"Sweet Jesus, my love, my darling, my Lord, my Saviour, my balm, sweeter
is the remembrance of Thee than honey in the mouth. Who is there that
may not love Thy lovely face? Whose heart is so hard that may not melt
at the remembrance of Thee? Oh! who may not love Thee, lovely Jesus?
Jesus, my precious darling, my love, my life, my beloved, my most worthy
of love, my heart's balm, Thou art lovesome in countenance, Thou art
altogether bright. All angels' life is to look upon Thy face, for Thy
cheer is so marvellously lovesome and pleasant to look upon.... Thou art
so bright, and so white that the sun would be pale if compared to Thy
blissful countenance. If I, then, love any man for beauty, I will love
Thee, my dear life, my mother's fairest son."[113]
The language of erotic piety figures much more prominently in Roman
Catholic medieval writings than in Protestant literature. This is not
because an appeal to the same feelings is absent from the religious
literature of Protestantism, it is mainly due to the fact that more
modern conditions leads to a less intense religious appeal, while the
broadening of social life encourages a more natural outlet for all
aspects of human nature. Still, the following expression of a young lady
convert of Wesley's offers a fair parallel to the specimen given above.
It is taken from Southey's _Life of Wesley_:--
"Oh, mighty, powerful, happy change! The love of God was shed abroad in
my heart, and a flame kindled there with pains so violent, and yet so
very ravishing, that my body was almost torn asunder. I sweated, I
trembled, I fainted, I sang. Oh, I thought my head was a fountain of
water. I was dissolved in love. My beloved is mine, and I am His. He has
all charms; He has ravished my heart; He is my comforter, my friend, my
all. Oh, I am sick of love. He is altogether lovely, the chiefest among
ten thousand. Oh, how Jesus fills, Jesus extends, Jesus overwhelms the
soul in which He lives."
The _Imitation of Christ_ has been described by more than one writer as
a manual of eroticism, and certainly the chapters "The Wonderful Effects
of Divine Love," and "Of the Proof of a True Lover," might well be cited
in defence of this view. In the following canticle of St. Francis of
Assisi it does not seem possible to distinguish a substantial difference
between it and a frankly avowed love poem:--
"Into love's furnace I am cast,
Into love's furnace I am cast,
I burn, I languish, pine, and waste.
Oh, love divine, how sharp thy dart!
How deep the wound that galls my heart!
As wax in heat, so, from above,
My smitten soul dissolves in love.
I live, yet languishing I die,
While in thy furnace bound I lie."[114]
It would certainly be possible to furnish exact parallels from volumes
of secular verse that would be strictly 'taboo' among those who fail to
see anything objectionable in verses like the above when written in
connection with religion. Such people fail to recognise that their
attractiveness lies in the hidden appeal to amatory feeling, and owe
their origin to the suppressed or perverted sexual passion of their
author. We must not allow ourselves to be blinded by the consideration
as to whether the object of adoration be an earthly or a heavenly one.
Men and women have not distinct feelings that are aroused as their
objective differs, but the same feelings directed now in one direction,
now in another. The direction of these feelings, their exciting cause,
are sheer environmental accidents. How can one resist the implications
of the following, from a devotional work widely circulated amongst the
women of France:--
"Praise to Jesus, praise His power,
Praise His sweet allurements.
Praise to Jesus, when His goodness
Reduces me to nakedness;
Praise to Jesus when He says to me,
My sister, my dove, my beautiful one!
Praise to Jesus in all my steps,
Praise to His amorous charms.
Praise to Jesus when His loving mouth
Touches mine in a loving kiss.
Praise to Jesus when His gentle caresses
Overwhelm me with chaste joys.
Praise to Jesus when at His leisure
He allows me to kiss Him."[115]
Against this we may place the following hymn, sung at an American camp
meeting of some thousands of persons between the ages of fourteen and
twenty-five:--
"Blessed Lily of the Valley, oh, how fair is He;
He is mine, I am His.
Sweeter than the angels' music is His voice to me;
He is mine, I am His.
Where the lilies fair are blooming by the waters calm
There He leads me and upholds me by His strong right arm.
All the air is love around me--I can feel no harm;
He is mine, I am His."[116]
Special significance is given to this reference by the age of those who
composed the gathering. This period embraces the years during which
sexual maturity is attained, and the organism experiences important
physiological and psychological changes. The consequence is that the
atmosphere is, so to say, charged with unsuspected sex feeling, and it
is not surprising that many complaints have been made of immorality
following such gatherings. The organism is then peculiarly liable to
suggestion in all forms. Along with the imitativeness of early years
there is something of the decisive initiative of maturity. These
qualities wisely guided might be turned to the great advantage of both
the individual and of the community. Mere incitement by religious
revivalism can result in little else than misdirection and injury. It
should be the most obvious of truths that the attractiveness of hymns
such as the one given, with the keen delight in the suggested pictures,
lies in their yielding--all unknown, perhaps, to those participating--
satisfaction to feelings that are very frequently imperious in their
demands, and are at all times astonishingly pervasive in their
influence.
Much valuable light is thrown upon this aspect of the subject by a
study of human behaviour under the influence of actual disease. Of late
years much useful work has been done in this direction, and our
knowledge of normal psychology greatly helped by a study of abnormal
mental states.[117] This is mainly because in disease we are able to
observe the operation of tendencies that are unobscured by the
restraints and inhibitions created by education and social convention.
And one of the most striking, and to many startling, things observed is
the close relation existing between erotic mania and religious delusion.
The person who at one time feels himself under direct religious
inspiration, or who imagines himself to be the incarnation of a divine
personage, will at another time exhibit the most shocking obscenity in
action and language. Sir T. S. Clouston furnishes a very striking case
of this character, which he cites in order to show "the common mixture
of religious and sexual emotion."[118] I do not reproduce it here
because of its grossly obscene character; but, save for coarseness of
language, it does not differ materially from illustrations already
given. Almost any of the text-books will supply cases illustrating the
connection between sexualism and religion, a connection generally
recognised as the opinions cited already clearly show.
Dr. Mercier, in dealing with the connection between sexualism and
religion, which he says "has long been recognised, but never accounted
for," traces it to a feeling of, or desire for self-sacrifice common to
both. Certainly sacrifice in some form--of food, weapons, land, money,
or bodily inconvenience--is a feature present in every religion more or
less. And it is quite certain that not merely the fact, but the desire
for some amount of sacrifice, forms "an integral, fundamental, and
preponderating element" in the sexual emotion. Dr. Mercier further
believes that the benevolence founded on religious emotion has its
origin in sexual emotion, which is, again, extremely likely. This
community of origin would allow for the transformation of one into the
other, and supplies a key to the language of lover-like devotion and
self-abnegation which is so prominent in religious devotional
literature. The importance attached to dress is also very suggestive;
for here, again, the element of sacrifice expresses itself in the
cultivation of a studied repulsiveness to the normal attractiveness of
costume. "Thus," says Dr. Mercier, "we find that the self-sacrificial
vagaries of the rejected lover and of the religious devotee own a common
origin and nature. The hook and spiny kennel of the fakir, the pillar of
St. Simeon Stylites, the flagellum of the monk, the sombre garments of
the nun, the silence of the Trappists, the defiantly hideous costume of
the hallelujah lass, and the mortified sobriety of the district visitor,
have at bottom the same origin as the rags of Cardenio, the cage of Don
Quixote de la Mancha, and the yellow stockings and crossed garters of
Malvolio."[119]