
 and misunderstanding of the little home in Nazareth, 
 and against the vile slanders (see Matt, xi.) of later 
 years. And so w^e may be kept if we only will. 
 
iS6 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 Nosmall number, indeed, of my patients are afflicted 
 mentally (like the poor 'bus horses physically) with 
 " sore necks " from trying to draw the heavy load of 
 life with collars that do not fit, being lined with 
 self, and pride, and ambition, Christ in vain cries 
 to some of us : " Take My yoke upon you and learn 
 of Me ; for I am meek and lowly in heart." He offers 
 us His own yoke or collar with which He drew the 
 load of life, and it can never chafe the neck, because 
 it is padded with meekness and lowliness of 
 
 ) heart. No small amount of nerve exhaustion 
 comes from disappointed pride and unsatisfied 
 ambition. 
 
 Another religious trouble that comes before me 
 is that of obsession or the " idee fixe.'" This is when 
 
 I one idea obtains command of the whole mental 
 horizon to such an extent as to render the mind 
 unbalanced, and the conduct unreasonable. Pushed 
 to an extreme, this becomes monomania. It is 
 connected with a fixed mental background ; that is 
 to say, an impossibility of looking at anything, how- 
 ever different the objects, save from one fixed stand- 
 point. When this background is absolutely fixed, 
 the patient is no longer sane. 
 
 Obsessed people are impervious to argument, 
 however reasonable, and are entrenched in their 
 own ideas. There is an entire absence in them of 
 that eiTLeUeia, or sweet reasonableness, which I have 
 adduced as an important sign of Christian sanity. 
 This of itself does not amoint to disease, unless it 
 
FROM A MEDICAL STANDPOINT 157 
 
 renders the person unreasonable in daily life and 
 conduct. 
 
 The most obstinate and worst cases are those con- 
 nected with religion, and the greatest care should 
 be taken never to let one single aspect of Divine 
 truth, or even religious truth alone, entirely dominate 
 the soul. God should do so, but then His Spirit 
 leads into all truth, which is many-sided and as wide 
 as its Author. 
 
 I have said much as to the dangers of puberty. I 
 may add a word here regarding the perils of the 
 climacteric, and how much want of balance, sudden 
 obsessions, extravagances of all sorts are found 
 amongst women between the ages of forty and fifty. 
 
 Those of high spiritual attainments may consider 
 these remarks as on a low plane, and possibly as 
 " wanting in faith," but they cannot be disregarded 
 with impunity, for they are the laws of God for the 
 body. 
 
 But I do not write this chapter to speak of the 
 general relations of Christianity and health, fascina- 
 ting though the subject be, but only of those whose 
 nerves or mental balance is upset with regard to 
 religious matters. I will point out some of the 
 principal causes, nearly all of which are preventable. 
 First, as to the body. What practices are likely to 
 lead to a loss of balance of nerve or mind ? 
 
 Want of sleep is one. Many evangelists I know 
 boast of their power to set all laws of nature aside in 
 their own case, and for a time they defy them, and 
 
158 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 apparently nothing disastrous happens ; but sooner 
 or later Nature exacts a most terrible retribution, 
 and the labourer is either permanently laid aside 
 with illness or broken down for a long period. In 
 such cases, indeed, where there was a latent weak- 
 ness or predisposition, reason itself may be lost. 
 
 "What!" you ask, "in the service of God?" 
 Yes, in serving God — with zeal, but not accord- 
 ing to knowledge. " He knoweth our frame, He 
 remerabereth that we are dust " ; it is we who 
 forget it ! 
 
 Now, have we any warrant to believe that 
 if we persistently set the laws of Nature at 
 defiance, God will miraculously interpose and guard 
 us against our folly ? I do not think so. I quite 
 grant that there are exceptional times when God 
 may call His servants to do without their natural 
 rest, or to deny themselves in some other way, but 
 these are very special occasions, and one should 
 carefully see that, after the strain is over, extra rest 
 is taken to make good the waste. In short, a 
 sound mind and sober common sense should ever 
 accompany the most entire devotion to God. But 
 there are times when one may, with deliberate 
 purpose, lay down one's very life in God's service if 
 called upon to do so, as my brother did in China. 
 But this is far different from the reckless and care- 
 less and sinful neglect of the natural needs of the 
 body so often seen in excited revivals and prolonged 
 spiritual exercises. 
 
FROM A MEDICAL STANDPOINT 159 
 
 Neglect of food is another of the practices Hkely 
 to injure health and nerves. We all know the 
 important position fasting occupies, both in the 
 Bible and in the church, and do not for a moment 
 say the practice should be aboHshed ; for, conducted 
 with due moderation, it is of great service at special 
 seasons and on suitable occasions. But what I 
 wish to point out is the serious injury likely to arise 
 from the habitual neglect to take sufficient 
 nourishing food, for I know well that sound thoughts 
 cannot proceed from an unsound and ill-nourished 
 brain, and that if food is withheld too long there is 
 not only faintness, but the thoughts become 
 disordered, and delusions arise. A.gain, ill-health 
 comes from neglect of physical exercise, and still 
 more from want of rest of that part of the brain 
 which is so actively employed in religious services 
 and exercises. 
 
 He is indeed a wise man who knows the true 
 value of re-creation, and who, in his intervals of 
 saving souls and edifying believers, follows actively 
 some healthy hobby that really has power to occupy 
 his mind, and that suits his tastes and age. 
 
 The best varieties, of course, are those that keep 
 him in the open air, give him moderate but 
 sufficient and really active exercise, and contain 
 enough interest for him to enable the overworked 
 parts of his brain to lie fallow, while the unused 
 parts are busily employed. 
 
 The great point is that the recreation should be 
 
i6o CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 as different as possible in its nature and surround- 
 ings from the ordinary work of his life. 
 
 Another great danger that leads to loss of balance 
 is working at high pressure when convalescing from 
 any weakening disease, and above all from influenza. 
 This deadly brain poison requires proper rest, as it 
 affects the nerve centres almost more than any other. 
 
 Another cause of trouble is running the mind 
 always in the same groove, and ignoring all the other 
 faculties and gifts with which God may have 
 endowed us for the sake of that one. Specialists 
 always tend to be one-sided, and are often ill- 
 balanced ; and not the less so when the specialism 
 is religion. 
 
 I know the study of Christianity is so lovely, so 
 absorbing, so vast, as to demand all one's powers ; 
 and it requires a strong sense of what is right to 
 oneself, and what is, after all, to the greater glory 
 of God, resolutely to turn away from it, and to 
 heartily take up something that develops another of 
 our faculties. Let me here say a word to parents 
 to be most careful as to this. However well the 
 fully-grown brain and matured intellect can stand 
 the strain of perpetually playing on one string of the 
 mental harp, there is no doubt that in youth it is 
 extremely dangerous. Adolescence is a most 
 unstable time of life, when there are most nervous 
 sufferers, and when the balance may be lost in every 
 possible way. 
 
 It is also the time, as I have shown, when three- 
 
FROM A MEDICAL STANDPOINT i6i 
 
 fourths of all conversions occur, and when religious 
 exercises abound. It is likewise the period when 
 the brain itself is most rapidly developing and the 
 whole organism is changing from that of the boy 
 and girl into the man and woman. No time in life 
 requires such careful handling as I have pointed out 
 in Chapter iv., and all I need do now is to remind 
 parents to see that their children get a good all 
 round development for spirit, soul, and body. 
 
 With regard to actual disease, I find nearly all 
 who have lost their Christian sanity are alike in 
 two respects. They are all "publicans" in their 
 ready confessions of their sins, real or imaginary, 
 and all have morbid consciences. One finds 
 absolutely no Pharisees among them. There is 
 generally some " unpardonable sin " weighing upon 
 them, and this is what they describe as the sin 
 against the Holy Ghost. Not one in a hundred of 
 them, however, has any idea of the real character of 
 that awful sin. All peace of mind is of course lost, 
 the person has deceived himself and others, and 
 ever and always will tell you endless stories of his 
 wickedness in thought, mind, and deed. Such 
 sufferers never seem to overrate themselves, or 
 exhibit any of the signs of spiritual pride. 
 
 So far, you say, so good. Perhaps so, but in prac- 
 tice I find it easier on the whole to pull a man off a 
 pedestal than to lift him out of his morbid depths. 
 
 In short, my experience is, that whenever Christian 
 sanity is lost in the medical sense, and the person is 
 
 L 
 
i62 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 plunged into religious depression or melancholia, 
 argument and expostulation are absolutely useless, 
 and to restore such a patient from three months 
 to a year requires to be spent preferably under the 
 care of Christian people who can sympathise, 
 though they never pander to the ailment. The time 
 should be filled with action, and enforced work 
 of an engrossing kind, with an utter absence 
 of all Christian teaching and exercises as far as 
 practicable. 
 
 I have seen cures in the most hopeless and deplor- 
 able cases (where indeed the sufferer had to be 
 protected against himself), and therefore I despair of 
 none. At the same time I must utter the most 
 solemn warning possible, to those who in God's 
 mercy have possession of their faculties not to dare 
 to trifle with them, to avoid all dangerous excesses of 
 spiritual excitement, to care conscientiously for their 
 bodies as to food, and rest, and exercise, and change 
 of thought and work. 
 
 Religion and love touch the two deepest emotional 
 centres in our being, and are the two most potent 
 exciting causes of loss of mental balance, except the 
 direct nerve poison of influenza. Of course heredity 
 is a predisposing cause that must ever be kept in 
 sight, but it need never give trouble if the life be 
 ordered wisely. 
 
 It is so easy to lose the balance and so hard to 
 regain it. Indeed, few are ever the same again, and 
 when I so often meet with devoted servants of God 
 
FROM A MEDICAL STANDPOINT 163 
 
 wrecked in mind or body, I wonder whether, after all 
 this can be the will of God concerning them. I feel 
 sure many of us would last much longer if we went 
 a little slower. 
 
 Turning now to the morbid conscience, let me 
 utter a most earnest warning against the manufacture 
 of an artificial one. 
 
 The Pharisees were past masters of this art, and a 
 pious Jew felt condemned if he ate an egg on a 
 Sunday, as it was probably laid on the Sabbath, 
 causing the hen thereby to work on that day. 
 
 Hardly less ridiculous are the countless artificial 
 laws and restraints whereby we seek to regulate one 
 another's lives as Christians, and do infinite mischief 
 thereby. I must not dwell on these human laws, 
 but in certain circles the consequences are terrible, 
 and I am not overstating the case when I say 
 deliberately that I know more than one person now 
 an inmate of an asylum from the direct result of the 
 artificial over-pressure of a sensitive conscience. 
 
 I find far more evils arise from too much conscience 
 than from too little, at any rate from a medical point 
 of view ; and I think if more were done in explaining 
 the law of Christian love and liberty and the " guid- 
 ance with the eye," instead of manufacturing laws of 
 bondage, and bits and bridles, a great deal of sorrow 
 would be prevented. 
 
 The narrow Puritan school, necessary as it may 
 have been at the time of its institution as a godly 
 protest against the outrageous license of the day, is 
 
i64 CHRISTIAN SANITY 
 
 after all no true type of Christianity. Love, not 
 asceticism, is the spirit of health and sanity, and the 
 essence of Christianity. 
 
 Want of religious balance, especially in women, is 
 often due to simple ill-health, and not to any error in 
 Christian training ; and there are many cases of 
 religious breakdown not due to any religious cause, 
 but to a weakening of the nerve force from ordinary 
 illness. It is at a time like this that the value of a 
 quiet, sane, Christian character comes in, so that the 
 balance is preserved in the time of weakness ; the 
 religion in this case being a help and not a disturbing 
 element. 
 
 Amongst medical men religious melancholia is 
 looked upon as a most hopeless variety of the disease, 
 and in my experience I have known religious 
 depression continue for years in the most earnest 
 Christians, long after every contributory cause of 
 nerve weakness, etc., had been put right. Of course 
 this is only natural ; because, as I have said, it is 
 religion that touches the most profound depths of 
 our being. 
 
 But, you say, why does not God intervene and 
 save these. His children, from such a fate ? I cannot 
 tell you why ; all I know is that He who is Infinite 
 Love and Infinite Justice, and who is our Heavenly 
 Father, does notf for some all wise and sufficient 
 reason, always protect His children against their 
 own foolishness. 
 
 Knowing this, it behoves us to see that we 
 
FROM A MEDICAL STANDPOINT 165 
 
 use the reason God has given us, and carefully 
 avoid trifling with, or overtaxing those powers 
 with which He has endowed us. I feel quite 
 sure that none of my readers who study and 
 follow the Divine directions given, as detailed in 
 Chapter ii., will ever be led, under any plea, into 
 excesses that may cause them to lose their balance, 
 and become victims of religious depression. 
 
 What, then, is the conclusion of the whole 
 matter ? 
 
 Simply that the path of true glory to God, of 
 safety for ourselves, and of deliverance from the 
 snare of the devil, lies in ordering our life by the 
 Word of God in every detail ; and that neglect of 
 this may lead us into prolonged suffering and sorrow, 
 from which we must not expect to be saved by Divine 
 interposition. 
 
DATE DUE 
 
 -tfrP-t**^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 GAYLORD 
 
 
 
 PRINTED IN U.S.A.