oppressed, and the desperate, and of those that are brought even
to nothing; and his nature is to give sight to the blind, to
comfort the broken‐hearted, to justify sinners, to save the very
desperate and damned. Now that pernicious and pestilent opinion of
man’s own righteousness, which will not be a sinner, unclean,
miserable, and damnable, but righteous and holy, suffereth not God
to come to his own natural and proper work. Therefore God must
take this maul in hand (the law, I mean) to beat in pieces and
bring to nothing this beast with her vain confidence, that she may
so learn at length by her own misery that she is utterly forlorn
and damned. But here lieth the difficulty, that when a man is
terrified and cast down, he is so little able to raise himself up
again and say, ‘Now I am bruised and afflicted enough; now is the
time of grace; now is the time to hear Christ.’ The foolishness of
man’s heart is so great that then he rather seeketh to himself
more laws to satisfy his conscience. ‘If I live,’ saith he, ‘I
will amend my life: I will do this, I will do that.’ But here,
except thou do the quite contrary, except thou send Moses away
with his law, and in these terrors and this anguish lay hold upon
Christ who died for thy sins, look for no salvation. Thy cowl, thy
shaven crown, thy chastity, thy obedience, thy poverty, thy works,
thy merits? what shall all these do? what shall the law of Moses
avail? If I, wretched and damnable sinner, through works or merits
could have loved the Son of God, and so come to him, what needed
he to deliver himself for me? If I, being a wretch and damned
sinner, could be redeemed by any other price, what needed the Son
of God to be given? But because there was no other price,
therefore he delivered neither sheep, ox, gold, nor silver, but
even God himself, entirely and wholly ‘for me,’ even ‘for me,’ I
say, a miserable, wretched sinner. Now, therefore, I take comfort
and apply this to _myself_. And this manner of applying is the
very true force and power of faith. For he died _not_ to justify
the righteous, but the _un_‐righteous, and to make _them_ the
children of God.”(130)
That is, the more literally lost you are, the more literally you are the
very being whom Christ’s sacrifice has already saved. Nothing in Catholic
theology, I imagine, has ever spoken to sick souls as straight as this
message from Luther’s personal experience. As Protestants are not all sick
souls, of course reliance on what Luther exults in calling the dung of
one’s merits, the filthy puddle of one’s own righteousness, has come to
the front again in their religion; but the adequacy of his view of
Christianity to the deeper parts of our human mental structure is shown by
its wildfire contagiousness when it was a new and quickening thing.
Faith that Christ has genuinely done his work was part of what Luther
meant by faith, which so far is faith in a fact intellectually conceived
of. But this is only one part of Luther’s faith, the other part being far
more vital. This other part is something not intellectual but immediate
and intuitive, the assurance, namely, that I, this individual I, just as I
stand, without one plea, etc., am saved now and forever.(131)
Professor Leuba is undoubtedly right in contending that the conceptual
belief about Christ’s work, although so often efficacious and antecedent,
is really accessory and non‐essential, and that the “joyous conviction”
can also come by far other channels than this conception. It is to the
joyous conviction itself, the assurance that all is well with one, that he
would give the name of faith _par excellence_.
“When the sense of estrangement,” he writes, “fencing man about in
a narrowly limited ego, breaks down, the individual finds himself
‘at one with all creation.’ He lives in the universal life; he and
man, he and nature, he and God, are one. That state of confidence,
trust, union with all things, following upon the achievement of
moral unity, is the _Faith‐state_. Various dogmatic beliefs
suddenly, on the advent of the faith‐state, acquire a character of
certainty, assume a new reality, become an object of faith. As the
ground of assurance here is not rational, argumentation is
irrelevant. But such conviction being a mere casual offshoot of
the faith‐state, it is a gross error to imagine that the chief
practical value of the faith‐state is its power to stamp with the
seal of reality certain particular theological conceptions.(132)
On the contrary, its value lies solely in the fact that it is the
psychic correlate of a biological growth reducing contending
desires to one direction; a growth which expresses itself in new
affective states and new reactions; in larger, nobler, more
Christ‐like activities. The ground of the specific assurance in
religious dogmas is then an affective experience. The objects of
faith may even be preposterous; the affective stream will float
them along, and invest them with unshakable certitude. The more
startling the affective experience, the less explicable it seems,
the easier it is to make it the carrier of unsubstantiated
notions.”(133)
The characteristics of the affective experience which, to avoid ambiguity,
should, I think, be called the state of assurance rather than the faith‐
state, can be easily enumerated, though it is probably difficult to
realize their intensity, unless one have been through the experience one’s
self.
The central one is the loss of all the worry, the sense that all is
ultimately well with one, the peace, the harmony, the _willingness to be_,
even though the outer conditions should remain the same. The certainty of
God’s “grace,” of “justification,” “salvation,” is an objective belief
that usually accompanies the change in Christians; but this may be
entirely lacking and yet the affective peace remain the same—you will
recollect the case of the Oxford graduate: and many might be given where
the assurance of personal salvation was only a later result. A passion of
willingness, of acquiescence, of admiration, is the glowing centre of this
state of mind.
The second feature is the sense of perceiving truths not known before. The
mysteries of life become lucid, as Professor Leuba says; and often, nay
usually, the solution is more or less unutterable in words. But these more
intellectual phenomena may be postponed until we treat of mysticism.
A third peculiarity of the assurance state is the objective change which
the world often appears to undergo. “An appearance of newness beautifies
every object,” the precise opposite of that other sort of newness, that
dreadful unreality and strangeness in the appearance of the world, which
is experienced by melancholy patients, and of which you may recall my
relating some examples.(134) This sense of clean and beautiful newness
within and without is one of the commonest entries in conversion records.
Jonathan Edwards thus describes it in himself:—
“After this my sense of divine things gradually increased, and
became more and more lively, and had more of that inward
sweetness. The appearance of everything was altered; there seemed
to be, as it were, a calm, sweet cast, or appearance of divine
glory, in almost everything. God’s excellency, his wisdom, his
purity and love, seemed to appear in everything; in the sun, moon,
and stars; in the clouds and blue sky; in the grass, flowers, and
trees; in the water and all nature; which used greatly to fix my
mind. And scarce anything, among all the works of nature, was so
sweet to me as thunder and lightning; formerly nothing had been so
terrible to me. Before, I used to be uncommonly terrified with
thunder, and to be struck with terror when I saw a thunderstorm
rising; but now, on the contrary, it rejoices me.”(135)
Billy Bray, an excellent little illiterate English evangelist, records his
sense of newness thus:—
“I said to the Lord: ‘Thou hast said, they that ask shall receive,
they that seek shall find, and to them that knock the door shall
be opened, and I have faith to believe it.’ In an instant the Lord
made me so happy that I cannot express what I felt. I shouted for
joy. I praised God with my whole heart.... I think this was in
November, 1823, but what day of the month I do not know. I
remember this, that everything looked new to me, the people, the
fields, the cattle, the trees. I was like a new man in a new
world. I spent the greater part of my time in praising the
Lord.”(136)
Starbuck and Leuba both illustrate this sense of newness by quotations. I
take the two following from Starbuck’s manuscript collection. One, a
woman, says:—
“I was taken to a camp‐meeting, mother and religious friends
seeking and praying for my conversion. My emotional nature was
stirred to its depths; confessions of depravity and pleading with
God for salvation from sin made me oblivious of all surroundings.
I plead for mercy, and had a vivid realization of forgiveness and
renewal of my nature. When rising from my knees I exclaimed, ‘Old
things have passed away, all things have become new.’ It was like
entering another world, a new state of existence. Natural objects
were glorified, my spiritual vision was so clarified that I saw
beauty in every material object in the universe, the woods were
vocal with heavenly music; my soul exulted in the love of God, and
I wanted everybody to share in my joy.”
The next case is that of a man:—
“I know not how I got back into the encampment, but found myself
staggering up to Rev. ——’s Holiness tent—and as it was full of
seekers and a terrible noise inside, some groaning, some laughing,
and some shouting, and by a large oak, ten feet from the tent, I
fell on my face by a bench, and tried to pray, and every time I
would call on God, something like a man’s hand would strangle me
by choking. I don’t know whether there were any one around or near
me or not. I thought I should surely die if I did not get help,
but just as often as I would pray, that unseen hand was felt on my
throat and my breath squeezed off. Finally something said:
‘Venture on the atonement, for you will die anyway if you don’t.’
So I made one final struggle to call on God for mercy, with the
same choking and strangling, determined to finish the sentence of
prayer for Mercy, if I did strangle and die, and the last I
remember that time was falling back on the ground with the same
unseen hand on my throat. I don’t know how long I lay there or
what was going on. None of my folks were present. When I came to
myself, there were a crowd around me praising God. The very
heavens seemed to open and pour down rays of light and glory. Not
for a moment only, but all day and night, floods of light and
glory seemed to pour through my soul, and oh, how I was changed,
and everything became new. My horses and hogs and even everybody
seemed changed.”
This man’s case introduces the feature of automatisms, which in
suggestible subjects have been so startling a feature at revivals since,
in Edwards’s, Wesley’s, and Whitfield’s time, these became a regular means
of gospel propagation. They were at first supposed to be semi‐miraculous
proofs of “power” on the part of the Holy Ghost; but great divergence of
opinion quickly arose concerning them. Edwards, in his Thoughts on the
Revival of Religion in New England, has to defend them against their
critics; and their value has long been matter of debate even within the
revivalistic denominations.(137) They undoubtedly have no essential
spiritual significance, and although their presence makes his conversion
more memorable to the convert, it has never been proved that converts who
show them are more persevering or fertile in good fruits than those whose
change of heart has had less violent accompaniments. On the whole,
unconsciousness, convulsions, visions, involuntary vocal utterances, and
suffocation, must be simply ascribed to the subject’s having a large
subliminal region, involving nervous instability. This is often the
subject’s own view of the matter afterwards. One of Starbuck’s
correspondents writes, for instance:—
“I have been through the experience which is known as conversion.
My explanation of it is this: the subject works his emotions up to
the breaking point, at the same time resisting their physical
manifestations, such as quickened pulse, etc., and then suddenly
lets them have their full sway over his body. The relief is
something wonderful, and the pleasurable effects of the emotions
are experienced to the highest degree.”
There is one form of sensory automatism which possibly deserves special
notice on account of its frequency. I refer to hallucinatory or pseudo‐
hallucinatory luminous phenomena, _photisms_, to use the term of the
psychologists. Saint Paul’s blinding heavenly vision seems to have been a
phenomenon of this sort; so does Constantine’s cross in the sky. The last
case but one which I quoted mentions floods of light and glory. Henry
Alline mentions a light, about whose externality he seems uncertain.
Colonel Gardiner sees a blazing light. President Finney writes:—
“All at once the glory of God shone upon and round about me in a
manner almost marvelous.... A light perfectly ineffable shone in
my soul, that almost prostrated me on the ground.... This light
seemed like the brightness of the sun in every direction. It was
too intense for the eyes.... I think I knew something then, by
actual experience, of that light that prostrated Paul on the way
to Damascus. It was surely a light such as I could not have
endured long.”(138)
Such reports of photisms are indeed far from uncommon. Here is another
from Starbuck’s collection, where the light appeared evidently external:—
“I had attended a series of revival services for about two weeks
off and on. Had been invited to the altar several times, all the
time becoming more deeply impressed, when finally I decided I must
do this, or I should be lost. Realization of conversion was very
vivid, like a ton’s weight being lifted from my heart; a strange
light which seemed to light up the whole room (for it was dark); a
conscious supreme bliss which caused me to repeat ‘Glory to God’
for a long time. Decided to be God’s child for life, and to give
up my pet ambition, wealth and social position. My former habits
of life hindered my growth somewhat, but I set about overcoming
these systematically, and in one year my whole nature was changed,
i.e., my ambitions were of a different order.”
Here is another one of Starbuck’s cases, involving a luminous element:—
“I had been clearly converted twenty‐three years before, or rather
reclaimed. My experience in regeneration was then clear and
spiritual, and I had not backslidden. But I experienced entire
sanctification on the 15th day of March, 1893, about eleven
o’clock in the morning. The particular accompaniments of the
experience were entirely unexpected. I was quietly sitting at home
singing selections out of Pentecostal Hymns. Suddenly there seemed
to be a something sweeping into me and inflating my entire
being—such a sensation as I had never experienced before. When
this experience came, I seemed to be conducted around a large,
capacious, well‐lighted room. As I walked with my invisible
conductor and looked around, a clear thought was coined in my
mind, ‘They are not here, they are gone.’ As soon as the thought
was definitely formed in my mind, though no word was spoken, the
Holy Spirit impressed me that I was surveying my own soul. Then,
for the first time in all my life, did I know that I was cleansed
from all sin, and filled with the fullness of God.”
Leuba quotes the case of a Mr. Peek, where the luminous affection reminds
one of the chromatic hallucinations produced by the intoxicant cactus buds
called mescal by the Mexicans:—
“When I went in the morning into the fields to work, the glory of
God appeared in all his visible creation. I well remember we
reaped oats, and how every straw and head of the oats seemed, as
it were, arrayed in a kind of rainbow glory, or to glow, if I may
so express it, in the glory of God.”(139)
The most characteristic of all the elements of the conversion crisis, and
the last one of which I shall speak, is the ecstasy of happiness produced.
We have already heard several accounts of it, but I will add a couple
more. President Finney’s is so vivid that I give it at length:—
“All my feelings seemed to rise and flow out; and the utterance of
my heart was, ‘I want to pour my whole soul out to God.’ The
rising of my soul was so great that I rushed into the back room of
the front office, to pray. There was no fire and no light in the
room; nevertheless it appeared to me as if it were perfectly
light. As I went in and shut the door after me, it seemed as if I
met the Lord Jesus Christ face to face. It did not occur to me
then, nor did it for some time afterwards, that it was wholly a
mental state. On the contrary, it seemed to me that I saw him as I
would see any other man. He said nothing, but looked at me in such
a manner as to break me right down at his feet. I have always
since regarded this as a most remarkable state of mind; for it
seemed to me a reality that he stood before me, and I fell down at
his feet and poured out my soul to him. I wept aloud like a child,
and made such confessions as I could with my choked utterance. It
seemed to me that I bathed his feet with my tears; and yet I had
no distinct impression that I touched him, that I recollect. I
must have continued in this state for a good while; but my mind
was too much absorbed with the interview to recollect anything
that I said. But I know, as soon as my mind became calm enough to
break off from the interview, I returned to the front office, and
found that the fire that I had made of large wood was nearly
burned out. But as I turned and was about to take a seat by the
fire, I received a mighty baptism of the Holy Ghost. Without any
expectation of it, without ever having the thought in my mind that
there was any such thing for me, without any recollection that I
had ever heard the thing mentioned by any person in the world, the
Holy Spirit descended upon me in a manner that seemed to go
through me, body and soul. I could feel the impression, like a
wave of electricity, going through and through me. Indeed, it
seemed to come in waves and waves of liquid love; for I could not
express it in any other way. It seemed like the very breath of
God. I can recollect distinctly that it seemed to fan me, like
immense wings.
“No words can express the wonderful love that was shed abroad in
my heart. I wept aloud with joy and love; and I do not know but I
should say I literally bellowed out the unutterable gushings of my
heart. These waves came over me, and over me, and over me, one
after the other, until I recollect I cried out, ‘I shall die if
these waves continue to pass over me.’ I said, ‘Lord, I cannot
bear any more;’ yet I had no fear of death.
“How long I continued in this state, with this baptism continuing
to roll over me and go through me, I do not know. But I know it
was late in the evening when a member of my choir—for I was the
leader of the choir—came into the office to see me. He was a
member of the church. He found me in this state of loud weeping,
and said to me, ‘Mr. Finney, what ails you?’ I could make him no
answer for some time. He then said, ‘Are you in pain?’ I gathered
myself up as best I could, and replied, ‘No, but so happy that I
cannot live.’ ”
I just now quoted Billy Bray; I cannot do better than give his own brief
account of his post‐conversion feelings:—
“I can’t help praising the Lord. As I go along the street, I lift
up one foot, and it seems to say ‘Glory’; and I lift up the other,
and it seems to say ‘Amen’; and so they keep up like that all the
time I am walking.”(140)
One word, before I close this lecture, on the question of the transiency
or permanence of these abrupt conversions. Some of you, I feel sure,
knowing that numerous backslidings and relapses take place, make of these
their apperceiving mass for interpreting the whole subject, and dismiss it
with a pitying smile at so much “hysterics.” Psychologically, as well as
religiously, however, this is shallow. It misses the point of serious
interest, which is not so much the duration as the nature and quality of
these shiftings of character to higher levels. Men lapse from every
level—we need no statistics to tell us that. Love is, for instance, well
known not to be irrevocable, yet, constant or inconstant, it reveals new
flights and reaches of ideality while it lasts. These revelations form its
significance to men and women, whatever be its duration. So with the
conversion experience: that it should for even a short time show a human
being what the high‐water mark of his spiritual capacity is, this is what
constitutes its importance,—an importance which backsliding cannot
diminish, although persistence might increase it. As a matter of fact, all
the more striking instances of conversion, all those, for instance, which
I have quoted, _have_ been permanent. The case of which there might be
most doubt, on account of its suggesting so strongly an epileptoid
seizure, was the case of M. Ratisbonne. Yet I am informed that
Ratisbonne’s whole future was shaped by those few minutes. He gave up his
project of marriage, became a priest, founded at Jerusalem, where he went
to dwell, a mission of nuns for the conversion of the Jews, showed no
tendency to use for egotistic purposes the notoriety given him by the
peculiar circumstances of his conversion,—which, for the rest, he could
seldom refer to without tears,—and in short remained an exemplary son of
the Church until he died, late in the 80’s, if I remember rightly.
The only statistics I know of, on the subject of the duration of
conversions, are those collected for Professor Starbuck by Miss Johnston.
They embrace only a hundred persons, evangelical church‐members, more than
half being Methodists. According to the statement of the subjects
themselves, there had been backsliding of some sort in nearly all the
cases, 93 per cent. of the women, 77 per cent. of the men. Discussing the
returns more minutely, Starbuck finds that only 6 per cent. are relapses
from the religious faith which the conversion confirmed, and that the
backsliding complained of is in most only a fluctuation in the ardor of
sentiment. Only six of the hundred cases report a change of faith.
Starbuck’s conclusion is that the effect of conversion is to bring with it
“a changed attitude towards life, which is fairly constant and permanent,
although the feelings fluctuate.... In other words, the persons who have
passed through conversion, having once taken a stand for the religious
life, tend to feel themselves identified with it, no matter how much their
religious enthusiasm declines.”(141)
LECTURES XI, XII, AND XIII. SAINTLINESS.
The last lecture left us in a state of expectancy. What may the practical
fruits for life have been, of such movingly happy conversions as those we
heard of? With this question the really important part of our task opens,
for you remember that we began all this empirical inquiry not merely to
open a curious chapter in the natural history of human consciousness, but
rather to attain a spiritual judgment as to the total value and positive
meaning of all the religious trouble and happiness which we have seen. We
must, therefore, first describe the fruits of the religious life, and then
we must judge them. This divides our inquiry into two distinct parts. Let
us without further preamble proceed to the descriptive task.
It ought to be the pleasantest portion of our business in these lectures.
Some small pieces of it, it is true, may be painful, or may show human
nature in a pathetic light, but it will be mainly pleasant, because the
best fruits of religious experience are the best things that history has
to show. They have always been esteemed so; here if anywhere is the
genuinely strenuous life; and to call to mind a succession of such
examples as I have lately had to wander through, though it has been only
in the reading of them, is to feel encouraged and uplifted and washed in
better moral air.
The highest flights of charity, devotion, trust, patience, bravery to
which the wings of human nature have spread themselves have been flown for
religious ideals. I can do no better than quote, as to this, some remarks
which Sainte‐Beuve in his History of Port‐Royal makes on the results of
conversion or the state of grace.