[Sidenote: Religious Enthusiasm]

In the early years of the child's life, the mother is usually the
one to decide whether he shall attend Sunday School or not, but as
he approaches adolescence he is likely to take the matter in his
own hands, and if it happens that some revivalist or a new stirring
preacher comes in contact with his life at this time, he is very
likely to be swept off his feet with a sudden zeal of religious
enthusiasm, which his mother fears to check. The reports of
memberships, baptisms, etc., show that a large number become converted
and join the church during adolescence. While this does not in the
least argue that the conclusions that they reach at that time are
therefore unsound--for adolescence is not a disease, nor a form of
insanity, but a normal, if excitable, condition--still it does prove,
when coupled with the further fact that in adult life these young
converts often relapse into their previous condition, that a more
lasting basis for religion must be found than the emotional intensity
of this period of life. A religion to be lasting must be coldly
reaffirmed by the intellect: the dictum of the heart alone is not
sufficient. Religious enthusiasm, like all other forms of enthusiasm,
tends of itself to bring about the opposite condition, and to be
succeeded by fits of despondency and bitterness as intense and severe
as the enthusiasm itself was brilliant and ecstatic. The history of
all great religious leaders amply proves this. They had their bitter
hours of wrestling with the powers of darkness, hours which almost
counter-balanced the hours of uplift. Only clearly thought-out
intellectual convictions reinforced by the habit of daily righteous
living can secure the soul against such emotional aberrations.