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choose between authority and reason and narrowly cling to either. If the child is kept doing things which imply religion, while yet ignorant of their meaning, and the youth is encouraged to carry into action the wisdom that comes to him, the way will be paved for the life of conduct which is to supplant the adolescent life especially absorbed in reflection and insight.

In many such ways it seems possible to eliminate unnecessary steps in growth; to obviate wandering aimlessly and ignorantly here and there in the stream of development; or, as often occurs, to pass into some side channel or eddy, and remain there, either in the innocence of childhood or in the self-assertion or negation of youth.

While it is important to anticipate stages of growth and prepare the way for them, it is just as important that the different steps should not be hastened unduly. If each has its place to fulfil in preparing for the mature life of growth and service, it should be given time to ripen to its full perfection. It seems that nature has a purpose in lengthening out the years of childhood—the age of receptivity-when the child is drinking in the influences and forming the habits which are the stock on which it is to draw in after life. A purpose seems to underlie also the drawing out of adolescence to more than a decade in duration. There is often a tendency to defeat the ends nature apparently has in view, by skipping steps, by forcing the child to the definite religious awakening which belongs to youth, by hastening the youth into missionary work, or other phases of intense activity and assumed productivity, while he should be gaining self-mastery and thorough assimilation of the wisdom which, as a mature person, he is to bring back to the world. In organised society this danger is very great. Religious institutions have gathered up through experience a knowledge of the ends of religious growth, and hold to them with unswerving insistency. Society, which is composed of adults, sees truth naturally from its own point of view;

the gospel of mature life crystallises into a religious ideal which is not only held up to guide grown men and women, but is thoughtlessly thrust upon children and youths as well. It may be the truest wisdom of those who teach it, and yet not fit the needs of younger persons. Even little children are made to assume the religious customs of grown people, and often not in ways appropriate to them, but in forms adapted to their elders. Just at the transition from childhood to adolescence—at the point at which one begins to gain a first-hand grasp of religious truth-is another step, as we saw in an earlier chapter, at which the enthusiasm of grown persons often gets the better of discretion. The testimony of those whose whole youth seems to have lost its equilibrium through inopportune responding, while yet only children, to the gospel of repentance, or by following the advice of some well-meaning person who did not understand the function of the first serious questioning of a child into religious truth, is a pathetic story. Just when the soul begins to put out its tentacles and feel its way into the higher life, it often happens that someone crashes into it with a gospel that contradicts every need of its nature. The disturbances of youth seem to be as much due to lack of sympathy of older people with the needs of human nature as to temperamental peculiarities and physiological defects.

The interests of the religious life demand that in venturing to help in the processes of growth from childhood to maturity there should be a tact, a knowledge, a delicacy of treatment, in some measure commensurate with the infinite fineness of the organism with which we are dealing. are dealing. When, and to what extent, should the child be left with the playful imagery that makes up his early religious conceptions? how far should he conform to the customs of those about him? under what conditions should a person be let alone to commune with the life that is speaking through him? is the course of his life already wisely directed, and gravitating surely and steadily toward

what seems to be the goal of spiritual attainment? are the threads of dawning consciousness being skilfully ' knit and the tension of feeling symmetrically strung to set the new life going in the right direction, and tune it to every virtue? is this person ready for the magic stroke which is to change the child into the man? does he only need a hazy mind clarified and a struggling spirit calmed, or has he a distorted attitude of life which should be violently forsaken? should he be induced into intense activity? would his life be perfected by a fuller recognition of the forces at work within him, or does he need to be filled and thrilled with the ideal of self-forgetfulness? These, and many such questions, should be taken into account, at least implicitly, before one ventures to interfere in the delicate processes that are going on in the religious life of any human being.

This wisdom will come about only when we have gained a knowledge-a more intimate knowledge than we now possess-of the ends nature has in view in religious development and the lines of approach along which these ends are to be accomplished; of the factors which enter into fully-developed religion; of the steps, and their relation to one another, which are involved in the line of growth; and, furthermore, a knowledge of human nature in all its complexity and diversity.

426

261

INDEX

ABNORMAL aspects of conversion,
163 et seq., 217, 226, 230, 330,

388.

Adler, F., 193.

Adolescence and conversion, 44 et
seq., 147; spontaneous religious
awakening in, 195 et seq.;
storm and stress during, 212
et seq.; doubt during, 232 et
seq.; birth of larger self in,
251 et seq.; substitutes for re-
ligion during, 268 et seq.; a
distinct stage of growth, 365.
Adult life, the period of recon-
struction, 277 et seq.; its
beliefs, 311 et seq.; religious
feelings of, 324 et seq.; its
motives and purposes, 337

et seq.
Esthetic interests, 272, 287.
Age and conversion, 28 et seq., 55

et seq.; and religious awaken-
ings, 202, 205; and doubt, 239,
320; and feelings, 333; in re-
gard to ideals, 343.

Altruistic motives to conversion, 52
et seq.; as ideals, 340 et seq.
Automatism in conversion, 73, IOI

et seq.
'BACK-SLIDING,' 360.
Baldwin, C. G., 139.
Barnes, M. S., 36.

Bierent, 38, 43, 96, 207.

Biological view of conversion, 145

et seq.

Bodily growth and conversion, 38,

45.

Bowditch, 36.

Brooke, S., 287.

Bryan, W. C., 262.
Burnham, 38, 207, 272.
Burk, F., 38, 45, 150.

CARLYLE, 184.

Carpenter, III.

Cartwright, P., 22, 168.
Chadwick, 36.

Child, C. M., 112.

Childhood, conversion in, 34, 30;
religion of, 188 et seq., 332.
Christ, belief in, 321, 369.
Clouston, 195, 207, 228, 241.
Confirmation, 21.

Conversion, definition of, 21; al
what age most frequent, 28
et seq.; and puberty, 37 et
seq.; and bodily growth, 38;
and adolescence, 44 et seq.;
motives and forces of, 49 et
seq.; experiences preceding, 58
et seq.; mental and bodily affec-
tions during, 76 et seq.; what
it consists in, 90 et seq.; con-
scious and sub-conscious ele-
ments in, 101 et seq. ; feelings
following, 118 et seq.; as a
process of unselfing, 127 et
seq.; regarded as a normal
phenomenon, 135 et seq.;
sociological and biological view
of, 145 et seq; physiological
view of, 149 et seq.; psycho-
logical view of, 153 et seq. ;
its abnormal aspects, 163 et
seq.; growth after, 353 et
seq.

'Conviction,' 58 et sel., 97 et

seq.
Curtis, 269.

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GILBERT, J. A., 37.

God, belief in, 321, 368.
Goethe, 184.
Gough, G. B., 86.
Gowers, 70.

HADLEY, H. H., 86.
Hale, E. E., 305.
Hall, Stanley, 38, 192.
Hallucinations, 73.
Hamilton, Sir W. R., 110.
Hancock, 35.

Harris, R. P., 43.

Harter, N., 262.
Herrick, S. S., 40.

History in relation to religious psy-
chology, 3.

Hygiene and religion, 230, 250.
Hypnotism and revivalist methods,

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KAES, 150.

Kennedy, H., 40.
Kingsley, Charles, 184.

LANCASTER, G., 201, 213, 264.
Le Bon, 167.
Lesshaft, 307.

Lindley, E. H., 36.
Livermore, Mary, 184.
Lukens, H. T., 259.

MALLING-HANSEN, 359.
Marshall, H. R., 348.
Martineau, H., 184.
Martineau, J., 192.
Menstruation, 43.
Miles, C., 349.
Mill, J. S., 211.

Missionary spirit, 256.
Moll, A., 168, 172.
Moody, 157.

Morbidity, see Abnormal aspects.
Mysticism, 330.

NATURAL selection in religion, 399.
Newness, sense of, 119, 125 et seq.
Nutt, A. C., 213.

ORIGINAL sin, 61.

PATHOLOGICAL aspects of conver-
sion, 163.
Paulsen, 9.

Philosophy in relation to religion, 6.
Psychology in relation to religion, 4.
Puberty and conversion, 37 et seq.,
149, 206, 401.

QUATERNIONS, discovery of method
of, 110.

REMORSE as a motive to conversion,
52 et seq.

Revivals, 53, 66 et seq., 96, 165,
171 et seq.

Rhythm, 357.

Roberts, C., 36.

Robertson, F., 184.

Royce, 9.

Ruskin, 184.

SANCTIFICATION, 375 et seq.

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